On April 26, 1989, light-hitting Ozzie Smith slapped a fly ball toward the left-field line, and Giants left fielder Kevin Mitchell streaked across my TV screen after it.

After about a half-dozen steps, Mitchell realized the ball was carrying deeper than he first thought, much deeper than the TV viewer first thought, and Mitchell began to veer toward the corner. A couple of steps after that, the broadcast cut from an overhead, third-base-side camera to a tighter, field-level shot from the first-base side of the field. The effect of that jarring cut, and the effect of Mitchell changing direction so steeply, and the effect of Smith somehow hitting a ball that deep on that swing, was all very disorienting. The ball was entirely off-screen to this point, and as a viewer, you couldn't really estimate where it was anymore: fair, foul, shallow, deep, in play, out of play, catchable, uncatchable? The play felt weird, and Mitchell -- in his first full season as a left fielder -- looked as if he might be lost.

And then Mitchell shot his bare hand up into the air. The ball suddenly descended on his wrong side, either because of wind or because Mitchell had simply overrun it. His body was twisted around, his back was almost to the plate, his right arm fully extended, and he caught the ball clean in his fingers. He took a couple of more steps on the run and then gently bumped into the left-field wall, knocking open a padded gate that somebody had left unlocked.

The catch went viral. "That's got to be the play of the year," Giants announcer Duane Kuiper said on the broadcast, and according to one Reddit commenter's memory, it literally was -- named so by CNN's Sports Tonight at the end of 1989. "It was on every newscast that night, every morning show the next day and every baseball highlights package for the next decade," Giants blogger Grant Brisbee wrote. You can buy a flipbook from that season showing the grab. Sports Illustrated used the catch as evidence that Mitchell might be "the toughest" player in baseball. Mitchell's teammate Mike Krukow called it "paranormal." "Catch of the Century?" the Chicago Tribune asked at the time. "Greatest catch I've ever seen," Tony Gwynn claimed.

And, over the past 30 years, it has stayed viral. It was apparently one of the first 30 classic videos MLB Advanced Media posted when it began to fill its YouTube channel. When McCovey Chronicles retroactively named the greatest Giants GIFs of the pre-GIF era, the Mitchell catch was at the top. There's a bobblehead of the catch and baseballs signed by Mitchell with the inscription "Catch 4-26-89." Urban Dictionary claims the phrase "Kevin Mitchell" has its very own dirty meaning originating from that catch. (No link to that one!) "The older you get, the more people remind you about things," Mitchell told Henry Schulman in 1999. "But they never remind me of my year in '89. They always remind me of my catch."

It's one of the most famous catches in baseball history -- maybe the second-most famous, and certainly one of the top 10. But it's also confounding. Most extraordinary fielding highlights involve athletes doing something we ourselves tried to do at some point in our baseball or softball experience, but couldn't possibly. Ramon Laureano's highlight catch this week, for example, featured Laureano leaping higher than we possibly could, making a catch we couldn't possibly make, and then throwing a baseball much farther than we could possibly throw. Given 10 tries I wouldn't be able to do what Laureano did, but even given 10 million tries, I still couldn't. Mitchell's catch is something else: It's a famous highlight because it involves something we never even tried to do. That almost nobody ever tried to do.

To understand it, then, requires I try it. And to try it requires first understanding it.

1. Would it hurt?

In 2014, a guy on Twitter posted a picture of his palm after he tried to catch a Giancarlo Stanton home run. Half of his hand was blackened, and his ring and middle fingers were swollen like hot dogs left too long on a grill. "Honestly, I'm sort of surprised this hand isn't in worse shape," Deadspin wrote, which, honestly, I was too.

But that tweet was a hoax. (The guy apologized to Stanton and the Marlins in a subsequent tweet.) In fact, catching a Stanton blast bare-handed is ... not so bad. In May 2015, Stanton hit a baseball 115 mph, and 478 feet later, a Marlins fan named Ryan Mont leaned over a railing and caught it one-handed. He pumped his fist and went back to his seat, giddy. "To be honest with you," he told us by email, "it stung a little, but I was so excited I didn't really feel any pain! I was just excited I had caught it and excited to give it to my friend!"

The ball Stanton hit was going 115 mph, but the ball Mont caught was not. As soon as it left the bat, it began losing velocity to drag and gravity; according to a trajectory calculator physicist Alan Nathan provided us, that Stanton home run was probably traveling around 60 mph when it got to Mont.

We don't know how hard or how high Ozzie Smith hit the ball, but based on an estimate of how far it traveled (about 325 feet) and how long it was in the air (about 4.35 seconds), we can compare it to this fly ball hit by Oswaldo Arcia in 2016, when Statcast had begun measuring everything. Arcia's hit traveled 331 feet with a 4.4-second hang time. It had an exit velocity of 95.7 mph and a launch angle of 27 degrees.

According to Nathan's calculator, Arcia's ball would have slowed to below 70 mph within one second of flight, and by the time it reached its apex, it would have been going only 49 mph. As it began its descent, it would first slow even more, and after traveling 240 feet, Arcia's ball (and, roughly speaking, Ozzie Smith's) would have been traveling just 45.5 mph. But then gravity would be pulling it faster and faster, so that when it landed it would be traveling around 53 mph. That's not nothing, but most of the energy of the hit had dissipated. Catching a baseball traveling 53 mph is about what it's like to catch a pitch thrown 60 mph. It might sting, and could injure you if you catch it wrong, but ... you know?

2. Would it be difficult?

So, then, to the question of whether it was difficult. I showed this catch to Jarrod Kimber, the global writer for ESPNcricinfo and senior analyst for the Melbourne Stars. Cricket is, of course, a sport similar in many respects to baseball, but with no gloves. Cricketers catch everything bare-handed.

"I mean, it's cute," Kimber said of the Mitchell catch, before sending me a series of YouTube videos of cricketers (and cricket fans) making diving, sprinting and leaping bare-handed catches.

"I like that he caught the ball on the wrong side of his head," Kimber said. "As in, instead of his arm crossing over to the other side of his body, he catches it in a way he almost has to exorcist his neck around. And maybe I have a bias against mistake catches -- as in catches where the person made an error that made it more difficult. I mean, he's misjudged it, hasn't he, and got himself into a tangle, which is why he throws up his non-gloved hand.

"I've seen many cricketers, even amateur ones, actually especially amateur players, get in the wrong position when running back to catch over their head, then throw their hand up and the ball sticks. I think we'd call it arsey rather than classy. There was more elegance in this catch, but I didn't think it was that amazing."

According to the cricket analytics company CricViz, gloveless players successfully catch 77 percent of their chances during international matches, comparable to the NBA's free throw percentage. Most of the time they use two hands -- not one, as Mitchell did -- and, importantly, this is what they do all the time. For much of their lives, they've caught dozens of balls bare-handed each day. "I'd rather use a glove, although when I played baseball I often used my bare hand as it was easier and more natural to me," Kimber said.

3. Could I do it?

Earlier this week, I went to a field in Sonoma, California, with a bucket of balls and a glove I wouldn't need. Theo Fightmaster -- an independent league GM whose playing career peaked as a failed walk-on at Arizona State, where he played intrasquad games with Dustin Pedroia -- was there to hit me a bunch of deep fly balls. I stood in left field, and Fightmaster tried to replicate the trajectory of Ozzie Smith's fly ball.

"Because we have more soft tissue padding on the palm surface, you could argue that the hand was built asymmetrically this way to absorb the use we give it," said Dr. Ben Jacobs, who chairs the public education committee of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. "The soft tissues are somewhat effective at spreading out the load from an impact, so force that is applied can be distributed more across the hand instead of loading in just one location."

He stresses that, from a hand surgeon's perspective, catching baseballs bare-handed is a bad idea. But would he try to catch one if he were at a ballgame? "Of course I would." I took that as permission.

As the first catchable fly came near me, I groaned in dismay, anticipating the pain. I reached out for it, but my naked right hand was wary and tried to pull away. The ball deflected off the ends of my fingers and dropped to the grass. The pain was no worse than what comes of a hard high-five, and it faded quickly. The second got me in my palm, and I couldn't hold on. The third was over my head, and I fell face-first into a patch of mud chasing it. I had to extend, on the run, for the fourth, and it bounced off the top of my middle finger. That hurt. Each missed catch caused me a slightly different grunt or gasp, but none hurt for longer than a few seconds. The fifth, directly over my head, clanked loudly off my palm, and I screamed -- but more out of frustration that I had dropped it than out of pain. The sixth hit off the end of my fingers. The seventh was right at me, and I tried to catch it low, at my belt, but I still couldn't hang on.

I caught the eighth.

It landed clean against the base of my ring finger, and my pinky curled around to hold it in place. This was the most painful of the eight, by far, and the last segment of my ring finger felt as if it might have a bone bruise. But even that pain was tolerable and went away after a few minutes. I then caught four more cleanly, dropping only two. I mostly caught the ones I could get under, while the ones I had to really run after -- like the one Mitchell caught -- were much harder, bouncing off my fingers. Two fingers hurt for about a half hour, and my hand shook (as with nerves) for about that long, but the sorest part of my body was my shoulder, from throwing baseballs back to Theo. Catching a ball bare-handed wasn't that painful, that scary or -- it seemed to me -- that hard. (Theo tried catching a couple; one clipped his finger and turned his fingernail black.)

Running like Mitchell had to, of course, makes it harder. Needing to stretch out makes it harder. Twisting a body around so that one's back is almost to the infield would make it harder still. I want to be very clear that Mitchell's catch was miles harder than any catch I managed. But nothing about Mitchell's catch seemed impossible, the way Laureano's catch was impossible. Of all the great catches in baseball history, is there any that so resembles something that fans (and ushers!) pull off every day?

So, then, what are we to make of this catch?

The most famous catch of all time is certainly the one by Willie Mays in the 1954 World Series -- dead sprint, his back to the infield, to haul in Vic Wertz's long fly. But there's less consensus among Mays observers that it was his best catch. Some say the best was a bare-handed catch he made running back for a screaming liner in Pittsburgh, in 1951. Pirates GM Branch Rickey sent a note down to the dugout after the play, according to baseball writer Nick Acocella. The note read: "Young man, that is the greatest catch I have ever seen, or the greatest catch I'm ever likely to see."

Hall of Fame center fielder Duke Snider also said Mays' finest catch was made bare-handed, when Mays was running to his right in Ebbets Field: "Couldn't extend his arm far enough to catch the ball so he reached out with his bare hand and caught the ball about three feet off the ground as he dove for it," Snider said. "And to me, that was so much better a catch than he made against Vic Wertz. This was an outstanding catch, and it was very exciting to see that happen. I never tried it."

I never tried it. This is the key thing. Most great catches, as we noted at the top, are incredible athletic acts by incredible athletes. But there are hundreds of incredible athletes in Major League Baseball, thousands over the past century. Every game, you can see one do something you could never do. Every year, you see a handful that seem to defy physics. And every few years, you see one you remember forever. But these catches merely confirm what we already know: These guys are good. That's all baked in, and it's why we watch in the first place. Yessiree, they sure can play baseball.

A bare-handed catch is something different. It doesn't seem to defy physics as much as it actually and literally defies the sport. It has been 150 years since baseball players collectively decided this game wouldn't work without gloves; but every so often, a player forced into a desperate situation makes it work.

"In my entire life, I've never seen that happen," Duane Kuiper said on the Giants broadcast that day 30 years ago. "Happen" is the important word there: The situation happened to Mitchell. He wasn't a cricketer who was used to making this play in this fashion. He didn't spend even one full second of his life planning or preparing for what he had to do; maybe a quarter of a second, the final quarter-second before the ball landed. He had nothing but a single pre-modern tool at his disposal, and he didn't have eight chances but just the one. "All I could do was stick out my hand, and there it was," Mitchell said. The bare-handed catch wasn't what he was trying to do. It was all he could do.

That's why bare-handed catches hold up. These are unpracticed, unplanned, disadvantaged and desperate. They're the difference between headbutting a basketball into the basket on your eighth try in a game of H-O-R-S-E and headbutting a ball in when your team needs two points to win at the buzzer and that's somehow the only option. The key lesson from my experiment wasn't what I did on the eighth try, but on the first. In retrospect, there was zero chance I was going to catch the first one. Zero.

If you think of the question as, "Is it hard to make a bare-handed catch on a fly ball?" the answer is, "Eh, kind of." But if you think of the question, "Was that specific fly ball hard for Kevin Mitchell to catch?" then the answer is, "Yes, it was basically impossible. He had to invent something to do it." Duke Snider never even tried it!

Earlier this month, Freddy Galvis sprinted out from the shortstop position to try to catch a popup. The ball came down just a little bit too far for his gloved left hand to reach, so Galvis shot out his right and caught it bare-handed. It's the best catch I've seen this year, or will see. I'm not alone.

That play by @freddygalvis10 might have been the best play I've ever seen live. Wow! @BlueJays

— Marcus Stroman (@MStrooo6) April 20, 2019

Could you, theoretically, make the play? If you had 30 or 40 tries, I definitely think so. But Galvis had one, and anyway, when's the last time you saw somebody even try?

Mouthwatering races await at the Müller Anniversary Games as world’s top names sign up for 100m contests in London

Tickets to the British Athletics 2019 outdoor event series are now ON SALE. With another huge year of world-class athletics now in full swing on the back of a memorable indoor season, you can secure your seat to see the best athletes in the world right here in the UK – including the best in Britain – this summer.

The first of British Athletics’ outdoor showpiece events will be the Müller Anniversary Games, which takes place over the weekend of July 20-21 at the London Stadium and it promises to be another memorable occasion.

The 100m sprints tend to grab plenty of attention in the UK capital and there will be no change there after the announcements of top-quality fields in the both the men’s and women’s events for 2019.

Four of the world’s best male sprinters have been confirmed as taking their places on the start line at the iconic venue.

Having established himself as Britain’s current number one thanks to a best time of 9.91 seconds last year – the joint second-quickest ever by a Briton – European champion Zharnel Hughes returns to London looking to go one better on his second-place finish at last year’s edition of the event.

Alongside Hughes, fellow Briton Reece Prescod is on the world radar following eye-catching performances and will relish lining up in his home city this July.

A world championships finalist in 2017 and European silver medallist last year, the 23-year-old Londoner has bold ambitions for 2019, with Linford Christie’s long-standing British record of 9.87 one of the targets in his sights.

Two world-class stars with 11 Olympic and world medals between them, Canada’s Andre De Grasse and Jamaican Yohan Blake, complete the additions to the field at this stage.

De Grasse is looking to return from a spell of hamstring issues and claim further global medals. A triple Olympic medallist in 2016 with silver in the 200m and bronze medals in the 100m and 4x100m relay, De Grasse’s appearance at this summer’s Müller Anniversary Games marks his first race in London.

Last but not least, and a man who is no stranger to the London Stadium having won three Olympic medals at the stadium back in 2012, Blake – the second-fastest man in history over 100m with a time of 9.69 seconds – joins the aforementioned trio in racing over 100m on Saturday 20 July.

The quartet’s confirmation follows the announcement of a red-hot women’s 100m field. British record-holder Dina Asher-Smith will take on Marie-Josée Ta Lou of the Ivory Coast, Elaine Thompson of Jamaica and Dafne Schippers of the Netherlands – a quartet who own a combined 18 Olympic and world medals.

Thompson is the reigning Olympic 100m and 200m champion and Schippers is a two-time world 200m champion, while Ta Lou was world No.1 at the distance in 2018.

Fresh from her exploits in Berlin last summer where she won European golds over 100m, 200m and 4x100m, Asher-Smith will relish the 100m challenge on July 21.

Founded in 2013 as a legacy to the unforgettable 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Müller Anniversary Games is a world-leading meeting.

It will be a showpiece occasion well worth watching in 2019 and ticket prices are set to encourage families. With the brilliant performances and a live band supporting athlete introductions, everything looks set for yet another thrilling occasion which showcases the world’s best and inspires the next generation.

Tickets for British Athletics’ 2019 outdoor season are now on general sale via theticketfactory.com/british-athletics

A five-a-side version of rugby can revolutionise the game at professional and grassroots levels, says Olympic gold medal-winning coach Ben Ryan.

The first 'Rugby X' event - featuring men and women - has been confirmed for 29 October at London's iconic 02 Arena.

The five-a-side format is described as "fast and furious", while retaining rugby's "core principles".

"It will bring new players and supporters into the sport," Ryan told BBC Sport.

"I see it as a really exciting variation on the game."

How will it work?

Ryan hopes 'Rugby X' could make the same impact T20 cricket has since its inception in 2003 - a shorter, more understandable version that will help attract a younger audience.

"That's the plan. If you look at 15s as being your five-day Test matches, and the one-day internationals being 7s, and Twenty20 being Rugby X; I can see that happening," he said.

"We are not clashing with 7s tournaments or 15s tournaments. I see it as a vital tool that can help the 7s."

'More like an NBA game'

Ryan, who is helping to drive the concept, is confident 'Rugby X' can be part of the solution to the sport's sustainability, rather than create another problem.

"It is going to be a little more like an NBA game, where in every moment of dead time, supporters are going to be entertained.

"I was [at the 02] when the Knicks were playing the Wizards [in the NBA], and it was a sell-out and was loud and noisy and amazing.

"There is going to be lights and music, and international Olympic athletes. It is just going to be a great event and a lot of fun.

"World Rugby has given us the green light for this test event and if things go well we would hope they would agree to expand the series."

The saviour of grassroots rugby?

Ryan feels 'Rugby X' could help save grassroots rugby union - especially in state schools.

"I do [see it dying], and I see it across the board," he added. "Extra-curricular sport is dying in state schools, especially in the inner cities.

"It is very hard - even if you are a mad keen rugby teacher working in an inner-city school - to start up rugby at the moment.

"15s is obviously technically difficult as a start-up, and 7s is just aerobically and anaerobically shattering.

"This gives a short-sided and simple version, where teachers with no background in rugby, in limited resources in limited space, can get the game going."

Ryan also hopes a physically demanding yet easily accessible game could help with some of society's more serious problems.

"It is a strand of the solution to what we are seeing going on as far as the increase in crime and knife-crime," he said.

"Give people something to do, give them an interest, give them playing a sport that espouses all the values around team work, and togetherness, and understanding, and mutual respect."

Better for player welfare

Ryan hopes 'Rugby X' will address issues over safety and player welfare that are threatening the viability of the 15-a-side game.

"We are working in a shorter space, so that is going to mean you won't get the collisions you get in 7s or 15s," he said.

"We've done our trials. There will be injuries - it is a contact sport - but the trials have been really positive. We are tweaking things as we go along, but ultimately it is going to be a sport that will support player welfare and reduce injury.

"Once people see this version of the game, they will want to come back. It is going to be accessible, it is not going to be expensive, in some of the best indoor arenas in the world.

"There is going to be a risk with any start-up, but we are pretty sure it is going to catch."

Neymar has been suspended for three European games for insulting match officials on social media after Paris Saint-Germain was eliminated by Man United in the Champions League.

The penalty, handed down by UEFA on Friday, will see the Brazil international miss half of the Champions League group stage next season.

More to come...

The father of Emiliano Sala, the Argentine player who was killed in a plane crash in January as he was en route to join new club Cardiff City, has died three months after his son.

- Borden: In search of Emiliano Sala

Horacio Sala, 58 suffered a heart attack on Friday in his home in Progreso, Argentina, a friend and president of local club San Martin del Progreso, Daniel Ribero, confirmed to local TV station C5N.

"Unfortunately, he felt a sharp pain in his chest in the early hours [of Friday] and suffered a heart attack," Ribero said. "By the time the doctors arrived he had already died. I recently saw him and spoke to him. He seemed to be gradually getting back to his routine. We spoke for half an hour and even told a joke. The news comes as a surprise as Horacio leaves us at 58.

"It leaves another void. We had been in constant contact for a month during the disappearance of the plane and this is very sad news."

Emiliano Sala, 28, died after his plane crashed into the English Channel on Jan. 21 as he was flying from France to Wales after completing a club record £15 million deal transfer to Premier League side Cardiff. His body was recovered from the Piper Malibu aircraft two weeks later near Guernsey.

Cardiff and Nantes are in a dispute over Sala's transfer after the Premier League side refused to make the first scheduled payment for the Argentine.

The Bluebirds argue the agreement struck with Nantes regarding Sala's purchase was not legal as the French club failed to fulfill conditions they set.

FIFA has granted Cardiff City and Nantes extra time to submit full details of the transfer of Sala as the clubs look to schedule face-to-face talks.

England batsman Alex Hales has failed a drugs test. Hales, who was named in England's provisional 15-man World Cup squad last week, is understood by ESPNcricinfo to have tested positive for a recreational drug in recent weeks. The England selectors are not thought to have known about the test result at the time the squad was announced.

According to a report in the Guardian, he is currently serving a 21-day ban after returning a second positive test, having pulled out of Nottinghamshire's Royal London Cup campaign, shortly after the World Cup squad was announced, for undisclosed personal reasons.

The drugs violation is understood to have been detected after Hales underwent a routine hair follicle test, which all professional men's cricketers and centrally-contracted women's players undergo at the start and finish of every season. The policy was introduced in 2013 in the wake of the death of Surrey's Tom Maynard, and can detect banned substances in the system for up to three months.

For a first offence, which is treated as a health and welfare issue, players are offered advice and support with only the county director of cricket being notified.

A second violation can invoke a three-week ban and a 5 percent fine of the player's annual salary, at which point the player's county is informed, as well as the ECB chief executive, Tom Harrison, and PCA chief executive, David Leatherdale.

A third offence, such as that committed by Durham's Jack Burnham in 2017, can lead to dismissal - although in Burnham's case, the club chose instead to ban him for 12 months and give him the chance to revive his career this year.

It is nevertheless another significant black mark for Hales, who was recently banned for six white-ball games (four of them suspended) and fined £17,500 by the ECB for his part in the Bristol brawl that led to Ben Stokes' arrest and subsequent acquittal. England are not obliged to name their final World Cup squad until May 23.

Although the loss of Hales at the World Cup would be significant, as things stand he would have served his suspension. He is still expected to join up with the squad for their training camp in Cardiff at the weekend.

While he is not currently seen as part of the first-choice side, he was set to be the reserve batsman in the squad. He has an outstanding ODI record: only nine men have scored more than his six ODI hundreds for England; only Jason Roy has a higher individual score in the format than the 171 Hales made against Pakistan. With Roy (back spasm) having recently experienced some fitness concerns, there was every chance he would win an opportunity at some stage during the tournament.

Ashley Giles, the England's men's team director, Mick Newell, Nottinghamshire's director of cricket, and the ECB all declined to comment when contacted by ESPNcricinfo.

Clemson and coach Dabo Swinney agreed to a 10-year, $93 million deal on Friday, making it the largest deal in college football history.

Swinney, who has won two national championships with the Tigers, is on par to make the same average salary as Alabama coach Nick Saban. Both are set to average $9.3 over the course of their respective deals.

Swinney, who began his Clemson head coaching career as interim coach in 2008, has led a remarkable rise for a school that had one national championship in its history before he took over from Tommy Bowden.

With his folksy charm and culture centered on his "All In" mentality, Clemson has emerged as a force in college football with no signs of letting up.

With Trevor Lawrence back behind center, Clemson goes into the 2019 season as a heavy favorite to make it back to the College Football Playoff.

Swinney's first deal as full-time head coach at Clemson when he was promoted by then-AD Terry Don Phillips at the end of the 2008 season paid him $800,000 a year.

"He way overpaid me," Swinney quipped Friday to ESPN.

Swinney is set to make $8.25 million in the first two years of the new deal, going all the way up to $10 million in 2028, the last year of the contract.

"I am grateful and humbled by the incredible commitment Clemson has made to me, my family and our football program," Swinney said in a statement. "For more than a decade, we have given our all to provide this world-class university and our incredible fans the championship football program they deserve -- to live up to Best is the Standard.

"With this contract, we make a collective statement that we intend to continue pursuing championships and developing total student-athletes for years to come. Our sustained continuity in vision, people and culture has been a key ingredient to our success, on- and off-the field. I am thankful for the leadership we have at Clemson and appreciate all they do for Clemson Football. I am truly blessed to be your Head Football Coach."

If Swinney were to leave for another collegiate head coaching position in the first two years of his deal, the buyout would be $4 million. But the buyout increases to $6 million if he were to leave for Alabama over the next two years. There is no buyout if he leaves for an NFL job.

"Dabo's leadership of our football program has brought value, exposure and unprecedented levels of success not only to our athletics program but to the entire university," Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich said in a statement.

"He has demonstrated the ability to consistently achieve at the highest level on and off the field, and he has done so with a commitment to integrity and core principles. This new agreement is evidence of Clemson's steadfast commitment to Dabo and to our football program, and we are thrilled that he and his family will be a part of our community for years to come."

Swinney is entering his 17th overall season at Clemson, including his time as an assistant coach from 2003 to 2007. His 116 head coaching wins at Clemson rank second all-time.

Meanwhile, Radakovich agreed to a contract extension through June 30, 2024. He is set to make $1.2 million for the 2019-20 athletic season, going up to $1.4 million in the final year of the deal.

ESPN's Chris Low contributed to this report.

BELLEVILLE, Ill. – Friday’s 28th annual Arnie Knepper Memorial featuring the POWRi Lucas Oil National Midget League and POWRi Engler Machine & Tool 600cc Outlaw Micro League has been cancelled due to rainfall.

POWRi and Belle-Clair Speedway officials are actively seeking a date for rescheduling.

“The rain gauge at the track shows three inches of rain,” said Brian Thompson of Belle-Clair Speedway. “This spring hasn’t been kind to racing in the Midwest.”

Saturday’s race at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55 and Sunday’s race at Jacksonville Speedway are both still on.