July 12, 2016Chris Paul takes home the Sports Humanitarian of the Year Award; San Francisco Giants win for Sports Humanitarian Team of the Year Award; Bank of America wins Corporate Community Impact Award and the NBA wins the League Humanitarian Leadership Award.The leagues, teams, individuals and members of the sporting community met in Los Angeles at The Conga Room at L.A. LIVE Tuesday, July 12, to celebrate those who have used the power of sports to make a positive impact on society at the 2016 Sports Humanitarian of the Year Awards, hosted by Laila Ali.Chris Paul was honored with the Sports Humanitarian of the Year Award, recognized as an athlete whose continuous demonstrated leadership has created a positive impact on their community through sports. Through the Chris Paul Family Foundation, Chris has leveled the playing field in education, sports and community. He has helped open a newly refurbished Boys & Girls Club in the L.A. neighborhood of Watts - part of a $1 million commitment his Foundation has made to made to Boys & Girls Clubs across the country.The Sports Humanitarian Team of the Year went to the San Francisco Giants. Through the teams Junior Giants program, they have been helping put an end to the cycle of violence in impoverished areas around the region. The program is designed to build life skills using the power of sports, and a parent survey found that 76% of participants were engaged in more physical activity, 64% read more, 89% said their confidence was improved, and 86% knew what to say or do about bullying.The winner of the new Corporate Community Impact Award was given to Bank of America. Bank of America used the power of sports to help change the hearts and minds of people across the country by starting a nationwide movement for inclusion and respect for all people. Working with the Special Olympics, they staged the first-ever Unified Relay Across America (URAA) in 2015 - organizing more than 10,000 participants to bring the torch through all 50 states to start the Special Olympics World Games.. As a result of the Relay and Games, many more U.S. households identified as knowing a non-immediate family member, co-worker, neighbor or friend with intellectual disabilities (ID) from 24% pre-World Games to 31% post-World Games. Perceptions of the capabilities of people with ID saw similarly positive increases after the URAA and World Games.The NBA was honored Tuesday with the first League Humanitarian Leadership Award for driving social impact. In 2015, NBA Cares celebrated its 10th anniversary, and with the NBA All-Star Game in New York City, the league ambitiously engaged more than one million youth in basketball through 754 events across the five boroughs. This includes hosting an unprecedented 100 basketball clinics in just one day.Three Stuart Scott ENSPIRE Awards, which recognizes individuals who have taken risks and used an innovative approach to help the disadvantaged through the power of sports, were presented to Billie Jean King, Robert Kraft and 2015 University of Missouri Football Team. Billie Jean King has taken risks throughout her career to champion equal pay, opportunities for women and advocating Title IX, and she continues her quest for inclusion through the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative. Robert Kraft is empowering small nonprofits across New England to make an even greater impact through an innovative and strategic philanthropic program. The 2015 University of Missouri Football Team showcased the incredible power the athlete has to inspire social change. They threatened to boycott their next game to help end a student hunger strike that was a response to race issues on campus.The net proceeds from the Sports Humanitarian of the Year Awards benefited the Stuart Scott Memorial Cancer Research Fund at The V Foundation. Additionally, ESPN will grant a collective total of $800,000 to the charities of the nominees and winners, double the amount awarded last year. In total, more than $1.4 million will be distributed to the community as a result of the initiative. In recognition of Muhammed Ali and to make sure his vision for his humanitarian efforts continue, ESPN is proud to make a $100,000 donation to the Muhammad Ali Center.Another special moment related to the Awards ceremony was the opportunity to experience the Breaking Barriers: Sports for Change exhibit by the Center for Civil and Human Rights as part of the ESPYS Experience. The showcase, located on Microsoft Plaza, allows guests to view visual displays of athletes who have made an impact on the civil and human rights. The exhibit honors Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, among many others, with a display tapered to their success. The Breaking Barriers exhibit will start its tour from the ESPYS Experience and will travel around the U.S. for viewing.Below is a complete list of award winners.Sports Humanitarian of the Year Award: Chris Paul, Los Angeles Clippers (2016) Tamika Catchings, Indiana Fever (2015)Sports Humanitarian Team of the Year Award: San Francisco Giants (2016) Chicago Bulls (2015)NEW Corporate Community Impact Award: Bank of America (2016)NEW League Humanitarian Leadership Award: NBA (2016)Stuart Scott ENSPIRE Awards: Billie Jean King, Robert Kraft and the 2015 University of Missouri Football Team (2016) Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll, Like a Girl Campaign by Always, MLB Commissioner Emeritus Bud and his wife Sue Selig, and the You Can Play Project (2015) Noah Syndergaard Jersey . -- Gus Malzahn finally had his day in Fayetteville. 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Whether you watched the Firestone 600 unfold from the cockpit of an IndyCar, from atop a war wagon in the pits, from the grandstands at Texas Motor Speedway or from the comfort of your living room, it was an involving experience.There were times during 177 laps of sometimes frantic competition Saturday night when the action looked straight out of 1999, with a four-wide pack that looked more Indy Racing League than Verizon IndyCar Series. On other occasions, James Hinchcliffe gapped the field like a driver could and often would in the USAC or CART era.A series of late-race cautions set up a nine-lap sprint to the finish that some observers described as the best racing youll see all year, while others viewed it as Russian roulette with four-wheeled missiles.In that final run to the checkered flag, Graham Rahals car bounced around like a pinball between other machines, but he maintained control and kept his right foot pinned to the throttle. He hunted down Hinchcliffe, darted to the inside in Turn 3 on the last lap to take the lead for the first time all night, and held on through Turn 4 and the dogleg to cross the line 0.0080 seconds ahead in the closest IndyCar finish in TMS history.And Texas is definitely a track with plenty of IndyCar history.After the race, the drivers looked like they were experiencing a mixture of joy and relief. If watching a race is a nail-biting experience from outside the car, it must be even worse from the cockpit.We put ourselves in some pretty precarious situations tonight and everybody came out OK, admitted Hinchcliffe. Nobody did anything stupid, and everybody played nice, very respectful.Oh, that was so much fun, exclaimed Tony Kanaan in a television interview immediately after the finish. I had to dig into my hard drive and remember pack racing again. Its always a pleasure to race like that.It was really intense, he added later. Im not used to that, but I think it was just the nature of the product that we created for this race. We kind of went away from a pack race a long time ago, and we kind of migrated back just because it was very different circumstances today.Kanaan was referring to the fact that Saturday nights action was actually the resumption of a race that was scheduled for June 11, then started and run for 71 laps on June 12 on a muggy afternoon before another Texas-sized thunderstorm set in. The IndyCar rulebook dictated that the race restart from the point it was red-flagged, rather than begin anew. It also required for cars to start the night race set up the way they were back in June, in the higher downforce trim of an afternoon race.Despite the extra downforce, a full-fledged pack race never really broke out. But the frantic shuffling between Rahal, Hinchcliffe, Kanaan, Simon Pagenaud and Helio Castroneves in the closing laps certainly brought back memories of those days -- the kind of memories that excite some fans and terrify others.The difference, according to the drivers, is that they were being forced to lift for the corners and balance the car, rather than just floor it and steer.Its a lot different than what it used to be, said winner Rahal. Its not just flat-out easy pack racing anymore. I mean, you were lifting a heck of a lot in traffic, but the way these cars suck up nowadays, the draft is huge so it just makes the racing awesome.This is why I wish we had more mile-and-a-half tracks on the schedule, added Hinchcliffe. This is a lot of fun for us. People have got to pedal the car, its not just wide-open racing the whole stint like it was in days past.The last time an IndyCar Series event created the kind of social media buzz that came out of Texas was the race at Auto Club Speedway in June 2015. Coincidentally, Rahal won that race, too.Rahal drives a Honda-powered car for a team co-owned by his father, three-time Indy car championship winner Bobby Rahal. As a parent, a team owner, ex-driver, and even ex- acting CART series CEO, nobody has more perspective on an event like Texas than the elder Rahal.ddddddddddddWith the day-to-day operations of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing managed by others, Bobby Rahal wasnt present at Texas Saturday night. Like many fans, he monitored the race via timing and scoring on his cell phone, before finally seeking out a television to watch the crucial final laps.Through the filter of a lifetime in racing, Rahal liked what he saw.It was a great race, and the drivers at the front drove very, very well in very close quarters, he observed. I think maybe theyre maybe not getting as much credit as they should be getting, because there is truly not much margin for error, yet those guys were able to race for lap after lap in very tight confines or formation. They were able to run to the end and it got people talking.All you need to do is look at social media -- everybody is going crazy, as they did at Fontana last year. Obviously that kind of racing strikes a nerve with people in a good way.But did it make Rahal nervous watching his kid -- admittedly, Graham Rahal is a man of 27 who is mature beyond his years -- out there in that environment?It is stressful for any parent watching their child out there, Bobby Rahal said. But he was racing with good guys he could trust like Hinchcliffe, Kanaan and Simon. You get farther back in the pack and you get guys you wouldnt trust as far as you can throw them. At least when you are up front, youre running with guys that understand it and drive responsibly.Its obviously stressful and exciting, however you want to describe it, he added. I was just pleased that everybody respected each other and raced well. Its obviously a younger mans sport. Thats not for the faint of heart, to be very clear. Theres a lot of fortitude and judgment that these guys have to race like that and maybe they are not being celebrated enough.Ironically, many people think of drivers like Bobby Rahal and those from earlier generations as heroes for surviving their era. Some believe racing a Formula 2 car with a tub made out of crinkly aluminum at the Nurburgring Nordschleife in the 1970s like Bobby did must be far more dangerous than running within inches of another car (and sometimes touching) at 220 mph at a SAFER Barrier-padded track like Texas.Bobby Rahal admits that drivers of his era faced a different kind of danger.When I drove, [the racing] wasnt that close, he said. But it was just different. In my day, the cars were a lot less safe and the tracks were a lot less safe. So there were risks from a different angle, so to speak. We had other risk factors that weighed into the equation far more than they do today. Thats not to say you wont have bad situations today, but the odds are a lot more in the drivers favor today than they were 20-25 years ago, let alone 50 years ago.Outsiders may question whether the IndyCar Series is flirting with disaster by running a car specification that still occasionally produces pack racing. But as a parent, entrant and racing enthusiast, Bobby Rahal is comfortable with what he sees.I think the officials have got a pretty good handle on what they need out of the car; its produced some pretty good racing, and there will be some changes for the future that should make it even better, he said. There were some races at Texas that werent very good because of the tire degradation and light downforce and the drivers were just hanging on. This year, it was interesting that the guys that didnt change tires near the end -- Graham and Hinchcliffe -- still finished 1-2, and new tires didnt make the difference.You have to give them some congratulations for coming up with an aero setting that obviously works pretty well. Cheap Nike NFL Jerseys Cheap Jerseys Free Shipping Stitched NFL Jerseys Cheap NFL T-shirts Cheap Nike NFL Jerseys Cheap NFL Jerseys Youth NFL Jerseys Wholesale ' ' '