Sports
Memories flood back of the newest inductees into City Section Hall of Fame
Having covered high school sports in Southern California since 1976, when there’s a Hall of Fame induction ceremony, it makes me go back in time to when they were teenagers showing early signs of greatness before people knew their names.
The City Section is holding its latest Hall of Fame induction ceremony Sunday, so let me offer some memories of several being inducted.
It’s 1999. Taft football coach Troy Starr is standing by the goal posts for a junior varsity game and pointing out a freshman receiver named Steve Smith, who’s too young to play on varsity. Starr insists the kid is going to be a phenom. Taft was already in the spotlight, having produced 1992 Olympic 400-meter champion Quincy Watts, so now the excitement is returning.
“I’ve never seen anything like him,” Starr said of Smith. “I’ve struggled to contain my excitement. Not only did I see him make outrageous plays catching the ball, but outrageous blocks.”
Smith scored 27 touchdowns as a freshman receiver and safety on the JV team. He got to play varsity basketball because there was no age limit and immediately became a starter.
“People come to the game and go, ‘Whoa, who’s No. 11?’” assistant basketball coach Derrick Taylor said in 1999.
The rest is history. Smith, in three years of varsity football, set state records by catching 271 passes for 4,545 yards. He went on to star at USC and win a Super Bowl with the New York Giants. In 2023 he had his Taft jersey number retired. He’s got two sons headed to the high school ranks. He’s long deserved to become a City Section Hall of Famer.
It’s 1994, the senior year for El Camino Real pitcher Randy Wolf. I had gotten to know the family well while visiting with his parents, James and Judy, at games. Suddenly, without warning, James died. I’m walking into an El Camino Real game and Randy is about to pitch. He’s standing on the mound with the national anthem playing. Tears are streaming down my face thinking about what he’s feeling with his father gone.
A left-hander who thrived under pressure, Wolf twice pitched at Dodger Stadium to deliver City Section championships. By 1997, Randy and his older brother, Jimmy, an aspiring baseball umpire, were on their way to the majors. Randy played for Pepperdine, then was drafted in the second round by the Philadelphia Phillies. He made his major league debut in 1999 and played his last game in 2015, going 133-125.
It was so fun to watch him succeed, particularly when he pitched for his hometown team, the Dodgers, in 2007 and 2009.
Reggie Morris Sr. was one of most influential basketball coaches in City Section history. At Manual Arts he had to battle against the juggernaut of Crenshaw and coach Willie West, yet found the way to be the disruptor with a little help from Dwayne Polee.
It was 1981 when Polee scored 43 points and led Manual Arts to an 82-69 win over Crenshaw in the City championship game before 14,123 at the Sports Arena. Crenshaw had won three straight City titles until Polee’s remarkable performance.
Then in 1988, after losing twice to Crenshaw, including in the 4-A City final, Manual Arts won the state Division I championship, eliminating Crenshaw in the regional playoffs.
You have to remember those were the glory days of City Section basketball. The championship games would end around 11:30 p.m. at the Sports Arena and watching the fans interact and go crazy was memorable itself.
Morris put himself right in the middle of all the action and all the greatness, then passed along his coaching genes to his son, Reggie Jr., who is on his way to his own Hall of Fame coaching career.
Fairfax had this coach, Steve Miller, who’d wear John Travolta-like attire from the 1977 film “Saturday Night Fever.” Miller went to UCLA when John Wooden was coaching and even officiated practice games for him. Before there was a shot clock, he had the audacity to have his team hold the ball for long periods of time without attempting a shot. The halftime score for a game against Locke was 4-2.
He went on to win City championships at Fairfax and North Hollywood. Dana Jones, his star player, scored 29 points and had 29 rebounds in the 1990 City 3-A final for North Hollywood against Fremont.
Players wanted to attend North Hollywood so badly that there was a joke that the school’s zoo magnet program had become filled with basketball players instead of future doctors or veterinarians. He did produce one doctor who was a basketball player. He also guided the North Hollywood girls’ golf team to a City title and once coached the triple jump for the track team. There’s nothing he couldn’t coach.
Ryan Braun was getting hit after hit at Granada Hills High. The Highlanders were competing in the toughest league in the City Section, the West Valley League, which Chatsworth and El Camino Real were dominating, so Braun was overlooked at times.
Yet he kept finding ways to break through, including hitting a home run at Dodger Stadium in the 2002 City Invitational final.
Braun succeeded at each higher level, first at Miami, then with the Milwaukee Brewers, with whom he won the 2011 National League most valuable player award.
Laurie Healy, then known as Laurie Romero, was the first dominating pitcher for softball power El Camino Real. In 1983 and 1984, she went 34-1 with nine no-hitters and 23 shutouts.
Then she became a private coach, helping many others become great pitchers. Then she became a mother, and her son, Ryon, was a star at Crespi and reached the major leagues.
In 2009, Ryon acknowledged he was skeptical of his mom’s athletic achievements. “I always bagged on her, ‘Mom, you were never that good,’” he said. “One day she pulled out these articles from back in the day. I was pretty impressed. She was legit. She was the real deal.”
Welcome to the City Section Hall of Fame to all those being inducted.
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Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo made NBA history on Tuesday night.
Adebayo scored 83 points, all while setting league marks for free throws made and attempted in a game for the Miami Heat in a 150-129 win over the Washington Wizards. It is the second-highest scoring game for a player ever, only to Wilt Chamberlain’s famed 100-point game.
“An absolutely surreal night,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra told reporters after the game.
Adebayo started with a 31-point first quarter. He was up to 43 at halftime, 62 by the end of the third quarter. And then came the fourth, when the milestones kept falling despite facing double-, triple- and what once appeared to be a quadruple-team from a Wizards defense that kept sending him to the foul line.
He finished 20 of 43 from the field, 36 of 43 from the foul line, 7 for 22 from 3-point range.
After the game, he was seen in tears while he hugged his mother, Marilyn Blount, before leaving the floor after the game.
“Welp won’t have the highest career high in the house anymore,” Adebayo’s girlfriend, four-time WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson, wrote on social media, “but at least it gives me something to go after.”
MAGIC’S ANTHONY BLACK MAKES INCREDIBLE DUNK OVER FOUR DEFENDERS IN HISTORIC NBA GAME
Bam Adebayo #13 of the Miami Heat celebrates during the fourth quarter of the game against the Washington Wizards at Kaseya Center on March 10, 2026, in Miami, Florida. (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
The NBA’s previous best this season was 56, by Nikola Jokic for Denver against Minnesota on Christmas night. The last player to have 62 points through three quarters: one of Adebayo’s basketball heroes, Kobe Bryant, who had exactly that many through three quarters for the Los Angeles Lakers against Dallas on Dec. 20, 2005.
He wound up passing Bryant for single-game scoring as well. Bryant’s career-best was 81 — a game that was the second-best on the NBA scoring list for two decades.
Adebayo scored 31 points in the opening quarter against the Wizards, breaking the Heat record for points in any quarter — and tying the team record for points in a first half before the second quarter even started.
He finished the first half with 43 points, a team record for any half and two points better than his previous career high — for a full game, that is — of 41, set Jan. 23, 2021, against Brooklyn.
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Adebayo’s season high entering Tuesday was 32. He matched that with a free throw with 5:53 left in the second quarter, breaking the Heat first-half scoring record.
Adebayo’s 43-point first half was the NBA’s second-best in at least the last 30 seasons — going back to the start of the digital play-by-play era that began in the 1996-97 season.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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BOSTON — Charlie McAvoy scored 39 seconds into overtime and Jeremy Swayman stopped 14 shots on Tuesday night to earn the Boston Bruins their 13th straight victory at home, 2-1 over the Kings.
Mason Lohrei scored midway through the third period to break a scoreless tie. But the Kings tied it five minutes later when Drew Doughty’s shot from the blue line deflected off the heel of Bruins forward Elias Lindholm and into the net.
It was the seventh straight time the teams had gone to overtime in Boston.
In the overtime, Mark Kastelic blocked a shot in the defensive zone and made a long pass to David Pastrnak, who waited for McAvoy to come into the zone. The Bruins’ defenseman and U.S. Olympian, who went to the locker room at the end of the second period after taking a puck off his mouth, skated in on Darcy Kuemper and went to his backhand for the winner.
Kuemper stopped 21 shots for the Kings, who entered the night one point out of the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference. The victory kept Boston in possession of the East’s second wild-card spot.
Swayman tied his career high with his 25th win of the season. The Bruins haven’t lost at the TD Garden since before Christmas.
After the game, Kings forward and future Hall of Famer Anze Kopitar stayed on the ice to shake hands with the Bruins after what is expected to be his last game in Boston.
Sports
Jon Jones requests UFC release after Dana White says legend was ‘never’ considered him for White House card
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Mixed martial arts legend Jon Jones ended his retirement from UFC simply because he wanted a spot on the “Freedom 250” fight card at the White House in June.
But, when UFC CEO Dana White announced the card during UFC 326 this past weekend, Jones wasn’t among the fighters. As a result, he has requested a release from his UFC contract.
White was candid when asked about Jones following the UFC 326 card.
Jon Jones of the United States of America reacts after his TKO victory against Stipe Miocic of the United States of America in the UFC heavyweight championship fight during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 16, 2024 in New York City. ((Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images))
“Never, ever, ever, which I told you guys a hundred thousands times, was Jon Jones ever even remotely in my mind to fight at the White House,” White explained, per CBS Sports. “Some guy with Meta Glasses filmed him talking about his hips – that his hips are so bad. And I don’t know if you guys saw that flag football game where he can barely run. Jon Jones retired because of his hips. He’s got arthritis in his hips. Apparently, doctors say he should have a hip replacement.”
White added that “the Jon Jones thing is bulls—,” saying that he texted the fighter’s lawyer saying he would never be on the White House card despite Jones saying he was in negotiations for it.
UFC ANNOUNCES CARD FOR WHITE HOUSE EVENT
The Meta Glasses incident White is referring to came from a viral video, where Jones, unaware he was being filmed, discussed issues with his hips to a fan.
On Monday, Jones composed a thorough response to White’s comments about him and the White House Card. He previously posted and deleted social media explanations, but Monday’s appeared to be his final statement on the matter.
UFC President Dana White speaks after UFC Fight Night at Toyota Center on Feb. 21, 2026. (Troy Taormina/Imagn Images)
“Yes, I have arthritis in my hip and it’s painful, but that doesn’t mean I can’t fight,” Jones, who retired a heavyweight champion in 2025, said. “So let me get this straight, if I had accepted the lowball offer, suddenly my hip would be fine and I’d be on the White House card? That doesn’t make sense. I even received stem cell treatment last week to get ready for the White House card, and training camp was scheduled to start today. I was preparing to be ready.
“I understand business deals fall through sometimes, but going out publicly and saying things that aren’t true isn’t right. After everything I’ve given to the UFC, the years, the title defenses, the fights, hearing that I’m ‘done’ is disappointing. Especially when as recently as Friday UFC was calling me trying to get me on that White House card for a much lower number.”
Jones finished his statement by saying he “respectfully” asks to be released from his UFC contract.
Jon Jones enters the ring before facing Stipe Miocic in the UFC heavyweight championship fight during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on November 16, 2024 in New York City, New York. (Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)
“No more spins, no more games. Thank you to the real fans who know what’s up,” he wrote.
The UFC did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Fox News Digital.
Jones is considered one of the best UFC fighters of all time, owning a 28-1-1 record, which includes his last bout with Stipe Miocic, knocking him out to take the heavyweight title belt. He is also a two-time light heavyweight champion.
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