A flag football tournament with four players per team on the field at once is coming to McReynolds Athletic Complex in York County on July 15-16.
Former Menchville High, Penn State and NFL defensive back David Macklin says 4-on-4 play gets young players more repetitions in less time. He has become the president of “Glory Days 4 on 4,” the tournament organizer.
Macklin noted that Glory Days’ last tournament, on Memorial Day weekend in Roswell, New Mexico, had 104 teams.
Teams consist of seven players apiece except for the adult coed bracket, where teams can have eight. There are divisions for 8-, 10-, 12- and 15-and-under, high school, 18-and-over women’s and 18-and-over men’s as well as coed teams. Teams need to register by noon Monday at glorydays4on4.org.
Bethea to speak at MEAC event: Newport News native Antoine Bethea, a Denbigh High and Howard University graduate whose 14-year NFL career included a Super Bowl championship with the Indianapolis Colts, will be the keynote speaker at the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference’s Men’s Empowerment Breakfast.
It will be held at 9 a.m. on July 21 at the Hilton Norfolk the Main hotel, and tickets can be purchased at eventbrite.com. MEAC football’s media day will follow at noon.
Bethea came up from the FCS ranks to reach three Pro Bowls. In 2015, he was inducted into the MEAC Hall of Fame.
Baseball champs: Little Creek National, located in Norfolk, held a Pitch, Hit & Run competition last weekend for youths.
Landon Nohe (8-and-under), Christopher Saillant (10U), Austin Gupton (12U) and David Farmer (14U) earned top honors in baseball.
In softball, the champs were Sofia Urbina (8U), Presley Santana (10U), Katelyn Vesey (12U) and Valerie Miranda (14U).
All eight of them will advance to Nationals Park in Washington for regional competition in August. The victors at Nats Park will gain trips to compete in conjunction with the World Series.
‘Big3’ connections: “Big3” basketball, which often is carried from major arenas on CBS (WTKR) and CBS Sports Network and features three-on-three competition among relatively well-known players, has a few with local connections.
The Aliens are coached by Hampton University great and former Detroit Pistons “Bad Boy” Rick Mahorn, and their team includes former Virginia and Vanderbilt player Derrick Byars.
The Power team is coached by Old Dominion legend Nancy Lieberman. Her son, former Richmond Spiders forward TJ Cline, and former UVA forward Akil Mitchell are on her squad.
Ex-VCU center Larry Sanders is on the Triplets.
Field hockey clinic: “Pain and Gain Sports” will conduct a field hockey clinic featuring accomplished players from Argentina from July 17-19 in Virginia Beach.
According to Richard Magnano, the camp staff will include three-time Olympic women’s goalie Belén Succi, women’s Olympian Florencia Habif, former Argentine men’s team captain German Orozco and Ivana Dell’Era, a standout female player who now is on the men’s coaching staff for Portugal.
Pain and Gain Sports, located on Princess Anne Road in Virginia Beach and with a phone number of 757-756-0206, is a store devoted to field hockey. Information on the camp is at painandgainsports.com.
Tennis events: About 20 players connected with Hampton Roads are in the field for the Mid-Atlantic Open Clay Court Championships, a $30,000 tournament whose qualifying brackets start Sunday at Salisbury Country Club in Midlothian.
Cape Henry Racquet Club co-owner Darryl Cummings, whose coaching career includes stints with Old Dominion, Norfolk State and Virginia Wesleyan, is one of the tournament’s organizers. He also has lined up Canadian pro Vasek Pospisil for hitting sessions Tuesday at Cape Henry and Thursday at Salisbury, both at 10 a.m.
Pospisil, 33, has been ranked as high as No. 4 in the world in doubles and No. 25 in singles. He won the 2014 Wimbledon men’s doubles title with Jack Sock and reached the ’15 Wimbledon singles quarterfinals.
Contact Cummings at 747-641-6146 or his son, Clark, at 737-352-8014 to register for the sessions.
Travis Burnett
A pioneer in the flag football community, Travis helped co-found the Flag Football World Championship Tour, FlagSpin and USA Flag. Featuring 15+ years of content creation for the sport of flag football, creating and managing the largest flag football tournaments on the planet, coaching experience at the youth and adult level as well as an active player with National and World Championship level experience.
