hich was the same as 2015, and the number of women head coaches decreased by one this season to five.The recently crowned WNBA champion Los Angeles Sparks have been the shining example of the WNBAs exemplary status in race and gender hiring practices with Magic Johnson as the team owner along wi

Three years ago, Texas Tech seemingly had uncovered something special in walk-on true freshman quarterback Baker Mayfield. Tyus Edney Jersey .As it turned out, that relationship burned out before the end of the season. This weekend, the acrimonious split that followed will finally come full circle.Theyll be ready for me when I get down there, thats for sure, said Mayfield, who will return to Lubbock for the first time as quarterback of the Oklahoma Sooners. Im excited for it. Its always fun to play in Lubbock. This time, Im on the other side of it.When Mayfield arrived at Tech in 2013 as an unheralded walk-on, first-year coach Kliff Kingsbury had inherited one quarterback in Michael Brewer and signed another in Davis Webb. Yet by August, Brewer had a back injury, and Webb got sick, which caused him to lose 40 pounds.Baker was really the only guy we had left, Brewer said in an interview with ESPN.com this week.Mayfield, however, made the most of his opportunity. With him behind center, the Red Raiders raced to a 5-0 start before a knee injury knocked Mayfield out of the lineup too. The rest of the season, Kingsbury shuffled quarterbacks, and Tech won two more games before dropping its final five. After starting Mayfield in the regular-season finale at Texas, which the Red Raiders lost 41-16, Kingsbury reopened the competition for the bowl.I guess Baker felt like he deserved to be back in there, Brewer said. Neither party was happy about it. Texas Tech was losing. On the other hand, Baker felt like he deserved to play. Davis had been playing. I was trying to rehab. There was a lot going on.The whole thing got pretty hairy, as far as he said, they said. And to be honest with you, I dont really know too many of the details, other than Baker pretty much had enough and decided to go elsewhere.Mayfield didnt wait. Before Techs bowl game against Arizona State, he informed Kingsbury that he would be leaving.Initially, Mayfield cited a miscommunication with Kingsbury as his reason. But in an interview with ESPN.com a month later, he went in-depth.When I got hurt, there was no communication between me and my coach. When I got healthy, I didnt know why I wasnt playing right away, Mayfield said. At that time, we were losing a couple games in a row. I was still clueless as to why I wasnt playing. That was really frustrating for me because I started the first five games and we won. So I just didnt really know exactly what he was thinking or what the situation was. So that happened. And then going from a week-to-week basis, not knowing whether I was going to play or not and how short the leash would be if I had an average half, how quickly I would be pulled or anything like that, it was making me uncomfortable, and I just didnt want to be there anymore. I loved Lubbock, and I loved my teammates. But going through that, and then [they] tell me theyre still working on a scholarship for next fall, and I wouldnt have one for this semester coming up. It was all that.Tech officials had indicated that Mayfield wouldve been placed on scholarship that spring. But Brewer, who later transferred to Virginia Tech, said Mayfields communication complaint was valid.It was a unique situation, with three of us capable of playing, Brewer said. It seemed like it differed every week. One kid was getting told this, the other kid was getting told this. And then on Friday, neither one of those things happened. So there was just a lot of confusion, and the communication wasnt real great. A couple of people got tired of it and decided to go elsewhere. I think there was a lot of right and wrong on both sides. I think both sides couldve handled it better.For Mayfield, the feud was only beginning. Tech declined to release him so he could transfer in conference to Oklahoma, where he wanted to go. Because Big 12 transfer rules at the time didnt differentiate between walk-on and scholarship players, Mayfield faced the prospect of not only sitting out in 2014 but also losing a year of eligibility.That only inflamed the animosity. After the Big 12 faculty athletic representatives voted down Mayfields appeal to become immediately eligible, his father called Kingsbury a scoundrel in an interview with The Oklahoman.Then in December 2015, after he had won the Oklahoma job and quarterbacked the Sooners to the playoff, Mayfield riled up Techs fan base again. He claimed that during the year he sat out, he was tossed out of a Lubbock bar the weekend the Sooners played Tech (in a Facebook post, the owner retorted that Mayfield had been thrown out because he was a minor). Either way, that eventually prompted the Tech blog Viva The Matadors to run the headline, I Hate Baker Mayfield.Since then, however, the bitterness has begun to thaw. This past summer, a day after voting down a proposal to change the walk-on transfer rule, the faculty reps reversed their decision. The ruling essentially gave Mayfield back his fourth season of Big 12 eligibility, so he could remain at Oklahoma for 2017.In a twist, Tech officials actively supported Sooner officials in trying to get the rule revisited and reversed. Both times, the Red Raiders voted in favor of the changing the rule.During Big 12 media days, Kingsbury added to that by praising Mayfield.I loved coaching him, he said. Loved the chip on his shoulder. Have cheered for him in every game except one.With Patrick Mahomes leading the nation in passing for the Red Raiders, Kingsbury noted again this week that it has all worked itself out in a way where everybodys happy. Baker is playing well, so I dont see the issue anymore.Alls well that ends well. But that doesnt mean The Jones wont be all over him Saturday -- or that Mayfield wont be goading them back.Tech has a passionate fan base, and I know a lot of them werent happy about Baker leaving, Brewer said. And Baker is a pretty outspoken guy. Hes going to go out there a little bit animated and egging them on, for sure.I imagine its going to be pretty crazy. Metta World Peace Jersey . Jordan Lynch, the all-purpose Heisman Trophy finalist from Northern Illinois, failed to make it into that exclusive club. Oscar Robertson Jersey . - Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie never doubted he would bring back coach Dennis Allen for a third year despite back-to-back 4-12 records. https://www.cheapkingsbasketball.com/ .ca looks back at the stories and moments that made the year memorable. ORLANDO, Fla. -- The WNBA continues to be the standard-bearer when it comes to hiring women and minorities in top-level positions.The league earned a combined A-plus for its race and gender hiring practices in the report card by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports (TIDES) that was released on Wednesday. For the year, the league received A-plus for race and an A for gender with an accumulative 95.5 points, which is just a percentage point below its record of 96.5 set in 2014.Its the 12th straight year in the 20-year existence of the WNBA that the league has posted at least an A for its combined grade on the report issued by the University of Central Floridas TIDES.Dr. Richard Lapchick, the primary author of the report, said the impressive marks go well beyond the fact that its a league for women so diversity might be perceived as a given.I think of college sport where more than 60 percent of the womens college teams are coached by men and more 50 percent of the assistant coaches are men, he said. So it doesnt necessarily matter that its a womens sport.I think they have taken the leadership seriously, have paid attention to diversity right from the start.TIDES also issues annual race and gender report cards for the NBA, NFL, MLB, MLS and college sports. The NBA received a combined A on its most recent report card when it comes to racial and gender hiring practices, while the NFL, MLS, MLB and college sports all received combined grades of B during the last year.But the WNBA continues to be the gold standard among sports leagues because of its large numbers of minorities and women in key leadership positions. It starts at the top where Lisa Borders became the WNBA president in February, making her the second consecutive African-American woman to hold the position after replacing Laurel J. Sacramento Kings Shirts. Richie.Its critically important, Lapchick said of Borders appointment. I think the WNBA has made that example possible for the other sports entities to consider a woman of color to lead their operations.There are 14 women and seven people of color who have held ownership positions with WNBA franchise in 2016. Also this season there were three African-American head coaches, which was the same as 2015, and the number of women head coaches decreased by one this season to five.The recently crowned WNBA champion Los Angeles Sparks have been the shining example of the WNBAs exemplary status in race and gender hiring practices with Magic Johnson as the team owner along with team Christine Simmons and general manager Penny Toler, who are both women of color.I think it was interesting this year that the Sparks won with probably the most diverse front office in the league, Lapchick said.But while most of the numbers were positive for the WNBA, there still seems to be room for improvement. The report card gave the league a D-plus for gender in senior administration after a drastic decrease from 34.4 percent in 2015 to 24.4 percent in 2016. The percentage in this area has been dropping every year since 2016, according to Lapchicks report.This is true across all of the other report cards at the team level in team leadership positions, Lapchick said. There is definite room for improvement. Aside from that the WNBA is ahead of everybody else in virtually all categories and has been for years. ' ' '