Football Team

The 2012 Navy football team will visit the White House on Friday for a ceremony with President Barack Obama . The team will be honored for winning the Commander in Chief's Trophy for the eighth time in the past 10 years. The time and location of the ceremony has not yet been determined. The Midshipmen were victorious over Air Force (28-21 in overtime) and Army (17-13) en route to an 8-5 record and the school's ninth bowl game in the past 10 years. Navy has won 19 of its past 21 service academy games.

The reality of Maryland's first season in the Big Ten became a little clearer Thursday, when the league announced the 2014 schedule for its 14 members. The Terps will play their Big Ten opener Sept. 27 at Indiana and their home opener a week later against Ohio State at Byrd Stadium. Maryland will also play at home against Iowa (Oct. 18), Michigan State (Nov. 15) and Rutgers (Nov. 29), and on the road at Wisconsin (Oct. 25), Penn State (Nov. 1) and Michigan (Nov. 22). Iowa and Wisconsin represent the two non-East Division opponents.

Penalties hurt a football team, and the University of Maryland squad will start the season burdened with two infractions picked up recently from the National Collegiate Athletic Association. One, announced this month, was for violating practice rules. The other, more serious infraction, announced in April, was assessed for poor academic performance by the Terp players. Both occurred under the tenure of former head football coach Ralph Friedgen, who was replaced in January byRandy Edsall.

Towson football Bradley's interception sets up TD in Tiger Bowl III An interception led to the only score of the game in Tiger Bowl III on Saturday at Towson. Early in the fourth quarter, safety Thomas Bradley of the Black team intercepted a pass at the Gold team's 30-yard line and returned it to the 2-yard line. Three plays later, quarterback Price Litton scored on a 1-yard run for an eventual 7-0 victory. Offenses combined for 417 yards, but there were five turnovers and three missed field-goal attempts.

President Barack Obama awarded Navy's football team with the Commander-In-Chief's Trophy on Thursday afternoon in the East Room at the White House. Here are the president's remarks: Hello, everybody.  (Applause.)  Hello.  Please, everybody have a seat.  Well, good afternoon.  Welcome to the White House.  I want to start by recognizing Coach Ken Niumatalolo, my fellow Hawaiian, for being here once again -- where is he?  There he is right here.  (Laughter.)  Hard to miss him.  Give him a big round of applause.  (Applause.)

Most high school football teams feel pretty confident about scoring once they move into the red zone. At Broadneck, the Bruins only have to reach the Greene zone. With All-Metro kicker Adam Greene, the Bruins have a chance to score every time they cross midfield. Last season as a junior, he kicked an Anne Arundel County record 55-yard field goal - just shy of the state record of 59 set by Havre de Grace's Shane West in 2003. Greene, who has hit 31 of his last 32 extra points and has put 16 of 17 kickoffs in the end zone this fall, also hit a 50-yard field goal last season.

Catonsville High School's faculty and staff thank the Catonsville students and community for their outpouring of support for our varsity football team during this season. We are very proud of these outstanding young men and their accomplishment of making it to the state semi-finals. Record crowds were in attendance for our home and away games. You also supported our Comet Booster Club by purchasing spirit wear, which was worn frequently by many of our students in recent weeks.

I was at the Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit this morning in downtown Baltimore, where I caught the Baltimore Ravens digital marketing guru, Michelle Andres, talking about how the NFL team handles the Internet, social media and apps. In short, the soup-to-nuts digital experience for both players and fans of the Ravens franchise. Sure, the team is covered by a lot of traditional media outlets, including us at The Baltimore Sun. But they've also become a digital marketing and publishing powerhouse in their own right.

This has been an exciting time for Catonsville High School, its football team and the fans in this community. The Catonsville Times has done an excellent job reporting the most recent win and the upcoming game against Poly. We are certainly proud of our team. On the same night that the game between Paint Branch and Catonsville was played, another event was held in the Catonsville High School auditorium. The Drama Department and students put on a production of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town," a play that is considered by many to be an American classic.

Three veteran reserves have left the Maryland football team.Jonathan Johnson, who had one season of eligibility left, has withdrawn from school. A cornerback from Pahokee, Fla., Johnson had injury problems and played sparingly behind his brother A. J. and Chad Scott last season.Defensive tackle Cornelius White, who was in on 27 tackles in 10 games last season, was academically dismissed from school. White, a redshirt sophomore from Newburgh, N.Y., had two years of eligibility remaining.Robert Moore, a senior from North Amityille, N.Y., who has played linebacker and fullback, was dismissed from the team by coach Mark Duffner.

LaVar Arrington was one of the nation's highest-rated linebackers in the nation during his high school and college career. He was named Parade National Player of the Year after his senior year at North Hills Senior High School in Pittsburgh, and he was drafted No. 2 overall in the 2000 NFL Draft after his junior season at Penn State. But the former Washington Redskins star said he never would have reached those heights if he didn't know the fundamentals. That's why he's teamed up with Heads Up Football to help teach youth football players the proper way to play the game.

After a two-year hiatus, the Navy football team was back at the White House on Friday to accept the Commander in Chief's trophy from President Obama in a ceremony held in the East Room. The Midshipmen had won the trophy - which is presented to the winner of the series among the three service academies - seven consecutive times beginning in 2003, but that record streak ended when Air Force claimed it in 2010 and 2011. Navy has won the trophy 13 times in all. "This never gets old," Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo said.

President Barack Obama awarded Navy's football team with the Commander-In-Chief's Trophy on Thursday afternoon in the East Room at the White House. Here are the president's remarks: Hello, everybody.  (Applause.)  Hello.  Please, everybody have a seat.  Well, good afternoon.  Welcome to the White House.  I want to start by recognizing Coach Ken Niumatalolo, my fellow Hawaiian, for being here once again -- where is he?  There he is right here.  (Laughter.)  Hard to miss him.  Give him a big round of applause.  (Applause.)

Notes as Maryland prepares for Friday night's spring football game at Byrd Stadium. ** Interesting to me that Maryland has said already C.J. Brown is the starting quarterback. Not a surprise that he is the starter - but rather that the team wouldn't declare it an open competition with transfer Ricardo Young for the time being. Brown is coming off an ACL injury and is limited to 7-on-7 drills this spring. But he's a team captain and I'm guessing Maryland wanted to demonstrate faith in him immediately.

This is prettay, prettay, prettay cool. Larry David, the creator/star of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and, of course, a co-creator/writer of "Seinfeld," was apparently seen on the University of Maryland-College Park campus on Tuesday, escorting one of his daughters on a campus tour, according to UMD's student newspaper, The Diamondback.  The Diamondback reports that college officials wouldn't comment on the alleged sightings, but David is...

Towson University's decision to cut the baseball and soccer teams is unfortunate ("Baseball, men's soccer cut by Towson president," March 10). This is very similar to what happened in the late 1980s when then President Hoke Smith wanted to disband the football team. At the time, my son was a junior at Towson, and even though he had numerous opportunities to attend other colleges on scholarships, he wanted to go to Towson and try out as a walk on to their football team. When Mr. Smith made his intentions known, the families went berserk.

The Old Mill football team had a pretty good idea what it had in quarterback Grant Enders, wide receiver Devante Sanders and running back Jason Clements. The three returning standouts have been pivotal in the Patriots' impressive 3-0 start that includes wins over Class 4A state runner-up Arundel and emerging Meade. But an unexpected surprise has also played big on the other side of the ball with the fine play of cornerback Mike Holley. Set to take over the starting point guard duties in the basketball season, Holley was focusing on that sport for most of the summer before showing up for football the day equipment was handed out. Injuries moved him into the starting lineup and the 5-foot-9, 155-pound junior has been a defensive spark with three interceptions on the season.

Gay characters coming out in prime time is nothing new. In fact, “Coming-out narratives are cliches,” according to Ron Becker, author of “Gay TV and Straight America” (Rutgers University Press, 2006). “They were big in the 1970s and '80s, but even by the 1990s, it was almost a cliché on television,” the Miami University professor says. But a quarterback on a pro football team coming out in the locker room to his teammates, “There's some real potential for drama in that context,” Becker says.