Mar 8, 2023 3 min read

Wild Things hire bench coach

The Washington Wild Things have announced Ryan Whithorn as the team’s bench coach for the 2023 Frontier League season. Whithorn replaces Aharon Eggleston in the role, who took a job as the hitting coach for Frederick in the independent Atlantic League.

Whithorn joins 2022 Frontier League Manager of the Year Tom Vaeth, who will enter his third season, and pitching coach Alex Boshers. Whithorn spent the 2022 season as a coach with the Missoula Paddleheads in the independent Pioneer League.

“He’s a young guy just starting out in his coaching career who is very excited to be a part of our organization and be in the Frontier League,” said Vaeth. “He knows this is a step up in the caliber of play and realizes that the ultimate goal is to win a championship by putting a competitive product on the field. We look for him to be a valuable asset in evaluating and recognizing potential talent on the West Coast while he coaches in college.”

Whithorn is an assistant coach at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.

In college sports

A pair of basketball players from Brown University allege in a federal lawsuit that the Ivy League’s policy of not offering athletic scholarships amounts to a price-fixing agreement that denies athletes proper financial aid and payment for their services.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Connecticut by attorneys representing Grace Kirk, a member of Brown’s women’s team, and Tamenang Choh, who played for the men’s team from 2017 through 2022. They are seeking class-action status to represent all current and former athletes at the eight Ivy League schools dating back to those recruited since March 2019.

The suit argues Ivy League schools illegally conspired to limit financial aid and not compensate athletes for their services.

Harvard, Yale, Brown, Princeton, Dartmouth, Cornell, Columbia and Penn don’t offer merit scholarships of any kind, including athletic scholarships. The policy, which dates back to 1954, makes the Ivy League the only Division I athletic conference that prohibits member schools from offering athletic scholarships.

In auto racing

Kimi Räikkönen will again enter a NASCAR Cup Series race, this time at Circuit of the Americas, where the Finnish driver scored the final victory of his Formula One career in 2018.

Räikkönen will again race for Trackhouse Entertainment. Räikkönen made his Cup Series debut last August for Trackhouse at Watkins Glen, where he was competitive until he was collected in a crash and finished 37th.

In the NBA

Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant will be away from the team for at least four more games, the team said on Wednesday, shortly after police announced that he will not face charges in Colorado related to the livestreamed video is which he appeared to be displaying a gun in a strip club.

Men’s lacrosse

Parker Lucas scored a game-high four goals to power Washington & Jefferson to an 8-5 win Wednesday at Hiram in non-conference play.

In baseball

The 20-team World Baseball Classic got underway after a six-year absence with Panama defeating Taiwan 12-5 for its first win in tournament history and the Netherlands beating Cuba 4-2 as Didi Gregorius drove in the tying run and scored the go-ahead run.