Arizona State football coach TODD GRAHAM and his wife, PENNI, along with ASU AD RAY ANDERSON and his wife, BUFFIE, have each donated $500,000 toward a new football stadium at the school. The donations from each couple “will make it easier for ASU to raise funds based on the example of its athletic-department leaders and also help Graham, who is under contract through 2018, show that he is here for the long haul” (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 9/16).
NOW BOARDING: Surfer STEPHANIE GILMORE writes in the N.Y. Times’ “Frequent Flier” feature, “So far, I have won five world titles on the ASP Women’s World Championship Tour, and now flying is second nature. My business trips are for competitions, promotions or some type of event for Roxy, a clothing company, which is my sponsor. ... To complain about flying would just be wrong. My business trips involve doing something that many people only dream about, and I have seen more places in the world than most people will see in their lifetimes.” Gilmore: “The biggest hassle is traveling with surfboards. I usually bring four to six surfboards with me when I go to events. Almost every airline seems to have an issue with surfboards, and the excess baggage bill is always quite large” (N.Y. TIMES, 9/16).
NAMES: NASA astronaut BARRY WILMORE next week “will lift off aboard a Soyuz rocket for a mission to the international space station,” and NASA has arranged for him to “tune into college football while in orbit.” However, “streams will cut out as his temporary home passes through satellites.” Wilmore also has “asked to have games recorded and uplinked as computer files through a DVR-like setup for astronauts (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 9/16)....Trail Blazers, Seahawks and Sounders Owner PAUL ALLEN yesterday announced that he is donating $6.6M to help stem the spread of Ebola in West Africa. The new donation brings the total Allen has committed to the outbreak to more than $20M (SEATTLETIMES.com, 9/15)....Court records show former NFLer VINCE YOUNG and his former business manager RON PEOPLES have been sued in Harris County (Texas) "by a company trying to collect payment on a $700,000 loan that Young obtained from a Dallas man" in April '11 (SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS, 9/15)....Rockets GM DARYL MOREY, F TREVOR ARIZA and G TROY DANIELS visited Ryan Middle School's Baylor College of Medicine Academy as part of the team's Clutch City Checkmate Challenge. All three played chess against American Chess Grandmaster SUSAN POLGAR (CHRON.com, 9/15)....Former MLBer CARLOS LEE has listed his 9,117-square-foot home in Sugar Land, Texas, for $1.9M (LATIMES.com, 9/13)....Golfer NATALIE GULBIS and her husband, Power Balance co-Founder JOSH RODARMEL, bought a home in Newport Beach, Calif, for $1.4M that has 1,500 square feet of living space (LATIMES.com, 9/15).
