Social Media

Subterms

    More stories

    • 213 Shares179 Views

      in Soccer

      Reece James racist troll tracked down in Middle East just three weeks before World Cup in Qatar

      by

      A RACIST troll who abused England ace Reece James has been tracked down to the Middle East just three weeks before the World Cup starts in Qatar.An arrest is imminent after the Chelsea defender, 22, gave statements to Instagram, police and officials abroad.
      A racist troll who abused England ace Reece James has been tracked down to the Middle EastCredit: Simon Jones
      An arrest is imminent after Chelsea ace Reece gave statements to Instagram, police and officials abroadCredit: Simon Jones
      Reece told The Sun:’ I get (racist) messages here and there, but I’ve never really had it face to face’Credit: Getty
      Reece told The Sun: “It’s tough.”
      Trolling victim Reece has told how he is determined to fight back against the online menace saying: “Whenever I see it I report it.”
      The England ace spoke out as the net was closing on a racist tormentor who targeted him.
      The vile troll has been tracked down to the Middle East — just three weeks before the World Cup in Qatar.
      Read More on Reece James
      An arrest is imminent.
      Chelsea star Reece told The Sun: “I get (racist) messages here and there, but I’ve never really had it face to face.
      “It’s always the way (that trolls hide behind the keyboard); whenever I see it I report it.
      “It’s one of those things that is hard to control. Most of the time they are fake accounts.”
      Most read in The Sun
      He reported a chain of racist abuse from a mysterious account.
      Starting in February of last year, Reece gave statements to Instagram, the Met Police and officials abroad — and now the culprit is finally on the verge of being nicked.
      Reece admitted: “It’s tough, when you have to take so much time on interviews and statements, and then it doesn’t lead to anything.
      “I had this one last season, monkey emojis and stuff.
      “Before I didn’t really open my messages, but one day I managed to see it, and reported it.”
      After posting a photo of him training, a man — using an account name of mhmd.awada — also wrote: “How can you f live with dirty black skin?”, plus other vile racist slurs.
      He followed this up with several monkey emojis and vomiting faces.
      Reece reported the abuse to Instagram and alerted support staff at Chelsea.
      Chain of racist abuse
      The club acted decisively, and in an unprecedented move, then owner Roman Abramovich wrote to every player telling them he was “appalled” at the abuse suffered by their talented right-back.
      The billionaire tycoon pledged to provide additional funding for the club’s anti-racism efforts.
      As a result, the Met Police’s ­specialist football unit began investigating and located the account.
      They have since been liaising with cops in the Middle East.
      Last night a source said: “There’s been a lot of conversation between police from both regions — everyone has been taking this case seriously.
      “It’s vital players feel supported and listened to, and know that all efforts are being made to clamp down on racism within the game.
      “Of course, there are fears that this account — and others like it — are linked to a racist group in Qatar, a country which has been found to have a poor track record for racist abuse against non-nationals.
      “We’ve already seen England players being horrifically racially abused after the Euro 2020 final — the last thing anyone needs is a repeat.”
      I think everyone has an equal right to play, no matter your sex, skin colour, or anything like that.Reece James
      Last September the Met confirmed it had recruited a specialist officer to focus on hate crime in football.
      In April of last year the world of football came together to initiate a boycott of social media in a protest against online racism.
      Reece — who still hopes to make it to the World Cup despite being on crutches as a result of a knee injury — believes education, or a lack of it, is the root cause of racism.
      At the Chelsea’s training ground in Cobham, Surrey, he said: “I think everyone has an equal right to play, no matter your sex, skin colour, or anything like that.”
      He waded in on the decision to award the World Cup to Qatar — a country renowned for human rights abuses and strict anti-gay laws.
      Reece said: “I think most of the countries I know that are participating are trying to stand up for human rights there, and help people that can’t be themselves. I think everyone is working together to raise awareness and trying to show people that they can be who they are.”
      This month it was announced that England captain Harry Kane plans to wear a “OneLove” rainbow armband during the tournament in support of the LGBT community.
      Two years ago, the United Nations raised “serious concerns of structural racial discrimination against non- nationals” in Qatar.
      ‘Mysterious account’
      The report revealed that low-wage workers suffered severe discrimination and exploitation — almost ten years after global football’s governing body Fifa controversially awarded the World Cup to the Arab nation.
      The report claimed there was a “de facto caste system based on national origin,” in Qatar.
      It suggested that “European, North American, Australian and Arab nationalities systematically enjoy greater human rights protections than South Asian and sub-Saharan African nationalities”.
      Read More on The Sun
      Reece, whose sister is England Lioness and Chelsea player Lauren, believes the time is right for a top-flight player to come out as gay.
      He added: “I don’t see why it hasn’t happened yet, In the women’s game it’s quite open and there’s a lot of relationships.”
      Reece, pictured with Marcus Rashford, said: ‘It’s always the way (that trolls hide behind the keyboard); whenever I see it I report it’Credit: AP
      Reece added: ‘It’s one of those things that is hard to control. Most of the time they are fake accounts’Credit: Simon Jones More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Basket

      Boston Celtics Players ‘Shocked’ by Coach Ime Udoka’s Suspension

      by

      Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown said they had not spoken to Coach Ime Udoka since the team announced his full-season suspension on Thursday.CANTON, Mass. — Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics said he was preparing for the start of training camp last week when he learned that Ime Udoka, the team’s head coach, could have been facing a lengthy suspension. But Tatum was not privy to any inside information, he said. So, how did he learn the news?“On Twitter,” he said. “Like everybody else.”Tatum was among the Celtics players who, on Monday, spoke publicly for the first time since the team announced Thursday that it had suspended Udoka for the 2022-23 N.B.A. season for unspecified “violations of team policies.” One by one, the players appeared on a dais for the team’s media day and, facing a bank of cameras and reporters, said they knew little about what had led to Udoka’s punishment.Marcus Smart: “It’s been hell for us. Just caught by surprise. No one really knows anything, so we’re just in the wind like everybody else. Last couple of days have been confusing.”Jaylen Brown: “Nobody really has any of the information.”Grant Williams: “I don’t know the facts.”For the players, Udoka’s absence — along with the secretive nature of the investigation into his misconduct — has been a troubling development as they try to reorient themselves for another crack at a championship run after losing to Golden State in the N.B.A. finals last season.One person briefed on the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly about it said Udoka had an inappropriate relationship with a female team employee. Another person who had been briefed said that Udoka’s violations involved one woman.Boston’s Jaylen Brown, left, is in his seventh season with the Celtics. He was the team’s second-leading scorer last season, Udoka’s first as head coach.Ezra Shaw/Getty Images“As far as initial reactions, I think we were all shocked at what was going on — a little confused,” Brown said. “But a lot of the information wasn’t being shared with us, or with members of the team, so I can’t really comment on it.”A Celtics spokesman declined to say how many violations there were.In a news conference last week, Wyc Grousbeck, the team’s majority owner, cited “privacy reasons” in declining to elaborate on the nature of Udoka’s misconduct. The Celtics’ decision to suspend Udoka came after a monthslong investigation by an independent law firm, Grousbeck said.On Monday, Tatum, Brown and Smart were among the team’s high-profile players who indicated that they did not know about the investigation while it was happening. In fact, Smart said, Udoka had recently visited him and a couple of teammates in Los Angeles. Smart was asked if anything about Udoka’s behavior struck him as unusual while he was in California.“Not to me,” he said. “I think that’s why we got so caught off guard, because it just seemed so normal.”Vague reports about Udoka’s situation emerged on social media Wednesday. At a team meeting the following day, few details were shared with players, Tatum said.“There wasn’t any more information that we found out than the things you guys heard,” Tatum said, adding: “It’s hard for me to answer if things were handled the right way or if they weren’t because, I guess for a lot of reasons, I don’t know all the details. I just don’t know.”Tatum and Brown, the team’s top two scorers last season, both said they had not spoken with Udoka since he was suspended. “It’s a lot to process,” Tatum said.Joe Mazzulla, 34, whom the Celtics hired as an assistant in 2019, will be the team’s interim head coach this season. Brad Stevens, the Celtics’ president of basketball operations and Udoka’s predecessor, said last week that Mazzulla was the best choice for the role “by a long shot.” Mazzulla, who played college basketball at West Virginia, was previously the head coach at Fairmont State, a Division II college in West Virginia.As a college player, Mazzulla twice pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct charges, according to multiple news reports at the time — first, when he was accused of scuffling with police at a Pittsburgh Pirates game, and later after he was accused of grabbing a woman at a bar.“Listen, I’ve made mistakes,” Mazzulla said Monday. “I’m not perfect. I’ve hurt people, and I’ve had to use the situations I put myself in as a younger man to learn from and become a better person. That’s what I’ve tried to focus on: How can I re-create my identity as a person? How can I rely on my faith? And how can I just have a positive impact on the people around me?”Brown, who was the subject of trade rumors in the off-season after Kevin Durant asked to be moved from the Nets, was among the players who offered Mazzulla a public vote of confidence.“I believe in Joe,” Brown said. “Joe believes in me. I’ve had conversations with him. I don’t think he sees a limit on my game. I think he’s coming in excited, so I’m optimistic.”Joe Mazzulla, who had been an assistant coach for the Celtics since 2019, will be the interim head coach during Udoka’s suspension this season.Paul Rutherford/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMalcolm Brogdon, a veteran guard who was traded to the Celtics from the Indiana Pacers in July, said he was struck by Mazzulla’s self-discipline. Over the summer, Brogdon said, Mazzulla often beat the players to the team’s training center to lift weights each morning.One day, Mazzulla noticed that Brogdon was using a balloon to do breathing exercises. Mazzulla told Brogdon that he was a fan of breathing exercises, too.“He started explaining the theories behind them and the psychology of it,” Brogdon said. “So he’s a guy that’s paying attention to everything.”Still, Mazzulla acknowledged some of the realities of the situation: that people throughout the Celtics organization need time to “feel and heal,” that he never anticipated being in this position and that he likely will need to learn on the job.The players, too, seem aware of the challenges ahead of them.“Everything that we started to build,” Smart said, “is starting over in a sense.” More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Basket

      NBA Fines Anthony Edwards $40,000 for Anti-Gay Remarks

      by

      Edwards, a Minnesota Timberwolves guard, used homophobic language to refer to a group of people as they stood outdoors. A video of the remarks was posted to Instagram.The N.B.A. fined Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards $40,000 on Tuesday for anti-gay remarks that he made in an Instagram video that circulated online this month.In the video, which has since been deleted from his account, Edwards used homophobic language to describe a group of people he was filming as they stood on a sidewalk. Edwards has 1.2 million followers on Instagram.Edwards, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 N.B.A. draft, used his Twitter account to apologize on Sept. 11.“What I said was immature, hurtful and disrespectful, and I’m incredibly sorry,” he said in a post. “It’s unacceptable for me or anyone to use that language in such a hurtful way, there’s no excuse for it, at all. I was raised better than that!”The N.B.A. said in a statement that Edwards had been fined for using “offensive and derogatory language on social media.”Entering his third N.B.A. season, Edwards is one of the league’s rising stars. Last season, he averaged 21.3 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game while helping lead the Timberwolves to the playoffs for the first time since the 2017-18 season.On Sept. 12, Tim Connelly, the Timberwolves’ president of basketball operations, released a statement through the team, saying he was “disappointed” in Edwards’s actions.“The Timberwolves are committed to being an inclusive and welcoming organization for all and apologize for the offense this has caused to so many,” Connelly said.The league has typically fined players for using profane or homophobic language.In 2021, for example, Kevin Durant of the Nets was fined $50,000 for using homophobic and misogynistic language in a private social media exchange with the actor Michael Rapaport, who then publicly shared screenshots of some of the conversation.N.B.A. teams regularly have Pride nights to celebrate the L.G.B.T.Q. community. But Jason Collins, who came out in 2013, is still the only active N.B.A. player to have said that he is gay, feeding the perception that there remains a stigma about homosexuality in men’s professional sports.Bill Kennedy, an N.B.A. referee, said that he was gay in 2015, not long after guard Rajon Rondo, then with the Sacramento Kings, directed a gay slur at him during a game. Rondo was suspended one game for his conduct.Six months later, Kennedy represented the N.B.A. on its float at the New York City Pride March. The N.B.A. and the W.N.B.A. have since become staples of the parade, one of the largest in the world. Players, referees and officials from both leagues have taken part. More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in Soccer

      ‘Wagatha Christie’ Trial, a British Spectacle, Ends: There Was No Libel, Judge Finds

      by

      The High Court in London ruled against the plaintiff, Rebekah Vardy, putting an end to a legal feud that turned into a reality-show-style event.LONDON — It began as an Instagram-related quarrel between the spouses of two British soccer stars and grew into a libel trial that provided a welcome distraction for a nation in turmoil.The High Court on Friday brought an end to the long-running legal feud by ruling against the plaintiff, Rebekah Vardy, saying that she had not been defamed by her former friend Coleen Rooney.In the verdict, Justice Karen Steyn ruled that the reputational damage suffered by Ms. Vardy did not meet what she described as “the sting of libel.” For that reason, she stated in a written decision published on Friday, “the case is dismissed.”With its combination of low stakes and high melodrama, the dispute between Ms. Vardy and Ms. Rooney did not amount to the trial of the century. But the case attracted months of overheated tabloid coverage at a time when Britain was navigating a stubborn pandemic and a struggling economy while its prime minister was on the ropes.The legal dispute was between Ms. Vardy, the wife of the Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, and Ms. Rooney, who is married to the former Manchester United star Wayne Rooney. The women belong to a group known as WAGs, a common, if sexist, tabloid acronym for the “wives and girlfriends” of professional athletes, particularly Premier League footballers.In 2019, Ms. Rooney suspected that a follower of her private Instagram account was selling information about her, gleaned from her posts, to The Sun, a Rupert Murdoch-owned London tabloid known for its pungent celebrity coverage. To suss out the supposed leaker, Ms. Rooney set a trap: She made her Instagram Stories visible only to Ms. Vardy and used the account to plant false information about herself. Then she waited to see if it ended up in the press.At the end of her monthslong sting operation, Ms. Rooney claimed that Ms. Vardy was the culprit. She leveled that accusation in a social media statement in the fall of 2019 that was widely shared. Because of her sleuthing tactics, Ms. Rooney became known as “Wagatha Christie,” a mash-up of WAG and Agatha Christie, the 20th-century mystery writer.Rebekah Vardy left the Royal Courts of Justice in London in May.Toby Melville/ReutersMs. Vardy issued a swift denial that she was the leaker. She then said that she had hired forensic computer experts to determine whether anyone else had access to her Instagram account. In June 2020, after failed mediation, Ms. Vardy filed a defamation lawsuit against Ms. Rooney in High Court, which oversees high-profile civil cases in Britain.This May, it went to court. The proceeding, formally called Vardy v. Rooney, became known as the Wagatha Christie Trial. The term was so common that it appeared in crawls on Sky News right next to “War in Ukraine.”Tabloid photographers and cable news correspondents flocked to the steps outside London’s Royal Courts of Justice for the nine-day event, which proved to be a fashion spectacle as much as whodunit.Ms. Vardy, 40, arrived in an assortment of finery, including a buttery yellow tweed suit by Alessandra Rich and an Alexander McQueen blazer. On her left foot, Ms. Rooney, 36, wore a medical boot, an ungainly plastic device that she paired with a Chanel loafer, a Gucci loafer and a Gucci mule. She had sustained a fracture in a fall at her house.Ms. Vardy testified for three days. “I didn’t give any information to a newspaper,” she said under questioning early in her testimony. “I’ve been called a leak, and it’s not nice.”The trial had plenty of TV-worthy plot twists. It was revealed in court that laptops were lost and that WhatsApp messages between Ms. Vardy and her agent, Caroline Watt — which apparently disparaged Ms. Rooney — had mysteriously disappeared. Ms. Vardy’s lawyer added that Ms. Watt had “regrettably” dropped an iPhone containing WhatsApp messages into the North Sea. Ms. Rooney’s lawyer, David Sherborne, replied that the mishap seemed to have resulted in the concealment of evidence.“The story is fishy indeed, no pun intended,” he said.Ms. Vardy told the court she could “neither confirm nor deny” what exactly had happened to her missing digital data. At another moment, she began a response with the phrase “if I’m honest,” causing Ms. Rooney’s barrister to snap: “I would hope you’re honest, because you’re sitting in a witness box.”The case drew so much media attention because WAGs — like the players on the “Real Housewives” franchise in the United States — loom large in the British cultural imagination. They are photographed constantly. They star in reality shows and have their own fast-fashion lines and false-eyelash businesses. A TV series inspired by their shopping habits, feuds and love lives, “Footballers Wives,” was a hit in the early 2000s.WAGs had a breakthrough moment in 2006, when a group of them enlivened the staid resort town Baden-Baden during that year’s World Cup, which took place in stadiums across Germany. The ringleader was Victoria Beckham, who had risen to fame as Posh Spice in the Spice Girls before marrying the great midfielder David Beckham. Also on the trip: the 20-year-old Coleen McLoughlin, who was dating Mr. Beckham’s teammate, Mr. Rooney, and would later marry him.The tabloids ate it up. Reports from Baden-Baden told of WAGs singing “We Are the Champions” from a hotel balcony, dancing on tabletops and chugging Champagne, vodka and Red Bull into the wee hours. In the daytime, the women went on epic shopping sprees and sunbathed as the paparazzi snapped away.When England lost in the quarterfinals to Portugal, some sports pundits unfairly blamed the WAGs for the defeat. Predictably, the tabloids that had made them into celebrities tried to tear them down. “The Empty World of the WAGs” was the headline of a finger-wagging piece in The Daily Mail.Years later, Wayne Rooney and Jamie Vardy played together for England, which added to the delicious awkwardness of the recent court proceedings.The trial fit snugly into a culture that sometimes revels in images of how foolish it can be — see also the popular TV show “Love Island.” It also touched on betrayal and lies, which were defining themes in Britain as Prime Minister Boris Johnson incurred fines for breaking lockdown rules, then announced that he would step down after his party pushed him out over other deceptions.The trial also presented the complexities of the British class system. Online jokes from those following the case homed in on Oxford-educated lawyers reading aloud text messages filled with profane terms from women who are often dismissed as shallow or “chavvy,” to borrow a word Ms. Vardy used in reference to a cousin of Mr. Rooney’s.Unlike this year’s other high-profile celebrity court battle, Depp v. Heard, these proceedings were not streamed live, which added to the appeal. Old-school courtroom sketches made the parties look like a potato, the moon and, according to one commentator, “Norman Bates’s mother.” More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in Soccer

      ‘Wagatha Christie’ Case Offers a Riveting Peek Into Celebrity Culture

      by

      Libel proceedings in London have laid bare the personal lives of two British celebrities in a legal whodunit for the social media age. And it wasn’t just the tabloids that became obsessed with the feud.LONDON — A candid window into the glamorous world of English soccer, and an exposé of the machinations of back-stabbing celebrities. A phone lost to the sea, along with the evidence it supposedly contained. And a legal whodunit with powerhouse lawyers dissecting private WhatsApp messages in open court as tears flowed on the witness stand.These were some of the gossip-fueling facets of a libel case contested by the wives of two famous English soccer players that is expected to draw to a close on Thursday. The proceedings, focused on an Instagram feud between the two women, have riveted Britain over the past week, with establishment news media and tabloids alike breathlessly covering each revelation, and photographers competing for shots of celebrities arriving outside the London courtroom.The judge in the case will later rule on whether one of the women, Coleen Rooney, defamed the other, Rebekah Vardy, in social media posts that accused Ms. Vardy of leaking Ms. Rooney’s personal information to The Sun newspaper.Tabloid coverage of the wives and girlfriends of soccer players (widely known in Britain by the acronym WAG) is intense, and both women have leveraged their exposure to build huge social media followings and achieve some fame in their own right as media personalities. Both took the stand during the case, clad in an array of designer clothes (dissected by the media for hidden messaging).The widespread curiosity in the proceedings should surprise nobody, said Adrian Bingham, a professor of modern British history at the University of Sheffield who has studied media and gender issues. “The essence of a good story remains the same,” he said, noting the “healthy lashings of sex and deceit and money and glory” in the case.“We don’t know how the plot ends so this is exciting,” he added. “Who did do it? Who is going to be found guilty?”The public sparring between the two women began in October 2019 after Ms. Rooney disclosed online that a follower on her private Instagram account had been leaking information to a tabloid newspaper. She had a suspicion who the leaker was, she added, explaining that she had engineered a sting operation in which she gradually limited her followers to just one account — Ms. Vardy’s — and then posted false stories to see if they would show up in the news media.Ms. Vardy holding hands with her husband, the Leicester City soccer player Jamie Vardy, as the couple left court in London on Tuesday. She has denied leaking stories about Ms. Rooney.Hannah Mckay/ReutersMs. Rooney said that the stories were indeed picked up, and she revealed the findings of her investigation in an online statement accusing Ms. Vardy of leaking them. Ms. Rooney’s apparent sleuthing skills led to the case becoming known as the “Wagatha Christie” affair — playing off the WAG acronym and the name of the detective novelist Agatha Christie.When asked in court by Ms. Vardy’s lawyer what she had intended to achieve with her online statement, Ms. Rooney said: “I wasn’t achieving anything; what I wanted was to stop the person who was leaking my private information to The Sun.”“This was my last resort,” she added.Ms. Vardy has denied being behind the leaks and said that multiple people had access to her account. As a result of Ms. Rooney’s post, she said, she received verbal abuse from the public while pregnant, including threats against the child she was carrying.“I have been called a leaker, and it’s not nice,” Ms. Vardy said during the hearing.In 2020, Ms. Vardy began libel proceedings against Ms. Rooney, and, because the two women were unable to reach a settlement, the case went to trial — an unusual and costly process that will have racked up millions of pounds in legal fees, according to lawyers’ estimates.With such vast sums at stake and the private lives of the rich and famous on full view in court, the feud quickly entranced large sections of the British public.Even the more serious news outlets, which would normally ignore such a celebrity spat, have found a way into the story by analyzing the broader implications of widespread social media use, Professor Bingham said.“There is a legitimacy to talking about this because it’s in a courtroom and it raises genuinely serious issues of privacy,” he noted.And for the tabloids, the case was a feeding frenzy. Athalie Matthews, a London-based lawyer who specializes in defamation, said the personal details that emerged in court effectively blew “the personal lives of both parties wide open in a way that the press can report on with complete impunity.”Ms. Rooney with her husband, the former England soccer captain Wayne Rooney, arriving in court last week. Her sting operation and accusations against Ms. Vardy are at the center of the libel case.Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesInterest was so high that attendees spilled into an overflow room at the London courtroom. Juicy revelations were blogged live by journalists and summarized by news outlets as diverse as the BBC and The Daily Mail — though by Thursday, journalists waiting outside the courtroom seemed ready for the trial’s end.Ms. Rooney and her husband, the former England soccer captain Wayne Rooney, had been experiencing marital tensions, it was revealed in one session. WhatsApp messages between Ms. Vardy and her agent, Caroline Watt, disparaged Ms. Rooney and discussed leaking stories about other people in exchange for payment, the court also heard. And a phone potentially containing relevant WhatsApp messages was accidentally dropped by Ms. Watt into the North Sea, Ms. Vardy’s lawyer said — a mishap that Ms. Rooney’s lawyer said appeared to be a case of concealing evidence.Ms. Vardy acknowledged that Ms. Watt had previously passed information about Ms. Rooney to The Sun newspaper, but Ms. Vardy’s lawyers argued that there was insufficient evidence that Ms. Vardy herself was responsible for any leaks. They have also said that Ms. Watt is ill and therefore not able to provide testimony.If Ms. Vardy wins the libel case, the damages awarded are likely to be in the tens of thousands of pounds, according to legal experts, with Ms. Rooney probably having to pay her rival’s legal fees. If Ms. Rooney wins, Ms. Vardy will be left with the bill for the fees and could face a counter case for infringement of privacy, Ms. Matthews, the defamation lawyer, said.“The trial is not going to change the image of libel as the preserve of the rich,” Ms. Matthews added, noting that few people had the money to risk on such legal proceedings.But, Ms. Matthews said, it might cause people to reconsider before posting material that could cause serious harm to someone’s reputation.Regardless of the outcome, the case has highlighted the tensions inherent between the desire for privacy and the price of fame. “This is what tabloid culture is all about and we’re just seeing a new iteration of this in a social media age,” Professor Bingham said. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Basket

      Knicks Rookie Quentin Grimes Can’t Stop Scrolling, Either

      by

      A dolphin trend on TikTok made his name on the internet. Now Grimes, 21, is trying to make his mark at Madison Square Garden.Quentin Grimes was leaning on his kitchen island, snacking on tortilla chips and scrolling through TikTok. It was October 2020, and he was a couple of months away from starting his junior season of men’s basketball at the University of Houston. On his TikTok feed, he encountered video after video of people imitating dolphins and bumping their bodies into friends and strangers. Grimes couldn’t stop laughing, so he decided to jump into the deep end of the trend.He downloaded the audio track from the app, tilted his iPhone against a toaster oven and hit record. While he was still chomping on a chip, he held his hands out in front of him, arched his back and jumped in sync with the sound of a gun firing. When two more shots from the song rang out, he sprang forward twice more, laughing as he fell out of the camera frame. The whole video lasted six seconds.He didn’t think anything more of it until he got into bed that night and opened the app again. Within a few hours, the video had been streamed more than 100,000 times. By the next day, the number was more than half a million, and Grimes had gained 20,000 followers. It was just the ninth video that he’d posted to his account, but it convinced him that the app was where he could share the fun side of himself that basketball fans rarely got to see on the court.“As an athlete, you want to be known for something besides just your sport,” Grimes, 21, said as he swiped on his iPhone 13 during an interview at his apartment in White Plains, N.Y. “You don’t want to just post basketball, basketball, basketball. You don’t want that to be your whole life. I think fans want to see you as an actual person.”Grimes checks TikTok while signing basketball cards.Gabby Jones for The New York TimesThe Knicks acquired Grimes in a draft-night deal in 2021, about nine months after his dolphin video introduced an ever-expanding TikTok audience to his offbeat, playful personality. That charisma, as well as his penchant for the irreverent, has helped him amass more than 100,000 followers on the increasingly influential social media app, a count that trails only Josh Giddey (515,000) and Jalen Green (326,000) among the 2021 N.B.A. draft class. As a league, the N.B.A. has been quick to embrace TikTok, and its official account has nearly double the followers of the most popular sports league in the country, the N.F.L. As Grimes’s career progresses in a major market like New York, he’ll be poised to profit from his growing following. But for now, he’s more in it for the LOLs.“I save the dunks for the people who come to the Garden,” he said. “On TikTok, I’m just trying to make people smile.”Grimes took a circuitous path to playing for the Knicks. A Texas native, he was a consensus 5-star recruit in the Class of 2018 and joined Kansas as a presumed one-and-done player. But after a disappointing freshman year, he transferred to Houston to be closer to home. As a sophomore, he helped Houston win its second-straight conference championship and climb into The Associated Press Top 25 with a 23-8 record. Twelve days after the N.C.A.A. announced it was canceling the 2020 men’s basketball tournament because of the coronavirus pandemic, Grimes started his TikTok account. His first post was captioned: “Boreddddddd!”As a junior, Grimes guided Houston to its first Final Four since the Phi Slama Jama teams of the early 1980s. That April, he declared for the draft but was projected as a second-round pick until a standout performance at the draft combine. In July, the Los Angeles Clippers selected him with the No. 25 pick on behalf of the Knicks, who had received the draft slot in a trade. That night, he posted a TikTok with the caption: “NEW YORK WHAT’S GOOOOD!” It received almost 500,000 views and nearly 1,500 comments.When Ben Perkins, Grimes’s former A.A.U. coach and longtime trainer, saw the video making the rounds on social media, he gave Grimes a hard time. “In basketball, I rarely compliment him. I like to push him and prod him,” Perkins said. “The first thing I said when I saw the video was: ‘Come on, man! Who would want to look at you this much?’ But it’s really fun. It’s like his alter ego. If you only know him as a killer on the court, this is a chance to see the silly side of him.”Grimes said he sometimes has to “force himself” to put down his phone and go to sleep.Gabby Jones for The New York TimesMost of Grimes’s posts involve him dancing, typically in a hotel room or a bathroom. Though he only posts a few times a month, he said he spends as much as three hours a day on the app and sends and receives hundreds of memes each day. If he sees a trend enough times, he attempts it. If it takes him more than a few takes, he abandons it. At Houston, he regularly included his teammates in his TikToks, but as an N.B.A. rookie this season, he thought it would be best to hold off on asking for cameos from his veteran teammates.Early on in the season, Knicks fans saw him more on social media than on the court — he didn’t appear in 12 of the team’s first 16 games. But between those games, he was impressing Knicks coaches with his effort in practices, his commitment to studying his defensive assignments and the energy he showed even in garbage-time minutes. Grimes got his first start in December, when the team was without RJ Barrett, Obi Toppin and Alec Burks. He set a franchise rookie record with seven 3-pointers. The jersey from that game hangs on a chair in his kitchen, waiting to be framed.“My attitude was: ‘If I only get on the court for the last minute, then it’s my goal to play 110 percent in that minute,’” Grimes said. “In one minute, you can still get a big stop or a big bucket. The coaches take note of all that. Even if you get in for eight seconds on defense, how you play is important. That was my role early. They’d say, ‘Go guard Jimmy Butler,’ and I’d say, ‘OK, I’ll go do that.’”From Christmas through the All-Star break, he averaged more than 23 minutes per game and notched five more starts. His toughness impressed even his notoriously gruff head coach. “I love Grimes. I love Grimes,” Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau told reporters after a January practice. “He’s a fierce competitor, can shoot the ball, can guard multiple positions, and he’s only going to get better.”Grimes (6) has started six games this season for the Knicks, who have been eliminated from playoff contention.Adam Hunger/Associated PressIn February, Grimes partially dislocated his right kneecap when he was trying to get around a screen in the first quarter of a game against Miami. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the kneecap, adrift on the side of his leg — thinking about it even a month later sent him into a shiver — but he breathed a big sigh of relief when he learned that the injury wouldn’t be career-altering. The only lasting disappointment was that it cost him a chance to play in the same arena on the same day as his half brother, Tyler Myers, a veteran defenseman for the Vancouver Canucks. He made it back onto the court less than a month later, but he’s taken it slow as the Knicks season ends without a playoff berth.He’s also slowed down his posting during his recovery. But that doesn’t mean he’s spending less time on social media. Every night, after he’s taken a shower and turned off all the lights in his apartment, he puts his phone in his hand and his head on his pillow. “It’s just me and the brightness of the screen, scrolling and scrolling,” he said. “You get hooked” — he snaps his fingers — “like that! And then you’ve got to force yourself to go to sleep even though you’re not tired.”With his rookie season almost behind him, Grimes has big plans for his future in New York — on the court and online. He said he wants to do more videos next season with Barrett and Cam Reddish, whom he has known since they were sophomores in high school. And, of course, he hopes that as a healthy group, they can help steer the Knicks back to the postseason. “Next year,” he said, “people are really going to see what we can do.” More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Basket

      As His CNN+ Show Debuts, Rex Chapman Fears His Own Success

      by

      With 1.2 million Twitter followers and a new show debuting Monday, the former N.B.A. player appears to have an enviable life. But he’s haunted by what happened the last time he was famous.Sitting in a Midtown Manhattan cafe after shooting B-roll for his new show on CNN+, Rex Chapman says he knows that he’s living a dream, and it’s making him uncomfortable. “I struggle with it,” he said.Chapman, a former pro basketball player now best known as a Twitter personality, loves doing the show, which debuts Monday on CNN’s new streaming service. The show is not the problem. Simply titled “Rex Chapman,” it features him in conversation with a diverse array of people who have faced challenges, as he has, and who now try to make the world better, as he says he is trying to do.Chapman has interviewed Jason Sudeikis in London, the N.B.A. forward Kevin Love in Cleveland, the actor Ben Stiller in New York City and the paralyzed former college football player Eric LeGrand in New Jersey. After this conversation, he was going to the bar next door to meet the comedian, writer and talk show host Amber Ruffin.So why the struggle?“People dream of doing this,” said Chapman, whose height (6 feet 4 inches), gleaming bald head and bright blue glasses make him conspicuous. “They dream of having their own show. I struggle with whether I deserve it or not.”He explains: “I’ve been through some things,” he said. “And I’ve put myself through some things. And, uh. …”He hesitated, his voice catching.“I’ve got four kids,” he went on. “Sitting here talking to you is probably easier than many of the conversations I have with my kids.”His son and three daughters — Zeke, Caley, Tatum and Tyson — range in age from 29 to 21. “And,” Chapman said, “not a day goes by that I don’t think about disappointing them.”Chapman, now 54, was once the best high school player in his home state of Kentucky, a superstar at the University of Kentucky, the first-ever draft pick (No. 8 overall) of the expansion Charlotte Hornets and a member of the U.S. national team. He estimates that he made $40 million in 12 seasons in the N.B.A.Chapman, who played with the Suns, Heat, Wizards and Hornets during a 12-year career, taking a shot in a game against the Seattle SuperSonics in 1999.Dan Levine/AFP via Getty ImagesBut the attention and scrutiny that came with success never felt right. When he was 10 years old, he quit swimming after other kids made fun of his Speedo. When he was 15 and a high school basketball star, students from another school stopped him in a mall, asked for his autograph and then tore it up in front of him.Love and success seemed to lead to pain.That feeling intensified in the N.B.A. After some injuries and surgeries, he ended up addicted to opioids, exacerbating his long-running gambling addiction. Retirement from basketball led to deeper addiction. Chapman burned through money. By his 40s, he was crashing on couches and shoplifting goods to pawn for cash. His wife, Bridget, divorced him in 2012.At the height of his addiction, Chapman was consuming about 10 OxyContin and 40 Vicodin pills per day, chewing them to get them into his bloodstream quicker.“At some point, I had just resigned myself to the fact that my life’s just going to be as a drug addict,” he said, adding an expletive for emphasis.In September 2014, he was caught shoplifting more than $14,000 worth of electronics and was arrested. His sister, Jenny, took him in, and with the help of friends persuaded Chapman to go to a rehab center in Louisville, Ky., where his college roommate, Paul Andrews, was an executive. “Saved my life,” Chapman said.After Chapman got clean, he began speaking in public about recovering from addiction. He found work covering Kentucky athletics on the radio for a regional media company around 2016. The company pushed him to be more active on social media, particularly on Twitter, but Chapman resisted. “The landscape was just toxic. Everybody hating each other,” he said.A dolphin video changed everything: “I saw a video one day of a school of dolphins swimming out to sea, and a guy on a paddle board coming in, and a dolphin jumped up and hit him in the chest and knocked him off. And I said to myself, ‘That’s a charge,’” Chapman said, adding another expletive. (The account that first shared the video is now suspended.)Chapman and his production crew filming B-roll for his new show.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesPeople responded well to the tweet, so he shared other slapstick videos, inspiring lighthearted debates about whether a given collision was, in basketball terms, a block or a charge. In time, he began posting “feel-good stuff” — videos of dogs, babies and animals interacting adorably — and paying two people to find content for him.Chapman, who now has 1.2 million followers, later ventured into tweeting about politics, with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky a frequent target.In 2019, his friend Steve Nash, the former basketball star and current coach of the Brooklyn Nets, called Chapman with an idea for a podcast about people rebuilding their lives after making terrible mistakes. Chapman was wary of seeking fame again — “I didn’t fare real well with it the first time around” — but went forward after his children told him it was OK to do the show.The podcast was called “Charges.” To make his guests more comfortable, and in the hopes of helping people, Chapman began publicly sharing more of his story. This was healing at times, painful at others. “There’s something really cathartic about it,” he said. On the other hand, he said, it never doesn’t hurt, because you’re telling a bunch of strangers the worst stuff in life.He added: “I still can’t believe it was me. But it was. So I have to deal with that constantly.”Worse, he knows his children do too. “If they had any reservations,” he said, “then I wouldn’t do any of this stuff.”In an interview, Chapman’s daughter Caley, 27, said: “After he retired, that was a dark time. But he was always still my dad. I have respect for him. I just wanted him to get better for himself. And he’s done that. So I’m proud of him.”She expressed concern that her father is too hard on himself.“He holds a lot of guilt,” she said. “But there was never anything to forgive him for. From my point of view, I just wanted him to do better. So he’s been forgiven. And I’ll continue to say that until he forgives himself.”Chapman’s son, Zeke, declined to be interviewed, but sent a statement by text.“I’m extremely proud of my dad and how he has bounced back after a very tough time for him and our family,” he said. “I’m super excited for his new show and know how hard he’s been working on it.”“Life’s weird, man,” Chapman said. “And life’s hard.”Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesChapman was approached about the CNN+ show late last year. Rebecca Kutler, the senior vice president and head of programming for the streaming service, sought him out because she liked his Twitter feed. Like many of his followers, she didn’t know much about his basketball life.“I found him to be an incredibly compelling human being,” she said. “He has come forward and talked about these challenges publicly, and really tried to use his experience to help others. That, along with his history as an incredible athlete, and the way that he’s been able to connect with an entire new generation of fans using social media, and sharing really uplifting content — I thought he would be a great person to bring new stories to CNN+.”The shows will range from 20 to 40 minutes per episode, with episodes to be released on Mondays.Chapman shooting an interview on Wednesday in New York.Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesLeGrand, the former Rutgers football player whose spinal injury requires him to use a wheelchair, said he quickly felt a connection with Chapman when they met on campus in January. Chapman wore Nike Air Force 1s and a zip-up Jordan brand jacket, prompting LeGrand to say, “Look at you, all swagged out!” The two laughed and the conversation flowed.“When somebody else has been through a rough patch or overcome adversity in their lives, and they’ve been able to get through it and impact people in a positive way, it makes you open up,” LeGrand said. “It makes you feel that sense of comfort.”During the interview, Chapman asked what LeGrand dreamed about, a question no one had ever asked him before. LeGrand said: “When I’m dreaming, I’m always on my feet. I’m never in a wheelchair.”Chapman said he learned empathy from his mother, and from his own pain. He still wrestles with the guilt and shame of his past, particularly for not being a better father. “What they had to go through at school, and people knowing that their dad was in trouble and got arrested,” he said. Chapman said it “crushes” him.Now, he said, “I’m just trying to make up for lost time. I feel like I was gone for about 15 years.”This year, Chapman moved from Kentucky to Brooklyn, 10 minutes from his son. When his new success makes him uncomfortable, he reminds himself that it helps him be the father he wants to be for his children.“We have really no issues at this point,” he said. “Still trying to just show them a better me.” More