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History does not always repeat itself, but it can have resonant echoes. In 2011, Richie McCaw told a worldwide TV audience that he was completely shagged after New Zealands World Cup final victory over France.Consciously or not, McCaw -- a player deeply aware of All Blacks heritage -- channelled another black-clad back rower, speaking on the same ground, Eden Park, after another famous victory.It was 60 years ago to the day, on Sept. 1, 1956, that Peter Jones stood in front of broadcast microphones at Eden Park and confessed himself absolutely buggered. He was speaking to a very different New Zealand.It was a strait-laced society in which public use of the word bullsh-- could lead to criminal charges as late as the 1970s. This was the New Zealand of 6 oclock closing, its people the most isolated on the globe rather than being, as they would become once cheap air travel was available, the worlds great travellers.A sense of claustrophobia may have contributed to the febrile atmosphere which accompanied the Springboks through their 1956 tour of New Zealand. Sober chroniclers like New Zealands leading contemporary historian James Belich have likened it to war fever. Terry McLean, its leading rugby writer, wrote of the country having lost its sense of proportion.This was also a very different rugby world. International teams did not fly in and out as they now do, on annual quick-fire Test-only tours. They pitched up once a decade -- and the war meant the Boks had not been seen in New Zealand since 1937 -- and stayed for an entire season. The Boks had been in New Zealand for three months and the match at Eden Park, last of a four-Test series, was their 23rd.New Zealand had yet to beat South Africa in a series in four meetings dating back to 1921. The Boks had not lost a series to anyone since 1896. Bitter memories still rankled of the 4-0 whitewash inflicted on a highly-fancied All Blacks team on their last trip to South Africa in 1949. The All Blacks had scored more tries in three of the Tests, but fell victim to penalties kicked by Boks prop Okey Geffin from decisions by South African referees. More than half a century later, All Blacks prop Kevin Skinner remained convinced that they would have won with neutral referees.Rugby mattered even more to New Zealand in 1956 than it does now. Historian Jock Phillips, then an enthusiastic schoolboy rugby fan but as an adult a trenchantly critical chronicler of New Zealand society, reckons the 1950s the zenith of the masculine holy trinity of beer, betting and rugby.Warwick Roger, whose Old Heroes evocation of the tour remains one of the high-points of rugby literature, the nearest the game has got to baseball writer Roger Kahns Boys of Summer, recalls a rather flat mental and social landscape.Excitement mounted from the Boks first match, against Waikato in Hamilton. Thirty-one thousand fans crammed into a ground designed for 3,000 fewer and the fired-up Mooloos charged into a 14-0 lead before halftime. Reduced to 14 men by an injury early in the second half, they hung on for a famous victory by 14-10.A pattern of brutally, sometimes viciously, competitive contests in front of packed, frenzied crowds had been set and would last for the next three months. The first test was the 10th match, five weeks into the tour.New Zealand won 10-6 at Dunedin, in spite of losing debutant prop Mark Irwin with injured ribs. Tries from lock Richard Tiny White, one of the finest of the long All Blacks tradition of athletic ball-handling second rows, and wing Ron Jarden ensured the victory, but it was clear that the ferocious scrummaging of Bok props Chris Koch and Jaap Bekker, both veterans of 1949, was a major problem for the All Blacks.Worry became more like national panic three weeks later at Wellington. The Boks tied the series by winning 8-3, and again dominated the scrums. The All Black selectors had struggled to find their best team, making five changes to the pack after the first test.For the third they called up giant Waikato full-black Don Clarke, so launching one of the great All Blacks careers and recalled two veterans, prop Kevin Skinner and ball-handling number eight Peter Jones.Skinner was a former All Blacks captain, a veteran of 1949 and by general consent still the most formidable prop in New Zealand. But South African memories focus on his having formerly been New Zealands amateur heavyweight boxing champions and the havoc he wrought in the third test at Christchurch, brawling with Koch in the first half, then switching sides after halftime for a similarly brutal contest with Bekker.Skinner for the rest of his life denied that his boxing skills were a relevant factor, in 2002 telling me: I dont think what I did had a big bearing on the match, but certain people in the news media made it out that way. My theory is that the South Africans had been kicking the black man around since 1658 and were used to the idea that nobody would hit them back. After wed sorted a few things out in the front row, they got on with playing a bit better.Less remembered is the spectacular start made by Don Clarke, who began an international career which would see him score 200 point before anyone else managed to attain even 100 in matches between the established rugby nations. His two penalties and the wide-angled conversion of Canterbury wing Morrie Dixons try gave the All Blacks an 11 point lead -- a huge margin at a time when double figures was more often than not a winning score -- in the first 15 minutes.The Boks fought back brilliantly after halftime. Tries by back row Butch Lochner and wing Wilf Rosenberg, both converted by full-back Basie Vivier, cut the margin to 11-10 during a third quarter which also saw referee Bill Fright issue a general warning to the two captains, Vivier and Bob Duff. It took late tries from Jarden and White to seal the issue for the All Blacks 17-10.New Zealand could not now lose the series, but excitement diminished little, if at all, in the fortnight which remained before the final test in Auckland. Two of the matches played in the interim also echo to this day -- New Zealand Universities 22-15 defeat of the tourists at Wellington for a 70 yard solo try by former All Blacks centre John Tanner and the Boks 37-0 defeat of the Maoris because of allegations, still debated, that the home team was hopelessly hamstrung by official demands that they tone down their physicality.The Boks were by this time an unhappy, divided squad. Manager Danie Craven was lumbered with an unpopular deputy whose real role was to be a political commissar from the Broederbond, the hugely influential Afrikaaner secret society. Vivier, an unexpected captain, was too fallible a player to command respect. And three months of New Zealand rugby fever had worn them down.But they still had to be beaten. The overnight queue at Eden Park was estimated at 15,000 and 61,240 packed into the ground for what All Blacks hooker Ron Hemi would recall as the hardest game I ever played in.The All Blacks led 3-0, a Don Clarke penalty, before the pivotal moment early in the second half. Hemi, a famed dribbler at a time when this was still a significant rugby skill, broke with the ball at his feet, then kicked infield to where Jones kicked on. Vivier looked likely to reach the loose ball first but Jones, displaying an extraordinary turn of speed, beat him to it and charged untouched to the line amid crowd bedlam. Clarkes conversion and another penalty made a late Bok try academic.The final minutes were perhaps the low point of a tour in which violence was never very far away. White was kicked so viciously in the spine by a Bok boot that the watching Warwick Roger feared we were seeing the making of a paraplegic before our eyes. It took more than 40 years for Bekker, a few weeks before his death in 1999, to own up as the perpetrator.It was the end of 60 years of Springbok invincibility, arguably the greatest moment in New Zealand rugby history to that point. Yet relief, rather than joy, seems to have been the predominant emotion. New Zealand journalist Fred Boshier reported that the players only seemed interested in getting off the pitch. All Blacks five-eighth Ross Brown reckoned that he slept badly for three months after the series ended while back row Bill Clark, a rare All Black who became an opponent of contact with apartheid-era South Africa, in 2002 recalled to me the genuine dislike between the teams.Jones radio interview appears to have been the sole moment of cheer. A famous photograph shows Dr. Craven speaking to the crowd post-match and Warwick Roger, with characteristic perception, points to its most remarkable feature: The All Blacks had won, the Springboks had been crushed, but everybody looks drained. One man has his hand to his chin and appears to be in deep thought. There isnt one happy face among the whole crowd. Nike Shox Outlet . The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling "puts an end to my dreams of being a top player," the 27-year-old Troicki said in a statement. "I worked my entire life for it, and it has been taken away from me in one afternoon by a doctor I didnt know," said Troicki, whose ranking peaked at No. Nike Shox Cheap Nz Wholesale . They hope to persuade the other team owners and commissioner Roger Goodell to put pressure on Redskins owner Daniel Snyder to drop the nickname they find offensive. 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Cheap Nike Shox Nz . -- The Bishops Gaiters are showing they belong among the countrys top varsity football teams. Alex Findura cuts an imposing figure. He has the stature of a man who uses his body for work. His 250-some pounds are suspended from his 6-foot-5 frame in the type of inverted triangle that makes strangers wonder exactly what it is he does for a living.He used to love that question.Findura spent a little more than a year playing on the defensive line under Bill Curry at Georgia State before enlisting in the Marines in 2012. During boot camp, he was selected to be a part of the Body Bearers -- an elite unit responsible for carrying caskets to graves in Arlington National Cemetery.For the last four years his days had started at 4 a.m. on the bottom floor of a parking garage at the corner of Eighth and I streets in Washington D.C. Thats where he and a dozen other bulked-up Marines trained to carry coffins that typically weighed between 700 and 1,500 pounds. The branchs tradition is to carry the fallen at shoulder height, above the heart, as a sign of respect. The men selected for this honor are screened for upper body strength and a stoic temperament.Findura estimates he put more than 200 active-duty Marines in the ground over the course of four years in the service, almost one a week. He buried a four-star general, a Medal of Honor recipient, bronze star recipients and the young daughter of his sergeant major. Had a U.S. president died during Finduras time in the Marines, his hand would have been on the casket.Leaving was not easy. In August, Findura walked the halls of his Marine barracks not entirely certain where he would go from here. He had decided not to renew his contract and was in the midst of a three-day course provided by the Marines to help prepare their departing members for a transition back to civilian life.He bumped into his old platoon commander who asked if Findura had considered returning to school to play football again. He shook his head. That didnt go so well the last time. When he joined the Marines to extricate himself from the usual demons of a young athlete set loose on his own for the first time -- poor grades, parties, chasing girls -- he made peace with the idea that he was closing that chapter of his life for good.Well, the commander said. If you change your mind, I know some guys in Boston who might be able to help.Alex Stone knows that uncertainty well. He set adrift from the Marines amid a recession in 2008, and the first job he could find was hawking wheelchairs and walkers for a hospital supply company. He spent long hours crisscrossing New England in a Nissan Pathfinder and wondering what had happened to the high school hockey star who left for boot camp the week after graduation, just the way he had always planned.The solitude was eating me alive, Stone says. Thats when it really hit home. Man, this is everything I didnt want to be. It was only six months to a year after separating, but I lost that feeling. I used to be proud to tell people what I did.Many of the approximately quarter of a million men and women who separate from the U.S. military each year have felt that rough patch. The Department of Veterans Affairs says 60 percent of them will try to go back to school via the GI Bill, but only half of those who enroll will finish their degree. The highest concentration of that group is between the ages of 25 and 30, and many of them will have to battle to figure out whats next.Findura was looking into careers in law enforcement. His wife was on him to get a degree, and he thought maybe he would try a night class or two while he worked. He took a temporary job as a security guard for large events at D.C.s Verizon Center. It was fine, he convinced himself -- decent money, a free pass to a fancy gym and the occasional opportunity to brush shoulders with NBA players or famous musicians.A week later Findura and his wife went to dinner with a couple of her friends. The man across the table asked him what he was doing for work. The response to that question used to come so easily: Im a Marine. That night he stared down at the beer in his glass for a moment before explaining his new security gig.The look he gave me, Findura says before trailing off. So, youre like a mall cop? Thats what people are thinking. Its ... its kind of heartbreaking.Stone, and his new Boston-based company Athletes of Valor, think they have a plan to help men and women like Findura. And it starts with college sports.Its the perfect way to transition out of the militaryNate Boyer sees the heartbroken every week. The former Green Beret who famously walked on to the Texas football team and earned a job as a long snapper is living in Los Angeles now. Most Thursday afternoons he hosts a workout session at Jay Glazers gym for a couple dozen veterans who have struggled since leaving the military. All of them spent time in combat and all of them have been or are currently homeless.They rip through a workout together then pick a spot in the gym to sit and talk. The discussions, Boyer says, are about regaining a sense of service, a purpose -- that thing you lose when you turn in your uniform. The workouts are about filling the void.Boyer saw the void coming before he finished his time overseas. He spent his last year in the service taking online courses to get himself eligible for a school like Texas. He knew he needed a challenge waiting for him when get got home, and he figured walking on to a Longhorns team that had played for a national championship the previous January was a good place to start.Its the perfect way to transition out of the military, Boyer says. Guys miss that camaraderie. You definitely feel a lot older than some of the other students on campus. I remember walking around and thinking about how small and young everybody looks, but in the locker room I felt more at home.A college campus can be a foreign and daunting place for new veterans, according to Auburn professor David DiRamio, a former member of the Navy who has spent much of the last decade studying the issues military members face when they return to school. He has found that one of the biggest factors that determines which veterans finish their degree and which ones dont is whether or not they get involved in extracurricular activities on campus.Those who dont get involved feel out of place and have an easier time quitting, DiRamio says. They lose their sense of mission, and that can lead to the problems that plague the nations veteran population like substance abuse and depression.Then-Texas head coach Mack Brown was skeptical when he first met Boyer. But it didnt take Brown very long to see the first layer of his value. On the 100-degree days of an August training camp, players have a tendency to complain. Brown remembers stopping practices several times and gathering his team to have Boyer tell them a story. Tell us about boot camp, Nate, he would say. Or, Nate, tell us what it feels like when explosions shake the ground while youre lying in the Iraqi desert on a day that makes AAustin summers feel breezy.dddddddddddd.That would shut them up pretty quickly, says Brown, who can only remember two veterans on his roster in 30 years as a head coach. They both found him. He wouldnt have known where to begin if he was trying to seek them out.Stone, who left the wheelchair sales business and parlayed a sports apparel internship into a middle-management job at Under Armour, heard from plenty of coaches who felt the same way. He visited all-star combines and 7-on-7 tournaments and sized up the talent, thinking of men and women he served with who could compete with high school prospects. The demand was present, and so was the supply. Someone just needed to connect the two.Were probably a little bit different than most of the people around hereThe 166-year-old Davenport Building in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is an unlikely setting for the collision of military veterans and college athletics. On a cool day in October, software engineers with ruffled hair and ruffled cargo shorts scamper past the Japanese floral-printed banners that stretch to the ceiling of the four-story lobby without bothering to look up from their laptops. MBA-types stride past exposed brick walls, thumbing through iPhones in their chino pants and quarter-zip sweatshirts.The buildings main occupant, a marketing company called HubSpot, has its own in-house barista and kegs of local IPAs in the office for its employees. Athletes of Valor found a venture capitalist firm on the third floor that was willing to give them some office space and some start-up money.Their wing of the building consists of a long corridor lined by glass-framed offices occupied by a variety of burgeoning companies toting slogans about making the world a better place and living life to the fullest. Some will make it. Others wont.Stone and his teams of six have their headquarters there, too, a 10-by-10 glass room with four desks wedged up against the walls. On one wall is a dry-erase board with pricing matrices, call lists and networking ideas. On the opposite is the offices only real decorative sign. It reads, in part:?Be a f---ing lion. Set goals, smash them. Take no s---. Eat peoples faces off.Were probably a little bit different than most of the people around here, Stone says.The investors he approached early in the process largely felt the same way. This is a nice nonprofit idea, most investors told them, just like the many other organizations that honor and help veterans through sporting events or some other vehicle. Stone vehemently disagreed.For starters, his mind is groomed for business. He had spent the last six years parlaying an athletic apparel internship into a full-time job at Under Armour and working his way up the ladder to a promising career in charge of all of the companys baseball products. He didnt want to spend his days writing grant applications and passing the hat for charity donations.DiRamios research shows that newly minted veterans are fiercely reluctant to ask for help from someone outside of their immediate unit. Theyve been trained to adapt and overcome. Needing outside assistance is seen as a sign of weakness, DiRamio says, to young men and women who just spent the early part of their professional lives proving their strength. Veterans dont need a coachs help. Coaches need them.This isnt supposed to be a feel good thing, Stone says. We have a valuable, pinnacle demographic of athletes. Were not looking for you to pat us on the back and say heres your fee, maybe well recruit someone, maybe not. Were saying we can make your team better. If you dont agree, then dont pay for our service.Stone and his team have set a goal to attract 1,000 athletes and 1,000 college coaches in 2017. They currently have 25 coaches signed up for the service as beta testers and roughly the same number of veterans filling out profiles as their first round of prospects. The start-up world can be unpredictable and harrowing, but Athletes of Valor believes it can be profitable by this time next year.This week the company announced a partnership with Front Rush, a recruiting service used by more than 20,000 coaches at schools such as Clemson, Texas A&M, Washington, Florida State and many others to help find and track high school recruits. The deal will inform coaches about Athletes of Valor and allow them to integrate the veterans profiles into the same interface they use to find high school athletes.Next to the high school standouts, coaches will now be able to find players such as Chris Ahmed, a field goal kicker who has put one through the uprights from 55 yards and will be leaving the Navy next year. Austin Canfield is on the same list -- a 6-foot South Carolina native who would like to play quarterback again after he finishes his time in the Marines. Findura is on the list, too -- a 6-5, 250-pound defensive end with a year of college football experience and an interest in studying exercise science.He added his profile to the mix in September a couple of days after a painful dinner discussion with his wife and her friends. It was the first thing he did the next time he sat down at a computer.Findura signed up for an Arena League tryout this fall to see how rusty he was. Like a riding a bike, he thought. He let his parents know that he was thinking about giving football, and college, another shot. They were elated.Finduras grandfather was a talented baseball player who missed his shot when he was drafted into the Navy. It stuck with him for a long time. When Findura was at Georgia State, friends in their small town south of Atlanta would ask what he was up to, and his grandfather would cut him off before he had a chance to answer. He told them how Alex was up in Atlanta playing for Coach Curry and before long hed be off to the NFL. His dad wasnt much more subdued.?It wasnt fun for Findura to tell them he was leaving football because his grades and his priorities were headed in the wrong direction. That was a confrontation and a half, Findura says about telling his grandfather. He wanted me to go on. He was living what he wanted through me, and I kind of blew it for him.Next month, when college football season draws to a close and the recruiting cycle picks up the pace, Findura gets a second chance. Hell meet Stone and a few other members of Athletes of Valor in Baltimore for a training session at the gym Under Armour uses for many of its athletes. Theyll bring along a camera crew and a handful of fellow Body Bearers to help put together a tape showcasing his athleticism and strength.The night before Finduras Arena League workout he was pacing his place in the D.C. metro area when the phone rang. For the first time?in five years, it was his grandfather on the other end of the line. Good luck, he said. Let me know how it goes.Findura smiled. He cant wait for the next call. ' ' '