A pair of Americans won the United States Sports Academy’s Athlete of the Month honors for June as sports leagues and federations began to reopen for the first time since the sports world felt the impact of global economic and social disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. On the men’s side, golfer Dustin Johnson took the top honor after winning the Travelers Championship on 28 June 2020 in Connecticut to extend his career-long season victory streak to 13. Johnson shot a 19-under 261 to capture his 21st PGA Tour title. For the women, softball player Megan Wiggins was the top vote-getter after recording three RBI, including the game-winning RBI single in the bottom of the seventh as USSSA Pride defeated This Is Us 4-3 on 29 June 2020 in Viera, [...]

The Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce unveiled the featured poster art for the upcoming 32nd Annual Jubilee Festival of Art at the American Sport Art Museum & Archives (ASAMA) on the campus of the United States Sports Academy. The painting, “Jubilant Crabs,” produced by local artist Ricky Trione, depicts crabs congregating during a jubilee on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay. A jubilee is a natural phenomenon that occurs sporadically on Mobile Bay on Alabama’s Gulf Coast in which many species of crab and shrimp and other bay life leave deeper waters and swarm in high numbers in a shallow coastal area of the bay. The events draw large crowds seeking an abundance of easy-to-catch seafood. Cindy Zebryk was the winner of the door prize at the Eastern Shore [...]

The United States Sports Academy family is mourning the loss of longtime leading international softball official Don Porter, a former member of the institution’s Board of Visitors and a one-time member of its national faculty. Porter passed away on Sunday, 7 June 2020, in his hometown of Oklahoma City, Okla., at the age of 90. Porter served in the Army during the Korean War (1951-52) and was awarded the Korean War Medal in 2001 by the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Korea. Porter served as the president of the International Softball Federation (ISF) for 26 years and played a crucial role in softball’s inclusion in the Olympics. Porter helped to establish the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) in 2013 with current WBSC president Riccardo Fraccari. In 2017, Porter [...]

United States Sports Academy Chair of Sports Coaching Dr. Roch King recently visited Athens, Greece, where he participated in a working group and panel discussion about the coaching profession hosted by the Hellenic Olympic Committee and the International Council for Coaching Excellence (ICCE) and co-sponsored by the Erasmus+ Program of the European Union. King was part of panel that discussed “The Voice of the Coach,” which touched on how sport is viewed as a profession around the world. The panel, part of the CoachForce21 conference, included representatives from the coaching profession from European Union countries, Canada, and the United States. Dr. King was jointly representing The Academy as an ICCE member and the United States Center for Coaching Excellence. “It was interesting to hear how the profession of coaching is [...]

The statues of Dwight D. Eisenhower and a group of paratroopers designed and sculpted by two-time United States Sports Academy Sport Artist of the Year Sergey Eylanbekov for the D.D. Eisenhower Memorial were recently placed on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The memorial is designed by architect Frank Gehry. The memorial featuring Eylanbekov’s masterworks will be officially dedicated during a special ceremony on 8 May 2020 – the 75th anniversary of VE Day – on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The scene sculpted by Eylanbekov depicts a moment when Eisenhower spoke to solders with the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne division ahead of the Normandy invasion. Eylanbekov, the United States Sports Academy’s 2020 and 2004 Sport Artist of the Year – Sculptor, was selected to create [...]