Sports
Football coach Robert Garrett continues to be missing in action at Crenshaw High
Robert Garrett has the best job in America. He goes on his computer each day from home, checks in and that’s all he’s required to do to get a full paycheck from the Los Angeles Unified School District.
It’s called “teacher jail” but at home.
“Who got it better than me,” he said.
March will mark the eighth consecutive month in which he’s been getting paid to stay home. The City Section’s winningest football coach with 300 career wins and a longtime P.E. teacher at Crenshaw High was placed on administrative leave last August on the eve of Crenshaw’s football opener.
Nothing has happened since.
The district supposedly has 120 days to make a decision but that’s not really a deadline based on past cases.
“Who knows, who cares,” Garrett said by phone. “It’s a good deal. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I haven’t had a break in 45 years.”
The LAUSD can apparently take as long as it wants to bring a conclusion to its investigation. Without him, Crenshaw still made it to the City Section Open Division football final.
But who knows how many students this school year have lost out on receiving a lesson from Garrett, who’s been head coach since 1988 and has been an important figure in the Crenshaw community.
Nike had a celebration of Crenshaw High.
(Robert S. Helfman)
Has Crenshaw forgotten about Garrett’s contributions? Nike, the shoe company, took over the campus recently re-making the gymnasium, cleaning all the banners hanging from the walls, putting up signs and using the auditorium to make it a shoe store.
There’s a little inconsistency going on, the LAUSD allowing Nike to show off Crenshaw while one of its most successful coaches and teachers is banned from campus.
If LAUSD intends to keep this going on and on, Garrett is fine with it.
“It that’s the plan, let’s roll with it,” he said. “I haven’t heard nothing about anything. That’s OK. I have no complaints. I take the bitter with the sweet. I take the good with the bad. I take the ups with the downs. I’m resilient. I was born to coach. That’s my gift. I was put on this earth to coach. That’s the reason I went to college.”
LAUSD has so many teachers on administrative leave at any one time (probably hundreds) that there’s no real deadline for decisions being made. Former Huntington Park basketball coach Joe Reed was out for 14 months before being cleared but the school didn’t give him his basketball coaching position back, only his teaching position. Until a policy change in 2014, teachers would have to show up at a district office and stay eight hours each day.
That’s when it was known as “teacher jail.” Now they get to stay home.
One of the more interesting situations involved former Monroe and Granada Hills basketball coach Don Loperena, who the district tried to fire but then had to rehire after a judge ruled in his favor during an arbitration hearing. He went from teacher jail with pay to six months without pay until winning his case.
Yes, complaints should be investigated, but something tells me in the case of Garrett, whenever his situation is finalized, he’s going to get his job back if he wants it and whether the district apologizes or not, he’s going to leave with his head held high knowing he did his best every day to make a difference in the lives of students, whether they liked him or not.
About the only certainty for this fall is that Garrett will return to coaching.
“I will be coaching somewhere, somehow,” he said. “I will be coaching on someone’s sideline — even if it’s Pop Warner.”
Sports
Deonna Purrazzo touts Ring of Honor as having ‘great women’s wrestling,’ should be seen as landing spot
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Deonna Purrazzo was credited with helping restart the women’s division in Ring of Honor (ROH) when she joined the company in 2015. She was featured in one of the first women’s matches in the company’s history in nearly a decade at the time.
She spent three years with the company before she landed back in All Elite Wrestling (AEW) in 2024. By that time, AEW co-founder Tony Khan had bought Ring of Honor and it became a sister company of AEW. Upon her return to Ring of Honor, she was thrust into a tournament to determine the first ROH women’s pure champion.
PRO WRESTLING STARS LEADING SHOWCASE TO BENEFIT TUNNEL TO TOWERS, SHARE WHAT BEING AN AMERICAN MEANS TO THEM
Deonna Purrazzo celebrates after winning her match during AEW Collision on June 15, 2024, at the Covelli Centre in Youngstown, Ohio. (Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire)
In December, Purrazzo defeated Billie Starkz to be crowned the champion and has held the title ever since.
As a wave of new wrestlers hit the free-agent market over the last two weeks, Purrazzo touted the opportunities that Ring of Honor has for women’s wrestlers – something that was “really important” to the New Jersey native.
“I think what’s so great about Ring of Honor is that it kinda flies under the radar a little bit,” she told Fox News Digital. “So, you get to really develop and tell stories and show personality and maybe try something different than you would if you were on ‘Dynamite’ every single week. I think that there is really great women’s wrestling within Ring of Honor. Most weeks there’s four, five, six women’s matches and so I think that it doesn’t get enough credit online that it deserves for what it’s doing and the purpose it’s serving for women’s wrestling, which is, again, really important to me, starting in Ring of Honor, starting the women’s division 11 years ago.
“To get to see multiple women every single week grow and develop, I think it’s really important and I think that if more people saw it as a landing spot, we can maybe grow that perception in the public’s eyes.”
Athena sits at the top of the women’s division in ROH. She’s held the ROH Women’s World Championship for more than 1,200 days. Red Velvet is the current ROH Women’s World Television Championship and has held it for more than 150 days.
Deonna Purrazzo attends Shaq’s Fun House at XS nightclub at Encore Las Vegas on Feb. 9, 2024. (Greg Doherty/Getty Images)
Purrazzo also has the opportunity to help veterans and first-responders in need.
She and her husband, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling star Steve Maclin, are putting on the Battle for the Brave on June 6. The charity event will benefit the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.
Purrazzo stressed how important giving back to military veterans was to her in an interview with Fox News Digital earlier this week, especially as a military wife. Maclin served in the U.S. Marines.
“Growing up in New Jersey as well, 9/11 was such a big deal. For me, I was in second grade,” she said. “I didn’t understand what was going on but in the days after, I felt a sense of unity in that everyone came together, everyone was proud to be an American, and we were going to fight back and stand together and be one, united country. And I think that, that feeling has always stuck with me but being a veteran’s wife, it’s taken on a completely different role.
“Steve opening up about his service and things he’s seen and experienced with me has given me a new passion to let veterans know that, yes, war will always come home with you but it doesn’t have to define you. Steve was so lucky that he was able to find wrestling right after he got out of the Marine Corps and it saved him, in a way, from falling down the unknown path of ‘What am I? Who am I next?’
Pro wrestling stars Steve Maclin and Deonna Purrazzo stare at each other. (Provided to Fox News Digital)
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“And I think that’s something that our veterans deal with unbeknownst to the rest of the public. It’s not talked about enough. They say 22 veterans but right now the math is leading toward 44 veterans a day lose their lives to that battle – an identity crisis of who am I after service. So, that’s what it means to be American for me now, is showing that support for our veterans, showing that our country is here for them and we’re here to support them and we’re here to give them the resources that they need to live healthy and successful lives after service.”
Kyle Loftis, who started filming street racing with a point-and-shoot camera and went on to become a pioneer in car culture media, has died, his company confirmed Wednesday. He was 43.
“We are extremely saddened to share that Kyle Loftis, the founder of 1320video, passed away last night,” the company wrote in a statement posted on social media. “We are in a state of shock.”
No cause of death has been disclosed.
The Sarpy County Sheriff’s Office and Gretna Fire Department in Nebraska responded to Loftis’ home Tuesday night, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said in a statement emailed to The Times.
“Loftis was declared deceased; his death is not suspicious,” the spokesperson wrote. “Out of respect for privacy, we will not be releasing further details.”
According to his LinkedIn page, Loftis attended the University of Nebraska at Omaha from 2000-2005 and earned a bachelor’s degree in management of information systems.
It was there, Loftis said in a 2023 video on his company’s YouTube channel, that his interests in car stereos and photography evolved into a passion for street racing — in particular, capturing races in still photos and on video and making that media available to fans.
“I’m a hardcore ‘car nut’ that’s taken his love for cars and turned it into the most amazing ‘job’ of my life,” Loftis wrote on LinkedIn. “Through my business, 1320Video, I’m able to experience the craziest & best automotive events (fitting my tastes) and share them with millions of people around the world!”
Back in the early days, Loftis posted his work on message boards and sold it on DVDs. For nearly 10 years after college, he worked for PayPal while building his motorsports media business on his own time. He dedicated himself to 1320Video full time starting in January 2015.
Currently, 1320Video has nearly 4 million subscribers on YouTube, more than 6 million followers on Facebook and nearly 3 million followers on Instagram.
“Kyle’s passion for motorsports inspired millions of people around the world and we will never forget what he has done to grow our beloved sport,” 1320Video wrote. “Kyle was a beam of light at every gathering… his enthusiasm, kindness, and creativeness was contagious.
“Let us pray that Kyle is in a better place.”
Garrett Mitchell — the YouTuber and stock car racer known as Cleetus McFarland — posted a tribute to his longtime friend on Facebook.
“Completely shocked about the loss of Kyle,” Mitchell wrote. “The most influential person on my life. We’re crushed. Please pray for his Mother and close friends, they need it most.”
Sports
Eli Manning hilariously shuts down comeback talk as Giants explore Odell Beckham Jr reunion possibility
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The New York Giants have had an active offseason, but fans still want to see a reunion with Odell Beckham Jr.
A video of Beckham scoring a touchdown from his time with the Giants went viral on social media.
“All these Giants signings have been great and all, but there’s still one final piece missing…,” the user posted.
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NFC coach Eli Manning looks on during the NFL Pro Bowl Skills Competition at the UCF Nicholson Fieldhouse in Orlando, Florida, on Feb. 1, 2024. (Nathan Ray Seebeck/USA TODAY Sports)
Eli Manning, who threw the touchdown to Beckham in the clip, had some fun with it.
“Guys, I’m not coming back to play! Stop asking,” Manning posted on X.
Manning retired after the 2019 season, ending a 16-year run with the team. Toward the end of his career, Manning struggled, as the team went 9-26 in his starts over the last three seasons of his career.
Before Manning’s play declined, Beckham was one of his favorite targets. Manning threw more touchdowns to Beckham (44) than to any other player in his career.
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New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning and wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. warm up before a preseason game against the Miami Dolphins at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on Aug. 12, 2016. (Danielle Parhizkaran/USA TODAY NETWORK)
Beckham was electrifying in New York. In five seasons with the Giants, Beckham played 59 games, catching 390 passes for 5,476 yards and 44 touchdowns.
He was then stunningly traded to the Cleveland Browns and never recaptured that same form, spending just two and a half seasons with them before they released him.
The Giants recently brought Beckham in for a workout. He played under coach John Harbaugh with the Baltimore Ravens in 2023. The 33-year-old was productive as a depth receiver, catching 34 passes for 565 yards and three touchdowns.
Harbaugh called Beckham one of his favorite people in the world in March.
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Odell Beckham Jr. started his career with the New York Giants. (Danielle Parhizkaran/USA TODAY NETWORK)
“He and I do talk. We do text,” Harbaugh said. “We’ve maintained a really great relationship. He’s one of my very favorite people in the world. It’s not like you don’t talk to guys on things like that. And certainly we have.”
“We’ll just have to see where it all goes, what’s best for him, what’s best for the Giants.”
While the Giants have to see where it goes with Beckham, they know for sure Manning is staying in retirement.
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