Nationally significant subjects with direct connections to Chattanooga will be featured Tuesday evening in a Negro League Baseball panel discussion at the Bessie Smith Cultural Center on Martin Luther King Boulevard. The 5:30-7:30 p.m. event is free and ties in to the exhibit that runs through July 30 after opening on May 2. Lamar Smith and Clarence Watkins from Birmingham will give presentations on the movie "42" about Jackie Robinson and on Willie Mays, respectively, and Chattanooga's Dan Creed will speak on Satchel Paige. All three speakers are senior researchers for the Negro Southern League Museum Research Center. Mays and Paige were among the eventual major league stars who played games in Chattanooga for Negro teams, and the city was one of the main filming locations for "42." Smith said Saturday that his "fireside chat" will include Chattanooga being picked as a location along with Birmingham, Atlanta and Macon and his experiences with those constructing the sets and doing the filming as well as some "poetic license" in the movie. Incidentally, anyone recognizing players in the exhibit's photos of old Chattanooga Negro teams is asked to share the identifications with members of the Bessie Smith center staff.
Basketball
* The Celebration of Life in honor of former Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt is set for 7 p.m. Thursday at Thompson-Boling Arena, and people attending are asked to be in their seats with cell phones silent by 6:30, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel. The doors at Gates B, C, D and E and the usual ADA entrances will open at 5:30. The event is free and will be televised by ESPN2 and the SEC Network. It is expected to last about an hour and a half. No signs will be allowed, and attendees are asked not to take photos during the ceremony.
Golf
* David Noll Jr. of Dalton is one of four previous champions playing this week in the Centennial Georgia Amateur Championship at the Capital City Club in Atlanta, where golf legend Bobby Jones won the first one as a 14-year-old in 1916. There have been 68 different winners. Noll won in 2003 and 2011 and was the runner-up in 2005, 2009 and 2012. Dru Love of Sea Island won last year in five playoff holes on his home course on St. Simons Island. Lee University golfer Shea Sylvester of Roswell also is entered. The tournament will begin with stroke play Tuesday and Wednesday at Capital City's Crabapple course at Woodstock; the low 32 players will move on to the Brookhaven course in Atlanta for match play Friday through Sunday.
Weightlifting
* Olivia Reeves of Hixson won a silver medal at her first national weightlifting meet recently in Austin, Texas, and earned a spot on the USA Weightlifting junior squad and an all-expense-paid trip this month to Colorado Springs and the U.S. Olympic Training Center. She also qualified for the World University & Under 25 Championships in late September in Baton Rouge, La. Reeves is 13, and her 11-year-old sister Haley competed with her in the 13-under 48kg (105-pound) class and finished sixth. They have been trained for the past year by Steve Fauer of Tennessee Speed & Strength. Olivia lifted 110 pounds in the snatch and 132 in the clean and jerk in finishing behind only Abby Raymond of Chicago. Haley had a 79-pound snatch and a 104-pound clean and jerk.
Running
* Christian Thompson had the fastest time Saturday morning in the Market Street Mile road race in downtown Chattanooga: 4 minutes, 33.40 seconds. The event is the official RRCA 1-mile state championship race for Tennessee. Will Harper was second in 4:48.23, Jonathan Boyd was third in 4:55.15 and Zachary Faudi and Dean Thompson also beat five minutes. Emily Bell was the fastest female in 5:26.64. The runners went off in stages according to gender and age groups, and Thompson and Jan Gautier were the masters (40-over) winners with Tim Ensign and Karen Leavitt taking grand masters (50-over) honors and Thomas Starke and Connie Regal earning senior grand masters (60-over) awards.