year, and they didnt hire you at your own school. Youre p

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Coaches Billy Walsh and Kay Koroma realize the daunting nature of the task they face at USA Boxing. Once the gold standard of the Olympic sport, the American men fell to the nadir of a medal-free trip to London four years ago.It got so bad at the last two Olympics that when American fighters faced trouble, they would often look to the stands -- where their fathers or home coaches were screaming to them -- instead of listening to the U.S. coach in their corner.Walsh and Koroma have the attention of the American team this time around, and the results are already quite encouraging.Lightweight Carlos Balderas unanimous decision over Japans Daisuke Narimatsu on Tuesday pushed the U.S. team to a surprising 4-0 at the Olympics. Light flyweight Nico Hernandez also won his first two fights, but middleweight Charles Conwell took the Americans first loss Tuesday night, losing to Indias Vikas Krishan.Theres no prizes been given out yet, but were very happy, Walsh said. This team is on a roll, and theres good momentum. These two guys are in a position where theyre one shot away from a medal, which is a fantastic achievement.Four years after a nine-man American team won only five fights in London and failed to bring home any medals for the first time ever, the current six-man U.S. team has already won four times before four of its fighters even step in the ring.In 2012, Errol Spence was the only American man even to reach the Olympic quarterfinals by winning two bouts. Hernandez and Balderas have already done it in the first four days, returning a bit of respect to the nation that still has the most total boxing medals in Olympic history.I think we probably shut up a couple of people, said Koroma, a Virginia-based amateur coaching veteran. These kids are more mature than the elite athletes weve had representing the USA before. They want this more. Theyre more hungry. They study this. Its their moment, and theyre going to run with it.Walshs job title designates him as the womens head coach because thats how USA Boxing procured the funds to hire the longtime head of the Irish national team, but he coaches all eight American boxers in Rio. Koroma is USA Boxings associate coach and a key mentor to the men, but he is also the personal coach of top bantamweight Shakur Stevenson, the Americans top medal hope heading into the games.As long as you trust one coach, we can all come together as one, Koroma said. If one coach says something, the other coaches go along with it and we run with it. Billy might have a game plan and I might have a game plan. Billy might start his game plan off, and I might throw something in. Ive known all the kids since they were like 8 years old, so having that relationship, they know I have their best interests at heart.That trust is a major factor in any boxing coachs success, and Americans were shockingly uninterested in their national team coaches advice at previous Olympics. They turned to the stands for advice when things got tough in London and Beijing.Walsh, whose Irish team won an impressive four medals in London, is trying to counter that instinct by building trust with the fighters home camps. Most American boxers personal coaches -- who are usually their relatives -- visited Colorado Springs while the U.S. team prepared for Rio.They come to the camp and they see the type of things Im teaching them, Walsh said. I tell them, `I feel this is how we can get better. I want you to go back to your gym and practice this. I show them the type of stuff that we do, and when theyve seen their performances, they know it works. I think theyll buy into it for these first few months, anyway.Earlier this summer, Walsh staged a multi-nation training camp in Colorado Springs, bringing in fighters from Azerbaijan, France and elsewhere. Its a common practice for top teams in Europe and elsewhere, but rare for Americans.We were sparring every day with different styles, and thats what got us here, Balderas said.Hernandez and Balderas both made key strategic adjustments during their bouts at the U.S. coaches advice -- something that seems simple, yet hardly ever happened at the previous two Olympics. Yeezy Powerphase Cz . -- Whether Jeremy Hill deserves a prominent role in LSUs offence this early in the season is a matter for debate. Adidas Nmd Levne Cz . The 19-year-old Olsen played 34 games with the Kelowna Rockets of the WHL this season. In that time, hes recorded 17 goals and 17 assists with 36 penalty minutes. http://www.botynmdlevne.com/adidas-nmd-damske-levne.html . JOHNS, N. Basketbalové Boty Adidas . The head of USA Boxing came out swinging Tuesday with an open letter to Tyson -- a former Olympic hopeful himself -- that accuses the former heavyweight champion of trying to poach fighters who might be candidates for the U. Adidas Nmd Levně Panske . Listen to the game live on TSN Radio 1050 at 7pm et. The Raptors traded Rudy Gay, Quincy Acy and Aaron Gray to the Sacramento Kings on Monday, in exchange for Greivis Vasquez, John Salmons, Patrick Patterson and Chuck Hayes. Its a beautiful Friday in mid-September, and Dick Crum is spending some time on the barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina.A former college football coach, Crum, 82, is retired now and lives in Perry, Ohio. He travels and enjoys a second home in Canada. He lost his wife a few years back and visits his children whenever he can.Crum says he still watches football on Saturdays. He makes note of the proliferation of spread offenses. But the game is cyclical, and it will come back around; he knows that.But its what Crum doesnt know, its the circle he cant see, that will cause him to chuckle and ponder one of the lesser-known what-if stories in college football history. Believe it or not, Crum once kept Nick Saban from his first head-coaching opportunity.Thats the first time Ive heard that, Crum said. Actually, I didnt really know who was involved in that thing.It was late in 1987, and Crum had just been forced to resign at North Carolina after 10 seasons as head coach. The Kent State job had opened, and the athletic director and administration liked Crums experience. In the fertile recruiting ground of Ohio, Crum thought of it as a sleeping giant. The two agreed on a deal a couple of months later, and on Jan. 20, 1988, Crum was announced as the Golden Flashes new head coach.The runner-up: a 36-year-old Saban, fresh off a Rose Bowl win as defensive coordinator at Michigan State.It was the first time I was ever excited about thinking that I would have the chance to be a head coach someday, Saban said.?Not only did he fail to get the job, it was his alma mater that passed him over. The gut check made him rethink coaching college completely.I thought it would never happen, he said.Asked whether he felt even a little guilty over the pain he caused, Crum laughed.Well, no, not really, he said.And why should he? In 1990, Saban got his first crack at running a program, at Toledo. He went 9-2, won the MAC and beat Crum and Kent State by two touchdowns in late October. Crum finished seventh in the conference, was fired and never coached again.?????Paul Amodio would like a do-over.The former Kent State athletic director, Amodio, 86, still lives in Kent, Ohio, where he grew up. He still goes to Kent State football games. And he still regrets the decision he made nearly 30 years ago, passing on the man who would become the greatest college coach of his generation.When reached by telephone earlier this month, the first words out of Amodios mouth were: Nick Saban was quite a person.What do you want me to remember? he asked.Amodio started, as one would, at the interview stage. It was then that he was blown away by Saban. He found him intelligent, thoughtful, personable.I wanted to hire him, Amodio said.But he had his reservations.For one, Saban was so young. And hed never been a head coach. And Amodio wondered how long hed stick around.Amodio already had a sense of the coaching nomad that Saban would become. Before Alabama, hed never stayed anywhere more than a handful of years. Before hed turned 40, Saban had already been an assistant at Kent State, Syracuse, West Virginia, Ohio State, Navy and Michigan State.Amodio recalled how Saban lasted five seasons at LSU before bolting for the NFL.He was looking for big things, Amodio said. I found out that he was probably not going to stay any place very long.Amodio wanted stability after the previous coach, Glen Mason, had gone 7-4 and was hired away by Kansas.Mason wanted Saban to get the job. He knew Saban well from their time together as assistants at Ohio State. He said he recommended Saban and another former Kent State grad, Gary Pinkel, as candidates to replace him.If Kent State liked where the program was going, Mason reasoned, then why not stick with what he called the same blueprint? Which was a young head coach with a background in Ohio who was known for his skills as a recruiter.He was even a Kent State alum, Mason said of Saban. It just made total sense to me tthat they would hire Nick.ddddddddddddOf course, they didnt. The explanation Mason said he received from those in the administration (not Amodio) was that they were looking for a more seasoned coach to take over a team that still had a number of good players coming back.Later during their careers, Mason and Saban would stumble onto the subject of Kent State from time to time.Mason said Saban didnt say much about it, but when Saban went 9-2 at Toledo in 1990, Mason said he told him, The boys at Kent State are crying in their beer.Said Amodio: He was a great coach. I made a mistake not hiring him.?????Eight years after Saban was fired for the first and only time of his career, at Ohio State in 1981, he was finally ready to become a head coach.Former colleagues describe the younger Saban as a methodical networker. While working under Earle Bruce in Columbus, fellow defensive assistants Steve Szabo and Bob Tucker remember Saban constantly working the phones, calling coaches in college and the NFL to talk shop.Nick had a relationship with Bill Belichick and someone with the Eagles, Szabo recalled.It was the relationship with Belichick that helped Saban land on his feet at Navy after being fired by Bruce. A year later, George Perles, whom Saban knew from his time visiting with the Pittsburgh Steelers offices in the 1970s, hired him as defensive coordinator at Michigan State.Perles said he could tell that Saban was looking to move up following the 1989 Rose Bowl.I knew he wanted to be a head coach, he said.Saban kept Perles in the loop the entire time. Perles thought Saban would get the Kent State job but saw him turn the page immediately when he didnt. Perles didnt sense any disappointment, he said. Later, Saban informed Perles that he was resigning to try his hand in the NFL with the Houston Oilers.Maybe its because Saban went on to such success. Maybe its because it took him only a couple of years to become a head coach at Toledo. But whatever the case, Perles and the rest of us never stopped to think about what Saban must have felt as a young coach who was turned down for the first head-coaching job he ever wanted.Then on a night last December as Alabama prepared to face Michigan State in the College Football Playoff, it came out. Saban was asked what his dream job was early in his career, and he went back to 1987 and Kent State.The job was open, and I applied for it, Saban said, and it was the first time I was ever excited about thinking that I would have the chance to be a head coach someday. I never got hired. So thats when I got a little frustrated and said, Wow. You did what you did [at Michigan State] this year, and they didnt hire you at your own school. Youre probably never going to be a head coach. Thats exactly what I thought.And that had a lot to do with me going a few months later to the Houston Oilers and coached in the NFL for two years, because I thought I was never going to get to be a head coach in college.As it turns out, the NFL lifestyle never suited Saban. It was too much business, not enough relationships. Players came and went via free agency. Assistants didnt pop into the office throughout the day like he was used to. The college game all along was the right fit for him. But as a 36-year-old coach in search of the next opportunity, he didnt know it. He only knew that his alma mater had just rejected him.Sabans journey would twist and turn until it reached Tuscaloosa. Now Alabama is home, and hes the head coach of the No. 1 team in the country as it prepares to welcome Kent State to town for a game Saturday afternoon.As it turns out, if Saban had gotten the job more than 30 years ago, he would have coached a young defensive back from Columbus named Paul Haynes.Haynes, of course, is Kent States current head coach.Hows that for everything coming full circle? ' ' '