1980.None of us expected the two results we got, G

Sometimes DeYona Gaston likes to build things up. Other times she tears stuff down.When she was in the third grade, Gaston had the audacity to try to dunk on a 6-foot rim and knocked down the portable goal in the process.But that moment aside, Gaston prefers designing and developing to destroying and dismantling. When she was 10, her father, Warren, brought home a surround-sound stereo system. Gaston asked if she could take it out of the box and put it together, and her dad obliged. A few hours later, Gaston, who said she is interested in becoming an architect one day, had accomplished her goal.It wasnt that hard, she said. My dad made it easier for me. He showed me how to operate the tools.Five years later, Gaston has shown she has all the tools to be an outstanding basketball prospect. Before she has played even one high school game, the Pearland (Texas) freshman has been contacted by big-time college basketball programs.Among the schools recruiting her are Notre Dame, Louisville, South Carolina, Texas, Oregon, Auburn, North Carolina, Colorado, Minnesota, Texas Tech and Houston.A 6-foot-2 forward with explosive athleticism, Gaston leads the way on the espnW HoopGurlz Watch List for the 2020 class, which was released Thursday.The youngest of two daughters, Gaston has learned the game from several people, including her mother, Shanett Gaston, who was a two-year starter as a 6-1 forward at Texas Southern. Her dad, Warren, who is 6-3, never played organized basketball but is athletic, and the couples oldest daughter, Shanequa, though smaller at 5-10, played NAIA ball at Langston University in Oklahoma.Moses Ellis, a former AAU coach, was an early influence on Gaston. And in the fourth grade, she began training with coach Tony Rodriguez of HTX Hoops. By the time she was a 5-foot-11 sixth-grader, stories began popping up online, calling her a potential McDonalds All-American.They might prove to be right.She has talent in a lot of areas, said Ed Fry, who has been coaching her in AAU ball for the past two years on his Lady Pro Skills 2020 team. I have to commend Tony Rodriguez on a lot of that, and were trying to fine-tune and expand her game.Lauren Martens, who will coach her at Pearland, is well aware of Gastons potential.Her basketball IQ is much higher than most kids her age, Martens said. She can bring the ball up and break a press. She shares the ball. Her rebounding, her shooting -- everything is on point.Shes very versatile, and its awesome to see. I think she will continue to get better along with our other girls.Indeed, Pearland returns all five starters from last year. Knowing that, Martens dispatched her veteran players to Pearland Middle School this past spring so they could check out Gaston.Our coach wanted us to scout [Gaston] to see how she played, senior guard Cierra Lane said. My coach already knew [Gaston] would be on varsity and wanted to know if she would work well with us.Lane left impressed.I had heard she was huge, and the stuff she could do at her size was, I guess, abnormal, Lane said. Once we saw her, she lived up to her hype. She could go in the paint hard, and she could shoot 3s.She was making baskets that werent normal [for] her height. She was bringing the ball down. She was everything to her team. She played the one, two, three, four and five.Her dad is not surprised. He saw it first-hand when she was in the third grade, when she got a steal and went in for that dunk on the 6-foot rim during a YMCA game.She nearly put that ball down.But the ball came off the front of the rim, Warren said. [Still], it was a strong, aggressive move. She was tenacious. Everyone was amazed.Warren said there were parents who were taping that game, and he has been looking for a copy of that video ever since. Gaston is similarly close these days to dunking on a 10-foot rim. But she is building toward that, just like she has put her game together, piece by piece.Ball-handling was her first skill. Her mother taught her to squeeze tennis balls to improve her grip, and Gaston practiced dribbling for hours in her garage.Shooting came next. Since the family does not own a basketball hoop, Gaston practiced in her neighbors driveway. The next phase in the construction of Gastons game is taking place in the weight room.Gaston still needs to get stronger, an idea that was reinforced this past summer when she repeatedly got knocked down in the paint by older girls. That sent Gaston to her mom to ask what she could do to improve. The solution was to get a physical trainer, and mother and daughter have been working out together at night in a boot camp program.In addition to getting stronger, Gaston is working on her speed. She plans to run the 100, 200 and 400 for her schools track team this spring.She already beats all the neighborhood boys in races, much to their displeasure.They say I cheat, because I have long legs, Gaston said.Those long legs, Gaston hopes, will one day carry her to great heights in basketball.I dream about that every day. Cheap Adidas NHL Jerseys . Ronaldo produced a spectacular individual performance on Tuesday, scoring all three goals and guiding Portugal into the next years World Cup in Brazil with a 3-2 victory in Sweden. The Real Madrid forward has scored 66 goals in 2013, but the last three may be the boost he needs to upstage Messi after FIFA unexpectedly extended the voting period for the Ballon dOr to Nov. 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NEW YORK -- Bruce Arena was a decade removed from the U.S. national team when he received a telephone call from U.S. Soccer Federation Secretary General Dan Flynn on Sunday asking him to meet with USSF President Sunil Gulati the following day.By midday Tuesday, the winningest coach in the teams history regained the job he had not wanted to give up.I never expected to be back in this role the way it came about over the last 48 hours, Arena explained. I hate to say this now to Sunil: I wouldve done this for free.A day after Jurgen Klinsmann was fired following two losses that began the final round of World Cup qualifying, Arena agreed to a contract running through the 2018 tournament in Russia.With the Americans 0-2 at this stage for the first time, the USSF wants to spark a turnaround when competition resumes March 24 with a home game against Honduras followed four days later with a match at Panama. The 65-year-old Arena, inducted into the U.S. National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2010, starts work Dec. 1.We need to build the chemistry of this team and have a common goal and really work on a team concept, he said during a telephone news conference. I really believe individually and positionally we have good players and weve just got to get them working together as a team.There are no real secrets on how you build good teams: It takes a lot of hard work, it takes communication, it takes discipline and it takes some talent, and I think we have enough talent to build a good team and end up in Russia 2018. Its going to take a little time, a little bit patience and a lot of hard work.Arena first took over as national team coach after the 1998 World Cup and led the U.S. to a 71-30-29 record. Gulati fired him, failed to reach a deal with Klinsmann and then brought in Bob Bradley.I dont view it as Bruce 2, but sort of Bruce 2.0, Gulati said. I think hes got far more experience than he did when he had the national team the first go-round. Hes proven and re-proven many times at all levels of the game in the United States that hes an extraordinarily capable and successful coach.A wisecracking Brooklynite known for blunt talk and sarcasm, Arena coached the University of Virginia to five NCAA titles from 1978-95, then led D.C. United to championships in Major League Soccers first two seasons before losing in the 1998 final. He guided the Americans to the teams best World Cup finish since 1930, a 1-0 loss to Germany in the 2002 quarterfinals.Arena was let go after the teams first-round elimination by Ghana in 2006. He coached MLSs New York Red Bulls from July 2006 to November 2007, then was hired the following August by the Galaxy. He led that team to MLS titles in 2011, 2012 and 2014.I thiink 10 years later Im better prepared for this job than I was in 1998 and 2002 and ultimately 2006, so Im hopeful the experiences I had are going to benefit the program, he said.dddddddddddd One of the things you learn from experience is you see things a lot clearer and a lot quicker than you did previously, and the game has slowed down a bit, where I can see as a coach in my position how things are happening on the field.Hired by Gulati in 2011, Klinsmann coached the U.S. to the 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup title and the second round of the 2014 World Cup, where the Americans lost to Belgium 2-1 in extra time.Gulati cited three disappointments that led to Klinsmanns firing: not qualifying for the 2017 Confederations Cup, the under-23 teams failure to reach this years Olympics and the poor start to the final round of qualifying in the North and Central American and Caribbean region.The U.S. would have reached the Confederations Cup by winning last years Gold Cup, but Jamaica upset the Americans in the semifinals, and the U.S. lost a playoff to Mexico.Really starting at the Gold Cup, weve had some very up-and-down results, Gulati said. The Gold Cup was a big disappointment for everyone: for Jurgen, for the players, for our fans.Two weeks ago, Gulati said he expected Klinsmann to keep his job through the 2018 World Cup. But Mexico won 2-1 in Columbus, Ohio, the first U.S. home loss in qualifying since 2001. That was followed by a 4-0 defeat last week in Costa Rica, the Americans first four-goal loss in qualifying since 1980.None of us expected the two results we got, Gulati said.He held a series of conversations with USSF board members after last Tuesdays defeat, made the decision Sunday and joined Flynn for a Monday meeting in Los Angeles with Klinsmann.While Gulati returned to New York, Flynn remained in Los Angeles to negotiate Arenas contract, which was agreed to at 11:30 a.m. EST Tuesday and approved by the board 15 minutes later. Arenas return was announced at 1:21 p.m.A star forward for Germany in the 1990s, Klinsmann was criticized by some -- including Arena -- for his use of foreign-born players. Five German-Americans were on his 23-man World Cup roster.If I made those comments, I certainly dont believe that thats my attitude, Arena said. I believe anyone that has a passport in the United States is certainly eligible to play for our national team, and I embrace all players that are eligible to play. I just want to make sure their heart is in the right place and when they place that U.S. jersey on theyre playing for that crest on their shirt. ' ' '