SPORTS DIGEST || YSU volleyball to host 10-day July camp

YSU volleyball to host 10-day July camp

YOUNGSTOWN

Youngstown State volleyball head coach Mark Hardaway is hosting individual and team camps during a 10-day stretch in July.

The camps will run July 8-17. Individual skill camps are on July 11-14, team camps are on the weekednds of July 8-10 and July 15-17.

Team camps are $220 per camper and individual is $85 per camper and is geared for kids of all ages. There’s also an advanced skills camp for high school freshman through rising seniors on July 12-14, which is $265 for resident campers and $215 for commuters.

Discounts are available. For more information, call 304-268-8655 or visit ysusports.com.

Patriots ask court to rehear ‘deflategate’

NEW YORK

The New England Patriots have asked a federal appeals court in New York City to rehear the “Deflategate” case.

The team said in court papers filed Wednesday in Manhattan that it has a “strong interest” in sparing quarterback Tom Brady from starting the season with a four-game suspension.

The papers say the Patriots “strongly believe” nobody tampered with footballs at the 2015 AFC Championship game. New England defeated the Indianapolis Colts 45-7 in that game and went on to win the Super Bowl.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-to-1 last month to reinstate Brady’s four-game suspension. A lower-court judge had ruled last September that the NFL erred in its handling of the probe of the deflated footballs and he rejected the suspension a week before the season began.

Bills GM walks back ‘humans’ comments

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y.

Buffalo Bills general manager Doug Whaley acknowledges he used “a poor choice of words” when referring to football being a violent game that he personally didn’t think was intended to be played by humans.

Whaley’s clarification was issued in a statement the Bills posted on their public relations Twitter account Wednesday. A day earlier, in an interview with Buffalo’s WGR Radio, the GM wondered whether football was meant for “humans” when answering a question whether receiver Sammy Watkins was injury prone.

The former college safety now says the point he was attempting to make is that football is a physical game and that injuries are a part of it. Citing NFL rule changes and other safety enhancements, Whaley says football is safer to play than ever before.

Mike Tyson pans pros in Olympic boxing

BEIJING

Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson says a proposal to let professional fighters compete in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics is “ridiculous” and “foolish.”

In Beijing to promote professional boxing in China, Tyson says any pro boxers going to the Olympics should be prepared to lose because the amateurs could prove too fast for them.

Tyson says he still has strong memories of the skilled boxers from Cuba, Russia and elsewhere he fought as an amateur in the 1980s.

The head of the International Boxing Association has proposed allowing pros in the Olympics, although it’s uncertain how the plan would be implemented for Rio because qualification tournaments are either underway or have already been held.

U.S. men top Ecuador in soccer friendly

FRISCO, Texas

Darlington Nagbe scored his first international goal on a 90th-minute volley, and the United States beat Ecuador 1-0 in a Copa America tuneup on Wednesday.

The U.S. defeated a South American team for just the third time in 21 tries (14 losses, 4 draws) since a March 2007 victory over Ecuador.

After a listless first half, the U.S. attack improved with the entry of Nagbe and Bobby Wood after the break and of 17-year-old Christian Pulisic in the 63rd minute.

Staff and wire reports