The curtain has been pulled back in Ann Arbor, and one of the nation’s most respected institutions of higher education has reduced itself to a childish defense of its embattled football program. 

The NCAA: We know you cheated and how you cheated, and how it gave your football program a competitive advantage. 

How embarrassing for hoity-toity Michigan, once the gold standard for all that was pure and holy in college athletics. 

How embarrassing for the university and storied football program, and all the proud Michigan Men of the past – the leaders and best, no less – to stand behind this legal pretzel response to NCAA allegations of scouting future opponents.

Have they no shame?

Michigan’s formal response to the NCAA’s official allegations of illegal advanced scouting and sign stealing was obtained by Yahoo Sports earlier this week, and it’s remarkably stunning in its abject disdain and mockery of the investigation. 

The Michigan response obfuscates, argues semantics, and degrades the investigatory process. All signs, any prosecutor worth his weight in all-nighters will tell you, of those who are guilty.

In the response, the university says it respects confidential sources, but the NCAA can only present evidence and infractions from former staffer Connor Stalions’ scouting scheme based on “information that can be attributed to individuals who are willing to be identified.”

At one point in the response, Michigan says Moore’s reason for deleting 52 texts – fifty-two – between himself and Stalions on the day the scouting scheme was uncovered by Yahoo in October of 2023, was that Moore was “angry” because he didn’t want one person (Stalions) credited for “all the work” put into the 2023 season.

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The university also claims the texts, which were recovered once Moore handed over his phone to NCAA investigators, were “innocuous and not material” to the investigation. 

It’s here where I need to remind everyone that the Big Ten, in unprecedented cooperation with the NCAA during the investigation of a member institution, suspended former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh three games for the scouting scheme during the 2023 season. 

The Big Ten decided that Michigan conducted ‘an impermissible, in-person scouting operation over multiple years, resulting in an unfair competitive advantage that compromised the integrity of competition.’ Such activities, it said, compromised sportsmanship and affected the ‘integrity of the competition.”

The 13-page Big Ten report, which used information from NCAA investigators – pictures, video, electronic money trails – called the Michigan penalties, “A sanction against the University that, under the extraordinary circumstance presented by this offensive conduct, best fits the violation.”

Less than a year later, Michigan – 2023 national championship in hand – has moved into deny, deny, deny mode.

Because We’re Morally Better Than You Michigan can’t have an NCAA cheat as head coach. Can’t have a national championship stained by NCAA violations, or a former coach and beloved alum run out of town by the NCAA sheriff — only to take refuge in the NFL. 

Here’s all you need to know about Michigan’s impermissible future scouting scheme: Stalions allegedly use his minions — he sent friends to future opponents to film games from the stands (which Michigan denies) — to allegedly scout Georgia during the 2023 season.

That’s two-time defending national champion Georgia, which beat Michigan by 23 points in the College Football Playoff during the 2021 season. That’s Georgia, the 2023 playoff favorite — and Michigan’s biggest obstacle to winning its first national championship since 1997.

Georgia wasn’t even on Michigan’s 2023 regular-season schedule.

If that doesn’t do it for you, think about what Michigan is truly trying to sell with this utterly comical response to the NCAA.

We’re supposed to believe that Harbaugh, an obsessively organized and detailed coach, who controlled everything in nine seasons and more than 100 games at Ann Arbor, didn’t ever think to ask what in the blue blazes Stalions was doing in coaches meetings, and on the field during game day. 

Harbaugh isn’t going to stand on the sideline against Ohio State – the team he famously said Michigan would finally beat or die trying – and allow some flunky with an advance scouting scheme on his sideline without knowing everything about that system.

You say system, I say scheme.

Harbaugh isn’t going to accept, willy-nilly, where that scheme came from, how it operates, and if it wasn’t double- and triple-checked, before even contemplating changing a call mid-game in the biggest moment of every single season. There’s a level of trust that’s undeniable on the field of play.

You’re not simply relying on word of mouth, or an understanding of generalities. Nothing is left to guess.

Not when you’re playing Ohio State. Not when you’re trying to win it all.

If you think Harbaugh – and by proxy, the rest of the coaching staff – didn’t know exactly how Stalions received his information and what it took to get it, your blood runs Maize and Blue.

No coach at any program allows anyone on the sideline – within the inner sanctum of the coaches and players box – without knowing exactly why they’re inside, and what they do to contribute to winning. Period.

Because that’s all it’s about in big-time college football: winning. And there’s nothing wrong with that. 

Just don’t try to sell it as something else when you’re caught cheating. 

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.

Figure skating coaches and former world pairs champions Vadim Naumov, 55, and Evgenia Shishkova, 52, were among those who are presumed dead in the fatal aircraft collision in Washington on Wednesday.

Doug Zeghibe, the executive director of the Skating Club of Boston, identified the two coaches as having been on the plane traveling from Wichita, Kansas to Washington. He described the couple, who were married, as ‘top coaches’ and said they had been working at the club since 2017.

‘They were very much a part of our building the competitive skating program here at the Skating Club of Boston,’ Zeghibe said in a news conference. ‘When you lose coaches like this, you lose the future of the sport, as well.’

Naumov and Shishkova were born and raised in Russia and led the nation as one of its top pairs teams in the early 1990s. The pair won the 1994 world championships and competed at two editions of the Winter Olympics, finishing fifth in 1992 and placing fourth two years later.

Ludmila Velikova, who trained the pair when they were children, told Reuters that they were ‘talented and beautiful people.’

‘They were like my own children,’ Velikova told the news agency. ‘What’s happened is awful. The best people have been taken away from us.’

Zeghibe described Naumov as ‘an old-school coach’ and Shishkova as exceedingly resilient. ‘You couldn’t see Evgenia and not just break into a smile,’ he said.

The two took pride in coaching their son, Maxim Naumov, who placed fourth at the U.S. national championships in Wichita on Sunday. Zeghibe said Maxim traveled back to Boston with him on Monday, so he was not on the fatal flight that collided with a military helicopter two days later.

‘It’s well known that Mom was always too nervous to watch him skate,’ Zeghibe said, choking back tears. ‘But his dad was with him, and Dad was in the kiss-and-cry (on Sunday), sharing his great performance.’

Dwyane Wade had a cancerous tumor removed from his right kidney 13 months ago, the former NBA star revealed on his podcast.

Wade said doctors removed 40% of his right kidney on Dec. 18, 2023.

“My own journey to have that surgery, I think it was the first time that my family, my dad, my kids, they saw me weak,” Wade said on The Why with Dwyane Wade. “That moment was probably the weakest point I’ve ever felt in my life.”

Wade said he had been putting off a physical but health concerns, including urinary issues, prompted a visit to a physician.

Wade, 43, explained that the area of concern could not be biopsied so he had surgery to remove the tumor.

“I had a personal decision to make, and what it was was, ‘If this is cancerous, if this tumor, this cyst is cancerous, on your kidney, you’re 41 years old, you probably need surgery because it’s something that needs to be removed so it doesn’t spread,’ ” Wade says.

Following surgery, the tumor was biopsied and found to be cancerous.

“What I saw in the midst of me going through my illness, I saw my family that may not always talk, may not always agree,’ Wade said on the podcast. ‘I saw everybody show up for me and be there for me and in that process, in my weakness I found strength in my family.”

Wade, who is married to Gabrielle Union, won three titles with the Miami Heat and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023. He averaged 22.0 points, 5.4 assists, 4.7 rebounds and 1.5 steals and shot 48% from the field in his 16-year career.

Following his NBA career, Wade has been involved in entertainment production, broadcasting, podcasting and he is a partial owner of the Utah Jazz.

Follow NBA reporter Jeff Zillgitt on social media @JeffZillgitt

Another Arenas will soon be on college basketball courts.

5-star guard Alijah Arenas, the son of former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas, announced his commitment to USC on Thursday. Alijah called USC coach Eric Musselman during ‘Gil’s Arena,’ Gilbert’s podcast, to deliver the news.

‘Let’s go!’ Musselman screamed on the phone as Alijah sat next to his dad and former NBA guard Nick Young. Alijah then took off his jacket to reveal a No. 0 USC jersey, alluding to Gilbert’s nickname, ‘Agent Zero.’

The 6-foot-6 guard is the No. 7 overall player and No. 1 shooting guard in the 2025 recruiting class, according to 247Sports’ Composite rankings. He’s also the No. 2 player in California out of Chatsworth High School.

Alijah also held offers from Kansas, Kentucky, Louisville and Arizona, where Gilbert played two seasons before being drafted in the second round of the 2001 NBA draft by the Golden State Warriors.

Alijah, who was named to the McDonald’s All-American Game roster on Monday, is a major boost to Musselman’s first true recruiting class since leaving Arkansas last offseason. The Trojans’ 2025 recruiting class is ranked No. 7 nationally after Alijah’s commitment.

Gilbert played 11 NBA seasons and was named to three All-Star games and three All-NBA teams during his career with the Warriors, Washington Wizards, Orlando Magic and Memphis Grizzlies. He averaged 20.7 points and 5.3 assists per game in his career.

The NFL has made rule changes in recent seasons hoping to minimize head injuries across the sport.

Based on the data collected by the league for the 2024 regular season, they are working.

Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president overseeing player health and safety, told reporters during a Thursday conference call this season featured the fewest concussions on record for a single season since the league began electronically tracking them in 2015.

Overall, there was a 17% decrease in concussions between the 2023 and 2024 NFL seasons, according to Miller.

NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more.

Miller explained the NFL’s new dynamic kickoff rule was partly to thank for the decrease in head injuries. Concussions were down by 43% on kickoffs while the injury rate on the returns matched injury rates on plays from scrimmage, per ESPN’s Kevin Seifert. Previously, the injury rate on kickoffs was 2-4 times higher than it was on plays from scrimmage.

While the number of concussions suffered on kickoffs in 2024 matched the eight suffered in 2023, per NFL.com’s Judy Battista, that number remained stagnant amid a 57% increase in kickoff returns.

With that in mind, the NFL’s dynamic kickoff will likely be here to stay. The league did not clarify what additional changes it might seek as it looks to keep concussions trending downward.

Wednesday night’s plane crash outside Washington, D.C., that killed a yet-unknown number of U.S. figure skaters, coaches and family members was devastating news for the skating community. It also rekindled painful memories of another tragedy nearly 64 years ago.

On Feb. 15, 1961, the entire U.S. figure skating team died in a plane crash in Belgium on its way to the that year’s world championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

Among the 72 passengers killed in the crash were 18 skaters, plus 16 coaches, officials, judges and family members. It remains to this day one of the nation’s greatest sports tragedies.

‘Those were all my friends and coaches,’ 1960 Olympic bronze medalist Ron Ludington told the (Wilmington, Delaware) News Journal in a 2010 interview. ‘I grew up with them, and I traveled all over the world with them.’ 

Ludington was supposed to be one of the coaches on the flight, but he had to back out at the last minute.

None of the 60 passengers and four crew members aboard Wednesday’s American Airlines Flight 5342 survived the crash as the plane collided with a military helicopter as it was about to land at Washington Reagan National Airport.

The flight originated in Wichita, Kansas, the site of the recently completed U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

U.S. Figure Skating, the sport’s national governing body, said in a statement that the athletes, coaches and family members were returning home from the National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. championships.

‘We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts,’ U.S. Figure Skating said in a statement.

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At least 10 members of the figure skating community were among the 60 passengers on the commercial jet that collided with a military helicopter in the skies near Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday night.

Doug Zeghibe, the chief executive of the Skating Club of Boston, said in a statement that six people affiliated with his club were on board the flight after attending a national development camp for junior and novice skaters in Wichita, Kansas, earlier this week. The group included Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, who won the 1994 world championships as pairs figure skaters for Russia before moving to the United States and becoming coaches.

Teenage figure skaters Jinna Han and Spencer Lane − as well as their respective mothers, Jin and Christine − were also on the flight, Zeghibe said. Authorities have said they do not believe there are any survivors from the collision.

‘Skating is a very close and tight-knit community,’ Zeghibe said in a news conference. ‘These kids, and their parents, they’re here at our facility in Norwood six sometimes seven days a week. It’s a close, tight bond. And I think, for all of us, we have lost family.’

Delaware-based coach Alexandr Kirsanov and two of his skaters, Sean Kay and Angela Yang, were also on the fatal flight, Kirsanov’s wife Natalia Gudin told The News Journal, which is part of the USA TODAY Network.

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Virginia, identified Inna Volyanskaya, a former Russia skater who coached in northern Virginia, as another one of the victims.

U.S. Figure Skating, the national governing body that oversees the sport, said in a statement that ‘several members’ of the figure skating community were aboard the plane that had departed earlier Wednesday evening from Wichita, which hosted the 2025 national championships last week. As of Thursday evening, it had not specified the number of figure skaters or coaches involved in the collision, nor identified any of them by name.

‘We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts,’ U.S. Figure Skating said in the statement.

Naumov and Shishkova’s son, figure skater Maxim Naumov, was not on the plane with his parents, Zeghibe said. Reigning world champion Ilia Malinin, who lives and trains in the Washington area, also indicated that he was not aboard the flight.

‘I’m heartbroken by the tragic loss of my fellow skaters in this devastating accident,’ Malinin wrote on Instagram. ‘The figure skating community is a family, and this loss is beyond words.’

Malinin competed in Wichita over the weekend and clinched his third consecutive national championship. But, like many of the top senior-level skaters and their supporters, he had left the city prior to Wednesday.

U.S. Figure Skating hosted camp in Wichita after nationals

Some members of the figure skating community remained in Wichita to participate in a three-day development camp hosted by U.S. Figure Skating, an educational training program offered only to elite young skaters in the country. The governing body says on its web site that the camp is intended to ‘accelerate their exposure to high performance programs and Team USA,’ serving as a proving ground for novice and junior athletes who are hoping to represent Team USA on the international stage.

‘The camp follows the competition. It’s for younger skaters that have been identified with promise by U.S. Figure Skating’s high development organization,’ Zeghibe explained in the news conference. ‘U.S. Figure Skating was looking to everyone at that high-development national camp as the future of the sport.’

Sarah Hirshland, the chief executive officer of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, referred to the young skaters in a statement as Olympic hopefuls who ‘represented the bright future of Team USA.’

‘They were remarkable young people and talents, passionately pursuing their dreams, and they will forever hold a cherished place in the Team USA family,’ Hirshland said.

The International Skating Union, which is the international federation that governs the sport, and the International Olympic Committee also issued statements offering their condolences to those impacted. IOC

‘Figure skating is more than a sport — it’s a close-knit family — and we stand together,’ the ISU said.

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Authorities say they don’t expect to find survivors

The collision occurred just before 9 p.m. Wednesday above the Potomac River, which runs along the southern and western side of Washington D.C. Authorities said American Airlines Flight 5342 attempted to land and collided in midair with the Black Hawk helicopter, which was carrying three people.

John Donnelly, D.C. fire and EMS chief, said Thursday that officials do not believe there are any survivors. They had recovered 27 people from the plane and one from the helicopter as of early Thursday.

‘I want to express my sincere condolences for the accident that happened… and also for those on the military aircraft, ‘ American Airlines CEO Robert Isom told reporters. ‘It’s devastating we are all hurting. At this time we don’t know why the military aircraft came into the path of the (American Airline) flight.’

– Karissa Waddick, Kim Hjelmgaard and Reuters

Coming off an overtime loss in his virtual golf league debut just three days earlier, Rory McIlroy turned things around in the great outdoors, nailing a hole-in-one during Thursday’s opening round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

McIlroy flew his tee shot directly into the cup on the par-3 15th hole at Spyglass Hill from 119 yards out, vaulting him into a five-way tie for the lead at 3-under par.

McIlroy celebrated with his caddie and high-fived his playing partners, including European Ryder Cup teammate Ludvig Åberg as he made a triumphant walk to the green.

It was McIlroy’s second career ace on the PGA Tour.

McIlroy, 35, played his first match with his Boston Common Golf team on Monday, losing to fellow TGL co-founder Tiger Woods in overtime.

He then traveled from Florida to California to make his first start of the 2025 PGA Tour season.

His hole-in-one is the sixth one at Spyglass’ short par-3. The last one came in the 2023 Pro-Am by Justin Rose, who went on to win the tournament.