Checketts will spend the next three years volunteering for the Mormon Church of EnglandGETTY IMAGES
SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL profiles longtime exec DAVE CHECKETTS who is "returning to his roots as a missionary for the Church of Latter-day Saints." The 62-year-old Checketts and his wife, DEB, left the U.S. earlier this month to "take a three-year assignment as the mission president for the Mormon Church in England." Checketts said, "This is a full-time volunteer assignment that has me overseeing the efforts of 250 volunteers at a time, who are between the ages of 18 and 25. The work is both proselytizing for the church, but also a tremendous opportunity to serve communities and hard-hit areas in need. It’s three years of devoting ourselves to develop these young people in terms of giving back and doing good" (SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL, 7/9 issue).
MOTHER LANDING: ALEX OVECHKIN was "awarded two days with the Stanley Cup" in Moscow and "posed for more than 3,000 photos as part of an event organized by the Putin Team, a social media movement" he started in November to support Russia President VLADIMIR PUTIN. He "shook so many hands that he later asked for a wet napkin." The night finished with a "private party at a ritzy karaoke club with a guest list that included" famous Russian actors, musicians, Capitals teammates EVGENY KUZNETSOV and DMITRY ORLOV and former NHLer SERGEI FEDOROV. Ovechkin "chose to make Sunday more private." He "took the Stanley Cup to a closed hockey game with high-ranking government officials" and "visited his family’s childhood apartment, laying with the trophy on the twin bed he used to sleep in." Then he and his parents "went to the cemetery where his older brother, SERGEY, rests" (WASHINGTONPOST.com, 7/9).
BRICK BREAKER: U.S. House of Representatives candidate JASON EMERT "poked fun" at former Tennessee football coach BUTCH JONES in a 30-second ad that opened with Emert "laying bricks." In the ad he says, "It all starts with a good foundation. If your foundation is solid, it'll take care of itself for many years to come." Jones said those same words in '13 in an ad for Farm Bureau Insurance that "showed Jones laying bricks." Emert's ad, however, includes a "direct shot at" at Jones as well. He says, "Unlike Butch Jones, when I say I'm going to do something, I actually mean it" (TENNESSEAN.com, 7/6).
NAMES: Court filings show that the Arizona couple, RON BELL and JENNIFER PENDLEY, who accused Georgia Tech basketball coach JOSH PASTNER of sexual assault against Pendley, "suggested in recorded jailhouse conversations that they fabricated the allegations." Pastner filed a civil suit against Bell and Pendley in January "alleging they were trying to extort and blackmail him by threatening to release false allegations about him to the media, Georgia Tech and the NCAA" (ESPN.com, 7/6)....DON SCHUMACHER and AUGIE DUESENBERG are among the seven people chosen to be inducted into the American Motorsports HOF (AP, 7/7)....The NASCAR HOF named longtime motorsports reporter STEVE WAID as the eighth recipient of the Squier-Hall Award for NASCAR Media Excellence (NASCAR)....Triple-A Int'l League Columbus Clippers President & GM KEN SCHNACKE was voted into the Int’l League HOF. He will be “inducted before the home run derby” tonight leading into Wednesday’s Triple-A All-Star Game in Columbus (DISPATCH.com, 7/8)....Indians P TREVOR BAUER, in a special for the WALL STREET JOURNAL’s “My Tech Essentials” feature, discussed “designing throws using a super slo-mo camera, 3-D printing toys and Sunday cruising in his McLaren Spider” (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 7/7)....The Boston Globe’s sports department sends columnist JOE SULLIVAN “off into retirement” today. He had a “quarter-century of input” on the paper and has been reporting on the Red Sox since ’04 (BOSTONGLOBE.com, 7/6).
IN MEMORY: Longtime Knicks season-ticket holder MICHELLE MUSLER, who sat in a “seat behind the team’s bench” for four decades, died on June 28. She was one of the “most recognizable mainstays" at MSG. Musler became a season-ticket holder “after the Knicks’ second and last championship season,” ’72-73. Of the many Knicks coaches she sat behind, JEFF VAN GUNDY was her “favorite, in large part because he was, at 5-foot-9, the shortest” (N.Y. TIMES, 7/6).
