Faith, family, and wild stunts

Cody Jones and his roommates at Texas A&M University weren’t looking to start a media empire when they bought an $80 basketball goal for their backyard. They just wanted to have a little fun between classes. The competitive friends started one-upping each other with trick basketball shots and recording their antics. In 2009, they uploaded their first YouTube video, called “Backyard Edition.” It went viral within a week, launching the internet sensation now known as Dude Perfect, a nod to the praise friends give each other when they sink a shot.

Last week, YouTube Originals released Dude Perfect: Backstage Pass, a documentary chronicling the guys’ attempt to turn some of their best five-minute videos into a live show that toured cities throughout the United States in 2019. The film shows the fun and the challenges they had taking their show on the road. It also gives viewers a glimpse of the faith and family that support these men in their mission.

Dude Perfect is one of the most popular and profitable channels on YouTube with more than 50 million subscribers and 10 billion views. The dudes of Dude Perfect—Jones, Tyler Toney, Coby Cotton, Cory Cotton, and Garrett Hilbert—began by shooting basketballs in creative and increasingly difficult ways: blind shots, extreme distance shots, and banking-the-ball-in-an-extraordinary-way shots. They graduated to shooting baskets from a moving plane and the roof of a skyscraper. Eventually, they expanded their repertoire to include other sports like football, volleyball, and pingpong. They admit that making the difficult shots requires an average of 15 takes—a fact that made a live show particularly challenging. But the 2019 tour did so well the group scheduled another for 2020 but had to cancel because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The documentary shows a group of friends who live consistently in private and public. They tackle the challenges of a live show with the same good-natured humor and energy their fans see in the videos, all while prioritizing family relationships.

After graduating from college, getting married, and finding jobs, the dudes almost quit because other responsibilities vied for their attention. They decided to quit their jobs instead and focus solely on making videos. Their wives supported the decision, and their audience exploded after they devoted their full-time energy to entertaining others.

Their videos are always family-friendly but rarely explicitly Christian. In the documentary, the men cite their trust in Jesus as the reason they do what they do. Toney refers to faith as the “underlying principle and theme behind everything Dude Perfect does.”

On their website, the Dude Perfect team has a video titled “About the Dudes.” Throughout most of the 10-minute clip, the dudes don’t talk about themselves. Instead, they discuss their faith in Jesus Christ and give a clear explanation of the gospel. Hilbert sums up their motivation when he said, “God gave us this platform, and we need to use that platform to glorify His name.”

Negotiation nail-biter

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred still wants to have an 82-game season starting in July if he can get the players’ union to agree to safety precautions and salaries. On Thursday, he announced a plan to test all players and personnel for COVID-19 multiple times per week, with a 24-hour turnaround from a Utah lab. Those with symptoms would get rapid tests. Both testing provisions assume MLB will have an adequate supply of testing kits and not deplete tests needed by others.

Quarantine restrictions, further testing protocols, and other health-related rules fill about 80 pages of the proposal, which also includes potential bans on high-fives, spitting, and visits to the pitcher’s mound.

“We hope that we will be able to convince the vast majority of our players that it’s safe to return to work,” Manfred told CNN. State and local governments would also have to OK play. Stands would remain empty.

Players’ salaries present an even bigger obstacle. The Major League Baseball Players Association has fought for years to prevent salary caps even though the other three major U.S. professional sports leagues have them. MLB revealed last week it wants to split revenues 50-50 with players for this year only. Players see the idea as a cap and have so far refused the terms out of fear that accepting them would set a precedent.

In March, players signed a deal agreeing to prorate salaries based on the number of games played. MLB argues that with no fans and potential decreased revenue of $4 billion, players must make more concessions. The question is, how badly do both sides want to play ball? —Sharon Dierberger

Back in action

Professional soccer resumed in Germany over the weekend without fans in the stands. The Bundesliga league has the highest average fan attendance in the world during a normal season. A few diehard supporters showed up outside the Berlin team’s stadium for a game against Munich on Sunday, but police told them to move on.

Teams in South Korea have begun playing baseball again with ESPN airing some of the games. Baseball has resumed in Taiwan, too, where fans can attend as long as they sit 6 feet apart.

And American horse racing has plans for a revamped Triple Crown starting with the Belmont Stakes on June 20 in New York. The horses will run a shorter race without fans. While the Belmont Stakes usually wraps up the Triple Crown, this year it will lead off, with the Kentucky Derby in Louisville following on Sept. 5 and the Preakness in Baltimore on Oct. 3. —Lynde Langdon

Remembering a trailblazer

Phyllis George, a former Miss America and female sportscasting pioneer on CBS’s The NFL Today, has died. She was 70. A family spokeswoman said George died Thursday at a Lexington, Ky., hospital after a long fight with a blood disorder.

“Phyllis didn’t receive nearly enough credit for opening the sports broadcasting door for the dozens of talented women who took her lead and soared,” her NFL Today co-host Brent Musburger said. She joined the popular Sunday pregame show in 1975, becoming one of the first women to land a role on a national sports broadcast.

In 1979, George married John Y. Brown Jr., who owned Kentucky Fried Chicken and the NBA’s Boston Celtics and served as the governor of Kentucky. They divorced in 1998.

Her children, Lincoln Tyler George Brown and CNN White House correspondent Pamela Ashley Brown, released a joint statement, saying, “For many, Mom was known by her incredible accomplishments as the pioneering female sportscaster, 50th Miss America, and first lady. But this was all before we were born and never how we viewed Mom. To us, she was the most incredible mother we could ever ask for, and it is all of the defining qualities the public never saw, especially against the winds of adversity, that symbolize how extraordinary she is more than anything else.” —L.L.

Thanks for the laughs

Fred Willard, the comedic improv-style actor known for films such as This Is Spinal Tap, Best In Show, and Anchorman, died Friday. He was 86.

“He kept moving, working, and making us happy until the very end,” his daughter Hope Mulbarger said. “We loved him so very much! We will miss him forever.”

Willard specialized in small, scene-stealing appearances, including an arrogant sportscaster who knows nothing about the dog show he announces in Best in Show and the goofball grandfather in the ABC series Modern Family.

News of his death elicited expressions of sympathy and admiration from throughout the world of comedy. “There was no man sweeter or funnier,” late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel tweeted. Actor Steve Carell called Willard “the funniest person that I've ever worked with,” and “a sweet, wonderful man.” —L.L.

Everybody’s favorite wiseguy

Ken Osmond, who played the smarmy troublemaker Eddie Haskill on the 1950s and ’60 sitcom Leave It to Beaver, died in Los Angeles on Monday. He was 76. His son Eric told The New York Times his father died of complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and peripheral arterial disease. In the late ’60s, Osmond, who could never escape being typecast as an “Eddie,” left acting and joined the Los Angeles Police Department as a motorcycle cop. —Mickey McLean