COLLEGE

SPORTS BRIEFS: Guard Dillard signs with Georgia Southern

Staff Reports
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LOCAL

Guard Dillard signs

with Georgia Southern

STATESBORO – Georgia Southern men’s basketball coach Mark Byington announced Thursday that Will Dillard (Greensboro, N.C./Greensboro Day) has signed a National Letter of Intent to attend Georgia Southern and compete for the Eagles, beginning in the 2018-19 season.

A 6-foot-2 guard, Dillard is a consensus three-star recruit and was ranked 179th in his class and 12th in North Carolina by 247Sports.com. He is considered one of the best defenders in the state and averaged 7.4 points and 4.8 rebounds per game last season while helping lead Greensboro Day to the NCISAA Class 3-A championship in February. He was a second-team HSXtra.com All-Area selection for private schools as a sophomore and as a junior and was a third-team pick as a freshman.

“We are ecstatic to add Will Dillard in our 2018 Class,” Byington said. “He is a combo guard with elite athleticism. He is one of the best defenders I have seen in high school in years, but he is capable of doing everything well. Will has an infectious personality that will be perfect for our culture and team. He is a great fit for our style because of his multidimensional skill set and eagerness to want to get better.”

Dillard is the third North Carolina native to sign with the Eagles this fall, joining Trey Dawkins (6-9, F, Forest City) and Elijah McCadden (6-6, G/F, Rocky Mount). David Viti (6-5, G/F, Buford, Ga.) and Calvin Wishart (6-1, G, Delano, Minn.) also signed with Georgia Southern in the early period.

NATIONAL

Ali’s ‘Fight Doctor’

Pacheco dies at 89

MIAMI — Fernando “Ferdie” Pacheco, “The Fight Doctor” who served as Muhammad Ali’s ringside physician, has died. He was 89.

Pacheco’s daughter, Tina Louise Pacheco, told The Associated Press that he died Thursday morning at his Miami home after prolonged illness.

Pacheco was born in Tampa and opened a practice in Miami after earning a medical degree from the University of Miami. He met Cassius Clay, who would later become Muhammad Ali, in 1960 when the fighter began training with Angelo Dundee at the 5th Street Gym in Miami Beach.

Pacheco worked as Ali’s cornerman from 1962-1977, which included three successful title bouts. Pacheco has said he left his position after suggesting Ali retire because of serious injuries. Ali fought four more matches, losing three.

Pacheco went on to become a television boxing analyst, as well as a painter and author.

Pacheco was one of many members of Ali’s colorful entourage, traveling the world with the heavyweight champion as he fought the biggest fights of his career. He got a title out of it — “The Fight Doctor” — but Pacheco would later say he never got a penny for his efforts.

His association with Ali did pay off with a gig as a color commentator in network TV fights in the 1980s. By then Ali had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and Pacheco told about how he tried to get Ali to stop boxing after the brutal “Thrilla in Manila” fight against Joe Frazier in 1975.

Pacheco finally left Ali’s camp in 1977 after Ali signed to fight Earnie Shavers. Pacheco would later say that he told Ali he would stick around if he fought boxers who couldn’t hurt him, but Shavers was known as a vicious puncher and he feared for Ali’s safety.

Irving helps Celtics

rally over Warriors

BOSTON — Kyrie Irving had 11 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter, including two free throws that put Boston ahead in the closing seconds, and the Celtics beat the Golden State Warriors 92-88 on Thursday night for their 14th straight victory.

Jaylen Brown had 22 points and seven rebounds, and Al Horford added 18 points and 11 rebounds.

Kevin Durant has 24 points for Golden State. The defending champion Warriors had won seven in a row.

Playing his second game since suffering a facial fracture, Irving shed his protective mask in the second quarter. Then, with the game tied at 88, he was fouled on his layup attempt and calmly made a pair of free throws. Durant then came up empty on his jumper on the other end.

Golden State led by as many as 17, but had to lean heavily on its reserves as its trio of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Durant struggled offensively.

Curry, who returned to action after missing a game with a bruised right thigh, was the most ineffective. He was 3 of 14 from the field — 2 of 9 from the 3-point line — and had nine points.

Curry sat for a long stretch after picking up his fourth foul early in the third quarter.

INTERNATIONAL

Ex-France minister has to pay damages to Nadal

PARIS — Former French minister for health and sport Roselyne Bachelot was ordered to pay 10,000 euros ($11,800) in damages to Rafael Nadal on Thursday after accusing him of doping.

In March last year, Bachelot said on a French television show that Nadal’s seven-month injury layoff in 2012 was “probably due to a positive doping test.”

Nadal, who has won 16 Grand Slam titles, filed a defamation suit against Bachelot in Paris.

The Spanish player said he will donate the money to a non-governmental organization or a foundation in France.

“When I filed the lawsuit against Mrs. Bachelot, I intended not only to defend my integrity and my image as an athlete but also the values I have defended all my career,” Nadal said in a statement.

Nadal said he wanted to keep public figures “from making insulting or false allegations against an athlete … without any evidence or foundation and to go unpunished.”

He said the lawsuit was never motivated by money.

Bachelot was also ordered by the French tribunal to pay Nadal a suspended fine of 500 euros ($590).

In April 2016, Nadal wrote to the president of the International Tennis Federation asking for all of his drug-test results and blood profile records to be made public. In the same letter, he said of Bachelot: “It is unacceptable and mostly unfair that someone that should have knowledge of sports to a certain point and degree can publicly say something like this with no proof or evidence.”