Miami, FL
Miami Dolphins Boast Record-Breaking Participation and Fundraising at 14th Annual Dolphins Challenge Cancer, surpassing $75M Commitment in Support of Innovative Cancer Research
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – The Miami Dolphins joined forces with the South Florida community for the 14th annual Dolphins Challenge Cancer (DCC XIV), raising funds for innovative cancer research at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of UHealth – the University of Miami Health System. Participants biked 13, 39, 54 or 99 miles – distances that represent the jersey numbers of Dolphins Pro Football Hall of Famers – or ran or walked the 5K, with the shared purpose of challenging cancer on Saturday, February 24, at Hard Rock Stadium.
As the NFL’s largest fundraising event, DCC XIV united a record-breaking 6,702 participants and raised over $12 million – surpassing last year’s record of $10.5 million raised to fulfill the organization’s $75 million commitment to Sylvester, which is the largest known philanthropic pledge in sports. In November 2020, Miami Dolphins leadership made a commitment to raise $75 million for cancer research by 2026 through the DCC, and now that pledge has been fulfilled more than two years ahead of schedule.
“We are incredibly proud and grateful for the collaborative support of this community in the fight against cancer,” said Javier Sanchez, Dolphins Challenge Cancer Executive Director. “To have already fulfilled the pledge we made in 2020 is a testament to the vision of our organizational leadership and the investment and dedication of so many people in this community, who annually come together to make an impact, each year seemingly larger than the last. From the 370 organizations, 6,702 participants, more than 20 Dolphins players, coaches and numerous staff and community partners, it is inspiring to see what can happen when an entire community joins together for a common goal. We are as driven as ever before to continue creating new opportunities for improved cancer care and treatment here in South Florida, where 100 percent of every dollar raised supports Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center to fund lifesaving research.”
This year’s record-breaking event featured facility updates to showcase even more of the global sports and entertainment destination that is Hard Rock Stadium – moving event festivities to the Miami International Autodrome (MIA) Paddock Club building adjacent to the stadium, with the participant and fan experience in mind. DCC XIV integrated the MIA facilities, which included the Paddock garages, the start/finish line of the Formula 1 Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix and the Paddock Club, providing fans and participants with more shaded and air-conditioned areas throughout the festival.
“We have been able to accomplish so much at Sylvester and make important progress in cancer research based on support from the entire South Florida community and our incredible partnership with the Miami Dolphins,” said Stephen D. Nimer, M.D., director of Sylvester, Oscar de la Renta Endowed Chair in Cancer Research, and executive dean for research at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. “With more effective and less toxic treatments, we have more survivors than ever before. I’m thrilled to participate year after year in the DCC. It is always a fun event, celebrating survivors and raising money for research so more people can beat cancer and join us next year.”
The popular philanthropic event, first established in 2010 to raise awareness and resources in honor of former Dolphin Jim “Mad Dog” Mandich, quickly gained the support of the South Florida community joined by members of the Miami Dolphins organization. This year, DCC XIV brought a fresh take to its previous bike rides with new ride distances – named in honor of Miami Dolphins players in the Pro Football Hall of Fame – including the 13-mile Dan Marino ride presented by Aetna, the 39-mile Larry Csonka ride presented by Robins and Morton, the 54-mile Zach Thomas ride and the 99-mile Jason Taylor ride. Participants were also given the opportunity to run or walk with the DCC 5K presented by Amazon or volunteer at the event in continuation of fulfilling the DCC’s $75M commitment in support of cancer research at Sylvester.
More than 20 Dolphins players and head coach Mike McDaniel participated in the event, from riding to walking to handing out medals at the finish line, along with numerous alumni and Dolphins executives, including Dolphins Chairman of the Board/Managing General Parter Stephen M. Ross and Vice Chairman, President and CEO Tom Garfinkel.
Riders began and ended their journey at the MIA racetrack’s start/finish line, while supporters and fans cheered on riders from the Mad Dog Cheer Zone presented by AutoNation DRV PNK adjacent to the finish line. To conclude the event, participants celebrated at the Finish Line Festival, with those who surpassed a fundraising goal of $3,000 partaking in the Heavy Hitter experience presented by Berkowitz Pollack Brant & Provenance Wealth Advisors, all culminating at the post event concert featuring 10-time Grammy Award winner and recording artist Chaka Khan. The Living Proof Program presented by Harcourt M. and Virginia W. Sylvester Foundation had over 450 survivors participate in festivities. The Lennar Foundation, a legacy partner and one of the event’s largest organizational donors, stepped up for its 13th consecutive year to support the DCC, bringing their fundraising total over the history of the DCC to $17 million.
The Dolphins Challenge Cancer (DCC) was founded in 2010 by the Miami Dolphins organization as the signature initiative of the Foundation’s health impact area and has become the largest fundraising event in the NFL. In November 2020, the organization announced a $75 million commitment to Sylvester, donating 100 percent of participant-raised funds to further life changing treatment. The DCC’s purpose is to improve people’s lives through financial support for innovative cancer research at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Health System. For more information, visit www.RideDCC.com.
Miami, FL
3 hurt in fire on Lincoln Road that started underground
Three people were hurt after a building caught fire on Lincoln Road on Sunday, according to authorities.
The Miami Beach Fire Department said it was working a fire near 230 Lincoln Road.
The flames had spread from a fire in a manhole that “ignited an FPL vault of an adjacent building,” officials said.
Three people were taken to Mount Sinai Medical Center with minor injuries.
The building was evacuated, and FPL has shut off power to the surrounding area, the fire department said.
Drivers were asked to avoid the area of Collins Avenue between 16th and 17th streets while crews worked the scene.
Miami, FL
“Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta” star Tommie Lee among 6 arrested during World Cup match in Miami, sheriff says
Reality television personality Tommie Lee — whose real name is Atasha Jefferson — best known for her appearances on “Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta,” was among six people arrested during the England vs. Norway FIFA World Cup match in Miami on Saturday, according to the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office.
The sheriff’s office said 60,024 fans attended the match. Deputies also reported 19 ejections from the stadium, adding that all incidents were isolated and handled quickly.
Authorities have not yet released the circumstances surrounding Jefferson’s arrest or any charges she may face.
A social media account that regularly reports celebrity news claimed Sunday that Jefferson was arrested July 11 and released July 12 after posting a $1,000 bond. The post also alleged she is facing a felony charge of interference with a sporting or entertainment event and said she later shared a video on Snapchat appearing to be in good spirits after her release.
What we don’t know
CBS News has not independently verified those claims, including the reported charge, bond amount or release information, and Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office has not publicly confirmed those details.
CBS News has also not independently verified what led to the encounter, and the sheriff’s office has not said what prompted deputies to take Jefferson into custody.
CBS News has requested Jefferson’s arrest report, booking information and any charging documents from the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office. A request for comment has also been sent to Jefferson’s representatives.
Reality TV star’s legal troubles in South Florida amid World Cup festivities
Jefferson rose to national prominence as one of the breakout personalities on “Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta” before later appearing on several Zeus Network reality series, where she has remained a frequent cast member.
This is not Jefferson’s first legal issue in South Florida. In 2024, she was arrested in Miami Beach on a battery charge following an incident outside LIV Nightclub. Court records from that case alleged she physically confronted another person before officers took her into custody.
Saturday’s arrest comes as Miami continues hosting FIFA World Cup matches that have drawn tens of thousands of fans from around the world. Despite the arrests and ejections, the sheriff’s office said the event proceeded safely and described the incidents as isolated.
This is a developing story. CBS News will update this article as additional information, including the exact circumstances surrounding Jefferson’s arrest and any charges, becomes available.
Miami, FL
Why I’m Not Worried About Giannis in Miami
The reaction to the trade was predictable. The moment Pat Riley landed his whale and the Heat sent most of their young talent and a war chest of draft picks to Milwaukee for Giannis Antetokounmpo, the conversation turned away from how Miami finally landed the star they had been seeking, to calf strains and Giannis not being the superstar player that he once was.
“He only played 36 games last year.” ”The calf injuries keep coming back.” “He’s 31, turning 32.” “They bet the franchise on a body that’s breaking down.”
Various voices on Giannis Antetokounmpo
I’ve spent Over 15 years working with youth, collegiate and pro athletes on exactly this question, not “is he hurt,” but “what does this injury actually mean for what comes next.” And I’ll say it plainly: I’M NOT WORRIED ABOUT GIANNIS. Not in the way the panic merchants want you to be.
Let me be clear about what I’m NOT claiming. I’m not his trainer. I don’t have his imaging, his force-plate data, or his medical file. And I’m not going to insult you by telling you calf strains are nothing, because in a 31-year-old NBA forward with 13 years in the NBA, they are decidedly something. The fear has a real basis.
The soleus and the gastrocnemius, which are the two muscles of your calf, both funnel down into the Achilles tendon. When a calf is compromised and an athlete returns before it has its full capacity back, the load it can’t absorb has to go somewhere, and the Achilles is next in line. We’ve watched it happen on the biggest stages. Those are the facts and I take it seriously. I just don’t think it’s the story here.
Here’s why…
He’s one of the most durable superstars of his era
Before we talk about what’s fragile, look at what’s been bulletproof. Strip away the two COVID-compressed seasons that the entire league played short, and strip away last year (where he wa shut down by the team), and across his other ten campaigns Giannis averaged roughly 73 games a season and never once dipped below 63. He cleared 72 games in 7 different seasons. For more than a decade, the single most physically violent player in basketball, a 6’11”, 250+ pound freight train who initiates more contact per possession than almost anyone alive — was, by availability, an iron man.
Tissue tolerance, connective-tissue quality, recovery capacity, and movement efficiency are stable characteristics of an athlete, and Giannis has eleven years of evidence that his are elite. One brutal season doesn’t erase that baseline. When a historically available athlete has one wrecked year, the honest question should be “what was different about that year.” And a lot was.
The injuries are soft tissue, not structural
Here’s the piece that many are missing, and it’s the heart of my optimism. Call me a fan if you want, but I hate seeing ANYONE get injured. I’m rooting for Giannis to bounce back.
There are two broad categories of injury, and they age completely differently. The first is structural: torn ligaments, ruptured tendons, cartilage and joint degeneration, stress fractures. These leave a permanent mark. A reconstructed ACL is never the original. Cartilage doesn’t grow back. These are the injuries that genuinely shorten careers, because the tissue itself is changed forever and the clock only runs one direction.
The second category is soft-tissue strains or muscle. A calf strain, a groin strain, a hamstring pull. And muscle is the one tissue in the lower body that, when managed properly, heals back to full structural integrity. It is not a cumulative wound. A calf you strained in December and rehabbed correctly is not a weaker calf in March; it’s a healed calf. There’s no scar that compounds the way an arthritic joint compounds. Strains are frustrating, they’re disruptive to a season, and they recur when you rush them, but they are not a countdown timer ticking toward catastrophe.
Now go down Giannis’s list from last season: a low-grade groin strain. A calf strain. A re-aggravated calf. An ankle sprain. A knee hyperextension with a bone bruise. Look at that honestly. The ankle sprain is acute meaning it’s a one-off mechanical event as opposed to a sign of decay. The knee hyperextension and bone bruise are traumatic. That could be somebody’s leg, a bad landing, a freak gather (no pun intended). A bone bruise heals. None of those four are degenerative. None of them are the kind of injury that feeds the next one.
Which leaves the calf. The one real recurrence. So let’s talk about the calf specifically, because that’s where the argument is actually won or lost.
What a soleus strain is
Your calf is two muscles doing two different jobs. The gastrocnemius is the showy one that crosses both the knee and the ankle, it’s fast-twitch, it’s what fires when you sprint and explode off the floor. The soleus sits underneath it, crosses only the ankle, and it’s the endurance muscle. It’s considered the postural workhorse that absorbs force every time you decelerate, land, and push off, thousands of times a night in the case of many athletes. Giannis’s recurring problem has been the soleus.
Soleus strains are classic high-mileage, fatigue-and-load injuries. They show up in athletes who run an enormous volume on a heavy frame which is the literal job description of a player who logged the third-highest workload on a bad team.
And here’s the critical part: soleus strains are notoriously slow to heal and notoriously easy to re-tweak. The calf is one of hardest lower-leg structures to truly load-test before return. It can pass every clinical check, feel 100 percent walking and even jogging, and still not have the deep capacity to handle a full-speed game’s worth of repeated max-effort decelerations. Return a week early and you’re injuring healed tissue that hadn’t been rebuilt to game-level capacity yet.
Last season was the worst possible environment for getting that management right. Consider the context Giannis was actually operating in. Milwaukee went 32-50 and missed the playoffs. The franchise eventually fired its coach.
Giannis spent the entire year as the center of a trade saga that, by every report, had him wanting out for over a year. A declining team with a disgruntled superstar and a front office weighing his trade value against his health is the textbook setup for muddled, hurried, incentive-conflicted return decisions which are exactly the conditions under which a soleus strain becomes two soleus strains.
Now change the environment as he lands in Miami. Known for being an organization with a near-mythological reputation for conditioning and body management, a culture that has rehabilitated and extended careers other teams gave up on.
He pairs with Bam Adebayo, which means for the first time in years Giannis doesn’t have to be the entire offensive and defensive engine every single night. As of now the roster isn’t fully complete but they will add to that so that there’s lower usage and a shared load. Real return-to-play standards instead of playoff-desperation math. You take the most fixable injury pattern on his chart and drop it into the best possible setting to fix it.
His game is built to age
There’s a movement argument too. Giannis isn’t a stop-start, pull-up, hard-cut guard whose game is one violent deceleration after another. He’s a downhill, long-stride force athlete. His value comes from length, gather, straight-line pressure, rim protection, and playmaking. Those are skills that lean on size and feel, and they degrade gracefully with age in a way that twitchy, change-of-direction games don’t. The same frame that makes him an injury talking point is the frame that lets him dominate without living on the edge of his physical limits every possession.
What would actually change my mind? If the recurring issue were structural, like a partial Achilles tear, chronic patellar tendon breakdown that imaging showed was degenerating, cartilage loss in the knee, I’d be writing a very different column.
If he came back this season and strained the same calf a third and fourth time despite a clean environment and proper protocols, that would tell me something about the tissue I can’t see. And the Achilles risk that follows calf injuries in some athletes is real enough that it should govern how Miami brings him back: slowly, on capacity-based criteria.
EVERY great athlete in his thirties requires careful management. That’s just the truth.
I’m not telling you he’s invincible. But I’m not willing to bet against eleven years of durability and the most fixable problem on the chart if you want. I’ll take the Greek Freak, the new setting, and the science that we’ll all be watching a productive age-32 season with a lot less fear than the headlines are selling you.
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