The knock to his left leg was a solid one — as was the grotesque knot that appeared below his calf shortly afterward — but Danny LaPrevotte ignored it.
Adrenaline and duty can do that.
But when the final whistle blew two weeks ago sounding San Francisco Golden Gate Rugby Football Club’s advancement to the inaugural Elite Cup Final — USA Rugby’s premier championship — LaPrevotte’s foot had swollen black, and adrenaline yielded to pain.
Read More
He may make a living behind the wheel of a sports car, but Johannes van Overbeek is not one to brood on what is left behind in his rear-view.
“You get full of self-doubt,” the 40-year-old said, recalling some of the hardships that entail a professional racing career that began 17 years ago. “But learning how to punch through that and put it to rest and do better next time is a trait that applies to anything in life when you’re down and out.”
Read More
Just a year-and-a-half-ago, the notion of Robert Guerrero merely sharing the prize ring with the best boxer of this era was a laughable one.
He was just a lightweight then, nursing an injured left shoulder, and hardly seemed deserving of calling out Floyd Mayweather Jr.
But he did. Relentlessly.
“He talks a good game,” Mayweather said. “So now we’ll just have to see if he can fight the same way he talks.”
On Saturday, the Gilroy native gets his shot.
Read More
SAN JOSE — He thought he had done enough, and so did the 13,500 backers who vehemently booed the final verdict.
Gilbert Melendez, the adopted San Franciscan whose long awaited shot at Benson Henderson’s UFC lightweight championship was self admittedly the culmination of an 11-year career, lost Saturday night.
But not by much.
After five intensely contested rounds, Melendez was on the losing end of a split decision at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. Two judges scored it 48-47 for the champion, while one had it 48-47 for Melendez.
Read More
He had the Strikeforce lightweight championship — a belt he defended four straight fights — yet, still, it wasn’t the title Gilbert Melendez wanted.
It is the UFC title that determines the best lightweight fighter in the world, and Benson Henderson is the best lightweight in the world. For now.
Read More
A pugilist with merely 11 professional bouts may seem undeserving of a shot against Nonito Donaire — one of the finest prizefighters in the world — but Guillermo Rigondeaux, despite his trial record, is no boxing novice.
Rigondeaux (11-0, eight KOs), though only a professional since 2009, will challenge the San Mateo-based junior featherweight world champion Donaire (31-1, 20 KOs) on Saturday from Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
Read More
“It’s perfect,” Justin Labagh said.
And he’s mostly right.
In reaching the California Community College Athletic Association final four, not one playoff competitor has come remotely close to slaying City College of San Francisco men’s basketball team.
“They’re all peaking,” Rams coach Labagh said of his players after their 88-54 trouncing of Santa Rosa on Saturday. “Our last game was the best game we’ve played all year long. We’ve got two more.”
Read More
In the midst of his first eight-round prize fight nearly 10 months ago, Bruno Escalante began to doubt.
The prospect had sparred countless rounds with Bay Area boxer Nonito Donaire, one of the best prizefighters in the world, but even that couldn’t keep his first pro loss — nor the doubt — at bay.
“I’m a warrior. I learned that even when I’m hurt, I could come back and fight strong,” Escalante, 24, said of the loss. “So that’s one thing I know about myself. I’m a fighter.”
Read More
He was a freshman at Leuzinger High School near Los Angeles, 5-foot-7 and unimpressive.
“I guess people didn’t take me seriously,” Delon Wright, now 20, said. “I was like really skinny and I wasn’t as athletic as I am right now. So a lot of people doubted me — like I’d never be as good as my brother.”
Being the little brother of former Warrior Dorell Wright — the 2004 19th overall NBA draft pick, straight out of high school — can sway basketball scouts, and others, to doubt.
“It was just a lot,” Wright said. “Trying to prove them wrong.”
Read More
Al and Victoria Fenton tried to brave the Tahoe cold. But they couldn’t.
So from the warm confines of a rented condominium, they watched their 4½-year-old daughter — aptly named Summer — try to snowboard.
“So we’re looking at her from the window,” Victoria said. “And there she was just beating herself up. Falling. Eating it. Everything. And we were just like, ‘What is she doing?’ She just would not stop.”
Summer, 14 years removed from that first stint in the snow, still hasn’t stopped.
Read More
Champions they may have been two years ago — and 49 years before that. But by season’s end, not one of those City College of San Francisco men’s basketball teams hoisted the state trophy undefeated.
This weekend, the regular season will come to an end, and the Rams will be a win away from entering the postseason undefeated — and they’ll attempt to do so against a team with merely one win in the last two months.
Read More
SAN JOSE — Judging by his violent profession, one might find it curious that Benson Henderson — the UFC lightweight champion — has “love” for his opponent. But it is Valentine’s Day.
“I love his camp,” Henderson said Wednesday of No. 1 contender Gilbert Melendez, whom he’ll face on April 20 at HP Pavilion in San Jose. “I love the ‘Scrap Pack.’ I love how if you mess with one of them, you know for darn sure that you’re getting jacked up by all of them.”
Read More
“Cannot win with him” is how the infamous rant of one Mike Singletary went in regard to a one-time NFL brat named Vernon Davis.
But that tirade uttered four seasons ago no longer rings true. Because on Jan. 20, the 49ers — playing in their second NFC Championship Game in as many years — won with Davis.
And won spectacularly.
In the seven games prior to the one in the Georgia Dome, Davis had caught as many passes for a cumulative 105 yards, and not one of them in the end zone. That changed in Atlanta against the Falcons.
Read More
It was a mere four years ago when 49ers defensive coordinator Vic Fangio coached under the rule of another man surnamed Harbaugh.
The 2008 NFL season was just about to kick off, and linebackers coach Fangio was in Baltimore. It was then when he took note of a player — but it wasn’t a linebacker.
“I said to John Harbaugh, ‘You’ve got your horse to ride here for 10 years — at least,’” Fangio said of then-rookie quarterback Joe Flacco. “I really felt that he could be a really good quarterback in the NFL. I’ve felt that from that day, and I still feel that way.”
Read More
The 49ers are perfect at 5-0 in the Super Bowl — something no other NFL team has accomplished — but that mark doesn’t seem to matter too much to the current group of players who will take the field for Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans on Sunday.
Read More
URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/user/5771/5771?field_author_value=&quicktabs_1=0
