Sports
As the Jackie Robinson statue returns to Wichita, so do the lessons learned

WICHITA, Kansas — Six months ago, the city had an issue. Under cover of darkness, someone drove a van into McAdams Park, cut a figure off at the feet and towed him away. The security footage is downright difficult to watch. A bunch of shadowy figures loitering in the plaza on seventeenth Street, after which suddenly the majestic figure drops onto the platform, bouncing barely from the impact.
It’s one thing to know in your mind that tons of of children who play baseball and admire the statue will not have an icon to look up to. It’s quite one other to see the actual footage of the theft and the gruesome footage of Robinson’s severed head burning on the ground.
“When I got there, there were already multiple officers on the scene,” Wichita Police Department Lt. Drew Seiler said of the theft. “We had officers in the League 42 constructing reviewing video footage from the last 24 hours. The area was cordoned off. We began a forensic investigation to collect any physical evidence and document the scene because it was found.
“This is the first time I’ve seen a physical statue removed like this. And it’s scary because we have a lot of thefts in cemeteries. People go to the cemetery and cut off the brass candlesticks or flower pots that are glued to either side of the headstone.”
He was placed on trial for the case, which he claims to have treated as a murder, spending an important deal of time and energy trying to find the perpetrators. When I first heard about the case, it appeared like a transparent case of somebody deliberately trying to desecrate a monument related to Robinson, which happens so often that the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, has a complete exhibit devoted to these perpetrators.
But after spending time there, the reality of the situation is way sadder than what we initially believed on the surface. The sheer desperation it takes to try to scrap a complete statue for metal, irrespective of who it’s, is such a grim reminder of the circumstances many face in 2024. A shortsighted, mean decision ultimately driven by substance abuse affected many individuals and effectively ended the lifetime of one when Ricky Alderete was sentenced to 15 years for theftand various other previous accusations.
Not that this was anything latest for Seiler — absolutely nothing.
“You and I probably have a different lifestyle than the person we identified as the person who did this,” Seiler explained as calmly as possible. “So what you and I consider normal behavior is different than the behavior of the people who were involved in this. And going through this investigation, the sentimental value of what Jackie Robinson represents — not just to this youth program, to our city, but to our state and our nation, what he does for sports and the doors that were opened — the sentimental value that he brings was never felt. It wasn’t even considered, from what I understood from talking to the detectives and the officer who followed up on all of our leads. It was never considered. It was the value of the physical object.”
Nicholas Ingram/AP Photo
As much as I feel offended and upset as a black person and a baseball fan, there may be also an element of me as a human being that’s just ashamed that a gaggle of persons are trying to pull off a Scooby-Doo level scam, all for drugs.
“Wichita is not the yellow brick road that everyone thinks it is, with the wind blowing around the weeds,” explained councilman and native Brandon Johnson. “You know, we’re an enormous city, the largest city in Kansas. An amazing city. Our strength is our people. When you walk around, you don’t see people just ignoring you. Everyone smiles at you. You might get a number of waves.
“There’s a lot of opportunity here. And growing up here was fun. You know, we made the best of it, even though I was poor. And that’s kind of my focus now, is making sure that our lower-income communities have those same opportunities.”
In an election 12 months, especially one which takes place during the Olympics, Wichita is a stark reminder of the real drug problem in America. It’s not only the fictional Walter White from a TV show running around New Mexico, a gaggle of wealthy kids at a highschool party in Los Angeles, or the drug lord Ghost trying to run his business legally.
This is a grown man, a profession criminal — a nasty one at that — trying to feed his fentanyl addiction with a vile, brazen stunt. He wasn’t alone, but he was the one who got caught. Even after the statue returned to McAdams Park on Monday to much fanfare, there’s something about the final result that feels so sad.
Maybe it’s because Alderete is around my age. Maybe it’s because my friends have lost their lives to accidental drug overdoses. Or possibly it’s because his life as he knows it’s effectively over.
“I let fentanyl get to me and I made a lot of bad decisions. I’m not going to deny that. I never meant to hurt anyone. I’m ashamed, I’m embarrassed. Whatever you do today, I accept it,” he said. “I’m ready for it. I believe I’m where I need to be right now because at the rate I’m going, I could be dead.”
He got 15 years.
“For someone who thinks they can drop all this and make a few dollars and see it as meaningless and fueling this idea of, ‘Let’s just make a few dollars,’ it’s more disappointing and hurtful,” Johnson lamented.
In short, a few of this doesn’t look like a very comfortable ending. Despite all the possibilities in Kansas, the desperation is apparent. When you see people walking down the street after a certain time of day, they probably don’t have anywhere to stay. The margins through which individuals slip are the ones from which individuals should have the option to return.
“I would not only invite him to the unveiling, but I would ask him if you have a baseball background. How can we make this a success story for you so you don’t have to spend the rest of your life as a villain?” So that will be really cool,” Lutz said. “But if he’s sitting in a jail cell right now, regretting what he did, and he wants to tell us about it, he should be able to do that. And if he wants to go further and be a part of League 42, we wouldn’t be following the Jackie Robinson model if we denied that.”
Thomas Peipert/AP Photo
While the symbolism and uplifting are great, it’s still only a statue. It might be rebuilt. And since the form still exists, although John Parsons, the sculptor and friend of Lutz’s, has died, that’s exactly what they did — 560 miles away in Loveland, Colorado.
Tony Workman stands in his foundry, Art Castings of Colorado, watching certainly one of his crew members polish a bronze head of Jack Roosevelt Robinson. Right next to him is a breastplate bearing the iconic Brooklyn Dodgers name and the number 42, for the second baseman whose metal likeness is getting a second likelihood at life.
“We use 100,000 pounds of metal a year,” Workman said.
He explains the intricate technique of making a statue. The smell of metalworking is unforgettable. To them, it’s just one other statue. They make plenty of them. Tom Osborne in front of Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska. Willie Mays in front of Oracle Park in San Francisco. Roberto Clemente in Pittsburgh. The list goes on.
“The first step in the process is pouring all the rubber into the molds. That gives you all the detail,” Workman said as we toured the facility amidst fields. “And if you’ve ever built a candle, you’ll pour in wax that’s three-sixteenths of an inch thick. That’s the thickness of the wax and ultimately the metal. For larger pieces like Jackie Robinson, I think the castings are eight pieces. We’re not just casting full-size figures.”
The whole thing could be very rough, noisy and, frankly, physically dangerous, a reminder of what people undergo to each earn an honest living and feed their addictions. Even in the event that they weren’t pumping out motion figures of all types, it could take a month to construct a statue of Robinson, he said.
On Monday at McAdams Park, the community and League 42 celebrated the return of their premier facility.
“There’s not much you can do if someone gets the idea to steal something, and copper prices are what they are,” Workman said. “The only problem with stealing a sculpture is you can’t break it down into a small enough piece that people don’t realize it’s a sculpture, right? And every scrap dealer in America knows not to take that. You know, if you’re going to commit a crime, it’s usually not the best or brightest, but they tried.”
Hopefully, the lessons learned from this complete ordeal will help greater than only one Little League, one city, or one foundry. Hopefully, we’ll keep in mind that there are methods to help one another so this never happens again—to anyone.
Sports
Jalen Milroe can follow the Jalen path in NFL

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

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.

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.

(Tagstranslate) @Ap
Sports
Main Treasury Official Morgan State University, Sterling Steward, died

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.
(Tagstransate) Morgan State Universiry
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