Randolph Ross finally made his long-awaited return to track and field after a three-year absence from the sport due to a suspension. The Olympic gold medalist proved he is ready to compete alongside the best runners in the world.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes him to get back to full form.

Ross first burst onto the scene in track and field as a sophomore at North Carolina A&T. The 6-foot-1 sprinter finished second at the NCAA Division-I Indoor Track and Field Championships in 2021. He later won the 400 flat at the Outdoor Championships that same year with the 19th-fastest time in history.

The world immediately took note of Ross as a legitimate competitor on the highest level. He was not just a flash in the pan and, nine days later, he qualified for the 2020/21 Olympics with a third-place finish at the U.S. Trials. Team USA also added him to the gold-medal winning 4×400 relay team.

Randolph Ross stayed hot.

Less than one full year after Ross ran for the United States in Tokyo, the Aggies sprinter avenged his loss at the Indoor Championships in the 400 and reclaimed his crown at the Outdoor Championships. Both wins were by a pretty significant margin. It was a reassurance that he was here to stay.

His reign of terror did not last long.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Ross was suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit on July 16, 2022. A retroactive three-year ban was put into place in December, dating back to July 1.

Randolph Ross committed multiple doping violations, including whereabouts failures and three missed tests. The most damning evidence was his attempt to fabricate an email to testing officials to explain his third of three absences.

His email claimed that he had to take an academic exam at the exact time of his drug test so he was unable to be there as required. If that was true, he might’ve been excused. However, the Athletics Integrity Unit later discovered the full truth.

At no point was Randolph Ross required to be in class at the time of his drug tests. It was a bold-faced lie and, as a result, he was changed with tampering. The charge led to a three-year ban from competition.

Time is up!

July 1, 2025 marked the end of Ross’ lengthy suspension. The 24-year-old was finally allowed to return.

His first opportunity to get back on the track took place at the World Athletics Continental Tour in Marseille, France. He ran on the bronze level against a pretty decent field of professionals.

Ross finished second to American Demarius Smith with a time of 45.41. The world-leading time in the 400 this year sits at 43.76 so there is still a long way to go but, all things considered, it was a pretty strong showing for a guy who had not run competitively since 2022!

I am interested to see how Randolph Ross fares at the U.S. Outdoor Track and Field Championships later this month— if he even runs. How does he stack up against the best sprinters in the country after a three-year hiatus? Based on his most recent result, it doesn’t look great. Stay tuned.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Temperatures soaring in Portland over the weekend gave an appropriate precursor for the Portland State volleyball team, as all tickets (single, group and season) to the Vikings’ 2025 season went on sale Monday.
 
Volleyball tickets have been some of the hottest buys at Viking Pavilion recently. The Portland State volleyball program has broken its single-match attendance record at Viking Pavilion in each of the past three seasons. A record 1,340 fans saw the Vikings take on then-No. 12 Oregon last September.
 
The Vikings will host the Ducks again this September, when they’ll look to break the attendance record for a fourth straight year. The date with the Ducks comes as part of back-to-back matches against in-state rivals Oregon and Oregon State. The Vikings host the Ducks Friday, Sept. 19, at 7 p.m., then face the Beavers Saturday, Sept. 20, at 5 p.m.
 
Big Sky Conference play starts the following week, as the Vikings host Idaho State Thursday, Sept. 25, at 7 p.m.
 
All tickets can be purchased online through the Portland State University Box Office. Season tickets start at $79 while single-match tickets start at $10. Contact Malik Thirdgill, Director of Ticket Sales and Service, at mthird2@pdx.edu for more information.
 

Another deadline is fast approaching for Grand Slam Track, and this time it’s in the form of an unpaid facility rental fee at the Ansin Sports Complex in Miramar, Florida.

The startup track and field league currently owes the City of Miramar $77,896 for its facility rental from its Miami Slam, which took place from May 2-4 at the complex, I have learned from a public records request, and the first of three payments from the rental agreement is due on July 18.

Originally, the binding terms of the event-host agreement signed on April 10, 2025, by the City of Miramar and Grand Slam Track indicated that one-half payment of the fee was due 30 days before the event on April 2, while the second-half was to be finalized 30 days after the event on June 2.

However, the bill is still unpaid after 72 days.

The City of Miramar rewrote a new payment plan that indicates Grand Slam Track now owes $30,000 on July 18, another $30,000 on August 18 and the third and final payment of $17,896 on September 18.

It marks a stark turn of events for Grand Slam Track, which you could argue had its most successful event in Miramar, hosting a nearly sold-out crowd over three days at the Ansin Sports Complex, filling the 5,000-seat stadium to the brim as an American record went down in the women’s 100 meter hurdles and various other world leads took place on one of the nation’s fastest tracks.

Current Concerns Plaguing Grand Slam Track

The news follows concerns indicating cash flow issues with the track league, which canceled its fourth and final meet in Los Angeles on June 28-29 at Drake Stadium, with sources telling Runner’s World the league had issues with its venue deal. Grand Slam Track also made adjustments to its race schedule in Philadelphia, eliminating the 5,000 meter race from the schedule entirely and removing one-half of the prize pool for the distance categories – a total of $525,000 between the men’s and women’s events.

“The decision to conclude the inaugural Grand Slam Track season is not taken lightly, but one rooted in a belief that we have successfully achieved the objectives we set out to in this pilot season,” Johnson said in a release, announcing his league’s departure. He did maintain, however, that the organization was looking forward for a return to the track in 2026.

When Grand Slam Track was announced in June 2024, it declared $30 million in “financial commitments” from strategic partners and touted its partnership with Winner’s Alliance, which was the “lead investor in the first fundraising close for the new venture,” an idea that seemed certain to revolutionize the sport and provide long-term growth equity for athletes. But in a search of the SEC’s EDGAR database, no filing for Grand Slam Track is available. By season’s end, sources told Front Office Sports that the league was considering postponing “because of a new strategic partnership.”

There are also alleged problems with prize money, with a reported $13 million in race winnings and appearance fees not paid following meets in Jamaica, Miami and Philadelphia. According to a report by Front Office Sports, appearance fees have been paid to athletes who competed in Kingston, though prize money payouts are currently scheduled for the end of July and “by the end of September, which includes the honoring of Los Angeles appearance fees.” Over the course of three meets, over a hundred runners from across the globe featured in the series.

High-level staffers – Chief Live Event Officer John Porco, Chief Content Officer Rick Qualliotine and Vice President of Live Event Marketing Lou D’Angeli – have also been let go.

Olympic Athletes Are Speaking Up

2024 Paris Olympian and three-time gold medalist Gabby Thomas, who is one of the league’s centerpiece stars and earned $100,000 for her win in the women’s long sprints category in Jamaica, along with $50,000 and $30,000 payouts for finishing second and third in the shorts sprints categories in Miami and Philadelphia, replied to a Grand Slam Track social media post on Tik Tok in early July, writing “So dope!! Pls pay me”.

In June, Norwegian outlet NRK also asked several of the league’s athletes if they had been paid following their outings at the Diamond League’s Bislett Games in Oslo. Alison dos Santos and Emmanuel Wanyonyi both confirmed they were still without their prize winnings from earlier meets. Forbes also independently verified at least one other account of a GST athlete not being paid.

Grand Slam Track booked the Ansin Sports Complex, which included a 5,000-seat stadium with an FTX Mondo surface, for 14 days (April 22-28 and April 29-May 5), including a “non-exclusive facility rental fee of $2,400 for seven days” and an “exclusive facility rental fee of $8,000” for another seven days.

Included within the signed agreement was also a promise by Grand Slam Track to pay ticket surcharge fees owed to the City of Miramar based on escalating ticket prices.

Grand Slam Track owed the city $1.50 for tickets sold between $1 to $19.99; $2.50 for tickets sold from $20 to $29.99; $3.50 for tickets between $30 to $39.99; and $4.50 for tickets secured at $40 and over.

The City of Miramar is owed another $14,928.50, according to public records.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — The Big Ten Conference announced Monday that 1,984 students on varsity rosters have earned the Big Ten Distinguished Scholar Award. The list includes students from all 14 institutions, plus Johns Hopkins and Notre Dame and 41 sports who have recorded a minimum grade-point average (GPA) of 3.7 or higher for the previous academic year. 

The 2024-25 class of Distinguished Scholar Award Recipients includes 426 students who maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA during the previous academic term, represented in bold on the official list.

 

The Big Ten honored 112 Hoosiers that earned the Distinguished Scholar distinction this season.

 

“IU Athletics is extremely proud of our student-athletes’ long-standing reputation of excellence both in competition and in the classroom.” said IU Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Scott Dolson. “I am excited to congratulate and celebrate these 112 individuals, all of whom have performed at the very highest level academically. The time demands that come along with being a student-athlete are significant, and these students have still managed to perform at a an extraordinarily high level in the classroom. In doing so, they have made their programs and our department very proud. Congratulations to our Big Ten Distinguished Scholars.”

 

Big Ten Faculty Representatives established the Distinguished Scholar Award in 2008 to supplement the Academic All-Big Ten program. Distinguished Scholar Award recipients must have earned Academic All-Big Ten recognition in the previous academic year, must have been enrolled full time at the institution for the entire previous academic year (two semesters or three quarters) and earned a minimum GPA of 3.70 or better during the previous academic year, excluding any summer grades. The Academic All-Big Ten threshold is a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher for a student’s academic career.

BIG TEN DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR

 

Baseball

Drew Buhr

 

Men’s Basketball

Shaan Burke

Anthony Leal

Jordan Rayford

 

Women’s Basketball

Lexus Bargesser

Lenee Beaumont

Sydney Parrish

 

Women’s Golf

Beatriz Junquiera

Caroline Smith

 

Field Hockey

Javiera Baeza

Maggie Carter

Ines Garcia Prado

Arabella Loveridge

Cecilia Maixner

Anna Mozeleski

Yip van Wonderen

Ava Winner

 

Men’s Golf

Robert Bender III

 

Football

Drew Evans

Anthony Chung

Aden Cannon

Camden Jordan

 

Rowing

Olivia Luban

Annabel Oertel

Lily Haupt

Chelsie Lindauer

Allie Beth Currier

Stella Abodeely

Abbey Armstrong

Ava Olson

Cat Madden

Daniella Mandel

 

Men’s Soccer

Luka Bezerra

EJ Dreher

JT Harms

Jack Wagoner

Grant Yeagley

 

Women’s Soccer

Ava Akeel

Olivia Albert

Elle Britt

Piper Coffield

Marisa Grzesiak

Camille Hamm

Dani Jacobson

Natasha Kim

Sydney Masur

Krista Murphy

Kennedy Neighbors

Emma Payton

Olivia Rush

Sarah Sirdah

Olivia Smith

Mary Kate Sullivan

 

Softball

Aly VanBrandt

 

Men’s Swimming and Diving

Luke Barr

Jackson Carlile

Mason Carlton

Mikkel Lee

Josh Matheny

Collin McKenzie

Utkarsh Patil

Carson Tyler

Gavin Wight

Benson Wong

Jassen Yep

 

Women’s Swimming and Diving

Morgan Casey

Mariah Denigan

Mya DeWitt

Katie Forrester

Anna Freed

MacKenna Lieske

Cat Minic

Anna Peplowski

Reese Tiltmann

Sydney Turner

Lily Witte

 

Men’s Tennis

Nikola Kolyachev

 

Women’s Tennis

Chase Boyer

Elisabeth Dunac

Li-Hsin Lin

 

Men’s Track and Field

Dalton Boisseau

Tyler Carrel

Max Grangier

Garrett Messer

Sean Mockler

Cole Raymond

Hunter Smith

Skylar Stidam

 

Women’s Track and Field

Bridget Beyer

Kelly Moran

Claire Overfelt

Kylee Poulton

Addison Price

Maddie Russin

Grace Tyson

Kristina Vinci

Mariah Wehrle

Katelyn Winton

 

Volleyball

Kenzie Dafinee

Luca Fickell

Delaynie Maple

Carly Mills

 

Water Polo

Audrey Cox

Grace Hathaway

Grace Klingler

Gwyneth Le

Sarah Lolli

Portia Sasser

Sophia Sollie

 

Wrestling

Mason Alley

Jacob Bullock

Jacob Moran

 

#NeverDaunted