Several massage therapists have accused Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker of inappropriate sexual conduct during appointments from 2012 to 2016 and have hired a law firm in Baltimore to represent them, the firm confirmed Thursday.

Tucker said in a statement Thursday the allegations are “unequivocally false.” The allegations were reported in detail Thursday by the Baltimore Banner.

“I have never before been accused of misconduct of any kind, and I have never been accused of acting inappropriately in front of a massage therapist or during a massage therapy session or during other bodywork,” Tucker’s statement said. “I have never received any complaints from a massage therapist, have never been dismissed from a massage therapy or bodywork session, and have never been told that I was not welcome at any spa or other place of business.”

Catherine Dickinson of the law firm SBWD in Baltimore said it is representing several of the women. The Banner article said six women at different spa and wellness businesses in the Baltimore area made allegations against Tucker, including “exposing his genitals, brushing two of them with his exposed penis, and leaving what they believed to be ejaculate on the massage table after three of his treatments.”

Dickinson and her attorney colleague Michael Belsky issued a statement about it Thursday.

All things Ravens: Latest Baltimore Ravens news, schedule, roster, stats, injury updates and more.

‘Our clients have been afforded comfort in their experiences being investigated and heard by the public and validation in knowing that they are not alone,’ the statement said. ‘While it is only one step forward in the recovery process, it is important and empowering for any survivor of sexual misconduct to tell their story and to have people listen.’

The allegations are similar in nature to those that led to a suspension of Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson in 2022. Watson also denied wrongdoing.

The NFL said in a statement provided to USA TODAY Sports that it will look into the allegations.

“We first became aware of the allegations from the reporter investigating this story as they were not previously shared with the NFL,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said. “We take any allegation seriously and will look into the matter.”

The Banner said none of the women took their allegations to police and noted that such cases are rarely prosecuted when they are. The reason for this often is the lack of evidence and conflicting accounts about what happened in a private setting.

In the Watson case, the women faced harassment and death threats after filing civil lawsuits against him, most of which were resolved with private settlements. In the Tucker case, Dickinson confirmed that no civil lawsuit has been filed against him.

Tucker, 35, has played with the Ravens since 2012 and married his wife, Amanda, in 2015. He is the NFL’s career leader in field-goal percentage (89.1%) and kicked the longest field goal in NFL history in 2021 (66 yards).

Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com

(This story was updated to add new information.)

The Utah Hockey Club’s bid for a permanent nickname took another twist Thursday.

Wednesday, the Salt Lake City-based NHL team announced that the popular Utah Yeti name was out of the running because it couldn’t reach a co-existence agreement with YETI Coolers, LLC and that it was putting Utah Wasatch (a new option) and previous choices Utah Hockey Club and Utah Mammoth up for an in-person fan vote.

Though the Wasatch mountain range towers over the Utah capital region, the name apparently fell flat with fans in the first night of voting. So, Utah Outlaws is back in the mix.

‘Hey Utah hockey fans!’ the team posted on social media. ‘We listened to your feedback and dug into all the Qualtrics data from last night’s survey. For the team name, it’s clear that Outlaws should be in the mix instead of Wasatch, so we’re swapping it out.’

Utah Hockey Club, Outlaws and Mammoth were on the list of six names (along with Yeti, Blizzard and Venom) that survived the original 20 suggestions that were put up for an online fan vote. Wasatch, which the team said was ‘designed to honor the idea of a mythical snow creature,’ wasn’t on that first list.

To summarize, the current choices are:

Utah Hockey Club: The current temporary nickname that could become permanent if enough fans support it.

Utah Mammoth: Mammoths lived in Utah along the shores of the ancient Lake Bonneville that covered a big portion of the state. Remains have been found in the area. 

Utah Outlaws: Butch Cassidy was born in Utah and his Wild Bunch gang sometimes holed up in the so-called Robbers Roost in southeastern Utah.

Fans have three more home games to vote in person at the Delta Center. The name, logo and jersey are scheduled to be ready for the 2025-26 season.

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast.Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.

Jake Paul and Logan Paul ended speculation that they’ll be squaring off in the boxing ring.

The brothers on Thursday announced they’ll be launching a family reality series, “Paul American’’ starting March 27 on HBO Max. The eight-episode series will culminate with a season finale May 15.

“Everyone thinks they know Jake and Logan Paul — they’re the original superstars of influencer culture and built their brand on being unfiltered. But PAUL AMERICAN goes deeper,” Nina Rosenstein, executive vice president of HBO Programming, Late Night and Specials, said in a press release. ‘This show uncovers a side of their relationships we’ve never seen, as brothers, sons, partners, as well as Logan’s transition into fatherhood. It’s a raw and unexpected look into their world.” 

In a joint statement, the Paul brothers said, in part, ‘We’ve built our lives in front of the world, but PAUL AMERICAN is the raw, unfiltered truth behind everything you think you know about us. It isn’t just about the headlines or the viral moments — it’s about the journey that got us here. …It’s real and honest, showing the world a side of us they’ve never seen, and we couldn’t be more excited to share this story with our fans.’ 

The show will include appearances by their parents; Logan Paul’s fiancée, Nina Adgal, model and mother of the couple’s daughter, Esme; and Jake Paul’s girlfriend, Jutta Leerdam, a Dutch world champion speedskater who won a silver medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Jake Paul, 28, and Logan Paul, 29, on Thursday opened an appearance on Instagram live with combative talk that culminated with a shoving match. But the grimaces melted into fake crying and smiles as they revealed the details of their announcement.

“Guys, everything we said besides beating each other’s ass is true, and maybe we’ll do that one day,” Logan Paul said. ‘But today, this is something we’ve waited our whole lives for, our entire lives.’’

On Tuesday, a post from the Pauls on X, formerly Twitter, showed them facing off in an image that stirred talk of a possible boxing match.

A prospective fight between Logan Paul and Conor McGregor has yet to materialize and Jake Paul has not announced his next fight since beating Mike Tyson by unanimous decision Nov. 15.

(This story has been updated to include new information.)

The curtain has been pulled back in Ann Arbor, and one of the nation’s most respected institutions of higher education has reduced itself to a childish defense of its embattled football program. 

The NCAA: We know you cheated and how you cheated, and how it gave your football program a competitive advantage. 

How embarrassing for hoity-toity Michigan, once the gold standard for all that was pure and holy in college athletics. 

How embarrassing for the university and storied football program, and all the proud Michigan Men of the past – the leaders and best, no less – to stand behind this legal pretzel response to NCAA allegations of scouting future opponents.

Have they no shame?

Michigan’s formal response to the NCAA’s official allegations of illegal advanced scouting and sign stealing was obtained by Yahoo Sports earlier this week, and it’s remarkably stunning in its abject disdain and mockery of the investigation. 

The Michigan response obfuscates, argues semantics, and degrades the investigatory process. All signs, any prosecutor worth his weight in all-nighters will tell you, of those who are guilty.

In the response, the university says it respects confidential sources, but the NCAA can only present evidence and infractions from former staffer Connor Stalions’ scouting scheme based on “information that can be attributed to individuals who are willing to be identified.”

At one point in the response, Michigan says Moore’s reason for deleting 52 texts – fifty-two – between himself and Stalions on the day the scouting scheme was uncovered by Yahoo in October of 2023, was that Moore was “angry” because he didn’t want one person (Stalions) credited for “all the work” put into the 2023 season.

REPORT CARD: College football season grades for all 134 teams

LOOKING AHEAD: Our way-too-early college football Top 25 for 2025

The university also claims the texts, which were recovered once Moore handed over his phone to NCAA investigators, were “innocuous and not material” to the investigation. 

It’s here where I need to remind everyone that the Big Ten, in unprecedented cooperation with the NCAA during the investigation of a member institution, suspended former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh three games for the scouting scheme during the 2023 season. 

The Big Ten decided that Michigan conducted ‘an impermissible, in-person scouting operation over multiple years, resulting in an unfair competitive advantage that compromised the integrity of competition.’ Such activities, it said, compromised sportsmanship and affected the ‘integrity of the competition.”

The 13-page Big Ten report, which used information from NCAA investigators – pictures, video, electronic money trails – called the Michigan penalties, “A sanction against the University that, under the extraordinary circumstance presented by this offensive conduct, best fits the violation.”

Less than a year later, Michigan – 2023 national championship in hand – has moved into deny, deny, deny mode.

Because We’re Morally Better Than You Michigan can’t have an NCAA cheat as head coach. Can’t have a national championship stained by NCAA violations, or a former coach and beloved alum run out of town by the NCAA sheriff — only to take refuge in the NFL. 

Here’s all you need to know about Michigan’s impermissible future scouting scheme: Stalions allegedly use his minions — he sent friends to future opponents to film games from the stands (which Michigan denies) — to allegedly scout Georgia during the 2023 season.

That’s two-time defending national champion Georgia, which beat Michigan by 23 points in the College Football Playoff during the 2021 season. That’s Georgia, the 2023 playoff favorite — and Michigan’s biggest obstacle to winning its first national championship since 1997.

Georgia wasn’t even on Michigan’s 2023 regular-season schedule.

If that doesn’t do it for you, think about what Michigan is truly trying to sell with this utterly comical response to the NCAA.

We’re supposed to believe that Harbaugh, an obsessively organized and detailed coach, who controlled everything in nine seasons and more than 100 games at Ann Arbor, didn’t ever think to ask what in the blue blazes Stalions was doing in coaches meetings, and on the field during game day. 

Harbaugh isn’t going to stand on the sideline against Ohio State – the team he famously said Michigan would finally beat or die trying – and allow some flunky with an advance scouting scheme on his sideline without knowing everything about that system.

You say system, I say scheme.

Harbaugh isn’t going to accept, willy-nilly, where that scheme came from, how it operates, and if it wasn’t double- and triple-checked, before even contemplating changing a call mid-game in the biggest moment of every single season. There’s a level of trust that’s undeniable on the field of play.

You’re not simply relying on word of mouth, or an understanding of generalities. Nothing is left to guess.

Not when you’re playing Ohio State. Not when you’re trying to win it all.

If you think Harbaugh – and by proxy, the rest of the coaching staff – didn’t know exactly how Stalions received his information and what it took to get it, your blood runs Maize and Blue.

No coach at any program allows anyone on the sideline – within the inner sanctum of the coaches and players box – without knowing exactly why they’re inside, and what they do to contribute to winning. Period.

Because that’s all it’s about in big-time college football: winning. And there’s nothing wrong with that. 

Just don’t try to sell it as something else when you’re caught cheating. 

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.

Figure skating coaches and former world pairs champions Vadim Naumov, 55, and Evgenia Shishkova, 52, were among those who are presumed dead in the fatal aircraft collision in Washington on Wednesday.

Doug Zeghibe, the executive director of the Skating Club of Boston, identified the two coaches as having been on the plane traveling from Wichita, Kansas to Washington. He described the couple, who were married, as ‘top coaches’ and said they had been working at the club since 2017.

‘They were very much a part of our building the competitive skating program here at the Skating Club of Boston,’ Zeghibe said in a news conference. ‘When you lose coaches like this, you lose the future of the sport, as well.’

Naumov and Shishkova were born and raised in Russia and led the nation as one of its top pairs teams in the early 1990s. The pair won the 1994 world championships and competed at two editions of the Winter Olympics, finishing fifth in 1992 and placing fourth two years later.

Ludmila Velikova, who trained the pair when they were children, told Reuters that they were ‘talented and beautiful people.’

‘They were like my own children,’ Velikova told the news agency. ‘What’s happened is awful. The best people have been taken away from us.’

Zeghibe described Naumov as ‘an old-school coach’ and Shishkova as exceedingly resilient. ‘You couldn’t see Evgenia and not just break into a smile,’ he said.

The two took pride in coaching their son, Maxim Naumov, who placed fourth at the U.S. national championships in Wichita on Sunday. Zeghibe said Maxim traveled back to Boston with him on Monday, so he was not on the fatal flight that collided with a military helicopter two days later.

‘It’s well known that Mom was always too nervous to watch him skate,’ Zeghibe said, choking back tears. ‘But his dad was with him, and Dad was in the kiss-and-cry (on Sunday), sharing his great performance.’

Dwyane Wade had a cancerous tumor removed from his right kidney 13 months ago, the former NBA star revealed on his podcast.

Wade said doctors removed 40% of his right kidney on Dec. 18, 2023.

“My own journey to have that surgery, I think it was the first time that my family, my dad, my kids, they saw me weak,” Wade said on The Why with Dwyane Wade. “That moment was probably the weakest point I’ve ever felt in my life.”

Wade said he had been putting off a physical but health concerns, including urinary issues, prompted a visit to a physician.

Wade, 43, explained that the area of concern could not be biopsied so he had surgery to remove the tumor.

“I had a personal decision to make, and what it was was, ‘If this is cancerous, if this tumor, this cyst is cancerous, on your kidney, you’re 41 years old, you probably need surgery because it’s something that needs to be removed so it doesn’t spread,’ ” Wade says.

Following surgery, the tumor was biopsied and found to be cancerous.

“What I saw in the midst of me going through my illness, I saw my family that may not always talk, may not always agree,’ Wade said on the podcast. ‘I saw everybody show up for me and be there for me and in that process, in my weakness I found strength in my family.”

Wade, who is married to Gabrielle Union, won three titles with the Miami Heat and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023. He averaged 22.0 points, 5.4 assists, 4.7 rebounds and 1.5 steals and shot 48% from the field in his 16-year career.

Following his NBA career, Wade has been involved in entertainment production, broadcasting, podcasting and he is a partial owner of the Utah Jazz.

Follow NBA reporter Jeff Zillgitt on social media @JeffZillgitt

Another Arenas will soon be on college basketball courts.

5-star guard Alijah Arenas, the son of former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas, announced his commitment to USC on Thursday. Alijah called USC coach Eric Musselman during ‘Gil’s Arena,’ Gilbert’s podcast, to deliver the news.

‘Let’s go!’ Musselman screamed on the phone as Alijah sat next to his dad and former NBA guard Nick Young. Alijah then took off his jacket to reveal a No. 0 USC jersey, alluding to Gilbert’s nickname, ‘Agent Zero.’

The 6-foot-6 guard is the No. 7 overall player and No. 1 shooting guard in the 2025 recruiting class, according to 247Sports’ Composite rankings. He’s also the No. 2 player in California out of Chatsworth High School.

Alijah also held offers from Kansas, Kentucky, Louisville and Arizona, where Gilbert played two seasons before being drafted in the second round of the 2001 NBA draft by the Golden State Warriors.

Alijah, who was named to the McDonald’s All-American Game roster on Monday, is a major boost to Musselman’s first true recruiting class since leaving Arkansas last offseason. The Trojans’ 2025 recruiting class is ranked No. 7 nationally after Alijah’s commitment.

Gilbert played 11 NBA seasons and was named to three All-Star games and three All-NBA teams during his career with the Warriors, Washington Wizards, Orlando Magic and Memphis Grizzlies. He averaged 20.7 points and 5.3 assists per game in his career.

The NFL has made rule changes in recent seasons hoping to minimize head injuries across the sport.

Based on the data collected by the league for the 2024 regular season, they are working.

Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president overseeing player health and safety, told reporters during a Thursday conference call this season featured the fewest concussions on record for a single season since the league began electronically tracking them in 2015.

Overall, there was a 17% decrease in concussions between the 2023 and 2024 NFL seasons, according to Miller.

NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more.

Miller explained the NFL’s new dynamic kickoff rule was partly to thank for the decrease in head injuries. Concussions were down by 43% on kickoffs while the injury rate on the returns matched injury rates on plays from scrimmage, per ESPN’s Kevin Seifert. Previously, the injury rate on kickoffs was 2-4 times higher than it was on plays from scrimmage.

While the number of concussions suffered on kickoffs in 2024 matched the eight suffered in 2023, per NFL.com’s Judy Battista, that number remained stagnant amid a 57% increase in kickoff returns.

With that in mind, the NFL’s dynamic kickoff will likely be here to stay. The league did not clarify what additional changes it might seek as it looks to keep concussions trending downward.