text:
THE SPRING LEAGUE is an American football league and scouting event that began play in 2017 and was founded by Brian Woods. Aimed at professional athletes but not paying a salary or expenses, the league's goal is to “serve as an instructional league and showcase for professional football talent.”

The Spring League was the second football property to be established by Brian Woods, following the Fall Experimental Football League (FXFL) from 2014 to 2015. The league consists of four teams and plays an abbreviated four game “season” in April. There is an additional exhibition game called The SPRING LEAGUE SHOWCASE that was first played in July 2017.

Background

The National Football League (NFL) has not had an official developmental league since 2007 with NFL Europe.[1] Several other developmental leagues unaffiliated with the NFL have popped up, the FXFL, Gridiron Developmental Football League and the Rivals Professional Football League.[2] On September 2, 2016, the FXFL, after two abbreviated seasons of operation, announced it had suspended operations in hopes of finding a more effective business model.[3] A developmental league continued to be an internal NFL discussion as of December 2016 with a decision deadline of February 2017.[4]

Business plan

Like the FXFL, The Spring League is built upon the concept of serving as a second opportunity to allow players to advance to more established professional leagues,[5] yet The Spring League has some prominent differences from the FXFL. While The Spring League's core player is around 24 years old, it also took in experienced professionals, which the FXFL discouraged. All four teams are brought to one location, and at first not have distinctive identities or home cities/franchises (this began to change beginning in 2019). Rather, the games are more showcases for the NFL and Canadian Football League (CFL) scouts in the spring and summer months.[6] Also unlike the FXFL, which paid a per-game stipend for its players, The Spring League paid only for room and board. Woods said that the lack of payment is out of financial necessity.[7] To be eligible to participate in the league, a player may not be under contract with a pro league nor be eligible for the current year's draft. Players must also pay a $350 application fee.[8] (By 2019, the application fee had jumped to $2000, as players now also had to cover room and board as part of the fee.) The league also assists in developing NFL referees.[9] Players must also cover their own health insurance.[10] The Spring League earns revenue from a subsidy that the state of Texas provides to hold its events there, as well as from organizations seeking to test equipment and rules changes. In 2019, the XFL served as The Spring League's largest revenue source, paying the league “six figures” to test-run its rulebook.[11]

History

2017 season

CEO Brian Woods founded The Spring League in early 2016.[12] On December 22, 2016, SiriusXM NFL Radio initially reported the league as being owned by the NFL, but retracted that by the end of the day.[13] The NFL informed its teams of the league's existence and its plans to operate from April 5 through April 26, 2017.[14] The Spring League's 2017 season consisted of a four-team, three-week single round-robin tournament in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia at The Greenbrier resort in April,[15] and a two-team “Showcase” game in Napa, California in July. The teams in each tournament were only identified with vague geographic names such as North, South, East, West and California. A game streamed on Facebook received 60,000 views while a practice received 30,000 views.[16]

Coaches with long NFL or College experience included quarterback coach Terry Shea, Steve Fairchild, Donnie Henderson, Dennis Creehan and Art Valero (offensive line).[17][18][19] For the April games, the league had four teams and 105 players.[20] Its players included NFL veterans Fred Jackson, Anthony “Boobie” Dixon,[21] Ben Tate, Greg Hardy, Ricky Stanzi, McLeod Bethel-Thompson[22] and Ahmad Bradshaw.[23] The players ranged from two to 10 years out from college. The league indicated two CFL and 10 NFL teams had their scouts visit the league while another 20 made requests for video footage. Following the April games, roughly two dozen players were invited to NFL rookie mini-camps. The Carolina Panthers picked up six for their rookie mini-camp.[24]

After the first season, NFL scouts seemed to like the league structure but otherwise gave mixed responses. Value was perceived by scouts as they got updated information on forgotten players or saw a player with a conditioned arm, but otherwise the talent level was below what NFL teams expected for an established developmental league. Some scouts expected younger players that had been to a couple NFL training camp but in the wrong system. Woods indicated that the older and big names brought attention to the league, which has a secondary purpose of providing a veteran annual showcase.[25]

GAMES

  Date         Team     score   opponent   score   Notes               Ref
  ------------ -------- ------- ---------- ------- ------------------- ------
  | April 15   East     6       WEST       10                          [26]
  | April 16   NORTH    14      South      10                          [27]
  | April 22   South    -       East       -       Cancelled           [28]
  | April 23   North    -       West       -       Cancelled           [29]
  | April 25   ORANGE   34      Black      7       Championship Game   [30]

The following players signed with NFL or CFL teams following their involvement with The Spring League in 2017:

-   McLeod Bethel-Thompson, a quarterback, signed with the Toronto Argonauts on May 23. During his first year with the team, Bethel-Thompson served as a backup quarterback, and also played as a defensive back and on special teams during the CFL preseason.[31][32] Bethel-Thompson won the 105th Grey Cup with the Argonauts later in the year.[33] Beginning in week 8 of the 2018 season, Bethel-Thompson was named the Argos starting quarterback.
-   Zeek Bigger, a linebacker, signed with the Carolina Panthers on May 30, after participating in OTAs on a tryout basis.[34][35] Bigger was released at the end of the preseason, but spent two weeks on Carolina's practice squad.[36]
-   Manasseh Garner, a tight end, signed with the Washington Redskins on May 15 following their rookie mini-camp.[37][38] Garner was cut following the preseason, but was signed to the practice squad, and was later promoted to the active roster for the final game of the season.[39]
-   Cornerback Tyquwan Glass was signed to the Los Angeles Rams on August 22.[40] Glass was released as part of final cuts.
-   Tight end David Grinnage was signed by the Jacksonville Jaguars just prior to the preseason on August 14.[41] Grinnage did not make the team, but was given a spot on Jacksonville's practice squad.[42]
-   Defensive lineman Calvin Heurtelou was signed by the Green Bay Packers on August 21.[43][44] Heurtelou was waived after the preseason.
-   Daje Johnson, wide receiver, signed with the Ottawa Redblacks.[45] After playing the first three weeks of the regular season on the practice roster, Johnson was promoted to be the starting returner for Week 4.[46][47] After playing two games, Johnson was placed on the injured list, and was later released on August 9.[48]
-   Wide receiver Jalen Saunders signed with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on May 23. After two weeks on the practice roster, Saunders made his CFL debut in Week 3.[49][50] Saunders finished the 2017 CFL season with over 1,000 yards receiving.
-   Quarterback Ricky Stanzi signed with the Calgary Stampeders on May 16 as a backup quarterback.[51][52]
-   Tani Tupou, a fullback/defensive tackle, signed with the Atlanta Falcons on May 14 following their mini-camp. Tupou was the first Spring League player to be signed by a professional team.[53][54] Tupou was released after the preseason, but was signed to Atlanta's practice squad.[55] He spent time on the active roster as well this year.
-   Wide receiver Griff Whalen was signed by the Baltimore Ravens on July 21, following his participation in the Summer Showcase game.[56] Whalen was released following the preseason, but later spent two games with the Ravens before being cut again. Whalen then signed with the Oakland Raiders during the offseason.[57]
-   Running back Josh Robinson received a workout with the Detroit Lions in August 2017,[58] but went unsigned until he agreed to terms with the Montreal Alouettes of the CFL in January 2018.[59]

Spring League Showcase

On July 15, 2017, the Spring League Showcase was held at Napa Memorial Stadium in California between Spring League California, coached by Terry Shea and Spring League East, coached by Donnie Henderson.[60] Flofootball.com's FloPRO subscription service streamed the game.[61] David Ash started the game for the California roster and lead several scoring drives. He had 96 passing yards and 9-of-13 passing, including a 4-yard touchdown pass to Anthony Dixon with an interception and 3 runs for a total of 10 yards with his longest for 9 yards. For the East, two quarterbacks, Casey Pachall and Trenton Norvell, made touchdown passes. Pachall completed 4-of-6 passes for 84 yards and a 67-yard touchdown. The game's top rusher was Paul Harris of the East team, who rushed twice for 74 yards and a 6-yard touchdown. East defeated California 23–19.[62][63]

Notable players for each team:[64][65]

-   Spring League California: David Ash, Quarterback;[66] Diondre Borel, DiAndre Campbell, Jabari Carr, Anthony Ezeakunne, Joshua Hill, Fred Jackson, Jordan James, Gabriel Manzanares, Thierry Nguema, Tyrone Ward, Griff Whalen
-   Spring League East: Quarterbacks: Casey Pachall, Trenton Norvell;[67] Anthony Dixon, Greg Hardy, Paul Harris, Nick Kasa, Dontre Wilson and Josh Robinson
-   team unspecified: Glen Coffee[68]

2018 season

The league had try-outs in various cities in October and November 2017 and February 2018.[69] On December 7, 2017, The Spring League announced it would play its second season in Austin, Texas beginning in late March 2018. The league was also to have a football-specific tech forum and a joint internship program with the University of Texas’ Center for Sports Leadership & Innovation.[70] Turner Sports announced in mid-January 2018, while the league games would be on its new streaming service B/R Live, the league was also finalizing a deal to practice and play games at Circuit of the Americas near Austin, Texas.[71] On February 14, the league announced the signing of Heisman Trophy winner and former Cleveland Browns first round pick Johnny Manziel to the league playing on the South team. Games to be played on April 7 and 14.[72] Other former NFL commitments to the league were former Cleveland Browns first round pick Kellen Winslow Jr. and former Baltimore Ravens running back Lorenzo Taliaferro.[73] On March 3, the league did not execute on the contract to play the 2018 season at the Circuit of the Americas and instead announced events to take place at Kelly Reeves Athletic Complex in Round Rock, Texas.[74] Following the April games, the another Summer Showcase was announced for June 2018.[75]

GAMES[76]

  Date       Team      score   opponent   score   Ref
  ---------- --------- ------- ---------- ------- ----------
  April 7    | North   13      WEST       30
  | South    7         EAST    11
  April 12   | South   17      WEST       34      [77][78]
  | NORTH    27        East    10

  Spring League 2018
  -------------------- --- --- ------- ---- ----
  Team
  | West
  | North
  | East
  | South

The following players signed with NFL, CFL or AAF teams following their involvement with The Spring League in 2018:

-   Roman Braglio, a defensive lineman, signed with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on May 6.[79]
-   Defensive lineman Harold Brantley signed with the Ottawa Redblacks on May 18.[80] Brantley was released following the preseason, and has yet to accept a practice roster spot with Ottawa.[81]
-   Running back Brandon Burks signed with the Toronto Argonauts on April 16.[82] Burks was the first professional Spring League signing of 2018.[83]
-   Tight end Paul Butler received an invite to the Oakland Raiders rookie minicamp, and was promptly signed by the team on May 7.[84][85]
-   David Cobb, a running back, signed with the Saskatchewan Roughriders on June 4.[86]
-   Defensive lineman Breion Creer signed with the BC Lions on May 7.[87]
-   Offensive lineman Quinterrius Eatmon was signed by the Carolina Panthers on May 14.[88][89]
-   Defensive back Tyson Graham signed with the Atlanta Falcons on April 17.[90][91]
-   Marcus Henry, a center, was signed by the Seattle Seahawks on May 9, having been invited to participate in rookie minicamp with the team following The Spring League.[92]
-   Offensive lineman Cameron Hunt was signed by the Oakland Raiders on May 17.[93][94]
-   Defensive lineman/linebacker Kani Kema-Kaleiwahea signed with the BC Lions on April 17.[95][96]
-   Johnny Manziel, a quarterback, signed with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on May 19.[97]
-   Defensive back Raysean Pringle signed with the Detroit Lions on April 18.[98][99]
-   Linebacker/Safety Keith Reineke was signed by the Calgary Stampeders on April 23.[100]
-   Tight End Beau Sandland signed with the Arizona Cardinals on April 17, reuniting him with Steve Wilks, his former coach from his stint with the Carolina Panthers.[101][102]
-   Karter Schult, a defensive end, signed with the Carolina Panthers on May 14, after participating in the Panthers minicamp.[103][104]
-   Taylor Symmank, a punter, was signed by the New York Giants on June 5.[105][106]
-   Running back Lorenzo Taliaferro was signed by the Hamilton Ti-Cats on May 28, but released on June 6.[107]
-   Defensive back Dwayne Thomas was signed by the Hamilton Ti-Cats on May 18, but released on June 11 following the CFL preseason.[108][109]
-   Defensive lineman/linebacker Lynden Trail signed with the Hamilton Ti-Cats on May 5.[110]
-   Zach Mettenberger (West team quarterback) was signed by the Alliance of American Football's Memphis team by July 30, 2018.[111] Mettenberger was one of an estimated 40 players from The Spring League to have signed with the AAF.[112]

Fall Showcase

The Spring League announced a “Fall Showcase” for Miami, Florida to take place November 6–9, 2018, which the league intends to prepare players for the AAF and XFL, which play winter/spring seasons.[113]

2019 season

[For 2019, The Spring League tested rules for the XFL. Seen here is the later implemented XFL kickoff formation.] For the 2019 season, The Spring League partnered with the XFL to test rule changes the new league hoped to implement for its own 2020 season. One rule change, originally proposed by Pro Football Talk in 2017, was replacing overtime with a two-point conversion shootout occurring simultaneously at both end zones with five rounds in the TSL.[114] Also tested was the tap rule, which allows a referee to send a player to the sideline for less than a penalty level offense.[115] Both rules and the kickoff formation were later implemented in the XFL.

2019 season practice began March 31, 2019 with double headers on April 6 and 11, 2019. Each of the four teams played two games.[116] For the first time, one of the teams had a brand name; the Austin Generals (formerly South) was named after its host city of Austin, Texas, and used the logo and colors of the former New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League.[117][118] The remaining three teams retained their generic North, East and West brandings.

GAMES

  Date         Team       score   opponent   score   Notes                Ref
  ------------ ---------- ------- ---------- ------- -------------------- -------
  | April 8    North      6       WEST       36                           [119]
  | April 9    GENERALS   13      East       6       Overtime Test Game   [120]
  | April 13   NORTH      31      East       24                           [121]
  | April 15   GENERALS   32      West       13                           [122]

  Spring League 2019
  -------------------- --- --- ------- ---- ----
  Team
  | Austin Generals
  | West
  | North
  | East

The Spring League was hired by the XFL to hold three mini-camp style tryouts. With this revenue source, the league's revenue exceeded one million dollars and would have its first profitable year. The two leagues are in preliminary discussions of the Spring League becoming the XFL's official development league.[123]

Summer Showcase

The league held its second Summer Showcase on July 30, 2019 in Mission Viejo, California with 100 pay to play players in a four-day camp and a six quarter scrimmage.[124] XFL executives and coaches and ESPN and Fox staff were on had to view rule tests and in-game technologies with the broadcaster giving feedback on how it would effect broadcast coverage.[125]

2020 Spring season

For 2020, TSL played a showcase game against the Japan national American football team at the Ford Center at The Star March 1,[126] and the main competition March 7 and 11 at Sam Boyd Stadium.[127] The designated home team (formerly West) was dubbed the Las Vegas Hughes, named after Howard Hughes, who spent much of the end of his life as a recluse in Las Vegas.[128] Mettenberger agreed to return as a quarterback.[129] The league was able to get its abbreviated 2020 season completed just before social distancing mandates tied to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States took effect, shutting down effectively all in-person sports in the United States.

GAMES

  Date        Team        score   opponent   score       Notes   Ref
  ----------- ----------- ------- ---------- ----------- ------- -----
  March 7     LAS VEGAS   14      North      7[130]
  NORTH       14          East    7[131]
  LAS VEGAS   3           East    0[132]
  March 11    LAS VEGAS   17      East       6[133]
  Las Vegas   0           NORTH   7[134]
  North       -           East    -          Cancelled

  Spring League 2020
  -------------------- --- --- ------ ---- ----
  Team
  Las Vegas Hughes
  North
  East

Summer Showcase

The league held its annual Summer Showcase on July in Glendale, Colorado with a total of 85 players and another 25 staff members and medical personnel participated. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic all players had to go through 14-day self-quarantine before camp and all meetings were conduct in a video conference.[135]

2020 Fall season

In October 2020 FS1 reached a multi-year agreement to televise The Spring League along with the option to acquire a minority stake in the league, with initial agreement to play a 6-team fall-season in late October and November 2020.[136] The league began its fall season on Oct. 27 with six teams competing in a 12-game format over four weeks in a bubble environment, based out of the San Antonio Alamodome. Fox Sports 1 aired games on Tuesday and Wednesday. The league stated that this time the players did not pay to attend, [137] but Woods later explained that some players did pay, while select others did not.[138]

All six teams will have brands and names, including the returning GENERALS[139][140] (originally from Austin), AVIATORS[141][142] (re-branded from Las Vegas Hughes), and four new teams the BLUES[143][144] (modified from the FXFL Blacktips), ALPHAS[145][146] (a wolf motif), CONQUERORS[147][148] and JOUSTERS.[149][150][151]

Coaches

All of the league teams are coached by coaches with vast experience in college or minor-league and all, except Chuck Bresnahan, has a head coaching experience, while all apart from Steve Fairchild were involved in the United Football League during its four-year existence:[152]

-   Steve Fairchild* (Alphas)
-   Terry Shea* (Aviators)
-   Ted Cottrell (Blues)
-   Jerry Glanville (Conquerors)
-   Bart Andrus* (Generals)
-   Chuck Bresnahan (Jousters)

_ Returning coach from previous seasons_

Some of the more recognizable assistants were June Jones[153] (Conquerors) who was later replaced by Kevin Gilbride,[154] Mike Singletary and Jeff Reinbold (Generals)[155][156], Drew Tate (Alphas)[157], Robert Ford (Jousters)[158] and Eric Hicks (Aviators).[159]

Players

With the cancellation of the XFL 2021 season and the CFL not playing in 2020, The Spring League featured more recognizable names from years past. Some of the bigger names were NFL veteran and former alumni QB Zach Mettenberger (Generals), The CFL's 2019 passing touchdowns leader McLeod Bethel-Thompson (Aviators), former Ohio State Buckeyes QB J. T. Barrett (Alphas) and 2018 TSL MVP Bryan Scott (Generals). The league also featured players from smaller schools, that didn't get an NFL opportunity after the 2020 draft with the cancellation of the preseason and mini-camps.

Games

+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Wee | Dat | Tea | Sco | Opp | Sco | Sit | Not | TV  | Ref | Sta |
| k   | e   | m   | re  | one | re  | e   | es  |     |     | ts  |
|     |     |     |     | nt  |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+
| Wee | Oct | |   | 0   | BLU | 19  | Ala |     |     | [16 | [16 |
| k   | obe | Alp |     | ES[ |     | mod |     |     | 4]  | 5][ |
| 1   | r   | has |     | 163 |     | ome |     |     |     | 166 |
| [16 | 27  |     |     | ]   |     |     |     |     |     | ]   |
| 0][ |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
| 161 |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
| ][1 |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
| 62] |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| |   | 28  | Jou | 0   | Ala |     |     | [16 | [16 |
| AVI |     | ste |     | mod |     |     | 7]  | 8][ |
| ATO |     | rs  |     | ome |     |     |     | 169 |
| RS  |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | ]   |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| |   | 19  | GEN | 33  | Ala |     | FS1 | [17 | [17 |
| Con |     | ERA |     | mod |     |     | 0]  | 1][ |
| que |     | LS  |     | ome |     |     |     | 172 |
| ror |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | ]   |
| s   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Wee | Nov | |   | 17  | AVI | 23* | Ala |     | FS1 | [17 | [17 |
| k   | emb | Blu |     | ATO |     | mod |     |     | 6]  | 7][ |
| 2   | er  | es  |     | RS  |     | ome |     |     |     | 178 |
| [17 | 4   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | ]   |
| 3][ |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
| 174 |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
| ][1 |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
| 75] |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| |   | 22  | Con | 17  | Ala |     | FS1 | [18 | [18 |
| ALP |     | que |     | mod |     |     | 1]  | 2][ |
| HAS |     | ror |     | ome |     |     |     | 183 |
| [17 |     | s[1 |     |     |     |     |     | ]   |
| 9]  |     | 80] |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Nov | |   | 18  | Jou | 15  | Ala |     |     | [18 | [18 |
| emb | GEN |     | ste |     | mod |     |     | 4]  | 5][ |
| er  | ERA |     | rs  |     | ome |     |     |     | 186 |
| 5   | LS  |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | ]   |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Wee | Nov | |   | 42  | Avi | 19  | Ala | Ori | FS1 | [19 | [19 |
| k   | emb | CON |     | ato |     | mod | gin |     | 1][ | 3][ |
| 3   | er  | QUE |     | rs  |     | ome | all |     | 192 | 194 |
| [18 | 10  | ROR |     |     |     |     | y   |     | ]   | ]   |
| 7][ |     | S   |     |     |     |     | sch |     |     |     |
| 188 |     |     |     |     |     |     | edu |     |     |     |
| ][1 |     |     |     |     |     |     | led |     |     |     |
| 89] |     |     |     |     |     |     | for |     |     |     |
| [19 |     |     |     |     |     |     | Nov |     |     |     |
| 0]  |     |     |     |     |     |     | emb |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     |     | er  |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 11  |     |     |     |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Nov | Jou | 0   | ALP | 2   | Ala | For |     | [19 |     |
| emb | ste |     | HAS |     | mod | fei |     | 5]  |     |
| er  | rs  |     |     |     | ome | ted |     |     |     |
| 11  |     |     |     |     |     | (Or |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | igi |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | nal |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | ly  |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | sch |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | edu |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | led |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | for |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | Nov |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | emb |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | er  |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | 10  |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | bro |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | adc |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | ast |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | on  |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | FS1 |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | )   |     |     |     |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| |   | 28  | GEN | 42  | Ala |     | FS1 | [19 | [19 |
| Blu |     | ERA |     | mod |     |     | 6]  | 7][ |
| es  |     | LS  |     | ome |     |     |     | 198 |
|     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | ]   |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Wee | Nov | |   | -   | Con | -   | Bob | Can |     | [20 |     |
| k   | emb | Jou |     | que |     | Ben | cel |     | 0]  |     |
| 4   | er  | ste |     | ror |     | son | led |     |     |     |
| [19 | 17  | rs  |     | s   |     | '66 |     |     |     |     |
| 9]  |     |     |     |     |     | '   |     |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | Sta |     |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | diu |     |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     | m   |     |     |     |     |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| |   | -   | Blu | -   | Bob | Can | FS1 |     |     |
| Alp |     | es  |     | Ben | cel |     |     |     |
| has |     |     |     | son | led |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     | '66 |     |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     | '   |     |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     | Sta |     |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     | diu |     |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     | m   |     |     |     |     |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| |   | -   | Gen | -   | Bob | Can | FS1 |     |     |
| Avi |     | era |     | Ben | cel |     |     |     |
| ato |     | ls  |     | son | led |     |     |     |
| rs  |     |     |     | '66 |     |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     | '   |     |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     | Sta |     |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     | diu |     |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     | m   |     |     |     |     |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Fin | TBA | |   |     | Avi |     | Ala | Cha | FS1 |     |     |
| al  |     | Gen |     | ato |     | mod | mpi |     |     |     |
|     |     | era |     | rs  |     | ome | ons |     |     |     |
|     |     | ls  |     |     |     |     | hip |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     |     | Gam |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     |     |     |     | e   |     |     |     |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
|  |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+

_ Overtime_

  Spring League Fall 2020
  ------------------------- --- --- ------- ---- ----
  Team
  | Generals
  | Aviators
  | Alphas
  | Conquerors
  | Blues
  | Jousters

Controversy

Before the week 3 games rumors started to arose that the coaches have discussed boycotting after not getting paid for their work, while agents of players have also come forward with allegations in the past that the Spring League failed to cover lodging costs as promised.[201] Woods would later argue that “the payroll system had to verify checking accounts before issuing the direct deposits, which delayed the payments”.[202]

After week 3, Bresnahan stepped down as head coach of the Jousters, because of a miscommunication with the league resulting from COVID-19 outbreak in the team. The Jousters had several unspecified players test positive, resulting in a forfeit game against the Alphas,[203] and cancellation of the scheduled broadcast. Offensive assistant Robert Ford was supposed to take over the head-coach duties, but as some of the other coaches had to leave as they were considered at high-risk, the Jousters final game was cancelled,[204] making them the only team whose games were not broadcast.[205]

Before week 4, Cory “Poop” Johnson who played for the Jousters, released a YouTube video accusing Woods (called “the league owner”) for mistreating his teammates (no insurance for players, no trainers on stuff and no guarantee players who pay to be there get a fair look),[206] disregarding COVID-19 protocols and threatening to prevent them of personal game film,[207] while other players rumored about poor meals, having to pay for treatment, parking and hotel rooms.[208] Furthermore, according to several players accounts, they payed to play in the league but instead just participate in three-day “showcase” and were sent home.[209] Following those reports, the league announced that the remaining scheduled games will be cancelled due to new positive COVID-19 test results and all players were sent home immediately.[210][211] Woods would later waved away most complaints, said the players did not stay at the hotel and are responsible for the COVID-19 outbreak and explained that the sick players had an option to stayed at the hotel if they wanted to. He also made it clear he planned to go ahead with the Championship Game on a later date.[212][213]

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[39] http://www.redskins.com/news/article-1/Redskins-Sign-Manasseh-Garner-To-The-Active-Roster/e7863842-3ccd-42e3-bc52-46b2275af6ab

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[54]  HeraldNet.com|url=https://www.heraldnet.com/sports/archbishop-murphy-grad-getting-a-second-shot-at-the-nfl/%7Caccess-date=August 29, 2017|work=Everett Herald|publisher=Everett Herald and Sound Publishing, Inc.|date=May 15, 2017}}

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[88] http://www.panthers.com/news/article-2/Panthers-sign-four-tryouts-waive-Zack-Sanchez/2d9e6a71-6e1e-41eb-a432-e5f9dde06198

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[91] https://www.thespringleague.com/2018/04/17/congrats-db-tyson-graham-2nd-nfl-signing-spring-leagues-2018-season/

[92] http://www.idahostatesman.com/sports/college/mountain-west/boise-state-university/boise-state-football/article210718889.html

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[99] https://www.thespringleague.com/2018/04/18/congrats-db-raysean-pringle-3rd-nfl-signing-spring-leagues-2018-season/

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[104] http://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/nfl/carolina-panthers/article211094464.html

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[128] The Spring League Las Vegas @ Sam Boyd Stadium: Tickets ON SALE NOW! - The Spring League

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[130] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1236396559132061696

[131] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1236414302707277824

[132] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1236429962380316673

[133] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1237824090515226625

[134] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1237847323482288130

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[136] Fox Sports will televise The Spring League football games this fall

[137] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1326600541330415616

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[153] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1319429926752321536

[154] https://twitter.com/ByMikeMitchell/status/1323387835320324097

[155] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1318720131351089153

[156] https://twitter.com/Jeff_Reinebold/status/1324725643636998144

[157] https://rodpedersen.com/flame-tech-football-friday-rundown-6/

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[159] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1319665486003687425

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[165] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1321573706565640192

[166] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1321572100533006336

[167] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1321201018596712450

[168] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1321576898816823302

[169] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1321578892117921794

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[171] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1321580723283861506

[172] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1321582357778976768

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[177] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1324871162808119302

[178] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1324870322621997057

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[182] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1324884979395010560

[183] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1324874370695749632

[184] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1324559135527047170

[185] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1324876500915642369

[186] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1324878307754729472

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[193] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1326984546886283264

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[195] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1326599435023998976

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[197] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1327011472631853057

[198] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1327010556402950144

[199] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1328823268103647234

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[203] https://www.facebook.com/thespringleague/photos/a.2313705772241192/2844701899141574

[204] https://twitter.com/TheSpringLeague/status/1327280304562769920

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title: The Spring League

question: What is the Spring League?

answer: An American football league founded by Brian Woods used to scout for new players.

question: Write a short summary of the controversy around the 2020 Spring League season.

answer: In the first few weeks of the league, rumors arose about the coaches possibly boycotting the league after not getting paid for their work. Then on the third week, Jousters had several unspecified players test positive, resulting in a forfeit game against the Alphas causing Bresnahan to step down as their coach. Later, a Jouster player then released a youtube video accusing Woods (called “the league owner”) of mistreating his teammates (no insurance for players, no trainers on stuff, and no guarantee players who pay to be there get a fair look) and disregarding Covid 19 protocols. Furthermore, according to several players' accounts, they paid to play in the league but instead just participate in a three-day “showcase” and were sent home.

question: List the notable players for each team in the Spring showcase 2017.

answer:
- Spring League California: David Ash, Quarterback; Diondre Borel, DiAndre Campbell, Jabari Carr, Anthony Ezeakunne, Joshua Hill, Fred Jackson, Jordan James, Gabriel Manzanares, Thierry Nguema, Tyrone Ward, Griff Whalen
- Spring League East: Quarterbacks: Casey Pachall, Trenton Norvell; Anthony Dixon, Greg Hardy, Paul Harris, Nick Kasa, Dontre Wilson, and Josh Robinson

question: Why did rules change for the 2020 season?

answer: Information can't be found.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The Spring League is an American football league and scouting event that began play in 2017 and was founded by Brian Woods. during the 2020 season, one of the Jouster players released a video on Woods mistreating their players, claiming that they were not following protocol.


split: train

text:
Three relatively strong earthquakes were recorded Sunday night,in the Pacific Ocean off Vancouver Island but there was no tsunami or subsequent damage reported.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported a 6.6 magnitude quake about 260 kilometres west of Tofino, followed by a6.8 tremor and then a third measuring 6.5.

Dr. John Cassidy, seismologist at the Geological Survey of Canada, told CTV News Channel Monday it was “unusual to have three in a row.” But that doesn’t mean something bigger is coming.

“It doesn’t really tell us anything about when a future strong earthquake would occur,” he said, adding that the region, nicknamed “Pacific Ring of Fire,” regularly experiences thousands of small earthquakes each year.

Survey geophysicist Zachary Reeves said all three quakes occurred in the same general area over the course of about an hour, and at a shallow depth of approximately 10 kilometres.

Reeves, based in Golden, Colorado, described the quakes as "pretty big."

Emergency Info BC tweeted that the quakes were felt in parts of the province but there were no reports of damage or injury and no tsunami warning was issued.

-   _WATCH: WHY PREDICTING EARTHQUAKES IS SO HARD_

The epicentres for the quakes were in open ocean about 200 km from Port Hardy, B.C. But had the shallow-depth earthquakes occured near or on land they likely would have caused significant damage to surrounding structures and buildings.

Shortly after the large quakes, three smaller aftershocks were detected on the Explorer seismic plate. Cassidy warned that residents might feel more aftershocks in the coming days.

He also suggested the data collected from the recent seismic events will give insight on how the ground shakes in the region, as well as influence how engineers develop or update building, dam and bridge codes.

The night's second earthquake was the largest in the province since Haida Gwaii, B.C. was rocked by a magnitude 7.8 quake on October 27, 2012.

Aftershocks expected in the coming days

British Columbia is located in an active seismic zone where sensors monitor activity and help scientists give early warning to residents.

Most of the quakes happen near the Cascadia subduction zone, an area where the Juan de Fuca and North American tectonic plates converge, stretching from Vancouver Island to northern California.

They’re so common, the B.C. government called it “high-risk earthquake zone” and their website recommends residents have supplies and emergency kits so they’re prepared to be on their own for at least 72 hours.

An earthquake early-warning system recently tested off the B.C. coast could give residents anywhere from 20 seconds to two minutes to prepare before a quake, Cassidy said.

The first-of-its kind warning sensors developed by Ocean Networks Canada areinstalled along the Cascadia subduction zone and when fully operating next March, will be able to estimate location and magnitude of a megathrust earthquake.

As for aquatic life being affected by the recent quakes, Cassidy said the creatures and plants on the seabed were likely unaffected since the quakes merely shook the ground and weren’t large tectonic plate shifts.

_With files from The Canadian Press_

  Prelim M6.6 Earthquake Vancouver Island, Canada region Oct-22 05:39 UTC, updates https://t.co/6lqYoLl1L3

  — USGS Big Quakes (@USGSBigQuakes) October 22, 2018

  Prelim M6.5 Earthquake Vancouver Island, Canada region Oct-22 06:22 UTC, updates https://t.co/d9rQfY9qqn

  — USGS Big Quakes (@USGSBigQuakes) October 22, 2018

  Prelim M6.8 Earthquake Vancouver Island, Canada region Oct-22 06:16 UTC, updates https://t.co/pJAofbfief

  — USGS Big Quakes (@USGSBigQuakes) October 22, 2018

  Multiple #earthquakes felt in parts of #BC, but no reports of damage or injury.
  NO Tsunami threat. RT @USGSBigQuakes: Prelim M6.5 Earthquake Vancouver Island, Canada region Oct-22 06:22 UTC, updates https://t.co/hvAEGnVOmW

  — Emergency Info BC (@EmergencyInfoBC) October 22, 2018

question: What was the cause of the earthquakes?

question: Where did the earthquakes occur?

answer: In the Pacific Ocean off Vancouver Island.

question: Describe the damage done by the earthquakes.

answer: There were no reports of damage or injury.

question: Who is Zachary Reeves?

answer: A survey geophysicist based in Golden, Colorado.

question: Summarize everything related to Dr. John Cassidy.

answer: Dr. John Cassidy is a seismologist at the Geological Survey of Canada. He told CTV News Channel that though three earthquakes in a row is unusual, it doesn't indicate a bigger earthquake is coming. He warned residents that they might feel more aftershocks in the coming days and suggested the data collected from the events would give insight into how the ground shakes in the region and be of use to engineers. He stated that a recently tested earthquake early-warning system could give residents anywhere from 20 seconds to 2 minutes to prepare. He also stated that plants and animals on the seabed were likely unaffected by the quakes.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: A series of three earthquakes occurred off the coast of Vancouver Island. No damage or injury was reported. Dr. John Cassidy, a seismologist, stated that it is unlikely the earthquakes mean anything bigger is coming, although aftershocks are expected in the coming days. The area is classified as a high-risk earthqyake zone.


text:
Telegraph logo
This video content is no longer available

To watch The Telegraph's latest video content please visit youtube.com/telegraph

Donald Trump said he hoped for a "truly honest" outcome from the Russia investigation amid reports that special counsel Robert Muellerhas convened a grand jury in Washington to investigate the allegations of Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections.

The grand jury has issued subpoenas in connection with a meeting between Donald Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer in June 2016, according to Reuters.

It began its work in recent weeks and is a ramping up of Mueller's inquiry into Russia's efforts to influence the election and whether it colluded with Mr Trump's campaign.

A grand jury's deliberations are secret and its existence was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

At a campaign rally in West Virginia, Mr Trump slammed the investigation as a "fake story that is demeaning to all of us and most of all demeaning to our country and demeaning to our Constitution."

"I just hope the final determination is a truly honest one, which is what the millions of people who gave us our big win in November deserve and what all Americans who want a better future want and deserve," the president told thousands of supporters at an arena in Huntington.

Mr Trump, who remains agitated over the investigation into allegations of coordination between his campaign associates and Russian government officials, said Democrats had a decision to make.

"They can continue their obsession with the hoax or they can serve the interests of the American people," he said.

President Donald J. Trump appears at the rally in West Virginia  Credit: Getty

Mr Trump maintains there were no ties between his campaign and Russia and says no wrongdoing was committed. His frustration over the investigation peaked in recent weeks as he began attacking Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the investigation. Mr Sessions, most recently a US senator, was an early and ardent Trump supporter.

"Most people know there were no Russians in our campaign. We didn't win because of Russia. We won because of you," he told the crowd in West Virginia.

Mr Trump argued that Democrats are pushing the "totally made-up Russia story" because "they have no message, no agenda and no vision."

"The Russia story is a total fabrication. It's just an excuse for the greatest loss in the history of American politics," he said, referring to his victory over Hillary Clinton. "It just makes them feel better when they have nothing else to talk about."

His suggestion for Democrats: "Try winning at the voter booth. Not going to be easy, but that's the way you're supposed to do it."

A grand jury consists of lay individuals and it can hand down criminal indictments if convinced to do so by Mr Mueller.

Through a grand jury prosecutors can also have subpoenas issued for documents and put witnesses under oath.

The setting up of a grand jury was a sign that Mr Mueller believes criminal charges could be possible at some point, or at least that he thinks he will have to subpoena records and obtain testimony from witnesses.

Ty Cobb, special counsel to Mr Trump, told the Wall Street Journal he was not aware of the existence of the grand jury.

He said: "Grand jury matters are typically secret. The White House favours anything that accelerates the conclusion of his work fairly. "The White House is committed to fully cooperating with Mr Mueller.”

Law professor Stephen Vladeck told the Wall Street Journal: "This is yet a further sign that there is a long-term, large-scale series of prosecutions being contemplated and being pursued by the special counsel."

Telegraph logo
This video content is no longer available

To watch The Telegraph's latest video content please visit youtube.com/telegraph

question: What is the special counsel Robert Mueller investigating?

answer: Robert Mueller has convened a grand jury in Washington to investigate the allegations of Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

question: Why is Donald Trump agitated over the investigation?

answer: Donald Trump believes that the accusations of Russian interference is "a fake story that is demeaning to us and most of all demeaning to our country and demeaning to our Constitution."

question: Who is on the grand jury?

answer: The grand jury consists of lay individuals.

question: Who is Ty Cobb?

answer: Ty Cobb is special counsel to Donald Trump.

question: Write a ~5 sentence summary.

answer: Robert Mueller has convened a grand jury to investigate accusations of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Donald Trump decried the investigation, calling it a fake story that is demeaning to the country and the Constitution. The grand jury can hand down criminal indictments if convinced to do so by Mr. Mueller. The creation of a grand jury is a sign that Mueller believes that criminal charges could be possible in the near future. The White House is fully cooperating the Mr. Mueller.


text:
Jack jerked awake. It was dark, the window was open, a warm breeze blowing through the curtains. Outside the din of city life had quieted to its nocturnal stupor. He could hear a cat scrounging down in the alleyway.

Jack reached his arm to the empty space in his bed next to him, forgetting for a moment that Martha was gone. Had it really been 18 months already? Jack reached to his other side under the mattress to feel for his cold steel revolver. That, at least, was in it's place.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stood up. Groggily wandering around the apartment in his underwear, trying to forget the scent of Martha. She had been his everything, and he had given her everything, including a child. But God was not kind and that night, 18 months ago God took her, and the child, in one fell swoop. One bloody swoop that was no accident.

The instrument of this crime was a 6 inch blade, left at the scene. No fingerprints, no suspects, no motive. Jack had been drinking and came home late, only to discover his pregnant wife bloodied and lifeless.

The horror had not sunken in immediately. Jack was not particularly cold, but he was calculating. He would unravel the mystery and take his vengeance. His first thoughts were violent ones, but then despair sunk in, and sadness and he wept until the police arrived.

The investigation lasted for months. But there were no leads, Martha had no enemies, nor did Jack. He was just a schoolteacher, 11th grade english. Who could have been so brutal and why?

That was the question that haunted Jack's mind tonight. He opened the fridge. Condiments. And a half cup of milk. He drank the milk from the carton and tossed it at the trashcan. Jack's mind went to the days before the city, when he and martha would take long walks in the woods and make picnics by the ocean. But Jack didn't have the income to support a child and had to move to this very damn apartment.

Since then Jack couldn't stand to look at children. He became obsessed with solving the crime even after the police had given up. Picture's of the scene were etched into his mind. He had to clear his head.

Jack dressed and put on a coat and left the apartment. He went trudging down the sidewalk next to brick buildings with only the light of a few sparse lampposts.

As Jack walked he came upon a bum, sleeping covered under a blanket. He kicked the bum as he walked, the anger inside of him swelling from frustration. The man did not wake but rolled over like a rag doll. Jack leaned down and shook the man trying to wake him. The blanket fell away from his face and the figure of an old rotting corpse stared back at Jack. Jack dropped the man immediately and took a step back startled.

Then a dead hand reached up from under the blanked and grabbed Jack's hand. Jack could feel the icy touch of death as the creature turned to look at him once more. "IT WAS YOU!" the creature moaned, pointing into Jack's heart with his dead fingers. "IT WAS YOUUU!"

Jack woke up suddenly and reached to his side. The warm skin of Martha rest on the bed beside him, her swelling belly rising and falling with every breath. Jack reached to his other side under the mattress where he found a 6 inch blade, cold and steel, right in its place.

title: First attempt at a short story since high school (Noir)

question: Where did Jack wake up in?

answer: He wakes up in his bed.

question: Who was his everything?

answer: Martha, his pregnant girlfriend.

question: Who killed Martha?

answer: Nobody, but Jack intends to kill her.

question: Who was the bum that Jack ran into?

answer: Information can't be found.

question: Write a ~7 sentence summary.

answer: Jack wakes up to an empty bed. It had been 18 months since Martha was murdered by blade. He's been investigating her death for months only to have no leads. He goes out for a walk and stumbles upon a bum who appears to be dead. The corpse moves and screams "It was you." Jack stumbles back and wakes up in his bed with Martha next to him. He reaches underneath his mattress, and finds a blade, right in its place.


text:
About Us

We believe the most dedicated servants to America – our veterans – are systemically under-served and marginalized. While our country remains a global superpower, the men and women who serve and defend us struggle to get basic support when they return home.

Together, we can do better.

Veterans Anonymous was established to build and maintain a singular platform that enables vets to connect, access services, navigate complex government red tape, avoid fraudulent organizations, and foster dialogue and planning to give back to their local communities.

question: What is the purpose of Veterans Anonymous?

answer: To be a singular platform to connect vets, help them navigate bureaucracy, and foster dialogue while countering misinformation.

question: What caused the group to assemble?

answer: Veterans of America were struggling to cover their necessities.

question: Why can't a global superpower care for its troops?

answer: That's out of scope for the text.

question: Is there a 12-step program to stop being a veteran?

answer: No! This group isn't affiliated or linked in any way to Alcoholics Anonymous.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The veterans of America are systematically under-served and marginalized. Veterans Anonymous was established to be a singular platform to connect vets, help them navigate bureaucracy, and foster dialogue while countering misinformation.


text:
Flashiness implies waste or distraction, but also inventiveness and charm. To be flashy is to be vain, obsessed with image. To be flashy is to expand definitions of what is acceptable, to surprise and captivate, but also to have one eye off the ball, to chase ghosts, to willingly pursue conflict and disorganization. To be flashy is to be imperfect in the pursuit of some kind of grander imperfection. To be flashy is to be like James Harden.

It should come as no surprise that Harden’s play is divisive. It’s a microcosm of a larger debate about the purpose of basketball: Is the point of playing the game to display the limits of athletic ability or to cut away distractions in the pursuit of winning? Of course, if we learned anything during this season’s MVP race and playoff push, it’s that there is an ear-shattering dissonance about what is pleasing and what is abhorrent. We agree about very little. Generally, everybody’s preferences fall somewhere in between the Spurs and Russell Westbrook, the opposite ends of this basketball perceptual spectrum: the system and the individual, the efficient and the artistic, the pragmatic and the romantic.

But these arguments coat over the best part of basketball: confusion. Our lack of agreement or understanding of what makes the NBA pleasing is what makes it so perpetually satisfying. There are plenty of factors pushing and pulling each other to create or ruin the ideal basketball game (home allegiances or vendettas, referees, players and coaches in their roles as celebrities, etc.), but from a neutral perspective, it seems that finding or disputing ideal basketball has to do with determining the balance between individual and team value and competitive and aesthetic value.

This tug-of-war is something that sponsors noticed a long time ago: Adidas released a commercial late last year for Harden’s first signature shoe. The ad opens with Harden holding the ball outside the 3-point line, being guarded by an anonymous Cavalier. The scene is paused, and the camera closes in on Harden’s profile. He looks the viewer in the eye and asks, "What if I gave you what you wanted … you know, stopped being creative?"

The rest of the commercial explores Harden’s quirky aesthetic: His pregame attire changes from a collection of high-fashion items to a white polo and cargo shorts, he asks if the Eurostep should be sent back to Europe and we see an Italian man in a suit gesturing over a crate presumably containing the move. "Want me to put my game in a box?" he asks while smushed inside a transparent cube. Here, the message is clear and unsurprising: Adidas thinks Harden’s beard and his syncopated cuts to the rim are fun, and so should you. He is visually dynamic, and that’s why you’re going to buy his shoes.

Of course the underlying conflict of the commercial, the reason that it isn’t something more simple, like Michael Jordan flying toward a sky-high rim, is that Harden’s cultural identity is markedly split. Half of his relevance is determined by his explosive creativity, the other half by his superfluity and the noise made by his detractors.

You don’t have to look hard to find somebody who believes Harden’s style to be ornamental or unfair. Evidence of his sporting sins is not rare. The most obvious example is Harden’s ability to get to the free throw line, the oft-repeated ugliest part of his game. When he has the ball, he is the Road Runner, his upper body fixed forward as his legs whirl below him, turning around defenders and opening lanes to the hoop. But on occasion, when his defender manages to hold his ground, Harden leaps and snaps his head back regardless of contact. The catch behind this move is that it is, in fact, "creative." It’s the exploitation of an inefficiency; it is competitively beautiful. For most, this is not in the spirit of the game, but Harden shot over 90 percent on 73 attempts from the stripe against the Thunder in the first round of the playoffs, so even his bad-faith acting is bewitching in the eyes of a pragmatist.

Even so, there have been other knocks against Harden: that he’s a stats-first player with little record of success. But Harden’s point guard transformation, and the success of the Rockets as a unit, has made life more difficult for those who argue that his game is all excess. The case that Harden is an unrepentant volume scorer on an irrelevant squad was easy to make when he was an average passer on a Houston team clinging to the edge of the playoff picture. It’s a tougher case to make when he leads the league in assists on a title contender.

In this Rockets offense, Harden can melt and contort the dimensions of an entire arena. His baroque movement is gasp-worthy. But sometimes he travels, and there is no whistle. He led the league in turnovers during the regular season, but without him, Houston is barely a playoff team. All of these abstract and concrete truths exist simultaneously, swirling and crescendoing, ensuring that we see different things in Harden the Rorschach Test.

To somewhat illustrate what I mean: Basketball is the midpoint between large-team and individual sports. Because five-man units are so small, and the field of play in a basketball game is so condensed, we are presented with a game that can be nearly, but never completely, controlled by one athlete. Our desire to see a player take control, like Devin Booker exploding for 70 points or Kawhi Leonard scoring 21 of his team’s last 25 points during a tight playoff game, can overshadow the end result (both the Suns and the Spurs lost). In basketball, as opposed to swimming or football, a loss can double as a masterpiece.

[]
In the basketball world, we rarely speak directly about the importance of playing the game beautifully, as opposed to playing it well. In tennis, Richard Gasquet, a wholly mediocre player, is often talked about as having the most beautiful backhand in the game. In soccer, it is common to hear fans, players, and managers preaching the merits of beautiful play, as something separate from, or superior to, winning play. We know there is a simple, visceral appeal to athletics, but in this arena, we often don’t care to look straight at it. "Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty," David Foster Wallace wrote in his legendary essay on Roger Federer. "The relation is roughly that of courage to war."

Here at _The Ringer_, __ we constantly have proxy discussions about what makes basketball fun or interesting or beautiful, and we often disagree. In February various staff members gave reasons why the Warriors, the league’s most competitively successful team, were boring, while our fearless leader, Sean Fennessey, rejected "the notion that making something look easy — the primal power of effortlessness, the execution of a sound plan — is considered repellent." In March Danny Chau wrote about what our MVP leanings said about our views on the idea of "value." In April many of my colleagues opined about whether Westbrook was dishonest and hurting his team to further his own legend or if he was an electrifying hero doing his best to drag a managerial dumpster fire to victory. The beauty of basketball is that all of these things can reasonably be true at the same time.

[]
I made up my mind a long time ago that tennis is the most beautiful sport in the world. That’s because it is simple, which is not the same as being easy. The clarity of the objective in tennis is the same thing that makes it a geometric and emotional torture chamber. The ideal shot is always _right there._ A groundstroke smacks into the top of the net and you’ve made a fixable mistake. A defeat is the result of the same few fixable mistakes being repeated dozens of times. Assuming that one possesses the necessary physical gifts, the key to becoming a successful player is not in macro changes, but miniscule tweaks. _Put less topspin on the backhand;_ _stand a few feet closer to the baseline. Don’t fuck up this time._

On a court, Russell Westbrook is Rafael Nadal, muscle-bound and steely eyed and determined to chase down every ball, to run himself ragged while seeing red in the midst of competition. Yet, nobody has ever suggested that Nadal’s efforts are vain. (If there is one objection to his play style, it’s that the blinders-on aggression that has allowed him to compile dozens of titles is simultaneously breaking him.) Because he is competitively successful, his pursuit is heroic. There is little to be gained from playing flashy, misguided tennis; Nadal plays this way because his incentives are singular and this is the only way he knows how to reach them. With no team to worry about, the individual will live or die only by the merits of their own abilities. Aesthetic and competitive success are one and the same. This beauty is not easy, but it is simple.

Because objectives are clear (nobody has to wonder if Serena Williams would have won 30 slams if she had gotten her teammates involved more), it follows that the athletes best equipped to navigate the game can win with remarkable consistency. And because there is consensus about who the best players are and what they ought to be doing in competition, we demand that they do it all the time.

The perpetual fetish of the tennis fan is the Grand Slam, or winning all four of the major tournaments in a calendar year. This is shorthand for having a perfect season. Since 1970, this has been accomplished only once, by Steffi Graf in 1988. For most tennis players, winning a single major is a career-justifying accomplishment and winning three majors in a single year is something that even most of the all-time greats have never done. We live in an extraordinary era for the game (for a number of reasons): Since the turn of the millennium, a tennis player has won three of the year’s four majors eight times, and each time, we yawned and asked for a timeline where they had won the fourth.

Simplicity is freeing, but also agonizing. Along with a clear ideal comes the deficiency of most outcomes. To believe that flawlessness is a possibility and to try to approach it is to be perpetually dissatisfied. This is a historically great era for tennis, and somehow it has managed, for some, to be grating.

"Perfection, it turns out, is no way to try to live. It is a child’s idea, a cartoon — this desire not to be merely good, not to do merely well, but to be faultless, to transcend everything, including the limits of yourself," Sam Anderson wrote last year for _The New York Times Magazine._ "It is less heroic than neurotic, and it doesn’t take much analysis to get to its ugly side: a lust for control, pseudofascist purity, self-destruction. Perfection makes you flinch at yourself, flinch at the world, flinch at any contact between the two."

The best part of basketball is that we can only vaguely understand what we want from the game. Our wildly flailing confusion is comforting. Even in an era of great parity, there is disappointment in the most successful teams and value in the seemingly mundane. Booker’s exploits on the second-worst team in the league can be magnificent.

[]
This is a Rockets Moment: Midway through the second quarter of their Game 1 blowout of the Spurs, Lou Williams blocked a driving Tony Parker and sent Houston off to the races. Clint Capela tipped the ball to James Harden, who danced toward the hoop. When Harden got into the paint, he became the center of a whirlpool. Three defenders were carried in his direction, leaving Trevor Ariza open in the corner. Harden Eurostepped and kicked the ball to Ariza, who drained his shot while falling into the crowd.

The Houston offense is loud and bombastic and, somehow, calculated. It is a screaming Cat Anderson trumpet solo birthed from spreadsheets and stat models. It is the perfect marriage of the individual and the unit. If Steph Curry and Klay Thompson expanded the basketball court, Harden and the Rockets have done the most intricate exploration of its dimensions.

It’s not coincidental that Rockets Moments like these also double as Harden Moments. "Moreyball" and Mike D’Antoni’s schemes are obsessed with exploiting inefficiencies, but the Rockets thrive because they have Harden’s flash at their center. They saw him fighting giants on his own and gave him access to the Megazord’s cockpit. Now the Eurostep isn’t just a layup-creating mechanism, but an instrument used to clear the court. This is individual, team, competitive, and aesthetic appeal all at once.

Sunday night, the Rockets topped the Spurs to even the series at two games apiece. If a butterfly flaps its wings at the right time, they’ll find themselves in the conference finals, but in all likelihood, that’s as far as their season will go. Harden’s exploits may not be enough to carry this team to a title. Maybe D’Antoni’s system is in need of more tweaks. Maybe any version of this experiment is doomed in an era when the Warriors exist. Or maybe Houston will surprise us and win the whole damn thing. But, for now, we have plenty of time to disagree. The Rockets are still imperfect, which is beautiful.

question: Write a ~0 sentence summary.


text:
CARLO SECILLANO FAVAGROSSA (22 November 1888 – 22 March 1970), was an Italian general and politician.

During the World War II-era, he was the Italian Under-Secretary for War Production. He also participated in the Spanish civil war on the side of Francisco Franco.

Prior to the outbreak of hostilities, Favagrossa had calculated that Italy would not be prepared for war until October 1942.[1]

In 1946 published a book, with the title _Perchè perdemmo la guerra_ (why we lost the war), where he pinpointed the reasons of his calculations.[2]

[1] Walker, Ian W. (2003). Iron Hulls, Iron Hearts: Mussolini's Elite Armoured Divisions in North Africa. Ramsbury: The Crowood Press. . p.19

[2] Carlo Favagrossa Perché perdemmo la guerra: Mussolini e la produzione bellica. 1946

title: Carlo Favagrossa

question: What was Favagrossa's take on Italy's preparedness for war?

answer: Favagrossa believed that Italy would not be ready for war until October 1942.


text:
Gust is a Toracane, one of the thousands of wind creators working hard all over the world to keep the clouds moving.
     Gust spends most his days paddling away in one of the high white towers, you may have seen the homes of the Toracanes doted along our country side.
    Gust loves his job moving clouds around, he knows that all the animals and plants need rain to help them survive. There is one animal Gust and all the rest of the Toracanes would like to see the end of “ Humans “   They make nasty smelly
Hume-clouds full of poison, the clouds come out of big gray fat chimneys and choke up the sky, humeclouds prevent sun and moon light from reaching the towers.
      Gust works very hard and needs to eat lots of meat, when he is low on energy he stops paddling and struggles out of his tower to collect any birds that have crashed in to the propellers of his cloud moving home.
      He struggles because all Toracanes are very tall, they have extra long thin legs as they lay on their backs so their tiny feet can reach high up into the tower and spin the blades. The taller the tower the taller the Toracane.

Gust was very hungry but he could find no injured or dead animals to eat, He had to catch some food quickly,  Toracanes only stop paddling when they are very low on energy, they do not like going out of their towers as long thin legs can not support their wide strong heavy backs for long.
   Gust has to hunt for his food today.
 Hunting is not easy he has only one chance and running is not possible. Eyesight is restricted as the towers have no light, Toracanes really go out in day light, the best time to feed is when humans and other food have difficulty spotting the shadows of a Toracane.
    Gust takes a few long strides hoping to find his favourite food, humans especially Children,  a flock of sheep are his only option today, now he has to position him self with the moon behind him. The shadow he casts allows him to judge falling distance.  He makes sure that is head shadow is on a lamb, puts his feet together for accuracy opens his mouth and falls like one half of tower bridge directly on to his dinner, unfortunately the lamb sees gust just before impact, poor Gust as to scrape the lamb off his neck and chest and scoop the food with his long bony fingers and transfer to his large toothless mouth,  all Toracanes are toothless as they do not chew, just swallowing hole for them.  Now back to the tower Gust will now be able to work for the rest of the week with a full tummy.

title: Gust the Toracane.

question: What is a Toracane?

answer: They are the wind creators that keep the clouds moving. They are very tall and are meat eaters.

question: How old is Gust?

answer: That information can't be found in the text.

question: Why do the Toracanes want to see the end of humans?

answer: Humans make "hume-clouds" full of poison, and prevent sunlight and moonlight from reaching the Toracanes' towers.

question: What happens when Gust is low on energy?

answer: He can no longer paddle.

question: What is the tower?

answer: Towers are where the Toracanes seem to live. They are high and white and their height reflects the height of its Toracane. The taller the Toracane, the taller the tower.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: Gust is a Toracane, wind creators that keep the clouds moving. They live in towers and hate humans, who make "hume-clouds" full of poison. One day, Gust is very hungry and needs to find meat to eat, as Toracanes are meat eaters. He is able to eat a lamb, which enables him to work for the rest of the week with a full stomach.


text:
The hardest thing to do as a college basketball coach is to be the guy that follows ‘The Guy’.

Just ask Iowa State’s Steve Prohm. He was given the unenviable task of replacing Fred Hoiberg, an Ames native, Iowa State alum and campus icon that was nicknamed ‘the Mayor’ and turned the Cyclones from a cellar-dweller into a Big 12 contender and, entering the season, a preseason top ten team. After losses to Northern Iowa, Texas and Baylor — at home, nonetheless — the pressure started mounting, eventually getting to the point where Prohm had to isolate himself from social media.

“I deleted [FaceBook and Twitter] now so I don’t have to see it,” he said last month. “But it’s hard. I care. I came here to do great job here and I love this place, I love this school and the fans. I don’t want to let anybody down. So yeah, [the criticism] bothers you and it hurts you as a human.”

Josh Pastner is going through the same thing.

He won his 150th game as Memphis head coach earlier this season, getting there one game faster than John Calipari did, but since he was forced to follow in Cal’s footsteps — since he has to deal with the burden of expectation from a fan base that got used to top ten rankings and trips to the second weekend of the NCAA tournament — there’s a good chance that this will be his final season coaching the Tigers.

That’s not all that different from the situation that Will Wade was walking into at VCU last spring. The 33-year old Wade was hired to replace his former boss, Shaka Smart, who had taken the Rams from being a good mid-major program to a Final Four, the Atlantic 10 and an annual appearance in the preseason top 25.

And while Wade has had to deal with the loss of the team’s two best players, the most talented sophomore and the program’s two best incoming freshmen — not to mention their head coach — he has managed to do something that Shaka never did and that hasn’t been done since Eric Maynor and Anthony Grant were leading this team through the CAA back in 2007: He’s got the Rams sitting at 9-0 in the league, all alone atop the Atlantic 10.

———————————-

Since Shaka took over at VCU, there have really been two things that the program was known for: The Peppas, VCU’s pep band that tears up every arena they set foot in, and ‘Havoc’.

The Peppas are still as prominent as they’ve ever been in the Siegel Center, but the days of VCU’s over-aggressive, full-court pressure are more or less over. Wade’s iteration of the Rams still force turnovers and gamble for steals, only they’re doing it in a much more limited and controlled fashion.

Diet Havoc, if you will. Or, as Wade phrases it, “Half-court Havoc.”

Part of that change was the direct result of the personnel that Wade inherited. We may never see a college basketball player more perfectly and uniquely suited to playing the point of a full-court, pressuring defense than Briante Weber was, and with Weber — who was on track to steamroll the NCAA’s career record for steals before he tore his ACL last January — graduating, VCU was left without Havoc’s engine.

“A lot of the press was good because Briante could just take the ball from you. He was a once in a generation type player,” Wade said. “I’ll be lucky if I coach Briante Weber one more time in my career. You’ve gotta have some sort of special talent like that to make it work, and if you don’t, you’re just kind of beating your head against a wall.”

“And we don’t really have that.”

In other words, even if Shaka was still in Richmond and not Austin, there was a good chance that the defense VCU utilized this season would have looked different than it did the last four years.

But Wade also has a different philosophical approach to the game than Shaka: He doesn’t like to gamble as much. Trapping in the back court may get you layups and wide-open threes in transition, but it will also allow for opponents to get just as many clean looks from beyond the arc and at the rim.

“And I don’t like giving up layups,” Wade said.

Prior to taking over at VCU, Wade spent two seasons as the head coach at Chattanooga, and while he spent those two seasons developing the program’s brand the same way that Shaka built ‘Havoc’ into something far more than just a defense they ran — Wade termed his brand ‘Chaos’ — the defense that he won with was a 2-2-1 zone press that dropped back to a 2-3 matchup zone. For comparison’s sake, it’s not all that dissimilar from what Rick Pitino runs at Louisville.

That’s the defense that Wade’s VCU program now runs. They’ll also play quite a bit of man-to-man, but their pressure these days isn’t designed to force turnovers as much as it is token pressure, a way to bleed out some of the shot clock so that, “we don’t have to guard your actions as much in the half court.” That said, the Rams still play aggressive defense in the half court, forcing a turnover on nearly a quarter of their defensive possessions, but even that took some time for the Rams to figure out.

As did VCU’s offense.

The other major change that Wade made was how this team goes about scoring points. Instead of relying on transition opportunities and live-ball steals to create shots, Wade put in a ball-screen continuity offense and demanded that his team give the bigs on the roster touches in the post. It wasn’t the easiest of transitions, not with so many players in larger roles with more — and new — responsibilities.

As of today, VCU has won 12 straight games and currently sits all alone atop the Atlantic 10 standings at 9-0. But six weeks ago, there was some genuine concern about this group. They had gone just 5-5 in their first ten games, losing to all five high-major teams on their schedule, and entered league play as a team that was still grappling with their identity.

That’s when the pressure started to build.

“Our guys felt that people were questioning whether certain people were good enough,” Wade said. He wasn’t worried, not yet. The last loss that VCU suffered, on Dec. 19th against Cincinnati, Wade finally saw his team turning a corner. They followed that up with four straight wins against overmatched opponents before making the trek to Hagan Arena to take on Saint Joseph’s in what would prove to be a pivotal moment in VCU’s season.

“We rallied from like 13 down with five or six minutes left and won it at the end, our second conference game,” Wade said. St. Joe’s is still the best win on VCU’s résumé. “It gave us the jolt we needed. We needed something good to happen to us to spring us forward and get that belief going. It was really tough to sell our guys on how good you are and how much progress you see after the Cincinnati loss.”

Suddenly, that matchup zone was just that much more active. Those open threes Melvin Johnson, the team’s leading scorer at 19.0 points, was getting were just that much more in rhythm. JeQuan Lewis was figuring out how to be the leader, a facilitator that takes over when his team needs him. He had 29 points in an overtime win at Richmond and 22 against Davidson.

And the result is that Wade’s first team at VCU has the inside track on accomplishing something else that Shaka never did with the Rams: winning a conference regular season title.

question: What type of journalism is represented by this piece?

answer: Sports

question: Who deleted their social media profiles recently?

answer: Steve Prohm

question: Which two players left the VCU team?

answer: Not enough information is given to answer this.

question: What nickname is given to the VCU pep band?

answer: Peppas

question: What is VCU's current winning streak?

answer: 12 games

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: This article discusses the VCU football program, which has undergone some coaching changes and lost players recently due to graduation. The new coach outlines some of the challenges and opportunities. The article also discusses various matchups and highlights some differences between the new coach and the precious one.


text:
I'm sitting in a bar that’s way too far from home.  Smoking a cigarette  at the counter and looking down at the space between my hands, elbows resting on the table and I’m hunched over.  The bartender just walked by again.  Should I even ask for another drink?  It’s getting late anyways and this brandy can’t be that good for me.
	“Hit me again, Mickie.”

_

The band’s playing some jazz with a tenor sax.  I can hear them.  Can I see them?  I look over my left shoulder.  There’s so much smoke in the room you can barely tell if they are black or white.  I know it’s a tenor though.  I know that sweet sound.

_

So many bottles on a snazzy display in front of me.

“Hey Mick, what do you think makes people come to a place like this on a Thursday?”

“Well, I can’t say I haven’t thought about it.  I should know really, since half of the people sitting up here at the counter are looking for some conversational relief.  Venting, whatever the kids call it these days.  Hey, want another?”

“I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t, Mick.” He filled up my glass.  How many drinks have I had?  What’s the bill at?  Don’t know, don’t really care I guess.  I don’t even know what I’m doing or how this helps.  It doesn’t, to tell you the truth.

_

It’s raining outside I think.  Though you wouldn’t know from inside this bar.  Brown walls, only a few windows, and through the smoke I can’t see if there is anything out there.  Real dim lighting in here, too.

A fella just tripped and spilt a little of whatever he was drinking onto my lower pant leg and black wingtip shoes.  I don’t know why I bother to even dress for going out anymore.  Who am I even trying to impress?  There’s no pretty women here.  Not alone anyways.  I look over my left shoulder again.  There actually is a fine lady in a red dress sitting alone in a booth by the band, tapping ashes into a tray.  Never mind, her company was just taking a leak in the bathroom.  He’s got the same jacket and pants I have on.

_

I look up at my hat on the counter.  I can’t go home yet.  Not now, anyways.  I light another cigarette and look back down at the counter.  Someone taps me on the right shoulder and takes  a seat to the left of me.  “Hey there” they say.

title: A Bar Too Far From Home

question: Summarize the narrator's mental state.

answer: He's depressed.

question: Describe the bar.

answer: It's a place with few windows, brown walls, and very thick smoke, which makes it impossible to see much.

question: Why does the narrator dress before going to the bar?

answer: He doesn't know, but it seems like he used to do so to meet women.

question: Who is Mick, and what does he think about the bar's patrons?

answer: He's the bartender. He thinks half the people he serves are there for conversation, venting.

question: Write a ~6 sentence summary.

answer: The narrator sits in a bar that's too far from home. He doesn't think the brandy will do him any good but drinks more of it nonetheless. He doesn't know why he dresses anymore, as there are no single women to be found there. He exchanges a brief talk with Mickie the bartender. He can't go home yet so lights up another cigarette. Someone taps him on the shoulder and says, "Hey there".


text:
The HALFWAY GREYHOUND TRACK was a greyhound racing stadium on Torquay Road, Kingskerswell, between Newton Abbot and Torquay in Devon.[1]

Origins

A greyhound track was constructed in 1932 on the east side of the Great Western Railway Torquay and Dartmouth branch line and the west side of the Torquay Road. The name derives from the Half Way Cottages and Half Way Inn that were located on its east side. It is not known where the name Half Way originates but could be because Kingskerswell is halfway between Torquay and Newton Abbot.[2]

Opening

The track opened during February 1933 and traded through the war. The racing was independent (not affiliated to the sports governing body the National Greyhound Racing Club).

History

The venue was listed as being able to hold 500 spectators and in 1947 had a totalisator turnover of £157,233 which was a large turnover for a small track.[3]

In the 1960s the track was all-grass and raced five dog races over 220 and 530 yards and had an inside rail hare system.[4]

Closure

The track raced until November 1971 with land being sold for redevelopment.[5] The housing on the site today is called Stadium Drive and the Halfway Inn is now a private dwelling. A newer pub called the Hare and Hounds is situated immediately next door to the former Halfway Inn.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

title: Halfway Greyhound Track

question: When was the track constructed?

answer: 1932

question: How many spectators could the stadium hold?

answer: 500

question: When did the stadium close?

answer: November 1971

question: Where was the track?

answer: On Torquay Road in Kingskerswell

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: The Halfway Greyhound Track was a greyhound racing stadium in Kingskerswell. It was constructed in 1932 and closed in 1971. During its lifetime, it could hold 500 spectators.


text:
Chapter one (I guess i'll be leaving)

I can hear sirens in the distance and mechanical exhales. Jim Morrison is still singing light my fire  loudly in the background. I hope they don't play it at my funeral, its 6 minutes 58 seconds long and id hate to bore anyone. I can't see but I'm not blind, I've watched too many movies to know that theres just a shit load of blood in my eyes. "You know that it would be untrue" My legs are mangled and most of teeth are embedded into the steering wheel. My right hand must gone through the wind screen, it feels like theres less parts than there were before. "C'mon baby light my fire"; do cars actually explode? Who cares I'm fucking euphoric.

The sirens get closer but still sound decades away. I cough up around a pint of blood and the remainder of my teeth that didn't end up in the wheel. The next song starts rolling, Bon Iver - Skinny Love.. honestly, who the fuck wants to die to that? With my healthy left hand I manage to find the untouched stereo and skip to the next track,  Anthony Green - Baby Girl. I can't help but grin. I must look like a fucking Jack o lantern. i start tapping away. I'd sing if i could move my jaw.

So much is out of place "Baby girl twist awaaaaayyy" Im in desperate need of a chiropractor. "When you're talking to me i can't breath" My phone starts vibrating. My mother calls me every time she hears sirens, i tell her its silly. I wonder how the other poor fucker is. I should feel guilty but I'm just enjoying the song too much "This common feeling ends when you enter, not many cigarretes left"

I can't stomach the smell of the fast food that was on the passenger seat and bring up more blood, a lot this time and i come close to passing out. I beg a fictional god like every dying atheist does for a quick ending and a ticket to heaven but soon pull myself together and realise that I'm being a dick. What happens next? Who gives a fuck? i doubt ill be judged on how lovely I am so i can relax about that. "Meredith ill miss you when you go anywhere" This makes me think about her for the remainder of the song. Not Meredith she's mr Greens lady, I'm thinking of my sweetheart. The only thing I've ever loved. She was a fucking psycho of course but nowhere near normal. Id get lost in her cold brown hair and stare for hours into her muddy eyes. The cleanest complexion and the dirtiest soul. My heart beats harder for her, a little too hard and as the police pull me from the vehicle I'm already dead.

title: Sirens

question: What has happened to the narrator?

answer: The narrator has been in a car accident. They are bleeding severely and feeling euphoric. They hear sirens coming closer.

question: Why is their mother calling?

answer: The narrator's mother calls every time she hears sirens.

question: What is the narrator thinking about?

answer: The narrator is thinking about the songs playing on the radio, the person in the other car, the smell of the fast food sitting on the passenger seat, their mother, and their sweetheart.

question: How is the narrator feeling?

answer: They are feeling euphoric, enjoying the music, and love for their sweetheart.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: The narrator has been in a car accident. They are bleeding severely and feeling euphoric. They hear sirens coming closer. The narrator is thinking about the songs playing on the radio, the person in the other car, the smell of the fast food sitting on the passenger seat, their mother, and their sweetheart.


text: I've been wanting to post an excerpt from my book onto this subreddit so that you brilliant people can advise me on how to become better. But I'm having a terribly hard time linking the google.docs onto here. What do I need to do? Any advise on any other forms I can share (other than self, the excerpt is kind of long and I feel like the reader would get bored reading it off of here) Any advise is welcome.

title: Google Docs, how do I use it?

question: What doesn't the author understand about Google Docs?

answer: The author doesn't know how to link google.docs onto a subreddit.

question: What features of Google Docs is the author particularly interested in?

answer: The author is interested in the sharing feature so that they can share an excerpt of their book on the subreddit.

question: Is the author struggling to access Google Docs?

answer: The author isn't struggling to access Docs.

question: Has the author used Microsoft Word before?

answer: That information can't be found.

question: How old is the author?

answer: That information can't be found.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The author wants to share an excerpt of their book, but doesn't know how to share their Google Docs links into a subreddit. They need help.


text:
Just before 5 PM on Friday, Ray stands alone on the third floor to the company’s nearly empty office building. He’s facing a familiar beeping metal door, his lower lip snug between his teeth. There’s gum in his mouth but he keeps it still, straining to put on what he hopes to be a charming composure. If he can time his exit just right, he’s sure he can run into the gorgeous new girl who had eyed him more than once today.

On the second floor, Rachel steps inside the elevator and pushes the button labeled "4". She grips her smartphone and winces as the elevator starts to climb. Whether this feeling is from the elevator or from the thought of meeting the guy who returned almost all her curious glances today, she can’t decide. By the time she reaches the third floor she's smiling and shaking her head, having convinced herself there's little chance of meeting him.

Ray notices the digital number flick to “2” and then “3”. Anticipation overrides his clarity of thought and the gum starts bouncing between his teeth without permission. He watches the crack in the door widen to reveal what he’s been hoping to see. She appears behind the door smiling at him, focusing on showing off the large dimples in her cheeks. Ray notices she had been smiling before the door opened.

He’s standing there stunned for a second, until he remembers what his face must look like and immediately bites down on the corner of his lip. He grins and joins Rachel inside to stand beside her. He has her all to himself for one floor.

He retrieves more of his gum from his pants pocket, gesturing for her to take a piece.
Rachel smiles again, “How’d you know” and reaches toward his hand. The moment their hands touch, a static shock causes Ray to drop the gum on the floor between them.

“Shit” Ray blurts. They both stand grinning at each other for a second then both look down at the gum on the floor. Unaware of each other for a just a moment they both lean forward to grab the gum. Their heads collide painfully hard, causing them to fall down and land on the floor opposite each other. With one hand each on their heads, they sit staring wide-eyed at each other with mirrored expressions of relief and excitement.

title: Ray vs Rachel

question: Who is Ray waiting for?

answer: Ray is waiting to run into the new girl he had seen today.

question: Does he run into the girl?

answer: Yes, he runs into her in the elevator.

question: Who starts a conversation when they meet?

answer: Ray makes the first move. He takes out a packet of gun=m from his pocket and offers her.

question: Summarize what happens in the elevator.

answer: As the two stand in the elevator alone, Ray offers her gum. As Rachel reaches his hand to take the gum, a static shock causes Ray to drop the packet. They both grin and lean forward to pick it up. Their heads collide and they fall opposite each other.

question: Write a ~5 sentence summary.

answer:
Ray waits in front of the elevator hoping he gets to glimpse of the beautiful woman he'd been admiring all day. The lift opens, and there she stood with a big smile on her face clearly showing how much she wanted to see him too.

Ray breaks the silence by offering her gum. As Rachel motions to hold it, a static shock makes Ray drop it. The two in sync lean to pick it up and their heads collide making them fall.


text:
INDIAN CEMETERY may refer to:

Cemeteries

-   Amara (Left Bank) Indian War Cemetery, Amarah, Iraq
-   Huron Cemetery, or HURON INDIAN CEMETERY, in Kansas City, Kansas
-   Indian Mound Cemetery, Romney, West Virginia
-   La Pointe Indian Cemetery, on Madeline Island, Wisconsin
-   Odd Fellows' Cemetery Mound, a Native American burial mound in Ohio
-   Old Chief Joseph Gravesite, Joseph, Oregon
-   Old Indian Cemetery, West Brookfield, Massachusetts
-   Stockbridge Indian Cemetery, Stockbridge, Wisconsin
-   Wampanoag Royal Cemetery, Lakeville, Massachusetts

Other

-   Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Ass'n, a United States Supreme Court case

title: Indian Cemetery

question: Where is Amara Indian War Cemetery?

answer: Iraq.

question: Where is Old Chief Joseph Gravesite?

answer: Oregon.

question: Where is Stockbridge Indian Cemetery?

answer: Wisconsin.

question: What is Odd Fellows' Cemetery Mound?

answer: A Native American burial mound in Ohio.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: There are many cemeteries known as Indian cemeteries around the world. Most the listed cemeteries are in the United States.


text:
_THE FERMATA_ is a 1994 erotic novel by Nicholson Baker. It is about a man named Arno Strine who can stop time, and uses this ability to embark on a series of sexual adventures. Like Baker's previous novel _Vox_, _The Fermata_ was controversial amongst critics yet was also a bestseller.[1]

Plot

Arno Strine, a temp in Boston, discovers he can stop time when he is a young man. He works on this power, and learns how to trigger and control these time stoppages. However, instead of becoming rich or a diabolic criminal, Strine becomes an elaborate voyeur. He stops time so that he can see women naked, and eventually creates scenarios that he can watch after he allows time to start again. But despite his enjoyment of this power, Arno wants a real relationship, and he overcomes his shyness to begin a relationship. When he finally consummates this relationship, his power to stop time passes to his girlfriend, whose own time adventures begin. Arno works on the story of this time power, under the title “The Fermata.”

Reception

The view of critics on the book was mixed. Writing in the _Daily Telegraph_ Victoria Glendinning stated “it is a moral challenge to be faced or it is simply meant as outrageous comedy, or as material for the sex-war, or as a portrait of a literary psychopath. Or it is an expression of male resentment of female autonomy. Whatever was intended, it is a repellent book. Goodbye Nicholson Baker, goodbye for ever.”[2] Commenting in the _New York Times_ on the book's many pornographic episodes, Michele Slung said “I was either extremely bored or mildly offended by almost all of them, but mostly bored.”[3] In the opinion of _The Times Literary Supplement_, “where The Mezzanine and Vox were bristling with originality, this is a novel of one idea and 1,000 jokes.”[4]

In contrast, Tom Bissell argued in _GQ_ that _The Fermata_ was an “unlikely masterpiece” which set a “very high lit-porn standard.”[5] _The Independent_ judged it “playfully erotic.”[6] Summing up the debate in the _London Review of Books_, Adam Mars-Jones wrote that “Nicholson Baker has chosen as the premise and conclusion of his novel an idea that contemporary culture has much difficulty with: the innocence of male sexual desire” and opined that “if Baker had found a way of dramatising his theme, it would be a braver and less self-satisfied book.”[7]

Screen adaptations

In 2002, Neil Gaiman wrote some drafts of a screenplay based on _The Fermata_, to be directed by Robert Zemeckis.[8] Gaiman's screenplay would have de-emphasized all the masturbation in the plot; instead he described his approach to the material as “_Annie Hall_ with time-stopping.”[9][10] In 2013, the project was described as “dormant”.[11] In 2014 it was reported that Paramount Television would collaborate with Zemeckis on a television drama series based on _The Fermata_, to be written by David Hollander.[12][13]

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title: The Fermata

question: What does the text say about The Fermata?

answer: Is a 1994 erotic novel by Nicholson Baker. It is about a man named Arno Strine, who can stop time, and uses this ability to embark on a series of sexual adventures. It was controversial yet also a bestseller.

question: What does the text say about The Fermata's plot?

answer: Arno Strine learns that he can stop time at a young age. He becomes an elaborate voyeur and uses this power to embark on sexual adventures with different women. Despite this, he craves a relationship. When he consummates his first-ever relationship, his powers are passed on to his girlfriend. He works on the story of this time power under the title "The Fermata".

question: What does the text say about the reception of The Fermata?

answer: The reviews of The Fermata were mixed. Some were offended while others thought it to be funny. Others claim it to be playfully erotic.

question: What does the text say about The Fermata's adaptation?

answer: A screenplay was written in 2002. In 2013, the project was described as dormant. In 2014, it was reported that Paramount Television would collaborate with Zemeckis on a television drama series based on The Fermata.


text:
BRIAN HILL (6 October 1937 – 5 April 1968) was an English professional footballer who played as a full back.

Career

Born in Sheffield, Hill began his career at Sheffield Wednesday, where he made 117 appearances in the Football League for them between 1956 and 1967.[1] He also made 2 FA Cup and 3 European appearances for the club.[2] He later played in Belgium for Club Brugge, making 11 league and 2 European appearances for them.[3]

Death

Hill died of a heart attack on 5 April 1968.[4][5]

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title: Brian Hill (footballer, born 1937)

question: Who was Brian Hill?

answer: Hill was an English professional footballer.

question: Which club did Hill play for?

answer: He first played for Sheffield Wednesday before moving to Club Brugge.

question: How many appearances did Hill make for Sheffield Wednesday?

answer: 117 in Football League, 2 in FA Cup, and 3 European appearances.

question: For how long did he play for Sheffield Wednesday?

answer: 11 years.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer:
Brian Hill was an English footballer. He debuted with Sheffield Wednesday and made appearances for them for 11 years. He later moved to Club Brugge.

Hill died of a heart attack in 1968.