Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is hosting an end-of-year news conference with Superintendent Dr. Crystal Hill.

Bowl to Present Jimmy Collins Awards to Brother Martin Wrestler and Crescent City Classic Racer

NEW ORLEANS (June 23, 2025) – Noah Confident, a top-four state finisher in wrestling, and Brian Marelo, a 15-year old competitor in the Crescent City Classic road race, have been selected to receive Jimmy Collins Awards from the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s New Orleans Sports Awards Committee.

The New Orleans Sports Awards Committee has selected annual award winners in a variety of categories since 1958; it also selects Sugar Bowl Athletes of the Month and each year’s New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame class. Overall, 30 individuals and two teams will be honored for their achievements at the 2024-25 Allstate Sugar Bowl Sports Awards Banquet presented by LCMC Health on August 2. Honorees are currently being announced, wrapping up with the Corbett Awards for the top male and female amateur athletes in the state on July 8 and 9.

While there are many different categories of awards presented by the New Orleans Sports Awards Committee, some years the Committee finds that there are people deserving of recognition who do not necessarily fit into one specific category. For that reason, the Committee presents the Jimmy Collins Awards to outstanding individuals and organizations.

Collins was a longtime New Orleans sportswriter who is credited with creating the New Orleans Sports Awards and forming the Sports Awards Committee in 1958.

Noah Confident, who was born with one leg, has established himself as a high-level athlete. The 17-year-old achieved a pair of top-four finishes in Division I Wrestling at the LHSAA Championships (2024 and 2025).

“My way of wrestling is different from other people because it’s less of a hand fight and it’s more shots and just slowing down my opponent to be at my pace,” he said. “Overall, it’s just wrestling and doing the stuff I know how to do. I’m already low, so I don’t have to get low to get their legs. I just snatch and pull and try to get them down to the mat.”

“Starting out, I wasn’t even worried about winning or losing. I just wanted to wrestle. Then going into the next year, I just wanted to get better and learn more technique and everything. I wasn’t really thinking about tournaments. I just wanted to get better at wrestling. Then in my junior year I really thought about going to state and having that goal set in mind. Even though I didn’t (win at the state championship), I’m still proud of myself for getting there.

Brian Marelo competed against 18,200 fellow racers in the 47th Crescent City Classic on April 19. The 15-year-old entered the race with a goal of 55 minutes and he finished the race in 45 minutes and 52 seconds, faster than 96% of the finishers. Unlike most of the racers, Marelo competed in a lightweight chair with cantilevered wheels – he has spina bifida; he was born with his spinal cord growing out of his back and doctors said he would likely never be able to get out of bed, let alone walk. He has dealt with many challenges that came with his diagnosis, including epilepsy and hydrocephalus requiring a shunt and has undergone 20 operations in his 15 years.

“I wasn’t supposed to be able to do all these things I currently do,” said Marelo. “You’re only going to hurt yourself if you believe you can’t. But if you try, you might find out that you can.”

He hopes to attend the University of Alabama, which has a renowned adaptive sports program, and he also has 2032 Paralympic ambitions.

The Allstate Sugar Bowl will continue announcing its annual awards tomorrow (Tuesday) with the Outstanding Boys and Girls Prep Coaches of the Year from New Orleans.

Jimmy Collins Special Awards: Noah Confident, Brother Martin Wrestling; Brian Marelo, Hahnville

Outstanding Boys Prep Coach of the Year, New Orleans: June 24 (Tuesday)

Outstanding Girls Prep Coach of the Year, New Orleans: June 24 (Tuesday)

Outstanding Female Amateur Athlete, New Orleans: June 25 (Wednesday)

Outstanding Male Amateur Athlete, New Orleans: June 25 (Wednesday)

Outstanding Boys Prep Team, New Orleans: June 26 (Thursday)

Outstanding Girls Prep Team, New Orleans: June 26 (Thursday)

Outstanding Collegiate Coach, Louisiana: June 27 (Friday)

Eddie Robinson Award – July 7 (Monday)

Corbett Award – Male: July 8 (Tuesday)

Corbett Award – Female: July 9 (Wednesday)

Women in Sport Scholarships: July 23 (Wednesday)

New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2025:

Shan Foster, Basketball, Bonnabel HS/Vanderbilt/NBA, 2001-13
Temeka Johnson, Basketball, Bonnabel HS/LSU/WNBA, 1997-2018
Joe McKnight, Football, John Curtis Christian School/USC/NFL, 2004-16
Andy Russo, Basketball, Fortier HS/USL/Brother Martin HS, 1956-78

The New Orleans Sports Awards Committee came together when Collins spearheaded a group of sports journalists to form a sports awards committee to immortalize local sports history. For 13 years, the committee honored local athletes each month and a variety of annual award winners. In 1970, the Sugar Bowl stepped in to sponsor and revitalize the committee, leading to the creation of the New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame in 1971, honoring 10 legends from the Crescent City in its first induction class. While adding the responsibility of selecting Hall of Famers, the committee has continued to recognize the top athlete in the Greater New Orleans area each month as well as a range of annual awards – the honors enter their 69th year in 2025.

The Allstate Sugar Bowl has established itself as one of the premier college football bowl games, having hosted 29 national champions, 110 Hall of Fame players, 55 Hall of Fame coaches and 21 Heisman Trophy winners in its 91-year history. The 92nd Allstate Sugar Bowl Football Classic, which will double as a College Football Playoff Quarterfinal, is scheduled to be played on January 1, 2026. In addition to football, the Sugar Bowl Committee annually invests over $1 million into the community through the hosting and sponsorship of sporting events, awards, scholarships and clinics. Through these efforts, the organization supports and honors thousands of student-athletes each year, while injecting over $2.5 billion into the local economy in the last decade. For more information, visit www.AllstateSugarBowl.org.

Welcome guys, gals, and gender non-binary pals, to Ask 411 . . . the last surviving weekly column on 411 Wrestling.

I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and I am here to answer some of your burning inquiries about professional wrestling. If you have one of those queries searing a hole in your brain, feel free to send it along to me at [email protected]. Don’t be shy about shooting those over – the more, the merrier.

Hey, ya wanna banner?

I don’t think the Bret sending in this question is the same Bret the question is about. If it is the same guy, his health issues are worse than we ever thought:

Why was Bret Hart allowed to wrestle Vince McMahon at Wrestlemania? I thought he cashed out his Lloyd’s of London policy and couldn’t wrestle anymore.

Heading into Wrestlemania XXVI with its Bret versus Vince match, Erich Bischoff of all people reported that WWE had been notified of the Lloyd’s of London policy after the Hitman returned to the company and after the the match had been set up, which resulted in Lloyd’s having to get involved to “approve the physical structure of the match.”

Bryan Alvarez in the March 9, 2010 issue of the Figure Four Weekly newsletter was able to confirm that Bischoff’s report was accurate and that there was a backup plan to do a tag team match in the event that Bret was not allowed to compete in singles action.

Then, in the April 5, 2010 Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer reported that the unusual structure of the match, which saw Hart take no offense whatsoever from McMahon and which saw Hart avoid high impact moves, came about both for “medical and insurance reasons.” Meltzer did not explicitly refer to the Lloyd’s of London policy, but one can reasonably assume from the prior reporting that it was at least one of the “insurance reasons.” (As an aside, there was also reportedly a storyline reason for the way the match was structured, as it was meant to be a blowoff of Vince McMahon’s heel persona.)

So, there you have it. Bret Hart was allowed to wrestle at Wrestlemania XXVI despite his Lloyd’s of London deal because, apparently, Lloyd’s was actively involved in making certain that nothing would happen that caused them concern.

Big Richard ain’t heavy, he’s my brother:

I see that Ryan Nemeth said that he and Nick are the best brother tag team.

What is your list of the top 10 brother tag team? I am asking for real brothers, not pretend.

First off, Ryan Nemeth is delusional, and that’s not just because he thinks he’s in one of the best brother tag teams of all time when he is obviously not.

That said, let’s get to my list:

10. Mike & Ben Sharpe: The first major foreign heels in Japanese wrestling. Without these guys as rivals to Rikodozan, puroresu may not exist, at least in the manner that it does today.

9. The Usos: Thirteen year run as a dominant tag team in WWE. Development into a stable that was the centerpiece of one of the best long-term storylines in company history. Spinoff into viable main event stars, one of whom is now a former World Champion. It’s not recency bias – they’re legit.

8. The Dusek Riot Squad: From the 1930s through the 1950s, brothers Ernie, Emil, Rudy, and Joe Dusek were one of the top tag teams nationwide, traveling all over the place and winning a multitude of titles. There were also kayfabe family members Wally and Frank, but they don’t qualify as the question is worded.

7. The Hardy Boys: From very humble beginnings, Matt and Jeff Hardy became unlikely megastars, with Jeff even being a multi-time World Champion. They are perhaps one of professional wrestling’s greatest success stories, though that success eventually lead to a fair amount of tragedy.

6. Los Brazos: The Brazos are a huge professional wrestling family in Mexico, but the strongest team among them is no doubt El Brazo, Brazo de Plata (Super Porky), and Brazo de Oro who became so popular in the wrestling world that they eventually received an induction into the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame.

5. Los Villanos: This is somewhat appropriate, because Los Brazos’ greatest rivals were another crew of brothers, Los Villanos. I ranked the Villanos ever so slightly higher because, while they were just as big of stars as the Brazos, it was the Villanos who won the most noteworthy match between the two crews, a mask versus mask trios match in 1988.

4. Los Guerreros: Man, lots of Mexican representation on this list. Mando, Hector, Chavo, and Eddy teamed in all manner of combinations (Eddy appearing the least due to the age gap). They were wildly successful just about everywhere they went and will go down as one of the greatest families in wrestling history.

3. The Steiner Brothers: If Rick and Scott Steiner only had their accomplishments in Japan, they would probably make this list. If Rick and Scott Steiner only had their accomplishments in the United States, they would probably make this list. They’ve got both, so they not only make the list but they also make it pretty darn high up the list.

2. The Von Erichs: The fact that the Von Erichs are still inspiring documentaries and major motion pictures forty years after the height of their peak in wrestling just goes to show you how enduring their legacy is.

1. Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk: The only pair of brothers to ever hold the NWA World Heavyweight Title and also one hell of a tag team on the occasions that they paired up. I’m not sure how you beat this one.

And now, since I’ve given my opinion on these things, I’m fully prepared for all the comments telling me how wrong I am.

Brendan is backing Bob:

We know that when the WWF moved from Bob Backlund to Hulk Hogan, that Backlund turned down the idea of turning heel. But let’s say he had said yes. How do you think McMahon would have booked him and would you suggest something different? It seems obvious to just have him turn on Hogan and set up a series of matches with a big pay off which was a standardmodel of booking in professional wrestling. But Bob Backlund had been champ for so long that the may have still had some fans that would cheer for him over the new guy, so it would seem that you would need to be creative to really create him as a heel or take time for his heel turn to build. But I’m not at your level of expertise in these matters.

I think that the way Bob Backlund was actually booked in his remaining time in the WWF can give us some insight into how he would have been booked had he decided to turn heel. After losing the WWF Championship on December 26, 1983, Backlund kept wrestling for the promotion through August 4, 1984. During that time, he did have a few rematches with the Iron Sheik, but his main opponents were the Masked Superstar, Bob Orton, and Greg Valentine. In other words, he wasn’t wrestling the top guy on the other side of the heel/face divide all that often, but he was wrestling the guys just below the top guy.

That’s what I suspect he would be doing as a heel as well. Tito Santana won the Intercontinental Title shortly after Backlund lost the WWF Championship, and a Backlund/Santana feud sounds like a great idea for the former WWF Champion, in part because of their styles matching well and in part because Tito was an attraction for the Latino fans in the crowd and they would likely be loyal to him even if he was wrestling the former beloved face of the company.

(One million points to anybody who understands why I linked to the match I did in this answer.)

Bryan was the dirt on cleanliness:

Do pro wrestlers ever go to laundromats. I’ve heard complaints from wrestlers about other wrestlers that don’t wash their gear. Do they ever go to the laundromat like the rest of us? It was my childhood dream when washing the rug to run into Bret Hart putting his pink and black into the dryer. Or do they clean it in the hotel sink?

I’m not going to say that pro wrestlers never go to laundromats, but from everything I’ve ever read or heard, it is far more common for them to hand-wash their gear in the sink or the bathtub. That’s because, even though it takes a beating in the ring, gear can be delicate in terms of washing, and it will be better preserved by a gentle hand wash.

In fact, one of wrestling’s greatest tragedies of the last five years began with wrestling gear being ruined in the wash. Joshi star Hana Kimura was one of the cast members of the reality show Terrace House in her native Japan in 2020, and one of the episodes featured her losing her temper with a housemate when he damaged her gear by placing it into a washing machine.

The episode is believed to have caused an uptick in cyberbullying directed at Kimura, which in turn contributed to her taking her own life on May 23, 2020 at the age of 22.

If you are in the United States and considering self-harm or otherwise in a mental health crisis, please call or text the three-digit code 988 to connect to professionals who are standing by to assist you.

Jonathan H. from Peterborough, England isn’t acting like himself anymore:

I’m not a big NXT guy but from what I understand while there Finn Balor transitioned from heel to face while holding the NXT title. I remember turns in the immediate aftermath of a reign, possibly as a result of the circumstances of losing the title but I’m struggling to think of many times it has happened during the title reign.

The one that does spring to mind is The Undertaker after gaining respect for Jeff Hardy during a Smackdown ladder match.

Are there any other notable examples of this in the title history of main US companies?

The most famous example that I can think of is Randy Savage. When he won the WWF Championship at Wrestlemania IV, he was one of the biggest babyfaces in company history, but by Wrestlemania V when he dropped the belt to Hulk Hogan, he had turned on the Hulkster and was fighting dirty.

CM Punk turned heel during the summer of 2012 while he was WWE Champion, setting up his match at the 2013 Royal Rumble against the Rock, which would be the end of Punk’s lengthy title reign.

You can make a case for Steve Austin having done this in 2001. He turned heel at Wrestlemania XVII, and it looked like he had become a face again briefly heading into the Invasion pay per view, though he flipped right back to being a bad guy when he joined the WCW/ECW Alliance at the end of that show. Whether you consider that a heel turn followed by a face turn followed quickly by another heel turn or whether you want to consider it one continuous heel run with a fakeout in the middle is up to you.

Those are just a few key examples of men turning while holding their promotion’s top championship. It’s actually not as uncommon as you might think.

Chris is worried about TA erasure:

I just watched a recording of the original broadcast of NWA World Wide from 10/18/1986. Four days prior was the serious car accident Magnum was involved in. The broadcast begins with Tony and David Crockett breaking the news of what happened. A few segments later, they talk about a recent match where Dusty Rhodes “broke” Tully Blanchards leg and show the footage. Magnum comes out to help Dusty, but Tony and David don’t even acknowledge Magnum. Why?

I think the precise answer to this question is lost to time, but the reasonable assumption is that, with Magnum being laid up the promotion didn’t want fans to think that he was going to be a large part of the forthcoming Tully/Dusty feud.

Tyler from Winnipeg is handling the truth just fine, thank you:

I remember watching “The Wrestler” movie in a theater and seeing Ron Killings have speaking movie lines with Mickey Rourke. Pretty sure this was pre-WWE for him, yes or no?

This actually turned out to be a more complicated answer than I would have expected.

The easiest way to answer it is to say that, no, this wasn’t pre-WWE because Killings had a stint with the company from 1999 through 2001 that a lot of people forget about, in which he was known as K-Kwik. He was involved in a tag team with the Road Dogg but lost his direction when Dogg was cut from the company and didn’t do anything of note after that. Obviously, that was many years before The Wrestler was produced or released.

However, I think that what the question is really getting at is whether the Truth was in WWE when he was in The Wrestler.

He was certainly part of the WWE roster when the movie was released. The Wrestler started running at festivals in September 2008 and received its theatrical release in the U.S. in December 2008, and Killings had his first match back in WWE after some time in Impact Wrestling on March 25, 2008.

Was he part of WWE when he shot those scenes? Probably not. The best information that I found was that The Wrestler was filmed between January and March 2008. In December 2007, Truth announced that he had negotiated a release from his contract with Impact Wrestling, where he had been part of the roster since the promotion’s debut in 2002. As noted, his first match back with WWE was in late March 2008.

Thus, it is most likely that R-Truth filmed his scenes for the movie during the brief window between his Impact Wrestling release and his new WWE contract being signed. Even if he filmed them while under WWE contract, it is most likely that he committed to the role before he signed there.

Tatankasaurus is going medieval:

My big question is . . . who portrayed the Lance Steels? Also, Lance Steel returned from 2019 – 2021 and most believe that was a different person entirely. Who were these guys?!

For those who missed it, this question is a spinoff of Ask 411 from a few weeks ago in which somebody asked me if there had ever been a wrestler with a time traveler gimmick, and I mentioned Lance Steel, a character in Chikara that was a knight from the Middle Ages brought into present day by a time machine. A second Lance Steel was later brought to present day from a different point on the timeline, and those two teamed together under the name Lancelot.

Several years later in 2019, the character of Lance Steel reemerged as a member of the heel stable the Crucible, in a story that I don’t believe was fully resolved before the promotion shut its doors in 2020.

So who were they?

It’s not 100% clear.

I have seen message board posts and rumors claiming that the original Lance Steel, who debuted in 2004, was actually Chikara original Hallowicked pulling double duty and wrestling under a second gimmick. However, I have not seen any solid enough confirmation of this that I would ever take it to the bank.

The identity of the second Lance Steel, who showed up in 2005, is actually pretty well known. He is an indy wrestler from Pennsylvania who has also wrestled under the names Niles Young and Neiko Sozio, with most of his non-Chikara exposure coming in Combat Zone Wrestling. (He also had some Chikara matches unmaksed as Niles Young over the years.)

Finally, the third Lance Steel is a real head scratcher. I haven’t even seen anybody begin to speculate as to who he was.

Of course, if anybody out there has an sources I missed, I’m glad to hear from you.

We’ll return in seven-ish days, and, as always, you can contribute your questions by emailing [email protected]. You can also leave questions in the comments below, but please note that I do not monitor the comments as closely as I do the email account, so emailing is the better way to get things answered.

For the second year in a row, the Nike Outdoor Nationals and USATF U20 Championships were held simultaneously at Hayward Field in Eugene.

There were a few champions from Oregon’s high school ranks, coming in the distance races.

Here are the top finishes for Oregon high school athletes this weekend at Hayward Field:

Nike Outdoor Nationals

The Franklin team of Zafer Courcelle, Rory Pedrick, Leaf McQuillen and Brennan McEwen (running as Mount Tabor Track Club) won the boys 4,000-meter distance medley relay in 10 minutes, 8.01 seconds. The team was seconds ahead of Adelphia Track Club of Washington, coming in second in 10:12.28.

Churchill rising senior Addison Kleinke was the runner-up in the girls pole vault with a 13 feet, 4.5 inches.

Marshfield’s Bodey Lutes finished second in the boys 800 meters, with a 1:47.74.

Jesuit’s Iman Foster was the runner-up in the triple jump, with a 40-11 on her fifth attempt. It’s a jump that moves her up to No. 2 all-time in Oregon behind McDaniel’s Maleigha Canaday-Elliott in 2024.

The Eagle Point Track Club team of Benjamin Levesque, Kaden Webb, Easton Raber and Logan Moreno finished second in the boys 4×100-meter relay with a time of 42.03.

The Corvallis Speed team of Jack Weisel, Cooper Gordon, Dylan Fiegener and Cole Fiegener finished third in the boys 4xmile relay in 7:32.45.

Central Catholic’s Joseph Donnelly, competing as a member of the Inner Circle Track Club, was third in the boys long jump with a 23-5.5 on his third attempt.

Sheldon alumnus Malachi Schoenherr, competing as a member of Nike Elite, finished fourth in the boys 3,000 meters with a time of 8:07.82.

Amity Track Club’s Jaxson Howard was fifth in the boys hammer throw with a 183-10 on his second throw.

Tigard’s Marissa Johnson, a member of Nike Elite, finished sixth in the girls hammer throw with a 166-6 on her fifth throw.

Crescent Valley alumna Emily Wisniewski finished sixth in the girls 5,000 meters, in 16:52.64.

The Forest Park Track Club team of Nicholas Ranalli, Rosie Gross, Ryan Hendrickson and Sophia Malinoski finished sixth in the mixed 4×400-meter relay in 3:40.34.

West Linn alumna Hayden Williams-Downing finished seventh in the girls javelin with a 144-7 on her third attempt.

USATF U20 Championships

Franklin alumnus McEwen won the men’s 3,000 meters in 8:22.98.

Williams-Downing finished third with a throw of 148-02. She was only a few feet behind champion Jenessa Ruder’s 151-11.

Oregon’s Maleigha Canaday-Elliott, a McDaniel alumna, finished third in the women’s triple jump with a 41-5.75.

Newberg rising senior Sophia Castaneda finished third in the women’s 400 meters in 53.16.

Kleinke finished third in the women’s pole vault with a 13-11.25.

— Nik Streng covers high school sports in Oregon. Reach him at nstreng@oregonian.com or @NikStreng