Sports
Dallas Mavericks guard Dante Exum celebrates a bittersweet Father’s Day during the NBA Finals
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BOSTON – Father’s Day Sunday was bittersweet for Dallas Mavericks reserve guard Dante Exum.
The Australian celebrated his first Father’s Day – his daughter Daria Lior was born in December 2023. Exum’s girlfriend, Jessica Corey, and their daughter remained in Dallas as the Mavericks prepared for Game 5 of the do-or-die NBA Finals on Monday night (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC). It was also the first Father’s Day for Exum without his father, Cecil, who died on July 2 at the age of 60.
“Obviously the biggest thing that sucks is being away from your family,” Exum, 28, told Andscape after Sunday’s practice at TD Garden. “But playing in the final is something I desired to do and I’m doing it for her. I just had a daughter, so it’s my first Father’s Day as a father and without my dad…
“He can be here every step of the way. And I feel that is what hurts the most. But I do know he’s proud.”
Before Exum played in the NBA and reached the Finals, his father, Cecil, was the first talented basketball player in the family.
Cecil Exum retired his highschool jersey from Southern Wayne High School in Dudley, North Carolina. He was named MVP after leading the school to the 1980 North Carolina 4A state title. He played with Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins and James Worthy on the University of North Carolina’s 1982 NCAA championship team.
Cecil Exum was a 6-foot-8 forward who averaged 1.5 points in 103 games for the Tar Heels from 1980 to 1984. The Denver Nuggets chosen Exum with the 194th pick in the 1984 NBA draft, but he suffered a serious knee injury before the end of camp.
“I haven’t been to Jordan very often,” Exum said. “But I saw him once after I was in Charlotte, and he loved my dad. My dad loved him and his competitiveness. My dad was a competitor too. That was a facet I at all times took away from him.
AP photo
Cecil Exum played professionally for one season in Sweden in 1985, then played in the Australian National Basketball League from 1986-96. The 1989 NBL champion averaged 10.7 points and 6.9 rebounds in 197 profession games.
“There are similarities between me and him,” Exum said. “Coming out of school, he got injured. He was drafted to Denver in the later rounds and suffered a knee injury just before camp. He was someone who was in a position to help me throughout (my injury problems) because he had been through it himself. He managed to make a profession in Australia, fight and get to the top league there.
Exum’s parents, Cecil and Desiree, are from North Carolina and met in college. Exum said that after his birth on July 13, 1995, in Melbourne, Australia, his parents raised their three children in Australia “because they loved it there.” They loved Australia, an English-speaking country that “offered a lot of love,” Exum said.
Exum has American and Australian passports. He grew up playing basketball, Australian Rules Rules and competing in the 200m dash, 400m dash and long jump in Melbourne Athletics. With his father’s support, he decided to deal with basketball around the age of seven.
“It wasn’t something he was encouraging and trying to get through me,” Exum said. “There have been several times in my life after I desired to do various things. For him, it was either this or basketball. If I desired to quit basketball, he was completely satisfied to do it. Ultimately, I selected basketball.
“I did a bit of athletics and Australian rules football. There were a few early mornings and he said, “You can do it if you want, but you have to stop playing basketball.” So I chose basketball.”
It hurts Exum that his father couldn’t see him play in the NBA Finals. He missed his father’s support and advice during his tumultuous journey to, back to, and back from the NBA.
Exum was the fifth pick in the 2014 NBA Draft by the Utah Jazz, beating out the likes of two-time All-Stars Julius Randle and Zach LaVine and 2022 Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart. As a rookie in the 2014-15 season, he averaged 4.8 points and a pair of.4 assists. Exum began fighting serious injuries after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during an Olympic qualifying match between Australia and Slovenia in August 2015.
Exum said the hardest a part of his profession was missing the entire 2015-16 season. After returning in the 2017-18 season, he played 66 games for the Jazz, but after suffering one other shoulder injury, he played in just 14 games. While playing for Utah and the Cleveland Cavaliers (2019-2021), he never played greater than 42 regular season games attributable to injuries.
“There is nothing that I regret or wish I had done differently,” Exum told Andscape on May 30. “Most of it was bad luck with injuries. I appreciate the work I even have to place in now and even the work I put in when I’m healthy.
“I put pressure on myself to perform (then). But in the situation I found myself in in Utah, I had a good understanding of where I was. There were too many ups and downs.”
Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images
Exum signed a non-guaranteed, three-year contract with the Houston Rockets for the 2021-22 season. However, the Rockets released him before the start of the regular season. Without a guaranteed NBA option, Exum was searching for another opportunity to “play and have fun.” Therefore, in 2021, he signed with European powerhouse FC Barcelona in Spain and won the Spanish Cup in 2022.
Exum rejuvenated his basketball profession, averaging 13.1 points in the 2022-2023 season with Partizan Belgrade, winning the Adriatic League title and earning all-league honors. Because he played in the NBA, Partizan viewed him as a leader and teacher along together with his teammates. Exum also performed well at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics for Australia, which boosted his hopes of returning to the NBA.
“At first I was worried about coming back to the NBA,” Exum said. “But once I got over it, I used to be ready to simply play and rejoice. I would not say it was humiliating because I used to be quite humble at that time. But I used it as motivation to prove that I slot in.
Although Exum flourished in Europe, he at all times believed he would return to the NBA, and his father also encouraged him.
“His advice was to just have fun,” Exum said. “Every father desires to see his son in the NBA. He knew I belonged in the NBA. He was with me after I first signed for Barcelona. He was excited and prepared for me to tackle the challenge.
“And he was there first with me. We shared a hotel room with him, and he snored, just before my first match at Real Madrid. It was just a little experience where he rode with me the whole way. “
Cecil Exum recurrently attended European matches, watching his son play for Real Madrid and Partizan. Looking back, Exum appreciates this special time together with his father.
“He was in Madrid with me and Serbia,” Exum said. He was going to follow as much of my basketball as possible. That’s why it sucks and hurts to observe him now because he can be traveling to each game.”
Cecil Exum was hospitalized in an intensive care unit in Los Angeles in 2023 attributable to pulmonary complications. Exum was at his father’s side in the hospital as he considered a two-year, $6.15 million contract with the Mavericks, which he quickly agreed to. Cecil Exum died on July 2, 2023 at the age of 60, before his son signed with Dallas. Cecil Harris’s memorial service and funeral took place on July 20 in Goldsboro, North Carolina.
Exum says he still hasn’t fully recovered from his father’s death.
“He just lived by example. He just showed love and support every day,” Exum said. “People talk over with me about him. There are some things he did for me that I didn’t even learn about. It was at all times about how much he loved his children. Me, my brother and my sister, he would do anything for us. I felt that when he was here…
“I do not think I’ll ever come to terms with it. I can sit here and say yes. But I still feel that when I am going back to Australia (his presence) might be there after I get back into a routine. Australia was home. So I am going back to different places and I expect to see him, and that might be the hardest thing.
Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images
Exum delivered his best playoff performance when Dallas needed it most. With Dallas facing elimination in Game 4 of the NBA Finals, he scored 10 points and made two three-pointers off the bench in the Mavericks’ 122-84 victory over the Celtics. In the best-of-seven series, the Mavericks lose to the Celtics 3-1. No NBA team has ever overcome a 3-0 deficit in the NBA Finals.
Exum said the “only way” the Mavs can take a look at their predicament now’s to take a look at themselves one game at a time.
“If we lose, we go home,” he said. We need to make certain we win every quarter and each possession. I feel that is the way of pondering. Make every possession count. If we will try this, we will win.”
Because of his ties to America and Australia, Exum looks forward to celebrating Father’s Day twice a 12 months. Father’s Day is widely known in the United States every third Sunday in June. Father’s Day in Australia is widely known yearly on the first Sunday in September.
“I always joked with my dad that wherever he was, it was his Father’s Day,” Exum said. “It’s the little things that make you laugh. But I kind of regret making such jokes. I just want to go out there and make him proud and I feel like I did that. Let’s hope we can win.”
Sports
Jalen Milroe can follow the Jalen path in NFL
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Star Black playmakers aren’t any longer an exception – they’re the rule. Throughout the entire football season, this series will discover the importance and influence of black QB from bottom -up to NFL.
Indianapolis-keep me, should you heard it earlier: playmaker Alabama born in Texas, who’s a stronger runner than a passerby, will probably be called outside the first round of the NFL Draft.
The playmaker was undefeated in Sec as a primary -year starter.
The playmaker never played for the same offensive coordinator.
The name of the playmaker is even Jalen.
But it isn’t clear that Jalen hurts. This winter he was busy winning the Super Bowl MVP, and he didn’t play Iron Bowl or against Michigan.
Instead, it’s a former playmaker of Crimson Tide Jalen Milroewho last week Combine Combine tried to convey the case to the trainers and evaluators that he – like his namesake – is price being their playmaker franchise in the future despite questions on his ability.
“I went through adversity. I saw everything as a quarterback, “Milroe said on Friday. “I played at the most difficult conference in the country. It would be easier to play at other conferences, but what I could see in Sec catapulted me that I was ready to play NFL. “
Justin Casterline/Getty Images
Departing from Katy in Texas, she originally got involved in Texas in 2019, but a 12 months later she fell to Alabama. After he was sitting behind the Crimson Tide Starter Bryung for 2 seasons, Milroe took his reins in the 2023 season. He helped Alabama survive Sec (8-0) this 12 months, won by the conference rival and two-time defender Georgia in the SEC championship, which caused Crimson Tide to the play-off collection.
But while Milroe had a big arm (his 10 yards for the test took third place in Sec in 2023), the pass was not his strong suit. For two seasons as a starter Milroe never achieved 3000 yards in one season, the first starter of Alabama, who did it because it … hurts.
Hurts, from Houston, led Crimson Tide to the National National Championships in 2016–17, but during these two seasons were lower than 5,000 yards. While Hurts was a singular Rusher (1,809 yards and 21 sticks) at the moment, his weakness as a passerby is known for led to the spare Tua Tavailoa during the break of the national championships in 2017.
In the mix, Milroe decided that despite his pedestrian passes, he was still worthy of being a start at NFL.
He is aware of his weaknesses and swore that he worked in the ass to enhance outside being “one dimension.” He could move when his legendary trainer, Nick Saban, retired after the 2023 season, but decided to not fall off. He traveled six miles a day to ensure that that something was left in the fourth quarter in the fourth quarter. He studied progression and reads after I-SNAP to lift his IQ in football.
Unlike the forecast sorts of the first round, Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders, Milroe threw a mix on Saturday, hoping that he would show the bands that he has mechanics to do that to the playmaker NFL. It turned out to be a mixed bag. Milroe showed strong arm strength and a very good location of sail routes, curls and it while throwing exercises, but fought accuracy on intermediate and on the routes.
“That’s so many things that I can learn more where I am today and where I will be when it comes to day 1, starting with NFL,” said Milroe before Saturday exercises. “Always be a game student, at all times attempt to develop, because it would be so many opportunities in which I can look back and say that it was the moment after I grew up as a playmaker.
“That’s right now, I’m just trying to grow as much as possible, put my best foot forward and just look for development.”
Derick E. Hingle/Getty Images
Milroe was asked that he was one other playmaker in Alabama to succeed in the mix, following in the footsteps of the role (who moved to Oklahoma in 2019), Tavailoa, Mac Jones and Bryce Young. Milroe said he appreciates being in the company of others, but he added that it’s difficult to check him with others.
“We had different bands, we had different players around us, we had a different system,” he said.
But when he specifically asked what he could study the journey of Hurts-from the first manager of the game after the super Bowl-Milroe master said he inspired him his companion Alabam.
“The most important thing I learned from J. Hurts is how he kept his head (I) always continued to work,” said Milroe. “He at all times raised his game, he has never been self -deserved, and all the pieces you see is great progress from him.
“And I have to applaud him as a person, he as a man, because he is definitely inspiring for many playmakers of my image, as well as many playmakers throughout the country. He leads to all of us. “
The couple isn’t completely similar. Hurts had about 20 kilos on Milroe when he was in college. Milroe has a stronger arm, while Hurts played more and not using a mistake of football: Milroe threw 17 interceptions and ate 67 bags for 2 seasons as a starter in comparison with 10 captures Hurts and 43 bags.
But they can each be changing the game when their teams need them. In a highly publicized match against Georgia at the starting of the last season, Milroe finished almost 82% of his passes on 374 yards and two appointments, adding 117 yards to the ground for the next two results.
Milroe can also match the wounds in the so -called “Jalen-ISMS. “
“Climbing upstairs is not easy, but when you reach the top of this mountain, you will learn so many things when it comes to adversity when it comes to difficulties, things along the way,” said Milroe in a mix.
Sports
Like Tommie Smith and John Carlos from 1968. Black Power Salute inspired me to find my goal
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I’d say that I grew up within the household to be sure that that me and my siblings were aware of the black history. My parents invested in the gathering of black encyclopedias. On the duvet we had a version of the Bible with Black Jesus. Our house was stuffed with books of black novelists and thinkers, and if a black document appeared, we watched it. I watched all movies made on television about Dr. King, each “Roots” and “Alex Haley’s Queen” and I sat for all 14 hours “Eyes on the reward”-as a toddler. Bless my heart.
Having said this, there have been pockets of black history, and more likely that I had no opportunity to delve into once I was a toddler. The college was where all the will for information and understanding of the combined. I attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., One of a very powerful historically black universities within the country. It was there that I met people from around the globe whose knowledge about black history differed (often depending on the colleges and the communities by which we lived), but everyone had hunger to learn more.
One day, through the first yr, I remember one among my friends in a T -shirt by which I had definitely seen before, but I never paid attention to. There was a black and white screen printing on the shirt (what I do know now) the enduring moment on the Olympic Games in Mexico in 1968, where on the rostrum for 200-meter medals, Tommie Smith, John Carlos (races 1. And 3. Place Finaners) Everyone gathered a black fist in gloves while he played “Star Spangled Banner”. Peter Norman, the second place from Australia, wore a human rights badge, like Smith and Carlos.
Not only did they raise the fist of black power (although they each said it was for human rights), they received medals in black socks to represent poverty within the black community, and Smith wore a black scarf for black pride. Carlos showed solidarity with blue-wheeled employees, unpacking the jacket and wore a necklace from the beads for individuals who were lynched. Due to the state of Black America in 1968 and a continuing struggle for equality and civil rights, there have been calls to a boycott of the Games. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was also killed in April this yr – and all three athletes were inspired enough to find a way to do it on the rostrum, which led to one of the crucial durable images of public protest.
I remember how I learned history and realized that on the most important scene these brave men used their moment of triumph and victory to quietly protest against the conditions of underrated communities in America. I felt strengthened; We often discuss standing on the arms of giants, however the more I got into the history of black in America, the more I spotted what number of giants there have been. In college I used to be very bad and for a while ready to burn every part that represented the establishment or any obstacle to black liberation. I felt like all those individuals who even saw their space on the planet in reference to individuals who could never give you the option to speak as heroes whose lives were to be modeled later. Especially since it was also fastidiously that putting people in front of him can often bring an enormous personal loss.
When Smith and Carlos took their position, they were booed on the stadium and ordered to be sent home by the International Olympic Committee. The athletes returned home, but they weren’t welcomed by the hero, but as a substitute of rough sleds, and even in some cases the specter of death. They were also not beloved by athletes. Two men, associated eternally in history, even have a good relationship –Carlos even claims that he let Smith go within the race Because “Tommie Smith would never put his fist in the sky if I won this race,” the claim that Smith denies.
History ultimately has a way of rights, but it surely took a few years and realizations on the front of social policy, in order that the actions of those persons are perceived as brave and needed, not only selfish and smug.
The lessons that I learned from College and continuous reading and education I gained (my head remained within the book about black history) were one among the best advantages in HBCU. The very variety of books I learned about about which I actually have never heard of – I actually have upheld me all my life.
That is why I remember sooner or later I used to be walking around Washington, the eastern Washington market and a street seller was selling different photos of moments in black history, and he had a 40 -inch photo within the Tommie Smith and John Carlos frame. I paid for it in money and spent it across the capital of the country until I returned home. I do know that it happened in 2005 (I finished Morehouse College in 2001) because I just moved to my first apartment with no roommate and it was the very first thing that I actually have ever suspended on the wall. This picture within the frame still hangs on the wall in my home in 2025 and I used it to teach my children about sacrifice and privilege and how you may have to discuss individuals who cannot.
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The query that my youngest children often ask: “How do I know who can’t speak for herself?” Which is an incredible query. For this I answered an easy fact, pointing to the photo:
“These men have made a gesture that gave people whose most of us, including them, would never see or never know them, but on which life negatively affects the alternatives of the wealthy and the federal government. Sometimes you may have to take this chance to say something because you do not know in the event you’ll ever have such a big platform.
Son, there may be at all times someone who cannot speak for himself, and you may have to use it in a voice, because perhaps the thing you say or a stand that can help someone you understand, live a greater life. ”
I take advantage of words that may understand a little bit higher, but I can inform you that my children have a look at this photo on a regular basis, and once one among my sons said: “These guys are heroes, right?”
I say yes, they’re. They are the heroes of the Black History.
They will live eternally for speaking, and even quietly, in solidarity with those that couldn’t.
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Sports
Main Treasury Official Morgan State University, Sterling Steward, died
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Morgan State University announced that his older associate athletics director and tax director, Sterling Steward, died.
No reason for death was disclosed, but the college has confirmed his contribution since he was employed in December 2022.
Morgan State University Athletics mourns Sterling Steward’s departure https://t.co/avjzilxhja
– Grizzly Life (@grizzlylife22) February 26, 2025
Steward died on February 26. In Morgan State he was accountable for the event of university programs, supporting partnerships and strengthening the financial and operational success of the Faculty.
“Sterling was more than a colleague-he was a respected leader, mentor and friend,” said in a written statement by Den Freeman-Patton, vice chairman and director of inter-university athletes. “His passion for athletics and commitment to raising Morgan programs were visible in everything he did. He worked tirelessly to ensure that our sports students had resources and the possibilities of distinction, and its impact will be felt for many years. We expand our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones, especially his three sons and sister when we mourn this huge loss. “
While the steward worked in Morgan, strategic growth and cooperation occurred. His work with the institutional development department helped to offer more opportunities and created lasting relationships to support sports programs.
Steward earlier he worked At the University of New Orleans (UNO) as an assistant to the college athletics director for strategic income generation. He also made stays on the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Savannah State University, Mississippi Valley State University, Alabama State University, Kentucky State University, Eastern Oregon University and Xavier University in various roles, including for a senior consultant athletics director and sports director.
He was from New Orleans, who received the title of bachelor and master’s degree on the University of Southern Mississippi. He won a bachelor’s degree in the sphere of coaching and administration/history of sport and his master’s degree in the sphere of sport management.
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