Basketball player. Model. Influencer. Businesswoman. Fashion girlie. Podcaster. Billionaire.

In February, Angel Reese shared those personal goals on an Instagram Stories post that would have slipped into the doomscroll abyss if Kevin Love of the NBA’s Miami Heat hadn’t commented that he’d “take the under” on how many Reese would achieve.

The post quickly went viral as Reese’s supporters condemned Love for his dismissiveness while others piled onto the narrative that Reese cares more about her brand than her game.

Being one of the most recognizable names in sports comes with a price—scrutiny, negativity, criticism—but Reese has the mental toughness to tune out the noise. Why shouldn’t she strive to dominate on the court and become an icon off it? The naysayers don’t know who Reese is or understand what drives her relentless pursuit of greatness.

Besides, Reese, a Baltimore-area native, has already achieved most of her aspirations. During the 2024 WNBA season, she averaged 13 points and 13 rebounds for the Chicago Sky and was named to the All-Rookie Team. She has endorsement deals with Reebok and Reese’s Pieces and a signature meal at McDonald’s (BBQ Bacon Quarter Pounder with cheese, medium fries, and a drink that Mickey D’s says is inspired by Reese’s boldly original style and swag).

She graced the cover of Vogue and celebrated her 22nd birthday at last year’s Met Gala. She isn’t a billionaire, but don’t bet against her reaching that exclusive club now that she’s been publicly called out.

“The more people talk about her, the more she wants to prove them wrong,” says Jimmy Price, CEO of Baltimore-based Shot Ready Elite Basketball Player Skill Development Program and Reese’s longtime trainer. “If you talk trash, you’re giving her exactly what she wants. It wakes up the beast in her.”

Reese has always been interested in improving both her Q Score and stat line, even as doubters believe she should focus more on basketball. Ron James, Reese’s coach when she played for the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League’s Team Takeover program, was one of them.

He remembers pulling a near all-nighter while obsessively preparing for an important playoff matchup when he noticed Reese start an Instagram Live broadcast at 3 a.m. He immediately texted her a not-so-subtle reminder that she’d be going up against an All-American in a matter of hours.

The next morning before the game, Reese approached her coach with a reminder of her own. “She said, ‘Don’t mess with my vibe. I’m global and trying to get to 10,000 followers,’” says James. “She told me to relax—that she was going to get 25 points and 20 rebounds. And that’s exactly what she did. After that, I left her alone.”

Today, Reese has 4.7 million Instagram followers. “When you look at what Angel has done with her own marketing, it’s incredible,” says James. “She understood the power of her brand from the beginning. She’s always going to keep her name coming out of people’s mouths, whether that’s good or bad. It’s genius.”

“SHE’S ALWAYS GOING TO KEEP HER NAME COMING OUT OF PEOPLE’S MOUTHS.”

But Reese’s brand-building persona is not the full picture of who she is and what shaped her personality and game. She grew up in Randallstown and comes by her hoops skills naturally. Her father, Michael Reese, played for Boston College and Loyola University Maryland before playing professionally overseas.

After her parents divorced, her mother, Angel Webb Reese, raised Reese as a single parent and influenced her game the most. Angel Webb Reese was a standout player at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She’s in the school’s hall of fame and finished her career in the program’s top five in scoring and rebounds. Reese has worn jersey no. 10 throughout her career, the same number as her mom, to honor the woman who continues to inspire her on and off the court—and who first introduced her to the game they both love.

When Webb Reese coached a youth basketball team, a young Reese would tag along to practices, dribbling along the sidelines and watching her mom in action. Reese joined the league and, at five years old, showed a hint of the skills and competitiveness that would eventually define her game.

“Even at a young age, she had the skill to handle the ball well for her size,” says James. “You knew she was going to grow and develop even more. Above all, she was a competitor. She wanted to win. She was willing to battle, to fight, to do whatever it  took to succeed. That drive, that determination—it was clear every time she stepped on the court.”

Price used to run in the same Baltimore hoops circles as Webb Reese and remains a close family friend. He says Webb Reese was known for her aggressive play in the post and fighting through double-teaming defenders. It’s clear to him that Reese’s fire and win-at-all-cost attitude comes from her mom.

When Webb Reese was looking for someone to mold her daughter’s natural talent, she turned to Price. “I could tell right away there was something special about Angel,” he says. “She was raw but had so much potential. She also had that aggression and competitiveness from the start. Angel hated to lose.”

Reese began working with Price in the eighth grade, running through countless drills to refine every aspect of her game. Face-up moves. Dribble pull-ups. Fadeaways. The work continued when she starred at Baltimore’s St. Frances Academy, where she led the team to three-straight IAAM championships while averaging 18 points, 20 rebounds, and five assists. Reese was named to the McDonalds All-American Team in 2020 and was USA Today Maryland Player of the Year in her junior and senior years.

Price used to meet Reese in the St. Frances gym at 5:30 each morning for “Breakfast Club” practices and resumed the workouts after school. She knew from an early age that reputation and past success weren’t enough to excel at the next level. If she wanted to dominate at college and in the pros, she had to put in the work.

Reese practiced against boys to hone her skills and competitiveness, and battled her younger brother, Julian, who just finished his career on the University of Maryland men’s basketball team. The two would go at it hard, refusing to give an inch in the sibling rivalry.

During the workouts, Price tried to fix the mechanics of Reese’s awkward shooting motion. She’s double-jointed in her right elbow, which prevents her from extending the arm fully as she shoots. Price decided to rebuild her shot as a lefty, a monumental task that required countless hours of drills and thousands of jumpers.

It was done with an eye toward the future. Reese’s lefty shot was more effective, and the mechanics looked smoother, something college coaches would study during the recruiting process. The willingness to strip down her game and build it back up after enjoying success shows Reese’s unwavering dedication to excellence.

“THAT DRIVE, THAT DETERMINATION—IT WAS CLEAR EVERY TIME SHE STEPPED ON THE COURT.”

Over the next couple of years, Reese kept growing, adding size and strength. She stands 6’3” today with the ballhandling skills of a guard, allowing her to play all five positions on the court. James believes Reese’s extraordinary physical abilities overshadow her best trait.

“Angel’s greatest strength is her basketball IQ,” he says. “She’s a strategist, always thinking one step ahead of who she’s playing against. She has an instinct for making winning plays, often without needing direction. It’s just how she sees the game.”

When her career at St. Frances ended, Reese was recruited to play at the University of Maryland and excelled, helping the Terrapins to the Sweet 16 her freshman and sophomore seasons while leading the team in scoring and rebounding. She often played with her back to the basket, but also wanted to become a versatile forward, believing that role would prepare her game for the WNBA.

After her sophomore season, she transferred to LSU for a chance to develop those skills under head coach Kim Mulkey. It was in Baton Rouge where she skyrocketed to fame after leading the Tigers to a win in the 2023 national championship over Caitlin Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes.

In the final minutes of the game, Reese stood near Clark and flashed the “you can’t see me” hand gesture inspired by pro wrestler John Cena, who used it to let his opponents know that they weren’t on his level. She then pointed to her finger, where she’d soon slide on her championship ring.

The taunts went viral and shined the national spotlight bright on Bayou Barbie, Reese’s nickname that celebrates her model looks. (She more recently has gone by Baltimore Barbie.) Her put-together appearance began at an early age, when she played with her mother’s make-up and her grandmother applied mascara before youth league games.

It was Price who convinced Reese to lean into her femininity. “Most girls who play basketball go for the athletic look, and that’s fine,” he says. “But I told her to add a little flair, something unique. She gets her lashes and nails done before every game and always makes sure her hair looks good. It was never about changing who she was. It was about standing out from  the crowd.”

Reese has turned herself into a fashion icon, but hasn’t lost sight of the hard work that serves as the foundation for her growing fame. Anyone who believes Reese’s off-the-court pursuits diminish her passion for basketball should look at the rebound column in her stat line. Points are indicative of skill. Rebounds reflect effort.

With the Chicago Sky, who drafted Reese with the 7th overall pick in the 2024 WNBA draft, Reese set the all-time single-season records for rebounds per game and total offensive rebounds. She also became the fastest player to snag 400 rebounds in league history.

“Angel never has fewer than 10 rebounds in a game,” says Price. “Do you know how difficult that is to do? But rebounding is just one of her strengths. She hasn’t begun to scratch her full potential. She’s making big strides and on her way to greatness.”

Shimmy Miller, Chicago Sky television analyst, has been pleasantly surprised by how well Reese’s game has translated to the WNBA.

“She remains a dominant rebounder, but beyond that, it’s the intangibles she brings each day,” says Miller, who coached women’s collegiate basketball for 24 years. “Angel is a winner, fiercely competitive, and works incredibly hard. She’s a relentless player.”

Reese’s competitive fire is contagious and was on full display during her first practice as a member of the Sky.

“Angel was the loudest one in the gym—she didn’t care that she was a rookie,” says Miller. “She was calling out defensive schemes, talking, encouraging teammates. Rookies are typically quiet, observing and taking it all in. Not Angel. She was leading from day one.”

Miller is most impressed by Reese’s ability to quickly move past mistakes. “Some players get their shot blocked and hang their heads,” she says. “If Angel gets her shot blocked, her immediate reaction is to get the ball back. That response is as elite as I’ve seen, and I know how hard that is to teach.”

There’s room for improvement in Reese’s game, and that’s to be expected. Miller says she’s strong at taking opponents off the dribble, but needs to develop her face-up game, release the ball higher on jumpers, and become a better finisher at the rim by pushing off with her legs instead of relying on her upper body strength to power the ball toward the hoop.

“There are mechanical flaws in Angel’s offensive game that can be fixed,” says Miller. “But you cannot teach motor. You cannot teach heart. You cannot teach the innate qualities and instincts she brings to the game. And you can’t judge a player by what they did during their rookie season in the WNBA. Angel’s true measure as a player will be known after her third year in the league.”

Early this year, Webb Reese joined her daughter on her “Unapologetically Angel” podcast. They discussed her upbringing and fame’s double-edged sword. Reese talked about having the means to buy her mom Chanel bags and stays at the Four Seasons, but said she misses going unrecognized during mother-daughter trips to the mall when she comes home to Baltimore.

She’s not complaining, just wistful about how things used to be before the fame and money. Reese and her mom reminisced about “tagging”—standing with buckets alongside Randallstown’s intersections, hoping to collect enough money from passing motorists to cover Maryland Shooting Stars’ travel expenses. They were long, hot days that embarrassed Reese. But they also taught her to appreciate her humble beginnings, the beauty of a community’s support, and what it takes to accomplish your goals.

On the podcast, Webb Reese said her daughter has always been headstrong, but also someone who could be counted on to meet her responsibilities. When Team Takeover hit the road, most of the girls acted like typical teenagers, sleeping in until the last possible moment. Not Reese. She was up early, collecting breakfast orders and debit cards and heading out with James to bring back the food.

“She’d make sure everyone paid the right amount and grabbed the condiments they requested,” says James. “She took care of the little details for her teammates.”

In 2019, Reese was asked to join the Women’s U19 National Team but declined the invitation. It was her final season with the girls of Team Takeover, and she stuck around to help lead them to the Nike EYBL championship.

“She told me, ‘You’re always talking about commitment and sacrifice for the team, so that’s what I’m going to do,’” says James. “Her dedication to the program and her teammates shows you the kind of person she is. I don’t think people hear enough about that.”

“BALTIMORE BALLERS HAVE A COMPETITIVE EDGE. IT’S ABOUT TOUGHNESS. IF SOMEONE SCORES ON YOU, YOU GOTTA GET THEM BACK.”

Jacara Spencer hears plenty about Reese’s team-first mentality. In February, the wing forward completed her sophomore season at St. Frances by capturing the school’s 14th IAAM A Conference title in girls basketball. Spencer is coming up through the same programs that Reese played for and is part of the next generation of Baltimore ballers she continues to inspire.

“The main thing I admire about Angel is how aggressively she wants to get rebounds,” says Spencer. “I love how she never backs down from anybody. That’s something I model my game after.”

At St. Frances, Spencer plays under Reese’s retired jersey banner, a literal and figurative reminder to look up at her accomplishments.

“She’s definitely a role model for our team,” says Spencer. “The coaches constantly remind us of the way Angel practiced, how she always pushed her teammates to be better. They want us to have the same mindset.”

Reese once surprised Team Takeover during a practice, visiting her former squad to offer words of encouragement—and a glimpse into her off-the-court persona as she led the girls in a dance routine that was posted on her TikTok. Spencer took center stage at the end of the video, dancing with another teammate in front of Reese. Although Spencer tends to shy away from the spotlight—her impromptu TikTok performance notwithstanding—the Baltimore Barbie has shown her the importance of thinking about life beyond the court.

Spencer was recently named to the National Honors Society and wants to maintain her high GPA while achieving enough personal and team success to play hoops at a D1 school.

“I don’t have the same personality as Angel,” says Spencer, “but I admire how she’s given herself a platform and made a brand for herself outside of basketball. She’s been able to get herself multiple connections that set her up for when basketball is over.”

As Spencer saw, Reese is welcoming off the court, especially when it comes to giving back to the local community that helped form who she has become as a player and person.

“Baltimore ballers have a competitive edge that you don’t see everywhere,” says Price. “It’s about toughness, the mentality that if someone scores on you, you gotta get them back. It’s personal—every matchup, every game.”

That toughness is what makes Baltimore players stand out. They don’t just play to win. They play to dominate at all costs. It’s what fuels Reese. Get onboard with what she wants to accomplish or get out of the way.

“Angel ain’t for everybody, and everybody ain’t for Angel,” says James.

She’s unapologetic. Bring it on and watch what she becomes.

This year we celebrate our 50th Best of Baltimore issue—our biggest and boldest yet. Subscribe before 6/20 to guarantee your copy commemorating this milestone anniversary. 

Forty years ago, Muggsy Bogues, with his best friend Reggie Williams and the rest of the Dunbar High Poets, played the Camden High Panthers and the No. 1 player in the country, Billy Thompson. Dunbar was Baltimore renown, but in the pre-cable, pre-internet era, not nationally visible, and when the 5-foot-3 point guard took the floor, the packed New Jersey house heckled the diminutive playmaker. Even the opposing players got into it.

“When we took the court, they were laughing at me, saying, ‘Why is this little kid playing against us?’” Bogues recalls. “They called me the water boy. Coach [Bob] Wade pulled me in and said, ‘Little man, you okay?’ I just looked at him and said, ‘Coach, we’re about to have a party.’”

At one point, Bogues made steals on three straight possessions, sparking the Poets to a 29-point halftime lead and a blowout win. Afterward, he received a standing ovation and in the newspaper the next day, Camden’s coach called Bogues, who scored 15 points and whose quickness and aggressiveness had set the tempo at both ends of the floor, “phenomenal.”

“Kevin Walls [Camden’s other star] thought it was going to be an easy day for him. But that would just be the journey,” Bogues says. “People had their perception, but for me, it was always about not believing what was coming out of folks’ mouth and not taking it to heart. The dramatic experience that I went through early, getting shot when I was a kid, changed my mindset more than anything. My dad being incarcerated, too. Words were the least of my worries. I’d learned to be in control of how I felt about myself. No one else.”

That 1981-82 Dunbar team went undefeated and repeated the feat the next season. Incredibly, Bogues, Williams, and Reggie Lewis were all later drafted in the first round of the 1987 NBA Draft. Teammate David Wingate, a year ahead of those three, was already playing with Philadelphia, making it four from Dunbar’s ’81-’82 squad to reach “The League.”

In his new memoir, Muggsy: My Life from a Kid in the Projects to the Godfather of Small Ball, Bogues recounts how Wade forced his charges to hold bricks in their hands during calisthenics and defense drills, and that his nickname originated from pickup games in tough East Baltimore. It was bestowed for his ability to snatch the ball from opponents, a “mugging.” He didn’t appreciate it at first, given its connotation, but as a fan of the coincidentally named East Side Kids reruns on TV, he learned to embrace it.

“Their leader [played by the similarly small but scrappy Leo Gorcey] was named ‘Muggs.’ I liked that. A nickname means you’re someone in neighborhood and I wanted to be the leader of my guys, too.”

In his book, Bogues recalls the fun Charlotte squads of the mid-’90s. He also recalls starring in Space Jam with Michael Jordan, the current owner of Hornets, where the popular Bogues serves as a team ambassador. At 57, he says the memoir “is about relationships.”

Among those relationships are the bonds with his rec center mentors, his teammates at every step, including Lewis, the former Celtic star who died at 27 of a congenital heart disorder, and a close older brother, who struggled with addiction, as did his father. There is his first basketball rival, his older sister Sherron, who starred at Dunbar ahead of him, and his mother, both now deceased like his father—the book includes an entire chapter titled “Grief”—and his wife, Kim. The couple divorced and then, 10 years after separating, remarried in 2015.

They met during a Dunbar alumni game when Bogues was home on break from Wake Forest. Kim attended with a girlfriend who was dating one of his former teammates, but to this day, they have very different memories of their meeting. His wife claims she’d never heard of him and he still doesn’t believe her. She didn’t care that he was short, Bogues adds with a chuckle; she tells people she walked out on their first date because “my head was too big.”

Basketball fans might expect an autobiography by a 10-time NBA All-Star and three-time Olympic gold medalist to celebrate a career highlight or two. At least note them, right? That’s not the book Carmelo Anthony has written with D. Watkins, both of whom grew up in Baltimore on the city’s basketball courts and streets.

Instead, the 37-year-old Los Angeles Lakers star, with the help of the New York Times best-selling author, chronicles his first 19 years in a raw, compelling coming-of-age story set largely around Baltimore’s rec centers, schools, and the former Murphy Homes public housing project. Hoops fans, but more so Baltimoreans, shouldn’t miss Where Tomorrows Aren’t Promised as Anthony recounts weaving his way through poverty, family addiction, guns, and his own unresolved pain.

We interviewed Anthony and Watkins by email about the well-received book, which was released last week.

In many ways, this is a real Baltimore book. Readers from the city are going to appreciate it like no one else. What made you decide to focus on your years coming up—and not, say, your NBA career?
Carmelo Anthony: Everyone knows my NBA career, but what most people don’t know is how I came to be the person I am today, and that all starts at my roots. But I know my story is one I think will resonate with many people, especially those who were also raised in Baltimore and similar communities. I wouldn’t be the man you know today without the experiences I had in Baltimore and the people I grew up with there. I hope that my story not only inspires others to look at their own lives and realize they aren’t defined by their circumstances, but also encourages people with different upbringings to understand how circumstances can shape our view of the world. That’s why this story is important to tell, now more than ever.

D. Watkins: Melo really wanted to focus on everything he had to overcome just to be able to step onto the basketball court, and I think a lot of people don’t get that. Most of the standout talent, and future NBA players are allowed to only focus on basketball from as young as the age of five, but Melo had to survive Baltimore first…There’s currency in what he overcame. He’s proud of what he has accomplished, and he wants young people, from places like Baltimore, who are having a tough time to be able to dream.

Carmelo, you lost your father and then your stepfather. You talk about not having the mental health resources you needed to deal with the depression and trauma you faced as a teenager in Baltimore.
CA: For generations, people in my community were taught to never show vulnerability, that emotion was a weakness. It’s just how life was, and I’ve never held any resentment towards the community that raised me. I know I [developed] a certain toughness in me because of it, and I have my fair share of scars, but I’m glad my son doesn’t have to grow up like that and feels comfortable talking things out when he needs to. We’re always learning, always growing, and the more we talk about mental health in society, the better the generations that come after us will be because of it.

How did you guys get together to do this book?
DW: Melo’s agent at CAA was going sign me a long time ago but we never really did a deal––then when this opportunity came. I believe it went to Wesley Lowery from 60 Minutes first. Lowery thought the project was a great idea, but felt the best person to write the book was me. And Melo’s agent was like, “Oh! I know that guy!” I was truly honored, because I have been a fan of Melo and Lowery for a really long time.

Carmelo, what does being selected as the inaugural Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion honoree this year mean to you
CA: It was incredibly humbling, and one of the proudest achievements of my career. Kareem is such a legend both on and off the court, and his drive to fight for equality and positive change is beyond inspiring. It’s our hope that this award inspires action, as it is up to each and every one of us to do our part to create a future for the next generation where everyone is accepted for who they are, regardless of skin tone, gender, sexuality, religion, or income level.

What did you take away from guest editing Slam magazine’s Social Justice issue in 2020?
CA: For me, guest-editing the Social Justice issue was a very moving experience. I really wanted to take the gloves off with this issue, and it was important for me to use this platform to shed light on the injustices taking place and how we can find solutions to move forward. From front to back, we wanted the entire issue to make a powerful statement. It highlighted the men, women, and children who are leading the fight against discrimination, and paid homage to those who are currently doing the work to shift our culture towards equality in every corner.

It was also important to celebrate the men, women, and children who are trailblazing across the landscape of sports. It was an especially meaningful opportunity because my son joined me on the cover to represent the future.

Why does Baltimore produce so many great ballplayers? What’s special about this city, in terms of basketball?
DW: Baltimore is just the toughest city in America. And that crosses over into everything, our chefs are tough, our dancers are tough––some of our teachers, the good ones are like gladiators. So you better believe then if a person is good at basketball, then being from Baltimore is going to turn them into a great.

University of Maryland sophomore Jalen Smith, the 19-year-old former Mount St. Joseph’s star, typed out a message yesterday in an attempt to process the shocking news he’d just learned.

March Madness, the whole thing, cancelled.

It is, and the feeling applies to a lot of us at this point.

As novel coronavirus fears and prevention measures sweep the country, the NCAA—the national governing body of college athletics—made the unprecedented move on Thursday to cancel the 68-team men’s basketball tournament as part of a decision to end competitions in all spring sports.

It’s the first time in the 80-year history of the bracket-busting tournament that it won’t be played—and the news came quick. On Wednesday, it was announced March Madness games would be played without fans, which was weird enough to think about.

A day later, hundreds of thousands of college kids like Smith were digesting a sudden end to their seasons, and their entire playing careers, in some cases, like Terps senior captain Anthony Cowan, Jr. And Smith, too. He might test the NBA waters and enter the draft.

Business as usual in the U.S. is suspended for the time being. Many government officials have taken measures to limit public gatherings in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19—for which there’s no vaccine and specifically impacts those over the age of 60 and those with underlying medical conditions.

That goes for events like weddings, court trials, conferences, and schools. After the Big Ten conference cancelled the rest of its spring seasons earlier on Thursday, Maryland coach Mark Turgeon released a statement saying that “the health and safety of our student athletes and entire program is paramount. This is an unprecedented situation that is much bigger than basketball.”

It sure is. In the local sports world alone, Orioles opening day, as directed by Major League Baseball, has been pushed back for at least two weeks. Spring training games in Florida have been cancelled, though the team will still practice and continue precautions they began last week.

And the postseason hopes of teams from colleges like Maryland, Loyola, Johns Hopkins, Towson and many others are now over before players even took the field. Same goes in the ranks of public schools throughout the state, which will be closed for at least the next two weeks.

Mancini has tumor removed; Awaits test results

Meanwhile, all the coronavirus news has overshadowed another big piece of news with the Orioles this week.

Trey Mancini, the team’s most established figure and a fan-favorite, had surgery yesterday to remove a malignant tumor from his colon. He expects lab results back next week, and there’s no timetable for a recovery yet. He left the team last week after a colonoscopy revealed the tumor.

Mancini, 27, shared his thanks with everyone who sent messages and notes of encouragement. “The outpouring of love and support I have received has made an extremely tough week so much better,” he said. “I have the best family, friends, fans, and teammates imaginable.”

Yanda retires from the Ravens

Finally, longtime Ravens offensive lineman and potential future Hall-of-Famer Marshal Yanda formally announced his retirement—and look, his buddy Joe Flacco returned to Owings Mills for the press conference at the Ravens practice facility…

The Ravens have already announced that Yanda will be inducted into the team’s Ring of Honor at M&T Bank Stadium. Until then, we’ll remember the scene of the grizzled, sweaty, and frustrated 13-year-pro in the Ravens’ locker room after their shocking early playoff exit against the Tennessee Titans in January. That showed the type of person he is.

Yanda was adamant at calling out Titans rookie defensive lineman Jeffery Simmons for allegedly spitting in Yanda’s face during the game. “I just want to put him on notice in the media,” Yanda said. “I’ve never done this in my career, but I just wanted to let you know there’s a right way and a wrong way to play football, and that guy did not do it the right way today.”

Turns out the notice was a parting gift.

This time of year, sports fans typically have three things on the brain: basketball, brackets, and booze. As March Madness gets underway, tons of neighborhood bars are offering discounted eats and drinks during tournament games. So polish up your bracket, throw on a jersey, and take advantage of these specials while seeing how your bets play out. (To find the best spots to cheer on your alma mater, check out our Ultimate Sports Bar Guide.)

Delia Foley’s: Immediately after this Irish pub—also a popular University of Michigan hangout—winds down from its St. Patrick’s Day shenanigans, it’s rolling right into March Madness. From March 18-20, the first 64 people to purchase a Miller Lite pitcher will be randomly picked and entered into a special Delia Foley’s bracket. Prizes will be given out to the elite eight, final four, and grand prize bracket winner. Beyond that, there will also be game-day beer and food specials during every matchup. 1439 S. Charles St. 443-682-9141

Five & Dime Ale House: Hampden locals will be heading to this sports bar on the Avenue to tune in while tipping back $3 Bud Light, Miller Lite, and Michelob Ultra bottles. Other noteworthy discounts include 16-oz. pours of Oliver Brewing’s Balls to the Wall IPA and Founders’ Solid Gold lager for $4. Plus, there will be extra food and drink deals if your team happens to be playing during happy hour. 901 W. 36th St. 443-835-2179

Il Palio: If you need a spot to cheer on your team from Owings Mills, this Italian restaurant in Foundry Row is offering all-day happy hour specials at the bar. Gather around one of the three massive screens to enjoy half-price appetizers, beer, select cocktails, and wines by the glass throughout the final game on April 8. 10090 Reisterstown Rd., Owings Mills. 888-456-3463

Johnny’s: This Roland Park mainstay is getting creative with a basketball-inspired menu offered throughout the tournament. Watch all of the action unfold while sipping specialty cocktails like the “Alley-Oop” (Natty Boh, cointreau, housemade lemonade, and ginger beer) and the “Slam Dunk,” which mixes Woodford Reserve with vermouth, Campari, and blood orange juice. The snacks also stay on theme, with featured “baskets” of mac-and-cheese balls, crab balls, and cauliflower-potato balls drizzled with ranch and Old Bay Buffalo sauces. 4800 Roland Ave. 410-773-0777

Mt. Washington Tavern: All of the bars inside this multi-level Mt. Washington bar will be cracking open $2 Narragansett cans and pouring $6 Tito’s drinks to celebrate the games. Additionally, fans will be able to choose from a selection of $4 small plates like cheese curds, pretzels with beer cheese, boneless wings, and nachos with pico, queso, and guacamole. 5700 Newbury St. 410-367-6903

The Red Star Charles Village: Johns Hopkins students and Charles Village locals will be making this neighborhood spot their headquarters for NCAA games. Catch every upset and buzzer beater on one of the many screens while sipping $5 pints at the bar. There will also be daily food specials (you can’t go wrong with the cheesy crab dip), and a fun beer bracket challenge to see which of Red Star’s 16 top-ranked beers reigns supreme. Local favorites like Union and Monument City will face off against domestics including Bell’s Brewery and Brooklyn Brewery. 3224 St. Paul St. 443-948-9539

If anyone is wondering what life is like for the UMBC men’s basketball program—coming up on one year after its star turn as America’s favorite underdog—just know that it’s still pretty great.

Last night, on their suburban Baltimore campus, when the Retrievers faced America East rival Vermont, the UMBC athletic department proclaimed it Fortnite Night. Of course they did. It was an ode to senior forward Nolan Gerrity’s proclamation last year that 16th-ranked UMBC beating No. 1 Virginia in the NCAA tournament was akin to winning in the massively popular, last-person-standing concept video game.

And so the roughly 2,000 people that showed up to the UMBC Event Center on Thursday night received a beautifully detailed themed poster, complete with the university’s mascot, True Grit, hanging from a helicopter. Gerrity said he wanted to go home with 10 of the giveaways, and he wasn’t the only one. “Obviously, we love Fortnite,” junior Arkel Lamar said afterward.

Plus, the players are also talking about March again, as in what they can do for an encore to last spring’s Cinderella story that brought them, and their relatively small and very smart research university in Catonsville, unexpected and exceptional national recognition. Because let it be known: The men’s basketball team from University of Maryland Baltimore County, or U Must Be Cinderella, is still winning.

With an impressive 65-56 victory over visiting and league-leading Vermont on Thursday night, a rematch of the game that sparked 2018’s magical run, the lovable Retrievers have won nine of their last 10 games, a remarkable feat considering they lost starting forward Daniel Akin to a season-ending knee injury just a month ago, and that was after they’d lost five of their previous eight games dating back to mid-December. And, you know, it’s also harder now that everybody knows who they are. The proverbial target is on their backs, along with jersey numbers and last names.

But UMBC hasn’t lost it charm, even in its $85 million athletic facility and led by a coach, Ryan Odom, who doubled his salary after pulling the strings on last March’s madness. After Thursday’s game, each member of the team circled the courtside seats and front rows of the stands, slapping hands and fist bumping supporters with personal thanks. At halftime, Odom’s kids shot baskets on the court, then his youngest son, Owen, joined the boisterous student section behind one of the baskets for the second half while his older brother, Connor, a sophomore basketball player at the renowned Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, sat behind the UMBC bench.

Four rows up at center court, Odom’s dad, the former Wake Forest and South Carolina coach Dave, sat with family members that twisted with the emotions of every play on the court, up to final-minute free-throws. True Grit sprinted around the court in a No. 50 jersey to pump up fans. The women’s lacrosse and swimming and diving teams threw out free T-shirts during television breaks because the game was shown live to a national audience on ESPNU. A white, gold, and black banner—#16 UMBC-74, #1 Virginia 54—hangs from the ceiling of UMBC’s arena.

And post-game, in a media room that contained just six reporters and one university-issue video camera, Odom said proudly, “This team just keeps playing. They’re resilient, and guys continue to make plays. . . . They listen. They’re coachable kids. They’re all great kids.”

While the two primary faces of last year’s history-making team, Jairus Lyles and K.J. Maura, are no longer in uniform, there’s still a few players left over, most notably graduate student (in data science) Joe Sherburne. The forward is this year’s leading scorer and rebounder and just plain looks like a calming agent in what can otherwise be a chaotic chess match on the court. Gerrity, a “management of aging studies” major is back, too, as is Lamar, who had 10 rebounds on the big stage against Virginia a season ago. And there’s new names and faces that, if the Retrievers are able to win the America East tournament once again, might also become popular across CBS broadcasts next month. Like London native R.J. Eytle-Rock, point guard K.J. Jackson, and junior guard Ricky Council II, a transfer from Providence.

The Retrievers have a solid nine-man rotation that gets contributions from each piece in various ways, be it Lamar making a steal and throwing down a thunderous dunk Thursday night that gave UMBC a 42-33 lead with about 13 minutes left, and got the crowd off its feet for the first time. Or, a few minutes later, Lamar hitting a three-pointer that made it 51-41, and slapping an unrestrained high five with Sherburne at mid-court, again getting the crowd going. Or Jackson hitting a three-pointer as the shot clock expired to make it 59-48 with 3:39 left, that essentially sealed the win, or one-shotted it, in Fortnite lingo. Jackson had a game-high 18 points and three assists, Lamar had 15 points, Eytle-Rock had 10, and Sherburne, quietly, led with six rebounds. Council had nine points off the bench.

Overall, the team’s identity centers around defense, a stamp that began to be impressed after back-to-back losses at Hartford and UMass-Lowell the second week of January and helped Thursday when Sherburne and others got in foul trouble early and sat on the bench. That means generally gritty work like rebounds, steals, and blocks turn into points. “The coaches just really didn’t let us make excuses,” said Jackson, a junior from Houston. “We responded to that well, not giving in, not allowing ourselves to be any less than we could be. We have a standard and we’re destined to meet it every single time out.”

Sure, “Neither team could win the championship tonight . . . It comes down to March,” as Odom said Thursday. “We don’t have it figured it out. We’re trying to continue to figure it out, every game and every practice.” But the result was an important, big-picture marker. UMBC, as a program, had lost 23 straight games to mid-major power Vermont before Lyles’ buzzer-beater in the 2018 America East conference title game (the only real way for them to make the big NCAA tournament via a conference champion automatic qualifying bid). Now UMBC has beaten them three times in a row, after also winning on the road a month ago.

With the latest victory, UMBC moved into second place in the America East standings, clinched a conference postseason tournament home game, and improved its overall record to 18-10 with only three games left in the regular season. That’s called heating up in a Fortnite Battle Royale, if you ask them, and at the most wonderful time of the year.

“As it gets closer to March, we’re always excited,” Lamar said, speaking like the veteran he is. “The thought of going dancing is unbelievable.”

They haven’t lost since before Christmas.
A few weeks might not seem like a long time in the grand scheme of things, but consider that the University of Maryland men’s basketball team has played and won six games since December 22, when they last lost, by four points to Seton Hall. Coach Mark Turgeon’s bunch has won 15 games this season and lost just three, beaten four projected NCAA tournament teams this month, and could jump into second place in the Big Ten conference standings this weekend.

“This team is doing amazing things,” Turgeon said after the latest win, a 74-70 thriller over Wisconsin on Monday night. And that was a few hours after the Terps entered the latest Associated Press national Top 25 poll, with a ranking of No. 19, their highest of the season.

So, in short, it’s time to start paying attention to the basketball happening in College Park. Their next game is at 6:30 tonight at Ohio State, available to watch on Fox Sports 1, followed by a bigger one Monday night at No. 6 Michigan State.

There’s the Big Three.
One goes by Bruno, and the others are freshman forward and Mount Saint Joseph’s alum Jalen Smith, and junior guard Anthony Cowan, Jr., from Bowie. In basketball, it often beneficial to have a Big Three, to make it that much harder for opponents to defend you, and Maryland has a talented trio.

Angola native and 6-foot-10, 240-pound sophomore Bruno Fernando is the reigning national player of the week and is averaging 14.6 points and 9.9 rebounds. He also seems to have a good head on his big shoulders for a college kid, tweeting things about integrity, being blessed, and great team wins.

Meanwhile, the 6-foot-10, 215-pound Smith, the two-time Maryland Gatorade Player of the Year as a junior and senior at Mt. St. Joe, has made an instant impact in his first year, averaging 12 points and seven rebounds.

And the guy with the hottest hand of late is Cowan, the Terps’ leading scorer with almost 18 points per game. He’s got Gary Williams’ seal of approval. Cowan has scored at least 20 in the last three games, and isn’t afraid of taking the big shot. His winner on Monday night was Melo Trimble 2.0. We could watch this four-second clip from 105.7 The Fan’s Joe Schiller all day long:

Free tickets for government employees was a great call.
The Maryland athletic department recently offered free tickets to federal government employees affected by the current government shutdown, and 747 people took them up on the deal by attending either the Terps’ women’s game last Saturday or the men’s game Monday. “This was a great chance to have a family outing, relieve some stress, and watch a great basketball game,” Therman Hawkins Jr., who attended Monday with his wife and 14-year-old son, told Maryland’s athletics website.

The way negotiations in D.C. are going (in the last two days Baltimore native Nancy Pelosi called for the postponement of the State of the Union address; the president, in turn, cancelled her trip to the Middle East to visit U.S. troops), Maryland might need to re-up the ticket offer for their next home game in eight days.

Bracket projections have UMD in the NCAA tournament.
When it comes time to fill out an office bracket for March Madness, oftentimes you’ll do just as well by picking teams whose uniforms you like rather than doing any serious research. In any case, it’s usually easier, and more fun, to pick a school that you’ve at least heard of. Need say we say more than UMBC, 2018?

Current bracket projections (yes, there are already these things) have the Terps as high as a No. 4 seed, meaning prognosticators think they’re one of the top 16 teams in the nation. Keep this up and Maryland alums will have a reason to call out sick to work in a few months to watch the Terps’ first-round tournament game.

To paraphrase Will Ferrell’s zany character in Zoolander (Are we dating ourselves? No one on the current team has probably ever seen the movie), the Terps are so hot right now. Jump on the bandwagon before it’s too late, and it looks like you’re simply a fair-weather fan in March.

No one from Baltimore can explain what it’s like to play, and excel, in the NCAA men’s basketball championship game better than Phil Booth. With Villanova’s 79-62 win over Michigan last Monday night, in front of 67,000-plus fans in San Antonio and millions more watching on TV, the Mount Saint Joseph’s alum became one of just 31 modern-era players to win multiple national titles, both of his coming in the last three years. And he’s still got one college season to go.

So, what’s it really like? All those people. All that attention. March Madness bracket winners depending on your every move. And even that weird elevated court, with the benches dug out along the sideline like a baseball stadium, designed so the well-paying fans in the first few rows can get a clear view of the action. 

“Yeah, you’re afraid of falling off [the court],” Booth said with a laugh this week from Villanova’s campus outside Philadelphia. “You just try to stay as focused as you can. There’s a lot of stuff going on, playing on that type of court in front of that many people. There’s a lot of media, a lot of questions every day about your team and yourself. A lot of people texting your phone when you’re advancing. You really just have to try to focus on what you need to do to win the game.” 

He’s used to that. At Mount Saint Joseph’s, Booth won more than 100 games, including 35 his senior season in 2014 en route to the Gaels’ third straight Maryland Catholic League title and the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference championship.

At Villanova, the 6-foot-3 guard in 2016 came off the bench as a sophomore and scored a game-high 20 points in the Wildcats’ title game win over North Carolina. This year, as a redshirt junior team captain, after sitting out last season recovering from a meniscus injury in his left knee and breaking his right (shooting) hand in the middle of this season, missing four weeks, he finished averaging 10 points, 3.2 rebounds and three assists in 33 games. 

“It’s select company when you win two national championships in a three-year period,” longtime Mount Saint Joseph’s coach Pat Clatchey said. “Phil’s been through some injuries. I think when you deal with some adversity and you continue to fight and come out on top, that makes the journey even a little bit more rewarding.”

Indeed, Booth, the son of former Northeast High and Coppin State star Phil Booth Sr. and his wife, Robin, who played at Bowie State, now has ultimate bragging rights in the family and among the Gaels’ alums that train in the offseason in at the school’s new gym in Irvington. That group includes Ohio State senior Kam Williams and St. Bonaventure junior Jalen Adams, who each played in this year’s edition of March Madness. “I guess I do,” Booth said when asked about his status as top dog. And he probably even has the edge over Will Thomas, who in 2006 helped mid-major Cinderella George Mason to the final four, and Henry Sims, who played at Georgetown and four years in the NBA, though maybe not Jalen Smith, the Maryland commit who led the program to 31 wins this year and was the school’s first McDonald’s All-American, considered the highest individual honor you can get in high school basketball. 

After the last time Booth won a national championship (which is a nice thing to be able to say, isn’t it?), Clatchey treated his former star to a BBQ lunch when he returned home. “How would you like to take a national champion to lunch?” Booth texted his coach then. This year, during his next break from school — he’s on track to graduate with a communications degree this spring—Clatchey said he’ll take Booth to dinner, “maybe a little bit more expensive restaurant this time. I might have to start saving my quarters.”

“Upgrade to dinner?” Booth said when relayed the message. “That sounds good.”

Booth has one more year of eligibility left, so he’ll be back at Villanova next year. The defending champs are expected to be ranked in the preseason top-five. Booth will be a team leader once again, and has his sights set on a basketball career beyond college, too. “I want to play as long as I can,” he said. That way he can tell us all what it’s like to win wherever he ends up.

It was fun while it lasted, this Cinderella story that was quickly written but will long be remembered. 

“Our students have already won,” UMBC president Freeman Hrabowski said Sunday afternoon, a few hours before the men’s basketball team that two days earlier launched the Catonsville university into the national consciousness played an unlikely second game in this year’s NCAA tournament, “and for the rest of their lives and for the rest of UMBC’s existence, and that’s forever, we will be known as the institution that made history.” 

That, of course, happened Friday night, when the Retrievers trended all over social media while becoming the first 16-seed to ever upset a No. 1 in the first round of the annual rite of spring known as March Madness. They did it by 20 points no less against the tournament’s top overall seed, Virginia. 

Just by having a reason to throw on their gold and black jerseys again Sunday for a second-round game against ninth-seeded Kansas State meant UMBC—U Must Be Cinderella, the University of Millions of Brackets Crushed, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County—had accomplished something that never had been done before.

Second-year coach Ryan Odom’s 15 Retrievers (of the Chesapeake Bay variety, as the nation learned this weekend) nearly extended the fairytale another week. They scrapped and clawed and willed their way against another major conference power for two-plus hours Sunday night, in what was a one-point game with less than six minutes left, but ultimately fell, 50-43.   

You wouldn’t have known the outcome afterward looking at Hrabowski, who was all smiles as he absorbed a hug from UMBC’s anthropomorphic, fuzzy brown mascot, True Grit, and led cheers in front of the small section of fans inside the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. Instead of heading to the locker room, the team saluted their family, friends and faithful, too.

It seemed a lifetime of memories were made in a three-day span. The feel-good story. National attention. Free publicity. It’s what any relatively small public institution like the one located just off the Beltway southwest of the city, known more for its academics than athletics, dreams about. Just think, anyone who Googled enough or heard by word of mouth, could have learned the life story of the 52-year-old institution, its men’s basketball players, and staff. 

There was a first-person story written by Hrabowski on Sunday, which outlined the big picture and filled in the details. The university’s birth in 1963, as a school that would serve students of all races during a time when much of America was still segregated. The contributions of philanthropist Robert Meyerhoff to the cause. And the fact that school, population 14,000, is now is a top producer of African-American graduates who go on to earn PhDs in the sciences, and is the leading producer of ones who go on to earn MD-PhDs. 

There was the measured head coach Ryan Odom, who looked somehow like he had been here before. The son of former Wake Forest head coach, Dave, who was also a former Virginia assistant, was a ballboy for the Cavaliers when his father worked in Charlottesville. The 43-year-old inherited a program that went 9-51 the two years before his arrival and he’s now one of the hottest coaching commodities in the nation after leading a pair of 20-plus win seasons.

There were plenty of other articles in various outlets written about star Jairus Lyles, explaining his roundabout journey to suburban Baltimore by way of Virginia Commonwealth and Robert Morris universities. After being courted by big conference programs after last season, he elected to stay at UMBC and pursue a master’s degree, earning a 4.0 grade point average in the fall. 

There was the jubilant, unreal scene in the post-game locker room on late Friday night, after Lyles led the upset with 28 points, where a few bench players shared how the video game Fortnite may have partially inspired the historic victory. The team didn’t get back to its Holiday Inn hotel until 5 a.m., but when they did a welcome crew awaited. And so did the unexpected need to do laundry for a second and third day in town.

There were athletic communications staffer Zach Seidel’s tweets heard round the world. Followers of @UMBCAthletics now number more than 110,000, a 1,700% increase from tipoff of Friday night’s game.

And there was tiny point guard K.J. Maura. “I’m 5-foot-7 on a good day,” he told the media more than once. He well represented his home country of Puerto Rico and whose father celebrated his son by hoisting an oversized cardboard cutout of his Under Armour head-banded noggin for two games straight.

“I wrote one word on the board [in the locker room] about how I felt about them and it was proud,” Odom said Sunday night. “This was just really special.” It was a short story, yes, but an unforgettable one.

Looking back on it, maybe we should have seen the greatest upset in college basketball history coming. After all, how great is this? As the TNT broadcast crew told a national television audience afterward: “UMBC: U Might Be Cinderella.” 

The 15 members of the men’s basketball team from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County—as we’ve long known the school as—stunned the sports world, busted brackets across America, and sent Twitter into a frenzy.

The relatively tiny public research university in Catonsville of 14,000 students, recognized more for its science, tech, and engineering programs than anything else before Friday, will now be associated with something much different for as long as the memories of the historic night exist.

Like these…

In an unforgettable and surprisingly dominant performance, second-year coach Ryan Odom’s Retrievers, who got into the NCAA tournament on a last-second shot in the America East title game last Saturday, followed that up with an upset of the 68-team national bracket’s No. 1 overall seed Virginia, 74-54, in a first-round game in Charlotte, North Carolina.

UMBC became the first 16-seed to ever beat a No. 1 in a NCAA men’s tournament, in 136 such games played, and will now face Kansas State in the Round of 32 on Sunday. 

“It’s just amazing,” play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz said in the waning moments when it became clear the Retrievers would win, after yet another bucket by star graduate student guard Jairus Lyles, who finished with 28 points, coming in a variety of ways, while fighting through cramps in the second half. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

By that time, UMBC had already broken parts of the internet (including its own), as people from around the country looked for more information on the school with a four-letter acronym that was about to make history…

It’s hard to believe it all just happened. The game was tied at 21 before the Retrievers pulled away in the second half. Lyles scored 23 of his 28 points after halftime, and shot 9-for-11 overall.

Like him, the UMBC Athletics official Twitter account was a star of the evening, going from less than 6,000 followers before the game to more than 30,000 in the 30 minutes after. Whoever thumbed replies throughout the game to curious strangers and sports journalists alike did so with a healthy dose of hardscrabble sass.

As we said with a smidge less snark in a preview of the game on Thursday, when out-of-towners ask about the school, just say it’s University of Maryland-Baltimore County, of course. 

Now there’s another name in play—that Cinderella one. How crazy, how unlikely, how fun. How long will the story continue?

From the last-second shot that sent them to the NCAA tournament and their university president’s bromance with their star player Jairus Lyles, to the school’s acronym that might make a few people wonder, “What’s that?” when they see it on screen Friday night, and even the program’s Chesapeake Bay retriever mascot, True Grit, the UMBC men’s basketball team has a bit of that lovable underdog feeling around it right now.
 

Dare we say, Cinderella?
 

There’s only one men’s team from the Baltimore area, and all of Maryland and Washington, D.C., participating in March Madness this year (if you’re reading this it means you’re late filling out your office bracket), and it is the UMBC Retrievers, who started the craziness early by shocking favorited Vermont in the America East title game Saturday. Lyles, a Silver Spring native and a graduate student at UMBC, drained a 23-footer with 0.6 seconds left to complete the 65-62 comeback win.
 

The reward? The conference title, which gave mid-major UMBC its first NCAA tournament spot since 2008, in just head coach Ryan Odom’s second season.  

But that achievement also brought with it a David vs. Goliath task: a first-round match-up with the 68-team bracket’s No. 1 overall seed, Virginia, in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Cavaliers, the ACC champs with a 31-2 record, are expected to win by 21 points, according to the Las Vegas sports books, and they feature the top defense in the nation and potential future NBA talent.
 

“The way we won that game in Vermont was a storybook ending,” Odom said Wednesday. “That’s a lot to digest. We had a lot coming at us. And so I just encouraged the guys that we have to turn the page now. But now we’ve got a massive challenge staring us in the face, and if we don’t prepare the right way, it won’t go well.”
 

A 16-seed has never beaten a No. 1 in the NCAA men’s tournament. Traditionally these types of games have been blowouts. But Virginia coach Tony Bennett (bet he’s never heard a “can he sing?” joke), speaking to reporters this week, didn’t sound as if he found the Retrievers, who went 24-10 this season, a pushover.  

“Good basketball knows no division or limits,” he said. “They can spread the floor and shoot the three [pointer] at a high clip. They’re very versatile and defend solid. They know how to play the game. You watch all that stuff and you’re impressed.”
 

You’ll likely notice the Retrievers do-it-all 5-foot-8 point guard, K.J. Maura. He’s from Puerto Rico and is shortest player ever to win the America East Defensive Player of the Year award. He might need to be aggressive against Virginia’s super-efficient, slow-down offensive style.  

And the 6-foot-2 guard Lyles will look to crack the Cavs’ tough defense. “He’s very quick and dynamic,” Bennett said of the Retrievers’ leading scorer (20.2 points per game). Though sadly the Virginia coach didn’t mention as part of his scouting report the unlikely friendship that Lyles—a 4.0 GPA student pursuing an M.A. in education—has forged with UMBC president Freeman Hrabowski (they text), who probably couldn’t be happier at the moment.  

The 52-year-old public university in Catonsville—well-regarded for its science, tech, and engineering education—has received a generous attention boost this week. And it will get some more exposure, win or lose, on a national platform for roughly two hours Friday night. That’s UMBC, the University of Maryland Baltimore County, of course, if any out-of-towners ask.

Game Time: No. 16 UMBC (24-10) vs. No. 1 Virginia (31-2), Approx. 9:20 p.m. ET Friday
NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, South Region, First Round
TV: TNT
Live Stream: NCAA March Madness Live

Juan Dixon’s title nowadays is Coppin State head men’s basketball coach, but he will forever be known as “former Maryland star,” too. And there was the hero of the Terps’ 2002 national championship team on late Monday night, sitting in sweats on a wooden bench in the visiting locker room at Morgan State’s Hill Field House, munching on a Subway sandwich and chips, voice a little hoarse from a cold. “I’m not feeling too well,” he said, and no doubt the final score from the game that just transpired—Morgan 69, Coppin 56—didn’t help the mood either.

But the 39-year-old Dixon, who is in his first season leading the Coppin program, perked up when asked about the atmosphere Monday. More than 4,000 fans in Morgan’s gym, many waving inflatable thunder sticks. The band rocked. Students danced in the crowd during every timeout of the 89th match-up between the schools.

“It was a great atmosphere,” Dixon told Baltimore. “I loved it. I enjoyed every second of it. I wish our guys would embrace it a little bit more and have fun with it. But it happens. We’re a young team. We’re getting better. This is mostly everyone’s first time experiencing this.”

This was a city rivalry game, played about a 20-minute drive away from home (and where Dixon was born and raised)—in front of a crowd, and against a team, that didn’t forget what happened last time around on Coppin’s West Baltimore campus: an overtime win for Dixon’s crew, one of their only five victories this year.

It wasn’t as close this time. Morgan senior guard Tiwian Kendley scored 27 points Monday, including 20 in the first half as the Bears (11-17, 7-8 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference) built a comfortable lead that grew to 63-39 midway through the second half. Senior forward Phillip Carr added 12 points and 14 rebounds. Junior forward Cedric Council led Coppin (5-25, 5-10 MEAC) with 12 points.

“It was a great team win, a great win for the crowd,” Kendley said.

And much needed. Two days earlier, Morgan coach Todd Bozeman pulled his team from the floor in a game at Hampton University after the coach and forward David Syfax were ejected after multiple technical fouls, and the Bears forfeited. This was Morgan’s first win in two weeks and—heading into its final game of the regular season Thursday at Delaware State and MEAC tournament play, which begins Monday—showed promise for a team that was the conference’s preseason favorite.

Coppin will be in Norfolk, Virginia, for the postseason, too, for a last hurrah in a laying-the-groundwork year under its new coach. The Eagles are expected to return four of their top five scorers, including Baltimore CC transfer forward Chad Andrews-Fulton, and lose only three players from this year’s roster.

“It’s been an up and down season,” said Dixon, who played seven years in the NBA. “But I’m excited about the direction we’re going. Our guys showed that they got better as the year progressed. We’re going to add some pieces next year, bring some guys back, and we look forward to having a much, much better season next year. But we’re still focused on this season. We have one more game against Howard [on Thursday] and we’re confident going into the tournament.”

Juan Dixon had seen enough. It was early November, four days before his undersized Coppin State University men’s basketball team was to begin its season with what was essentially a lambs-to-the-slaughter game at the University of Oregon. Five minutes before practice was supposed to end, Coppin’s first-year coach was so over his players’ whining and complaining that, with a curt shriek of his whistle followed by a few choice words, he kicked them off the court.

Like teenagers (which some of them are) being dismissed from the dinner table for bad behavior, they lowered their heads and quietly shuffled into the locker room. The scene was reminiscent of a tactic another local coach employed more than once, only back then, there was a lot more sweat on the court.

“Juan was a great practice player,” says former University of Maryland coach and prolific perspirer Gary Williams, whose bond with Dixon helped both reach legendary heights in college basketball. “Some guys try to take it easy in practice. Even if it was a two-on-two drill, if [we were] scrimmaging, you better not make calls that hurt his team, because he would get very upset. He knew only one way to play.”

Dixon’s goal is to infuse the grittiness and determination he used to propel himself from a challenging childhood in West Baltimore to the NCAA championship at Maryland into the young, raw Coppin program. It’s a risky marriage for both. Dixon has only one season of head coaching experience, a 3-25 campaign last year with the University of the District of Columbia’s women’s team. Coppin is coming off an 8-24 season and has a roster that includes just two seniors.  
“Right now, I’ve got to be patient and know that things are going to get turned around because of the culture that we’re building,” Dixon says. “All I want from our guys is to give constant effort no matter what the scoreboard says.”

In an ironic twist, Dixon has become a father figure to 13 young men at the same time he’s relearning how to be a son. United with his biological father—whom he didn’t know existed—just 18 months ago, the 39-year-old Dixon is beginning the second act of his life at a time when many men his age are settling into the routine of theirs. Dealing with that avalanche of change won’t be easy, but nothing ever has been for Juan Dixon.

Basketball fans of a certain age have heard the story many times. During Maryland’s Final Four runs in 2001 and 2002, the media eagerly recounted how the Terrapins’ undersized star, Juan Dixon, grew up near Liberty Heights Avenue and Garrison Boulevard as the son of drug-addicted parents who passed away from AIDS when he was a teenager. As far as Dixon knew, it was true.

Phil and Juanita Dixon began dating at a young age, and their relationship was fraught with breakups and makeups. Both were heroin users, and during Juan and his two brothers’ formative years he relied on a network of aunts (including former Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon), uncles, cousins, and friends for support while his parents battled—and ultimately succumbed to—their addictions.

“It was unfortunate circumstances,” Dixon says. “Parents not always being around because of their lifestyle. At times it was rough, but at the same time, I had a loving supportive family of extended relatives who really stepped up when it came to helping us develop as boys into men.”

Coaches played an outsized role in Dixon’s youth, particularly Mark Amatucci at Calvert Hall College High School. There Dixon forged the hard-nosed playing style that ultimately caught the attention of Maryland’s Williams, who fell in love with the wiry guard when he saw him dive for a ball with his team down by 20 points. “That’s when I made up my mind that we wanted him to play for Maryland,” Williams says. “The gym wasn’t air-conditioned, they probably weren’t going to win, and Juan still went after the ball. That convinced me that he was going to outwork some people.”

In College Park, Dixon’s production, if not his six-foot-three-inch stature, grew every year.

“There was never a doubt in his mind as to what he could accomplish,” says his ex-wife Robyn, whom he met in high school. “I always believed in him. But there would be times when I would be like, ‘Okay, do you know you’re 145 pounds?’” He was a beefy 164 when he led Maryland to its first and only men’s basketball national title in 2002. Months later, the Washington Wizards chose him in the first round of the NBA draft, and he had a solid, if not spectacular, career in the league and overseas. In 2010, it was announced that Dixon tested positive for the steroid nandrolone while playing for a Spanish team, and the International Basketball Federation suspended him for a year. He then signed with Banvit in Turkey, where he only played for one season before suffering a knee injury.

“I’ve been through the storm and I’m still trekking through the storm today,” Dixon told University of Maryland’s Capital News Service in 2012. “But I’m working hard every day.”

Dixon took that work ethic and turned his attention to coaching, serving as a special assistant on Mark Turgeon’s staff at Maryland before, according to the university, he and the school mutually parted ways after the 2016 season.
 
“I learned a lot from Coach Turgeon and his staff,” he says. “Recruiting, how to run a program. I appreciate everything he has done for me. But leaving Maryland was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Make that the second best.   
 
On September 1, 2016, two strangers walked into the Bass Pro Shops at Arundel Mills. The moment they laid eyes on one another, they knew it was true. The night before, Dixon had called Bruce Flanigan for the first time. Through a number of only-in-Baltimore coincidences, Dixon had heard that Flanigan believed he was Juan’s father.

“I said, ‘Juan, I don’t know where to begin,’” Flanigan recalls. “Then I told him the whole story.”

In the 1970s, Flanigan dated Dixon’s mother, Juanita, who became pregnant. The two broke up before she had the baby, which she told Flanigan wasn’t his. “I went on with my life,” says Flanigan, now 61. “I got married and raised my family. She went on and did what she had to do. Years went by. Then I started hearing about this guy at Maryland, Juan Dixon, and they kept talking about his mom, Juanita.”

When Flanigan first watched the young Terp play on television, he was struck by the physical resemblance. Although he immediately believed he was Dixon’s father, he held back, paralyzed by guilt at not being there for his son. Plus, he didn’t want the budding superstar to believe he was moving in to take advantage of his fame and impending fortune. But over the ensuing years, rumors began to circulate through the tight-knit West Baltimore community and eventually, the two got in touch.

When they met the day after the phone call, the connection was immediate. “His mannerisms, the way he spoke—I sounded like him,” Dixon says. “I could just tell by being around him, his energy, that he was my dad. It was like 38 years didn’t mean anything.”

They did a DNA test and, within two weeks, it confirmed what they already knew. “When we first connected visually, it was like we had been in each other’s lives from day one—from the time he was born,” Flanigan says. “We didn’t miss a beat. It was like gravity had pulled us together.”

Improbably, the men have forged a rich relationship that’s both father-son and best friend. They text or talk nearly every day, and Flanigan, who lives in Pennsylvania, drives down often to visit his newfound family. Dixon lives with Robyn and their sons Corey, 9, and Carter, 8, in Howard County. As is depicted on the reality show The Real Housewives of Potomac, on which Robyn costars and Juan has occasionally appeared, their relationship is, shall we say, complicated. Married for seven years, they divorced in 2012, but still live together with their kids.

“We truly are a family, no matter what our romantic status is,” Robyn says. “It’s great when you can have a relationship with someone and you want the best for them and you understand that supporting them and being there with them doesn’t just help him, it helps me, it helps my kids, because we’re family.”

Wearing black Nikes, gray sweatpants, and a black-and-yellow long-sleeve Coppin T-shirt, Dixon now actually is sweating as he lingers near the three-point line, taking part in a drill with his team. He’s still lean and fast, and sports the same goatee and short-cropped haircut he wore during his playing days.
Dixon has incredibly big shoes to fill. Ronald “Fang” Mitchell, who left in 2014 after coaching for nearly 30 years at Coppin, brought the team to four NCAA tournaments and won 10 conference titles.

But Coppin athletic director Derek Carter, who hired Dixon in April, says he was captivated by the former guard’s “passion and tenacity.” Being tenacious has always defined Dixon, and he wants it to epitomize his team as well. To him, it means playing suffocating defense and unleashing unwavering effort for all 40 minutes.

Before he prematurely ended that practice in November (“Tell Juan now he knows why I did it to his team,” Williams says), he was relentlessly energetic, clapping his hands emphatically when he felt his players’ focus was waning, pausing drills to point out both positive plays and mistakes, and urging his guys to communicate with and support one another.

“Coach is trying to change the culture,” says senior Tre’ Thomas. “He’s trying to teach us a different kind of basketball.”

On a plane that can’t be measured by wins and losses (Coppin, predictably, dropped its first eight games, all on the road against upper-tier competition), Dixon believes his message is getting through. He was even pleased with his team’s defensive effort in the 16-point loss to Oregon.

Dixon’s life has always centered around defying expectations, giving a team, a player, or a father a second chance.

“I was born and raised five minutes from Coppin, so for me to get this opportunity—we will take advantage of it,” he says. “To be able to drive down Gwynns Falls and pull up to work, it’s a dream come true.”

History to be made at Poly-City game.
On Saturday at M&T Bank Stadium, Jacey Lee, 16, a junior at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, will become the first girl to take the field in the school’s 129-year football rivalry with Baltimore City College. She initially joined Poly’s JV team after her stepbrother invited her to come practice with him, and Lee is the first girl to ever make varsity. Lee is 5-foot-4 and plays defensive tackle. “I like hitting,” she told The Sun. “As soon as I get off, somebody is in my face. I either got to push them, or they push me.”

Joe’s back—again.
It’s hard to believe, but a little over a week since he took a violent hit to the head that left him concussed, Joe Flacco says he’s ready to play Sunday when the Ravens face the Tennessee Titans in Nashville. Flacco went through the NFL’s concussion protocol and was cleared to practice fully on Wednesday, albeit with stitches covered with tape on his left ear, where his helmet was ripped off by Miami Dolphins linebacker Kiko Alonso last Thursday night. Offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg joked with reporters yesterday that Flacco should have used his stitches to scare kids on Halloween. Joe Cool predictably didn’t, but he did post a throwback photo from 1995 in which a Frankenstein did appear.

WWE rolls through Royal Farms.
It’s not really a sport, though maybe there’s still some out there that think pro wrestling is real and not scripted. Anyway, WWE Raw made a stop at Royal Farms Arena on Monday Night. The highlight in wrestling circles was Samoa Joe’s return to the ring, and it seems like everyone had a good time.

Maryland women’s basketball picked second in Big Ten.
What?! The Big Ten coaches and media picked the defending conference champion Terps to finish second in the league, behind Ohio State. Though they might be in a rebuild mode, after losing two All-Americans and seeing a National Freshman of the Year transfer, consider it motivation for one of the area’s top programs in any sport. Maryland begins the season next Friday against Albany.

The Astros give us hope . . .
The smaller-market team formerly known as the Houston “Lastros” (for obvious reasons) won the World Series on Wednesday night in Game 7 against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Three years ago, in a prophetic cover, Sports Illustrated featured eventual World Series MVP George Springer alongside the headline “Your 2017 World Series Champs,” referencing the idea that the Astros were building the game’s “next big thing,” with a blend of old-fashioned scouting and new-age statistical analytics. It might be a bit of a stretch to see our Orioles in the same light, but the Astros should at least give us some inspiration that a championship-caliber team can be built in short time. You heard it here first: O’s in 2020.

And if we needed more optimism and feel good-vibes going into the weekend, Astros shortstop Carlos Correa proposed to his girlfriend Daniella Rodriguez right after his team took the national title. Good luck topping that, every other guy on the planet.

Ravens start off season with Shake Shack and a win.
We’re not quite sure what made bigger headlines this week—the fact that it was the Ravens’ first preseason game or that Shake Shack is coming to M&T Bank Stadium. The New York City-based burger and shake chain, which already has a location in the Inner Harbor, decided that Baltimore will be home to its NFL stadium location. Shake Shack already has locations in Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, the Mets’ Citi Field, and just down 95 at Nationals Park in D.C. “They’re in other stadiums and areas and do very well there,” said Ravens senior VP of stadium operations Roy Sommerhof. “Their burger is a great burger and they have a lot of great options with it.” Though the signature long lines are to be expected, we’ll take a Smoke Shack Burger over chicken tenders any day.

Arguably more important, the Ravens beat the Redskins 23-3 in the first pre-season game of the year last night. It was a good start considering the team didn’t have its franchise quarterback and a couple of starting offensive linemen. According to ESPN, players and coaches alike are hoping that the Ravens can rely on the run game to really move the ball this year, including reinventing some tactics with new senior offensive assistant Greg Roman. “Especially in the running game, you really do not know where you are at until you play somebody else,” coach John Harbaugh said. “It is a point of emphasis. We have been working really hard at it, and I like what we are doing. I like the way it is being coached, and I like the way the guys are working on the drills, and proof will be in the outcome.”

This seems promising, as does the fact that the team restructured cornerback Jimmy Smith’s contract, creating $5.15 million of cap space. Let’s hope that—Kaepernick or no Kaepernick—these are all good signs for the regular season.

Manny Machado, aka Mr. Miami, hits a grand slam.
It’s been an up and down week for the Orioles (who still have a chance to make the playoffs, by the way) but a real highlight was seeing Manny Machado hit a grand slam on Monday night. The seventh-inning bomb led the Orioles to a 6-2 win over the Angels. Though the season started out slow for him, Machado has been on a hot streak since the All-Star break, going 33-for-95 (.347) and homering in back-to-back games. “Things [are] turning out how I want, hits start falling off,” Machado told MLB.com. “I’m getting a little couple cheap hits instead of hard line-outs I’ve gotten in the past. Just trying to continue my routine and hopefully things turn around . . . This has obviously been a learning season for me and I’m going to take everything positively and just learn from this.”

Something we learned this week is that, while there are a lot of common player nicknames on the Orioles (Crush, Tilly), there are many that we didn’t know existed. In honor of the inaugural Players Weekend, Aug. 25-27, all players will wear colorful, non-traditional uniforms featuring alternate designs. Each player picks a nickname for the back of their jerseys and we were certainly impressed with the selection. What’s your favorite? We are partial to Pappo and Cabob.

Maryland women’s basketball team readies for trip to Taiwan.
The World University Games will take place in Taiwan August 19-30 and the Terps women’s basketball squad will be the second college program to be invited in lieu of a hand-picked all-star team. This has given the team a chance to avoid the NCAA’s 40-day practice restriction rule and get to on-court training sessions in College Park earlier than normal. “This international competition is going to be a tremendous head start for us going into the following season,” coach Brenda Frese told University of Maryland newspaper The Diamondback. “You can’t simulate this kind of international competition that we’re going to face . . . I think we’re going to learn a ton about our team, which will prepare us for the upcoming season.” Look out for burgeoning talent in freshman guard Channise Lewis.

Speaking of basketball…
We were so excited that Baltimore Boys, an ESPN “30 for 30” documentary about the phenomenal early ’80s Dunbar basketball team premiered this week. We spoke to co-director and Park Heights native Sheldon Candis about making the film and finally got to see the final result Tuesday. The documentary was an honest look at Baltimore during that time, an emotional chronicle of difficult childhoods and the death of Reggie Leiws, and ultimately a celebration of the Dunbar Poet players and fierce leadership under Coach Bob Wade. 

Just for fun, here’s a highlight video of the incredible 5’3″ Muggsy Bogues doing what he does best.

The early 1980s was a tumultuous time in Baltimore—and paralleled what was happening in a lot of other American cities. Drugs were running rampant, the public health and school systems were failing, and Bethlehem Steel closed down, causing thousands of people to lose their jobs.

But there was a group of young men that found success on the hardwood court of Dunbar High School, and it wasn’t thanks to a big budget or even a proper training center. Despite all odds, they became the greatest high school basketball team of all time. On Tuesday night at 8 p.m., ESPN will air Baltimore Boys as part of its popular “30 for 30” series and chronicle the tale of the Dunbar Poets both on and off the court.

“The best documentaries lead you to an unexpected place,” says co-director and Park Heights native Sheldon Candis. “You think it’s about this great basketball story, which it is, but it also holds a mirror up to American society in the 1980s.”

Candis, 38, said that he’s been waiting a long time to tell this story. The film opens up showing the 1968 riots in Baltimore following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and chronicles the triumphant journey of the Dunbar High School boys basketball team, who went undefeated for 59 straight games between 1981 and 1983. Even more impressive, 11 of the players joined a Division I program and four of those—David Wingate, Reggie Williams, Tyrone “Muggsy” Bogues, and Reggie Lewis—were drafted into the NBA.

“This is really my love letter to the city,” Candis said. “Growing up, we didn’t have to look to Michael Jordan. We had the Poets right in our own backyard.”

Wrangling up former players, family, and supporters of the team presented quite a few challenges, as did finding quality archive footage since the early ’80s was right on the cusp of the handheld video camera. Luckily, two other local filmmakers, Tommy Polley and David Manigault, made a Poets documentary a few years back and had already scoured East Coast news stations to find footage.

“There would be so many moments that people would describe to me or remember in their heads,” Candis said. “But trying to match up and find that footage was a challenging scavenger hunt.”

Shot over a five-month period last year, Baltimore Boys provides some behind the scenes moments from players like Bogues (“he reached genius on the hardwood,” Candis said) to Dunbar coach Bob Wade, who was instrumental in not only coaching, but nurturing his team. At one point, Wade reveals in the documentary that, because his team didn’t have a proper facility or weights, he drove around Baltimore City collecting bricks and had his team practice running with them.

“You better believe that’s why they were the most well-conditioned team in the fourth quarter,” Candis said. “One man’s junk became another man’s treasure.”

As a filmmaker, Candis admits that seeing Coach Wade get emotional during an interview was a highlight for him. The moment comes when he’s talking about having the Dunbar court dedicated to him and he started thinking about every player he coached, fathered, and protected during those years.

“It’s Bob Wade who is the unsung hero that everyone should really rally behind,” Candis said. “I am just some kid from Park Heights that has been lucky enough to share this story with a wider national audience. It’s about time.”

Carmelo Anthony’s heart is still in Baltimore. 
Though he was born, and lives, in New York, Carmelo Anthony still refers to Baltimore as home. It’s the place the 10-time NBA all-star moved to when he was 8 years old and where he spent a good chunk of his formative years on local fields and gyms, eventually growing into one of the most famous athletes to come from the city.

This week, Anthony, 33, returned as honorary chair and host of The Basketball Tournament, a three-day $2 million winner-take-all semipro championship held at Coppin State University. The current New York Knicks forward, who played at Towson Catholic (old photo alert!), sat courtside at the tournament’s ESPN-televised title game on Thursday night, and spoke about Baltimore as if he never left. “It’s a way I can bring something positive to the city,” he said of the event, which included cleanup efforts at 12 sites in the city, free health screenings at Mondawmin Mall, and a job fair at Coppin State. “Sports is a connector in life.” 

The thoughts echoed an emotional speech he gave a day earlier at Marshall Park in West Baltimore, where mayor Catharine Pugh awarded Anthony a medal of honor for service to the community. In April 2015, after Freddie Gray’s death, Anthony joined protestors and urged calm amid the outrage. “What we’re trying to create is so much bigger than the negativity that you guys hear, or see, or read about our city,” he said.

Brandon Williams keeps on dancing.
This time it was against a little girl during the Ravens’ open practice on Sunday at M&T Bank Stadium

“What did you think of the dance contest? Kid or Brandon, who won?” Ravens coach John Harbaugh asked reporters afterward.
You might remember Williams’ moves (nimble for a 340-pound defensive lineman, isn’t he?) from a locker room video that impressed the Rockettes two years ago, or him doing the “Carlton”  while on promotional tour in London.

This was a nice distraction from Joe Flacco being hurt (along with seemingly a dozen other injured Ravens) before the season’s even started. And, if nothing else, the impromptu dance-off made for a great first use of the stadium’s new and massive 4K scoreboards.

O’s don’t give up the fight.
The Orioles front office apparently had higher expectations for the rest of this season than we imagined. Instead of trading closer Zach Britton or relief pitcher Brad Brach and for pieces that could help in future years—as were widely rumored as possibilities—the O’s turned into buyers at the Major League Baseball trade deadline—and aren’t giving up on the playoffs.

They got a starting pitcher, Jeremy Hellickson, from the Phillies and a former No. 1 overall draft pick, 27-year-old shortstop Tim Beckham, from the Tampa Bay Rays. Beckham’s started his O’s career with a pair of multi-hit games, and on Wednesday night Hellickson delivered what the team desperately needed, a quality start, as he led the Birds to a fifth straight win and to within 2.5 games of a playoff spot. After a loss Thursday night to Detroit, the O’s are now 3.5 games out. “I’d like this season to go to the end of the year,” GM Dan Duquette said. Thankfully, maybe October baseball isn’t as far off as we thought.

Under Armour lays off close to 300 employees.
About half the layoffs, announced Tuesday by Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank, were effective immediately to employees at the company’s Locust Point headquarters, a distribution center in Curtis Bay, an outlet store near that warehouse, and Under Armour’s store in Harbor East. It’s part of what the company described as a restructuring in the wake of a second straight quarterly loss ($12 million). The footwear and apparel giant is cutting 2 percent of its worldwide workforce, or roughly 280 people. “After six and a half years of more than 20 percent growth, we are clearly operating in a different environment, especially in North America,” Plank said on an earnings’ conference call. Various financial media delved deep into the details of why things aren’t going so well but, in short, this hits home.

Lone Orioles All-Star Jonathan Schoop is bright spot for team.
This has been a rough first half of the Orioles season, to say the least. As we head into the All-Star break, the Orioles have a record of 40-45, a starting pitcher ERA of 8.66 in the month of July, and are averaging 3.25 runs per game this month—the worst run differential in the American League.

But we here at Baltimore magazine are optimists so, through our rose-colored glasses, we see that Jonathan Schoop was selected to play in his first All-Star Game on July 11 at Marlins Park in Miami. The second baseman, who leads the Orioles with 51 RBIs and 16 home runs, was selected by the MLB to be an AL reserve and becomes the fourth player from Curacao to become an  All-Star.

“I’m excited, happy,” Schoop told The Sun. “My head is spinning everywhere right now. I’ll just go in there and try to enjoy it . . . All I know since I was a kid was playing baseball. It was tough times for me to go through all this and now I’m an All-Star.”

Of course, his baseball BFF Manny Machado couldn’t contain his excitement either, and said he’s already offered to host Schoop and his family while they’re in Miami for the game. 

“To finally see what he’s turning into as a player, it’s unbelievable to watch,” Machado said. “His game has gone to another level and finally other players and teams and coaches are seeing it . . . words can’t describe how happy I am for him.”

Cue the chorus of awes. 

Plus, Britton is back!
Is it just us or does it seem like a lot of our problems can be traced back to May 5 when closer Zach Britton was put on the 60-day disabled list with a strained left forearm. Up until then, the closer had recorded a save in all five chances with a 1.00 ERA.

Though Buck Showalter says he’s easing him back into the ninth inning, things are looking promising as Britton pitched a scoreless seventh on Wednesday against the Brewers. And, clearly, fans are excited, too.

Swimmer Chase Kalisz dominates in 400-meter IM at Nationals.
Cheering on a local swimmer comes naturally to us, which is why we were so excited to see Bel Air native Chase Kalisz dominate in the 400-meter individual medley at the National Championships this past week. The 2016 Olympic silver medalist—who trained with the North Baltimore Aquatic Club—clocked in a winning time of 4:06.99—the fastest in the world this year.

All of this is fuel for Kalisz’s next big goal—the Olympics Games Tokyo in 2020.

“I’m really happy with that progress,” Kalisz told TeamUSA.org. “I tell people all the time that the best thing that happened to me for this four-year period was me getting silver. It motivates me every single day.”

Dunbar alum Jamel Artis shines in Knicks Summer League.
Though he was undrafted in the two-round selection process, Dunbar alum Jamel Artis is hoping to change is his story in the New York Knicks Summer League team in Orlando. In the team’s first three summer games, he has averaged nine points in under 18 minutes a game. Though he’s a swingman, Artis is playing mostly at forward and made five of 12 3-pointers.

“I’m in a good position right now with the Knicks,” told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I’m in a great position, actually. I can only be thankful and grateful for the position I’m in now. I’ve just got to go out there and play hard.”

The Boys of Dunbar

Alejandro Danois (Simon & Schuster)

The 1981-82 Dunbar High School Poets hold a remarkable achievement—four of the legendary basketball team’s stars went on to the NBA. Teammates including Reggie Williams and Muggsy Bogues displayed resilience and drive, along with undeniable talent, as they were from some of Baltimore’s poorest neighborhoods. Danois, who is editor-in-chief of the sports website The Shadow League, struggles with a consistent narrative, but does an excellent job bringing us behind the scenes with fabulous insight from the Poets themselves and their coach Bob Wade. Ultimately, they show us what true strength and gumption look like.

The Life of Kings

Edited by Frederic B. Hill and Stephens Broening (Rowman & Littlefield)

The Baltimore Sun has weathered much during its nearly 180-year history—including its 1986 sale to the Times Mirror company, and the shuttering of The Evening Sun in 1995. Through good times and bad, it produced excellent journalism, and this collection of personal essays takes us back to some of those times. Read how TV producer David Simon still can’t forget phone numbers he called on the night cops shift, or how Jerelyn Eddings became the Johannesburg bureau chief just as Nelson Mandela was freed from prison. This collection reminds us of the importance of journalism, whether it’s to keep watch, make us laugh, or remind us of where we come from.

History Type

Key Highway
January 7, 2016

Sitting on a chair in front of a 7-foot-tall machine invented in 1884 called the linotype—literally “line of type”—Ray Loomis hits several keys, demonstrating how hot liquid metal forms molds for each letter.

“It was mechanical, before electricity, when gas lines and a steam engine— usually in the backyard—powered its operation,” says the 86-year-old Loomis, a printer with 72 years of experience. “It created the type that got taken over to the press, which is basically how things were printed for 80 years.”

More than 150 linotype and letterpress enthusiasts—many former printers and younger artists—are gathering inside the Baltimore Museum of Industry for an unveiling of the museum’s renovated linotype exhibit and a discussion around the machine, and its inventor, Ottmar Mergenthaler, that launched the previous Information Age.

A German watchmaker, Mergenthaler emigrated in 1872, arriving in Locust Point to join the U.S.’s burgeoning industrialization and, possibly, to avoid conscription into Otto von Bismarck’s army. “He was extraordinarily bright, making this complex machine out of mechanical parts when others struggled with similar efforts,” says Frank Romano, author of History of the Linotype Company. “His biggest problem was that he never stopped inventing it. He kept changing his mind, believing he could do better. Drove people crazy.”

Michael Ponton, a MICA graphic design major, renovated the exhibit, making tonight’s promotional flier from old linotype font. “I find inspiration in his story and accomplishments,” Ponton says. “My Bolton Hill apartment is on the street where Mergenthaler lived. I walk by his house on the way to my internship.”

Beautiful Minds

Union Avenue
January 19, 2016

The sign taped to the glass door simply reads “Here!”—with a cartoon smiley face dashed across the page.

Due to overwhelming interest, tonight’s lecture by Johns Hopkins psychologist William Richards—whose book, Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experience was recently published—has moved from Artifact Coffee to a larger space next door, where the entrance is tricky to find after hours.

“Bill is one of the O.G.’s [original gangsters] of psychedelic research,” chuckles Mike Margolies, 29, founder of the local group Psychedelic Seminars, which hosts conversations about the benefits—and risks—of hallucinogens. “He has been studying this since volunteering for a research study in 1963.”

That’s the same year that Harvard University terminated professor and LSD-advocate Timothy Leary, but Richards’s book is considered among the first serious academic accounts of the effects of psychedelic drugs on human biological processes, consciousness, and religious experiences. In fact, fliers here seek fresh volunteers for ongoing research around psychedelics and their effects on those suffering from depression and addiction.

“This [enlightenment experience] has been so elusive before,” Richards encouragingly tells the audience, which includes an organizer of Baltimore’s annual Mushroom City Art Festival. “For many years, the study of mystical states was limited to people in the dark carols of libraries. Even reading the works of ancient mystics in their original languages trying to get closer to what’s being expressed. And now, we have a technique, really, enabling many people to experience these things directly—in the present time—and say, ‘Oh, now I understand where Plato was coming from.’”

Sisters of Hoop

York Road, Towson
January 29, 2016

Institute of Notre Dame guard Amber Knapper-Jones darts to the wing just in time to tip an opponent’s pass. Then, scooping up the loose ball, the diminutive senior dribbles the length of the floor, laying the ball off the backboard as she’s knocked down—sending Towson University’s packed SECU Arena into a frenzy.

On a night so frigid that walking through the parking lot feels like a brave endeavor, 3,400 fans are here for the 50th edition of “The Game”—the annual match between IND and Mercy—a pair of Catholic girls high schools not especially known for their hardwood prowess.

The first contest took place at the then-Baltimore Civic Center, as a school basketball fundraiser before a Bullets game, and was won by IND, 31-23, though IND now trails in the overall series. This evening, led by Knapper-Jones—her key steal capping a 9-0 run—and sophomore Ja’Lyn Armstrong, who scored 14 points, IND wins again.

A lot has changed over the years, including girls basketball, which once played by half-court rules. Other things seem eternal, such as Sister Hilde behind the IND souvenir table. Supervised by nuns at St. Mary’s Female Orphan Asylum for several years before receiving her own religious calling, she has spent 68 of her 83 years doing whatever needs doing at IND, including making a locker-room speech before “The Game” a few seasons back after a request from the coach.

“I told the girls, win or lose, they will always be No. 1 in God’s eye,” Sister Hilde says. “And I told them to keep their heads up, their hands out, and eyes on the ball and the player they should be guarding.”

Sports have always been a central part of Samantha Sankovich’s life. A former University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) lacrosse player, the Fallston native is as much an avid sports viewer as she is an athlete. (To this day, she teaches spin classes at REV Cycle Studio in Locust Point and the Maryland Athletic Club in Harbor East.)

After graduating from UMBC, she “took [her] talents” to South Beach—“that’s a LeBron-ism,” she cracks—to attend the University of Miami where she received her master’s degree in broadcast journalism. When Sankovich returned to Baltimore, she eventually got a job at Under Armour and was immediately drawn to the company’s hard-charging ethos.

She soon climbed the ranks and is now associate product line manager of basketball footwear. Her job is simply to “own” the basketball footwear line, starting with researching the market for trends, briefing the designers on those trends, working with samples, and collaborating on merchandising opportunities to get the shoes in the market.

“The trend of wearing a traditional basketball shoe off the court as a fashion shoe is definitely growing. It’s pretty prevalent in more fashion-forward cities, but I see people starting to embrace it in Baltimore,” she explains.

Of course, Under Armour has been incredibly lucky—and shrewd—with its endorsements. To wit: the signing of Stephen Curry, now arguably the No. 1 basketball player and the most marketable athlete in the world.

“The addition of Stephen Curry to our UA basketball roster has been huge for us. Not only has he allowed us to show off our latest, amazing product and technologies, but he has allowed the world to see that UA Basketball is nothing to mess with,” she says. “I live across from the Under Armour Brand House in Harbor East, and waking up on a Saturday morning to see a line outside the store for people to be the first to purchase our newly dropped product—it’s like Christmas morning each time for me.”

Inside Paul Laurence Dunbar High School’s windowless gymnasium, the air is thick with humidity—and history. Today is winter solstice, yet outdoor temperatures in the 60s have transformed the home of Baltimore’s premier high school basketball dynasty into a furnace.

The Poets are systematically slicing up overmatched Carver High, a scene that harkens back 30 years, when the most talented of all Dunbar squads steamrolled shell-shocked opponents before standing-room-only crowds of sweat-soaked spectators.

“It was so hot in the gym from all the fans in there, if you just got your hair done it came out wet,” says Michelle Wood, a Dunbar alum who watched her future-husband Darryl on that 1981-82 team. “You couldn’t hear yourself think.”

“It was electric,” says sportscaster Keith Mills, who covered Baltimore high school sports for WJZ-TV at the time. “When you walked into Dunbar’s gym during that era, it would be like a hip-hop concert today. There were big speakers, you had music blaring—it was a big event. I don’t think we’ll ever see it again. That was a unique time.”

And a unique team. Those Poets featured four players destined for successful careers in the NBA, including three taken in the first round of the 1987 draft.

“To watch them move on the court, it was like watching a symphony,” says Derrick Jones, an ’82 Dunbar grad and lifelong Poets fan. “They played like a Duke, a North Carolina team. You could feel the gym shaking with the students stomping on the bleachers. ‘We are the Poets, the fighting mighty Poets!’ Our Dunbar team, they were the best. They would have stepped up to any challenge.”

Three decades later, that remains hypothetical. While Dunbar went undefeated (rarely playing a close game), it never faced the country’s other true power, which happened to be in its own backyard. Yes, the 1981-82 Poets are inarguably one of the greatest high school basketball teams ever. But oddly enough, they might not even have been the best boys varsity team in their hometown.

Dunbar’s sterling basketball tradition already was long established, though in a bit of rut, when a big man with a no-nonsense attitude named Robert P. Wade took over the head coaching job in 1975. A former NFL defensive back for Vince Lombardi’s Redskins, Wade played both basketball and football for Dunbar.

By the 1981-82 season he had assembled a Poets team with junior stars “Muggsy” Bogues and Reggie Williams, and senior David Wingate. Just how he did it was the subject of speculation and grumbling among rivals.

Wingate, like Bogues, took advantage of Dunbar’s status as a college preparatory school offering career paths in health and medical fields to transfer in. What’s more, the school sits just a long three-pointer from the former Lafayette projects where Bogues grew up, but recruiting players to public schools was against the rules, and opposing coaches cried foul.

“Dunbar’s always been the family school for that part of public housing,” says Wade, who’s steadfastly denied wrongdoing. “I was fortunate enough that Muggsy’s sister was a star player on the girls’ basketball team. The brother, Anthony, played football and basketball. I watched him, not literally, grow.”

That’s a joke, of course. Bogues is the most famous Poet, known for his stature both on and off the court. At 5-foot-3-inches, he is the shortest man to ever play in the NBA. The 12th-overall pick in the ’87 draft, his amazing career stretched 14 seasons.

“Back them, it was the best show in town for $1. There will never be a team like that again.”

“I don’t remember ever growing,” he says. “I think my mama had me when I was 5’3”. Of course, you always kept hearing the negative—Muggs, you’re too short. But I was a kid, and I had the courage to keep playing and not care what people thought.”

Today, some, including Keith Mills, think he was the most dominant basketball player in Baltimore high school history.

“Muggsy controlled the game offensively and defensively,” he says. “You couldn’t press him, and you could not handle his pressure when he went after the ball. You talk to the guys he played with in [the NBA], and they looked at Muggsy Bogues like he was Jesus Christ. He was a God to those guys.”

Bogues transferred from Southern High, enrolled in health-care classes at Dunbar, and immediately began giving opposing point guards the chills. In Wade, he found a coach who both believed in him and worked him ruthlessly.

“We didn’t have the fancy weight equipment at Dunbar, so I just tried to improvise,” says Wade, now coordinator of athletics for Baltimore Public Schools. “I noticed that late in ballgames kids become winded, and, defensively, they begin to drop their arms. I tried to improve their stamina, endurance, and strength. So we did all of our drills with bricks.”

The impact of those bricks extended beyond the players’ physiques, to their pysches. Go to an Archbishop Carroll High School practice in Washington, D.C., where Williams now coaches, or to United Faith Christian Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Bogues wears the whistle, and you’ll see players working out with bricks.

“We were in tip-top condition, so once the ball went up we were ready,” says Williams, who starred at Georgetown before playing 10 years in the NBA. “We did calisthenics, jumping jacks, sprints, everything with those bricks. We couldn’t drop them on the floor. After those three-hour practices, we would run with bricks. By the time of the game, we were mad, and we took it out on the opposing team.”

Throughout the ’81-’82 season, it was actually practices that presented the Poets with their fiercest competition.

“We felt like we had the No. 2 team in the country on our bench,” Bogues says.

Darryl Wood, who went on to play for Virginia State and serve 23 years in the Marine Corps, backed up Bogues. Reggie Lewis, then a shy, skinny kid, couldn’t crack the starting lineup. Five years later he was drafted 22nd overall by the Boston Celtics and became an all-star. Tragically, Lewis suffered a heart attack and passed away at the age of 27 in 1993.

“Our practices were tougher than the games,” says Tim Dawson, the team’s starting center. “They were so brutal, when the first couple of games rolled around we saw how easy it came to us. Having a game was like having a day off of work.”

To this day, Wade’s players don’t resent him for his rigorous practices, they revere him for it. When Bogues decided to give high-school coaching a shot, Wade was the first man he called. Dawson thanked the coach in his Ph.D. dissertation, and keeps a picture of him and his Dunbar teammates on his desk at South Hagerstown High School, where he’s principal.

“He taught us that we could do anything,” Dawson says. “When you experience winning, when you are part of a dynasty, you want that same level of success in everything that you do. It’s transferred to my professional life. When it comes to the classroom, I’m just as competitive academically as I was on the court.”

Calvert Hall coach Mark Amatucci calls it “the best high school game ever played in Baltimore.”

His perspective is understandable.

In the 1980-81 season, his team defeated Dunbar in triple overtime before a sellout crowd at the Towson Center. “It was kind of like a Rocky movie,” Amatucci says. “The last guy standing was gonna win.”

While the loss was the last the Poets suffered for two-plus seasons, Calvert Hall (which competes in the Catholic League) fell in its season-ending tournament, held well after Dunbar’s season had concluded. Amatucci believed his team was drained from the Dunbar game.

“We go into the summer and they ranked us No. 1 in the preseason and Dunbar No. 2,” he says. “So I came out very early and said, ‘We don’t have any problem playing Dunbar, but, because of the circumstances from the previous year, I would want to do it [earlier], during the regular season.’”

But Amatucci’s phone never rang. No promoters or city officials called with an offer to stage the game.

It wasn’t until after Dunbar, with its new point guard Muggsy Bogues, travelled to New Jersey in January 1982 and defeated powerhouse Camden that public demand for a rematch with Calvert Hall intensified.

“Camden was the No. 1 team in the nation, and we [were] climbing the ranks,” Bogues says. “The crowd had never seen a guy like myself. They started laughing and giggling, but it was something that fueled me. It got me more excited. Coach came back in the huddle and asked me was I okay. I told him, ‘Hey coach, I’m fine. We gonna have a party. Let’s play basketball.’ I remember stealing the ball three times in a row, getting the game started.”

It was over in the blink of an eye, a cold-blooded assassination that captured the nation’s attention. When the Poets and buses of their followers rolled out of Camden after the 29-point win, it was clear they were returning to the city of the nation’s two elite teams.

“We get into January and it really did turn into a circus,” Amatucci says. “Promoters and the mayor and the governor all wanted to have it. Being the way I was, I was more determined than ever not to do it.”

Timing and egos conspired to prevent a rematch. If the teams were to play after Calvert Hall’s final tournament, Dunbar would have been idle for nearly a month—and clearly rusty.

“I’ll wait two weeks,” Wade told The Sun on March 1, 1982. “Any longer wouldn’t be fair to the kids.”

Each side thinks it would have starred in the sequel.

“We had a new addition to the team, that was Muggs,” says Wingate, who was taken in the second round of the 1986 draft and played 14 years in the NBA. “They probably couldn’t have even kept it close.”

“We thought very strongly that we would beat them again,” says Amatucci, whose team starred future NBA player Duane Ferrell. “They had a great team in ’82 just like we did, it was a shame we weren’t able to put it together.”

Then and now, high school national championships are primarily mythological creations of the media. Calvert Hall claims the 1982 title, Dunbar the crown for its ’83 team.

Neither one matters. Sports Illustrated summarized the situation artfully in a February 8, 1982, story headlined “Two Kings of the Hill”: “It looks as if two of the best high school teams in the country are best at ducking each other. The season may well end with the two powers bound in a tacit nonaggression pact, so both can claim to be No. 1—in Baltimore and everywhere else.”

A generation later, memories of both teams’ brilliant seasons linger. Dunbar’s legacy, boosted by its 5-foot-3 basketball giant, perhaps looms a bit larger.

As the Poets cruise to a double-digit victory over Carver, a few hundred fans watch passively from the plastic bleachers. The old wooden ones, on which thousands stomped, are long gone.

Coach Cyrus Jones played for outstanding Dunbar teams in the early ’90s, when recollections of Muggsy and the Reggies were riper. “Now that I’m the coach, I try and get my players to understand the importance of what type of history the school has,” Jones says. “I don’t know if they all realize exactly how big things were. I don’t know if we can get back to that point of where it is packed every day. Everything has changed. With the league we are now playing in, unfortunately, there are not that many competitive teams.”

Preston Jay, seated behind the home bench, understands the history well. He graduated from Dunbar in 1971, and figures he’s seen most every Poets game since 1966. While the wins keep on coming (Dunbar was 15-2 through February 6), it’s different now, he says, more matter-of-factly than wistfully.

“Back then it was the best show in town for $1. If you didn’t get in by halftime of the JV game, you didn’t get a seat. They’d stand five-deep behind the end line. Never be a team like that again.”

Bob Wade isn’t sure. “The old saying is history repeats itself,” he says. “To have four NBA players, that’s going to be difficult. I guess, eventually, down the road, someone will assemble a team that might be comparable to the one I was blessed with.”

Hanging somewhat inconspicuously on the upper left corner of the wall behind the far basket in the gym is a yellow banner honoring the 1981-1982 “Varsity Basketball City Champions.” While another conceivably could hang on its level, there’s no room for anything above it.