title: Living Tribunal

text: The Living Tribunal was featured in the 2003's storyline. The character also made an appearance during the "Time Runs Out" storyline, and battled Beyonders.


title: Living Tribunal

text: The Living Tribunal is an entity that oversees and maintains balance in the realities that constitute the Marvel Comics Multiverse, including the mainstream universe and all alternate universes. He serves as a judge of these realities.


title: Living Tribunal

text: The character is first encountered by Doctor Strange, announcing its intent to destroy Earth due to its potential for evil. After a series of trials, Doctor Strange is able to convince the Living Tribunal that good also exists, and Earth is spared. The Tribunal reappears to the Galadorian spaceknight Rom; appears briefly with the rest of the cosmic hierarchy when in discussion with the entity the Beyonder; and reveals to the former Herald of Galactus (the Silver Surfer) that its three faces represent "Equity" (hooded face), "Vengeance" (partially shrouded face), and "Necessity" (fully shrouded face). The fourth side of the Living Tribunal's head is a void, with the entity claiming that the cosmic entity the Stranger once existed as this part of its being. The character also witnesses the triumph of the hero Quasar—acting as the avatar of cosmic entity Infinity—over the villain Maelstrom, who acts for the entity Oblivion.


title: Living Tribunal

text: During "DC vs. Marvel/Marvel vs. DC", the Tribunal teamed up with the Spectre to save their worlds from the two cosmic brothers' attempts to destroy one of the two multiverses. Their pact, with the help of Access, created the Amalgam multiverse by merging the two multiverses, in order to "buy some time". As the new Amalgam multiverse was unstable, the former multiverses are restored. The struggle of "The Brothers" continues until the efforts of Batman and Captain America against them make them realize they both "Did Well", and the multiverses are spared.


title: Living Tribunal

text: The Living Tribunal's power is virtually limitless, as the entity prevents the Infinity Gems from being used in unison, although it remains subservient to a single, even higher entity referred to as "" (not to be confused with the celestial also called the One Above All). The entity has representatives called "The Magistrati" who dispense judgments by request on alien worlds, and chose to reveal the previously unseen face of "Necessity" to She-Hulk as a reflection of her own face, stating that the face is a "Cosmic Mirror which reminds us to always judge others as we would have ourselves judged".


title: Living Tribunal

text: Iron Man and the Watcher later find what appears to be the Living Tribunal's withered corpse on the moon, with no sign of who killed the entity.


title: Living Tribunal

text: When Yellowjacket ventured into the Multiverse during the "Time Runs Out" storyline, the cause of his death was discovered: the Living Tribunal had died fighting the Beyonders while attempting to halt the annihilation of the Marvel Multiverse.


title: Living Tribunal

text: An alternative version of Adam Warlock later took up the Living Tribunal's vacant position, on orders from the One-Above-All (here called "Above-All-Others").


title: Living Tribunal

text: After the devourer of worlds Galactus evolves into a lifebringer, Lord Chaos and Master Order consider this to throw the cosmic hierarchy out of balance, and ask the new Living Tribunal to render judgment. However, when the Tribunal decides in favor of a "new balance for a new cosmos", Order and Chaos join forces to seemingly kill the entity. The Living Tribunal is later resurrected and seen taking Lord Chaos and Master Order to judgment after the defeat of the First Firmament.


title: Living Tribunal

text: Thanos wielding the Infinity Gauntlet ranked the Tribunal's power as the highest in Marvel's regular multiversal hierarchy. However, the Tribunal has also referred to a higher entity that vastly eclipses its own power, and was killed by the Beyonders.


title: Living Tribunal

text: The Living Tribunal was the embodiment of the Marvel Multiverse, and the sum totality of all the abstract entities within it. Nonetheless, he is inferior to the multiversal incarnation of Eternity and was referred to as an internal function of the entity.


title: Georgia State University

text: Georgia State University (Georgia State, State, or GSU) is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1913, it is one of the University System of Georgia's four research universities. It is also the largest institution of higher education by enrollment based in Georgia and is in the top 10 in the nation in number of students with a diverse majority-minority student population of around 54,000 students, including approximately 33,000 undergraduate and graduate students at the main campus downtown.


title: Georgia State University

text: Georgia State is classified among ". The university's over $200 million in research expenditures for the 2018 fiscal year ranked first in the nation among universities without an engineering, medical, or agricultural school for the third year in a row. The university is the most comprehensive public institution in Georgia, offering more than 250 degree programs in over 100 fields of study spread across 10 academic colleges and schools. Georgia State has two libraries: University Library, which is split between Library North and Library South on the main campus and also divided among the Perimeter College campuses, and Law Library, which is located on the main campus. Together, both libraries contain over 13 million holdings and serve as federal document depositories. Georgia State has a $2.5 billion economic impact in Georgia.


title: Georgia State University

text: Georgia State University's intercollegiate athletics teams, the Georgia State Panthers, compete in NCAA Division I’s Sun Belt Conference, with the exception of Georgia State's beach volleyball team, which competes in C-USA. Georgia State is a founding member of the Sun Belt Conference.


title: Georgia State University

text: Initially intended as a night school, Georgia State University was established in 1913 as the Georgia School of Technology's Evening School of Commerce. A reorganization of the University System of Georgia in the 1930s led to the school becoming the Atlanta Extension Center of the University System of Georgia and allowed night students to earn degrees from several colleges in the University System. During this time, the school was divided into two divisions: Georgia Evening College and Atlanta Junior College. In September 1947, the school became affiliated with the University of Georgia and was named the Atlanta Division of the University of Georgia.


title: Georgia State University

text: For its first four decades, the school was treated as an offsite department of its parent institution, Georgia Tech, until 1947, and UGA after 1947. Accordingly, its chief executive was called a director. However, in 1955, the Board of Regents made it an autonomous four-year college under the name Georgia State College of Business Administration. Walter Sparks, who had served as director since 1927, became the newly autonomous institution's first president. In 1961, other programs at the school had grown large enough that the name was shortened to Georgia State College. It became Georgia State University in 1969.


title: Georgia State University

text: In 1995, the Georgia Board of Regents accorded Georgia State "research university" status, joining the University of Georgia, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Augusta University.


title: Georgia State University

text: The first African-American student became enrolled at Georgia State in 1962, a year after the integration of the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech. Annette Lucille Hall was a Lithonia social studies teacher who enrolled in the course of the Institute on Americanism and Communism, a course required for all Georgia social studies teachers.


title: Georgia State University

text: The Peachtree Road Race was founded in 1970 by Georgia State cross-country coach and dean of men Tim Singleton, heading it in its first six years before turning it over to the Atlanta Track Club.


title: Georgia State University

text: Over its 100-plus year history, Georgia State's growth has required the acquisition and construction of more space to suit its needs. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, numerous buildings were constructed as part of a major urban renewal project, such as the Pullen Library in 1966, Classroom South in 1968, the expansion of the Pullen Library in 1968, the Arts and Humanities Building in 1970, the 10-story General Classroom Building in 1971 (now called Langdale Hall), the Sports Arena in 1973, and the 12-story Urban Life Building in 1974. In addition, a raised platform and walkway system was constructed to connect these buildings with each other over Decatur Street and various parking structures.


title: Georgia State University

text: In the 1980s, another round of expansion took place with the acquisition of the former Atlanta Municipal Auditorium in 1979, which was subsequently converted into Alumni Hall in 1982 and then to Dahlberg Hall in 2010, and currently houses Georgia State's administrative offices. That same year, the College of Law was founded in the Urban Life Building, and the Title Building on Decatur Street was acquired and converted into the College of Education's headquarters and classroom space. In 1988, the nine-story Library South was constructed on the south side of Decatur Street, which was connected to the Pullen Library via a three-story high foot bridge (officially referred to as a "link") and effectively doubled the library's space.


title: Georgia State University

text: Georgia State continued this growth into the 1990s, with the expansion of Alumni Hall in 1991, the opening of the Natural Science Center in 1992, and the acquisition of the former C&S Bank Building on Marietta Street in 1993, which is now the home of the Robinson College of Business. Georgia State's first move into the Fairlie-Poplar district was the acquisition and renovation of the Standard Building, the Haas-Howell Building, and the Rialto Theater in 1996. The Standard and Haas-Howell buildings house classrooms, offices, and practice spaces for the School of Music, and the Rialto is home to Georgia State's Jazz Studies program and an 833-seat theater. In 1998, the Student Center was expanded toward Gilmer Street and provided a new 400-seat auditorium and space for exhibitions and offices for student clubs. A new Student Recreation Center opened on the corner of Piedmont Avenue and Gilmer Street in 2001. In 2002, the five-story Helen M. Aderhold Learning Center opened on Luckie Street amid controversy over the demolition of historical buildings on its block. Most recently, in 2004, the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies was moved to the former Wachovia Bank Building at Five Points.


title: Georgia State University

text: After the release of the 2006 master plan update, a host of new building activity occurred on campus. A $20 million refurbishment to the Pullen Library complex was completed during the 2006–07 school year. Multiple new units of on-campus housing were built, including the 2,000 bed University Commons in 2007, a new dormitory named Freshman Hall (later renamed Patton Hall) in 2009 and a conversion of a former Wyndham Garden Hotel and a Baymont Inn & Suites into a new 1,100 occupancy dormitory named Piedmont North. New Greek housing was built in 2010 along Edgewood Avenue. The Citizens Trust Building on Piedmont Avenue was purchased by the university to make room for offices and student services in 2007. The Parker H. Petit Science Center was completed in 2010, opening up state of the art science laboratories and teaching space. In 2013, Georgia State started operating from the original home of the Trust Company of Georgia and the SunTrust Bank, the 25 Park Place Building, a 26-floor skyscraper located adjacent to Woodruff Park in the heart of downtown Atlanta. The building currently houses many academic units of the College of Arts and Sciences, including the Dean's Office, the University Advisement Center, and facilities of the School of Public Health. In May 2015, the College of Law was moved to its new building at 89 Park Place after the land was donated to the university.


title: Georgia State University

text: The newest incarnation of the university's strategic plan gives an outline for the university's growth from 2011 until 2016 and a brief overview that will be amended for up to 2021. In 2016, an extension to the Petit Science Center was completed. Plans exist for the building of graduate student housing behind the center.


title: Georgia State University

text: On May 31, 2012, the athletics department released a new facilities master plan. The plan includes upgrades and renovations to the GSU Sports Arena including new outdoor sand volleyball courts (which have since been completed) as well as plans to build new baseball, softball, and soccer stadiums. These would replace the current stadiums in Panthersville. In May 2014, the university announced its intentions to pursue the Turner Field site once the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball club moves into Truist Park in 2017. The university intends to retrofit Turner Field into a 30,000 seat open-air football stadium and build a new baseball field on the site of the former Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, incorporating the wall where Hank Aaron hit his record-breaking 715th home run. Additional retail and student housing development is also planned for the parking areas surrounding Turner Field.


title: Georgia State University

text: On December 21, 2015, the Atlanta Fulton County Recreation Authority announced that Georgia State's bid to redevelop Turner Field had been accepted. On August 18, 2016, Georgia State and the Atlanta-Fulton County Recreation Authority reached a tentative purchase agreement for Turner Field, and the purchase and redevelopment plan was approved by the Board of Regents on November 9, 2016. On January 5, 2017, Georgia State's acquisition of Turner Field, since renamed Georgia State Stadium, was officially closed, with the stadium conversion project beginning in February 2017. Georgia State Stadium hosted its first game on August 31, 2017.


title: Georgia State University

text: In June 2021, M. Brian Blake became Georgia State University's first African-American and person of color president.


title: Georgia State University

text: On January 5, 2015, news broke that Georgia State and Georgia Perimeter College would merge. Over a year later, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia approved the merger of Georgia State University and Georgia Perimeter College, a 2-year college with five campuses. The board also announced that the president of Georgia State would remain the president of the combined university, which retained the name Georgia State University. The merger created the largest university in the state of Georgia at about 52,000 students. Since Georgia State's consolidation with Georgia Perimeter College in 2016, graduation rates at Perimeter College have almost tripled.


title: Georgia State University

text: The President of Georgia State University (currently Dr. M. Brian Blake) is the head administrator and is appointed and overseen by the Georgia Board of Regents.


title: Georgia State University

text: The university is composed of 11 colleges (although those divisions use "college", "school", or "institute", those titles do not indicate any distinction between them):


title: Georgia State University

text: † Unlike the other colleges that make up the university, students accepted to Perimeter College only have access to the five suburban campuses associated with that college and not the main campus. A Perimeter College student must apply for acceptance to the main downtown campus for access to bachelor's degrees.


title: Georgia State University

text: From Georgia State's days as a single building night school into the university it is today, Georgia State has built itself into the heart of urban Downtown Atlanta. Whereas the school's nickname—dating from the early 1960s—of "the Concrete Campus" was once a source of mild embarrassment, the name has been embraced by the university community. The university embraced the slogan, "a part of the city, not apart from the city" as its growth into Downtown Atlanta increased. This has led to the widening of sidewalks around the campus, and a focus on Decatur Street as becoming the "Main Street" of the campus.


title: Georgia State University

text: 25 Park Place is a mixed use classroom and office building that houses a number of departments at Georgia State University. The building was previously the Trust Company of Georgia Building, and prior to Georgia State University acquiring the building was the SunTrust Bank Building. The Georgia State University Foundation acquired the building in 2006 for $52 million.


title: Georgia State University

text: Sparks Hall was the first building designed and built specifically for the school. It was designed by the Atlanta architectural firm of Cooper, Barrett, Skinner, Woodbury, and Cooper. Construction took place between 1952 and 1955 and cost about $2 million. The first classes were held in the building on April 21, 1955. On June 8, 1960, the building was named for George McIntosh Sparks, former president of the college. Currently, the building houses Undergraduate Admissions and the Financial Management Center. It also primarily houses classrooms and computer laboratory space.


title: Georgia State University

text: After the 1996 Summer Olympics were held in Atlanta, Georgia State acquired its first on-campus dormitories in the 2,000-bed Olympic Village housing complex located at the southeast corner of Centennial Olympic Park Drive (formerly Techwood Drive) and North Avenue that was used to board Olympic athletes during the Games. The Village was later sold to the Georgia Institute of Technology and renamed the North Avenue Apartments.


title: Georgia State University

text: In August 2002, the 450-bed University Lofts opened at the corner of Edgewood Avenue and Courtland Street on the northeast side of campus as housing for undergraduate students and student athletes, as well as students with families and graduate students. In 2008, the Lofts were converted into multiperson dormitories as well as apartment style dorms, raising the bed count to its current number of 550 residents in 231 apartments.


title: Georgia State University

text: On August 10, 2007, Georgia State opened the University Commons, a US$165 million complex housing 1,992 students, occupying a city block bounded by Ellis Street, Piedmont Avenue, John Wesley Dobbs Avenue and Jesse Hill Jr. Drive. A GSU economics professor estimated the new dorm could have an economic impact of $10–12 million on downtown Atlanta. The university plans to ultimately accommodate 20% of its enrollment in housing near the downtown campus. With the planned opening of University Commons, it was announced on March 7, 2007, that the Georgia Institute of Technology was acquiring the Olympic Village housing, which is located across North Avenue from the institute. In 2011, the Commons were voted "best overall dorms in the country" by DormSplash.com. This was followed in 2012 by The Fiscal Times rating the Commons as some of the most luxurious dormitories in the country, rated third most "insanely luxurious."


title: Georgia State University

text: In the fall of 2009, Georgia State opened a 325-bed residence hall exclusively for freshman students, originally named Freshman Hall. Renamed Patton Hall in 2013 after former Georgia State President Carl Patton, the dorms are located on the corner of Piedmont Avenue and Edgewood Avenue, approximately 0.2 miles from the heart of GSU's campus. The facility includes a 24/4.5 dining hall offering breakfast, lunch, and dinner in a buffet style. The dining hall is open to all Georgia State students, and all residents of Patton Hall are required to have meal plans for the dining hall.


title: Georgia State University

text: For the 2010 academic year, Georgia State opened its Greek Housing facility, located adjacent to Patton Hall on Edgewood Avenue. Each townhome in the complex features a chapter room, kitchen, and bedrooms ranging from 9-19 beds.


title: Georgia State University

text: Most recently, following its plan for expansion, Georgia State acquired two hotels in downtown Atlanta, the Wyndham Garden Hotel and Baymont Inn and Suites on Piedmont Avenue. The hotels and grounds have been renovated and changed into dorms, Piedmont North Buildings A and B, contributing to the university's transformation into a more traditional campus. The complex now includes living and study space for approximately 1,100 students, as well as greenspace, recreational areas, and a brand new dining hall, the Piedmont North Dining Hall.


title: Georgia State University

text: On May 14, 2014, ground was broken on a new, 1,152 bed residence hall named Piedmont Central. The hall received its first residents in fall semester of 2016. The facility includes a 15,000 square foot dining facility, conference rooms, communal kitchens, study rooms, and laundry facilities.


title: Georgia State University

text: The department is composed of more than 160 state-sworn police officers, 60 full-time security guards, 10 part-time security guards, 16 communications dispatchers and eight staff members, making it the largest campus law enforcement agency in Georgia.


title: Georgia State University

text: Perimeter College consists of five different campuses around the Metro Atlanta region. Campuses in Alpharetta, Clarkston, Decatur, Dunwoody, and Newton County each offer different amenities. The Alpharetta campus consists of two buildings, with students enrolled at that campus having free access to a nearby private gym, as well as access to the other Perimeter campus' amenities. The Clarkston campus is a full campus with athletic facilities, (tennis courts, soccer field, gym) and 14 buildings. The Decatur campus includes greenhouses, tennis courts, as well as six academic buildings including a Student Success Center. The Dunwoody campus includes a gym, weight room, soccer field, tennis courts, an observatory, a gazebo, and eight academic buildings. The Newton campus consists of a baseball field, a softball field, a health and recreation center, and two academic buildings.


title: Georgia State University

text: Georgia State University has become a minority-serving institution. It has achieved the most ethnically diverse campus in Georgia and one of the most ethnically diverse in the nation. Since the early 2010s, Georgia State has been the nation's leading non-profit institution to annually produce the most African Americans with bachelor's degrees.


title: Georgia State University

text: The on-campus Recreation Center features racquetball courts, a squash court, a 7,000-square-foot free-weight area, an aquatic center, a 35-foot climbing wall, game rooms, exercise rooms, aerobics, dance, and martial arts studios, and a gymnasium containing four basketball/volleyball courts. The top level includes a running track and omni gym.


title: Georgia State University

text: The omni gym is outfitted to allow for different sports, including badminton, basketball, fencing, arena flag football, indoor soccer, and volleyball.


title: Georgia State University

text: Land in Indian Creek was purchased by the university in 1938, and in 1974 operation of the swimming pool in the facility was taken over by Recreation Services. Tennis courts, Indian Creek Lodge, and the rest of the 15.5 acres were taken over by Recreation Services in 1991.


title: Georgia State University

text: The university's outdoor intramural fields are currently located in Panthersville, a suburb of Atlanta. These facilities include two large lighted fields, a sundeck, restrooms, and parking. New land has been purchased by the university east of the University Commons to make room for new intramural fields.


title: Georgia State University

text: Georgia State University operates Cinefest Film Theater, a student-run movie theater in the school's University Center. Cinefest exhibits a wide array of motion pictures including international cinema, art house films, revival house movies, and second-run Hollywood fare. Cinefest also has had numerous classic 35-mm film festivals including the Film Fatale Film Festival, and the Summer Camp Nightmare Festival. These festivals often feature rare prints that cannot be seen anywhere else. It has played host to various special events including screening films for The Atlanta Underground Film Festival, the Atlanta Asian Film Festival, the Atlanta Philosophy Film Festival, and DragonCon. The theatre has 135 seats and is free to all Georgia State students, or $3 before 5 pm and $5 after 5 pm. The theatre was first named Cinefest in 1991, but was known as the Lyceum Film Series.


title: Georgia State University

text: Three dining halls are at Georgia State, one in Patton Hall, one in Piedmont Central, and another in Piedmont North dorms. In addition to these, food courts are in the University Center and in the Student Center.


title: Georgia State University

text: The university provides shuttles circulating around campus following four different routes. The blue route circulates from the parking lots of Turner Field to the heart of campus with stops at Langdale Hall and Sparks Hall, and is active on weekdays from 7:00 am to 10:30 pm. The red route circulates between the main campus and the Aderhold Learning Center with stops at the Arts and Humanities building and at the Rialto Center/Aderhold. It is active on weekdays from 7:00 am to 12:00 am. The green route is active from 7:00 am to 12:00 am on weekdays with stops at the Student Center, the University Commons, and Piedmont North. The purple route is active on weekends from 5:00 pm to 12:00 am with stops at the Arts and Humanities building, the Student Center, the University Commons, Piedmont North, and the Rialto Center/Aderhold.


title: Georgia State University

text: Atlanta's mass transit system, MARTA, provides Georgia State students with access to the system at a reduced rate when bought through the university. Georgia State is served by three MARTA rail stations; the Georgia State Station next to the Petit Science Center on the Blue and Green lines, Five Points Station on the Red, Gold, Blue, and Green lines with accommodations for both the Aderhold Learning Center and main campus, and the Peachtree Center Station on the Red and Gold lines, giving access to the Aderhold Learning Center, the University Commons, and the Piedmont North dormitories.


title: Georgia State University

text: In December 2014, streetcars returned to Atlanta for the first time in 60 years. The Atlanta Streetcar’s current route transverses the campus along Edgewood and Auburn Avenues. It connects the main campus to the Aderhold building and Rialto Center for the Arts in Fairlie-Poplar, as well as the Sweet Auburn Curb Market, the Sweet Auburn Historic District, and popular dining and nightlife establishments along Edgewood Avenue.


title: Georgia State University

text: The university has numerous parking locations, with restrictions in some to faculty and staff. Parking attendants are only on duty from 6:30 am to 10 pm on weekdays, after which parking permits must be used. Some dormitories have built-in parking such as Piedmont North and the University Commons, but parking in these dorms is restricted to students living in them. The University Lofts allow access to permit holders who are primarily residents of the Lofts, the Greek Housing, and Patton Hall. It also allows access to some nonresident holders, faculty, and staff. The G Deck is reserved for use by Georgia State faculty and staff, although on days in which the Sports Arena is in use, it becomes visitor parking for that game or event. The K and T Decks are available for students using cash or a budget card with a valid student parking permit. The N and S decks are for general parking, while the M Deck is reserved for students with a lottery-won permit.


title: Georgia State University

text: Georgia State students are allowed access to the Georgia State Stadium parking lots just south of campus at the former site of Turner Field, although access to those lots is limited to weekdays between 7:00 am and 11:00 pm. During the Atlanta Braves' tenure at Turner Field, those times were further limited on home game days. With the conversion of the Turner Field site from a professional baseball venue to GSU's football venue, it is expected that parking restrictions beyond the regular hours will be limited to days of Panthers home games. Due to its distance from the university, shuttle services run from the parking to the main campus.


title: Georgia State University

text: Georgia State University is home to 31 fraternities and sororities: seven of the North American Interfraternity Conference (IFC), five of the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), seven of the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC), and 12 multicultural organizations operating as the Multicultural Greek Council (MGC). Georgia State added traditional Greek housing in 2010 to house five sororities and four fraternities.


title: Georgia State University

text: Georgia State University makes notable contributions to the cultural vitality of the downtown Atlanta community. A prominent cultural stage is the Rialto Center for the Arts, an 833-seat performing-arts venue located in the heart of the Fairlie-Poplar district in downtown Atlanta. The venue is home to the Rialto Series, presenting the best of national and international jazz, world music, and dance; School of Music performances; the Atlanta Film Festival, and many others. The School of Music holds concerts featuring faculty, students, and guest performers in the Kopleff Recital Hall throughout the year. In addition, the Art Galleries, based in the Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design, feature special exhibitions, student and faculty works, and visiting artist collections.


title: Georgia State University

text: The Digital Arts and Entertainment Laboratory (DAEL), housed in the Department of Communication, offers equipment and facilities for digital media research and production. The DAEL also holds a media festival featuring different productions and media produced by students.


title: Georgia State University

text: Georgia State hosts a multimedia lab allowing students access to multimedia-editing workstations, professional software, technology training workshops, and equipment that can be checked out. The facility also hosts a pro-level recording studio featuring full soundproofing, a dual-screened Mac Pro, a keyboard, and two microphones, although the area is set up to allow for students to bring their own equipment.


title: Georgia State University

text: GSU is one of four research universities in the University System of Georgia. Georgia State University's research expenditures of over $200 million for the 2018 fiscal year ranked first in the nation among universities without an engineering or medical school. In 2019, "U.S. News & World Report" ranked GSU the No. 2 most innovative university in the nation. In 2013, Georgia State University was one of six universities in the nation and the only in Georgia to be named a "Next Generation University" by New America for its proven commitment to expanding enrollment, focus on the neediest of students, and the success of its ethnically diverse student body.


title: Georgia State University

text: Georgia State houses three university libraries. Additionally, many academic departments provide libraries for their students. The University Library (formerly known as the William Russell Pullen Library), housed in Library North and Library South, contains more than 1.4 million volumes, including 8,000 active serials and nearly 22,000 media materials. The library provides access to numerous electronic periodical and resource indexes (many with full text), more than14,000 electronic journals, and about 30,000 electronic books. It is also a Federal Document Depository and holds more than 820,000 government documents with electronic access to many additional titles. From December 2015 through February 2016, the University Library received significant media attention for several armed robberies and other crimes against GSU students within the facility.


title: Georgia State University

text: On August 31, 2006, Georgia State announced that it would be participating in a supercomputing grid with the installation of an IBM P575 Supercomputer in its Network Operations Center. Through an initiative known as SURAGrid, eventually 24 universities in 15 states throughout the Southeast United States will form the research backbone and at its peak, the network will be able to perform over 10 trillion calculations per second. University of Georgia and Kennesaw State University are also part of the SURAGrid.


title: Georgia State University

text: Physics at Georgia State is split between physics and astronomy. Areas of research range from atomic physics, biophysics, condensed matter physics, neurophysics, nuclear physics, and physics education and innovative instruction. The astronomy program uses many observatories, including the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona and the Small and Moderate Aperture Research Telescope System (or SMARTS) in Chile, and the CHARA array on Mount Wilson Observatory in Los Angeles County, California, Hard Labor Creek Observatory in Rutledge, Georgia, and the Urban Life Observatory, all of which are operated by Georgia State. Astronomy is now also a partner in the Apache Point Observatory 3.5-m telescope.


title: Georgia State University

text: Biological research at Georgia State is divided into four categories; applied and environmental microbiology (AEM), cellular molecular biology and physiology (CMBP), molecular genetics and biochemistry, and neurobiology and behavior. The AEM program concentrates on the environmental, industrial, and medical aspects of microbiology, including bioremediation, toxicology, genetics, cellular responses and natural product biosynthesis. Cellular and molecular biology and physiology focuses on the function and regulation of eukaryotic cells and organisms, doing research including signal transduction, cancer immunology, virology, immunology, and diabetes research. The MGB program ranges from lower eukaryotic programmed cell death to viral RNA replication. The neurobiology and behavior program is involved in research focusing on topics such as neurobiology, behavior, hormonal action, developmental neurobiology, and vertebrate sexual plasticity, to name a few.


title: Georgia State University

text: Georgia State is currently the only university in the United States operating a BSL-4 lab (the highest bio-safety level) at level 4 conditions. These labs are currently used to investigate herpes B virus, hantavirus, and ebola.


title: Georgia State University

text: The College of Arts and Science is home to several centers, institutes and areas of focus, under which the departments of chemistry, biology, psychology, and other college-wide departments can collaborate on interdisciplinary subjects.


title: Georgia State University

text: Likewise, several university-level institutes exist, allowing collaboration between departments throughout the university as a whole.


title: Georgia State University

text: The 16 Georgia State varsity athletic teams compete in the NCAA's Division I FBS as members of the Sun Belt Conference, with the exception of Georgia State's beach volleyball team, which competes in Conference USA. The university has won conference championships in basketball (men's and women's), baseball, golf (men's and women's), softball, soccer (men's and women's), women's tennis, and beach volleyball. The beach volleyball team has been ranked among the top ten programs in the country every year since its inception in 2013.


title: Georgia State University

text: Georgia State began competition in all sports in the Sun Belt Conference in 2013, although it had already played all individual sports in the Sun Belt during the 2012–13 season. This marked a return to the conference that Georgia State had helped found in 1976. Prior to returning to the Sun Belt Conference, GSU played in the CAA from 2005 to 2013, participating for only one season (2012) as a football school. Prior to joining the CAA, the Panthers competed in the (then Trans America Athletic Conference, or TAAC) Atlantic Sun Conference, joining in 1983 and leaving for the CAA in 2005.


title: Georgia State University

text: Georgia State University charges a fee to each student who enrolls at the school. This fee is used for athletic scholarships and other costs associated with competitive athletics. The athletic fee allows students to use their Panther Card (student identification card) for free access to athletic events.


title: Georgia State University

text: The Panthers' most historic rivalry is with the Georgia Southern Eagles with basketball being played between the two since 1972. However, rivalries have grown since, including with South Alabama with the two programs starting football within a year of one another and playing each other and having played one another every season since Georgia States football's inception except one.


title: Georgia State University

text: Georgia State University's first ever national championship win was in esports in 2019. The university's SMITE: Battleground of the Gods team played against Arizona State University at Dreamhack Atlanta and won with a final score of 2 - 0. The team has since won two additional championships, and participated in a third, becoming the winningest sport in the school's history.


title: Georgia State University

text: The university also boasts several nonvarsity sports, including badminton, rowing, rugby, and wrestling


title: Georgia State University

text: Georgia State University was used during the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, with the GSU Sports Arena hosting the badminton matches. Georgia State's prominent position in downtown Atlanta allowed the city to build some of its venues with adaptive reuse in mind to be used by the university. The first on-campus dormitories at the university, the Village, was constructed as part of the Olympic Village to house athletes. This began the metamorphosis of GSU from a commuter college to a massive urban research institute, as well as one of the largest universities in the United States. Centennial Olympic Stadium, host of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics, was after the games converted to Turner Field, home of MLB's Atlanta Braves. After the Braves moved to SunTrust Park in suburban Cobb County, Turner Field and the surrounding grounds were purchased by Georgia State in January 2017. The university converted the stadium to a football field for the school's football team, now called Center Parc Stadium (named Georgia State Stadium until 2020), and is building a new campus baseball stadium on the site of the former Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, and new classrooms and housing on the lot.


title: Georgia State University

text: In 2010, Georgia State University established its first ever marching band. The marching band began its inaugural season in the fall of 2010. 150 students successfully auditioned for the band. In its first year, the band performed at all home football games, a high school marching band exhibition, and (most notably) during the Georgia State vs. Alabama football game on November 18, 2010, in Tuscaloosa. The band is a drum corps style unit that focuses on precision musicality and movement. Like most ensembles, the band features a colorguard section, but in a departure from typical marching bands, the traditional auxiliary front sideline percussion section, or pit, has been replaced by a four-piece rock band consisting of a lead guitar, bass guitar, drum set, and keyboard synthesizer.


title: Georgia State University

text: The Georgia State marching band has received many honors, which includes performing in 2013 for the Second inauguration of Barack Obama, the 2014 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the 2019 Super Bowl LIII halftime show, and the 2022 Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California.


title: Georgia State University

text: The school's coat of arms is registered in the College of Arms in the City of London. The Latin motto means, "Truth is strong and will conquer" (or alternatively, "Truth is valuable and shall overcome"). The panther holds the symbol of education, with the quill in red to symbolize the fire in Atlanta's city emblem. The gold coin indicates the university's beginnings as a business school. The crown august is a representation of the Stone Mountain granite. The center flame is an eternal flame in honor of the first president, George Sparks, and represents flames of scholarship and the burning of Atlanta.


title: Georgia State University

text: Since its opening, Georgia State has graduated more than 227,000 alumni. Currently, an estimated 100,000 alumni live in the metro Atlanta area.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Eric Steven Weddle (born January 4, 1985) is an American former football safety who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons. He played college football at Utah, where he was a consensus All-American, and was selected by the San Diego Chargers in the second round of the 2007 NFL Draft. During his nine seasons with the Chargers, Weddle received three Pro Bowl and two first-team All-Pro selections. Weddle spent his next three seasons as a member of the Baltimore Ravens, earning Pro Bowl honors in each and extending his total selections to six. He retired after playing for the Los Angeles Rams in 2019, but returned two years later to join the Rams on their playoff run, which culminated with a victory in Super Bowl LVI. Following the championship, he retired a second time.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle was born in Fontana, California. He grew up in Alta Loma, California, and attended local Alta Loma High School. At Alta Loma High, he lettered in football, basketball, and baseball. In football, he was a three-time all-league selection and a two-time All-CIF selection.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle added first-team all-area accolades from the "Los Angeles Times" and the "Inland Valley Daily Bulletin". A second-team All-Southern Section honoree, he also received all-region honors from Rivals.com and "Student Sport Magazine". He was named the team's best receiver and most valuable player as a senior.


title: Eric Weddle

text: The team captain had 129 tackles, five interceptions, four forced fumbles and five recovered fumbles on defense, adding 587 yards rushing, 22 touchdowns, 965 yards passing and five scoring tosses as a senior. He led Alta Loma High to the 2000 Mt. Baldy League championship.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle enrolled in the University of Utah, where he played for the Utes from 2003 to 2006. He was immediately put into action in 2003, starting his last nine games at right cornerback. He earned Freshman All-American first-team and All-Mountain West Conference honorable mention. He posted 60 tackles (29 solos) with four sacks, four forced fumbles and a fumble recovery. He deflected four passes and intercepted another while also carrying the ball once (minus 6 yards). Weddle was a 2-time Mountain West Conference defensive player of the year.


title: Eric Weddle

text: In 2004, Weddle shifted to strong safety, starting eleven games. Despite sitting out the Arizona clash with a right knee sprain, he ranked third on the team with 75 tackles (47 solos). He added one sack, 4.5 stops behind the line of scrimmage and a forced fumble. He advanced a fumble recovery 31 yards, batted away five passes and intercepted four others. He also averaged 10.5 yards on 20 punt returns.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle earned Mountain West Conference Defensive Player of the Year, first-team All-MWC, second-team All-American and Emerald Bowl Defensive MVP honors in 2005. He started all twelve games, lining up at strong safety in five contests, at left cornerback in four and as a nickel back in three others. He ranked third on the team with 78 tackles (49 solos) and second with eleven stops for losses. He had four sacks, three forced fumbles and a fumble recovery. He led the conference with sixteen passes defensed (12 break-ups, 4 interceptions). He punted twice for 46 yards, attempted two passes and averaged 6.4 yards on 24 punt returns. He also rushed seven times for 35 yards and one touchdown.


title: Eric Weddle

text: In 2006, Weddle was a consensus All-American and unanimous All-MWC first-team choice. He was again named the conference's Defensive Player of the Year. He started the team's first two games at strong safety before shifting to left cornerback and closed out the season as the nickel back. He made 64 tackles (40 solos) with a sack, a forced fumble and 2.5 stops for losses. He returned one of three fumble recoveries for a touchdown, deflected two passes and ranked eighth in the nation with seven interceptions. He averaged 5.5 yards on eight punt returns and completed 2-of-4 passes for 43 yards and a touchdown. He also carried 44 times for 203 yards (4.6 avg) and five scores.


title: Eric Weddle

text: In 48 games at Utah, Weddle started 45 times (9 at right cornerback, 12 at left cornerback, 6 at nickel back, 18 at strong safety). He recorded 277 tackles, as his 165 solo hits rank sixth in school annals. He produced ten sacks for minus 69 yards and 22.5 stops for losses of 108 yards. He set the school career record with nine forced fumbles and ranks sixth with six fumble recoveries, returning two for 66 yards and a touchdown.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle is tied for sixth in Utah history with 23 pass deflections and ranks second (MWC record) with 18 interceptions for 148 yards (8.2 avg) in returns. His three pass thefts returned for touch-downs rank second in school annals. He ranks fifth on the school record books with 52 punt returns, good for 408 yards (7.8 avg).


title: Eric Weddle

text: On offense, Weddle rushed 52 times for 259 yards (5.0 avg) and six touchdowns. He completed 2-of-6 passes for 43 yards, one touchdown and an interception. He recovered an onside kick and also punted twice for 46 yards with a long of 34.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Nearing the end of an electrifying senior year, Doug Robinson of the "Deseret Morning News" wrote an article championing Weddle for the Heisman Trophy based on how valuable he is to the Utah Utes. He wrote, "The only people who spend more time on the field than Weddle each Saturday are referees. Against Air Force two weeks ago, Weddle played every snap on defense and collected eight tackles. On offense, he led the Utes in rushing with 73 yards and scored Utah's only two touchdowns. He also served as the holder for the game-winning field goal. He played a total of 90 plays." Robinson wrote that Fisher DeBerry, Air Force's football head coach told Weddle after the game, "They're cheating you, son; they ought to give you two scholarships." Wyoming coach Joe Glenn said, "He should win the Heisman Trophy... I sincerely mean that."


title: Eric Weddle

text: During the 2007 combine, Weddle ran a 1.43 10 yard time, tying him with Aundrae Allison and Marcus McCauley for the then fastest split time recorded at the NFL combine.


title: Eric Weddle

text: The San Diego Chargers selected Weddle in the second round (37th overall) of the 2007 NFL Draft. The Chargers traded their second round pick (62nd overall), third round pick (93rd overall), and fifth round pick (167th overall) in the 2007 NFL Draft, as well as their third round pick (90th overall) in the 2008 NFL Draft to the Chicago Bears in order to move up in the second round and draft Weddle. The Chicago Bears used their selections to draft Dan Bazuin, Garrett Wolfe, Kevin Payne, and Marcus Harrison. Weddle was the fifth safety drafted in 2007.


title: Eric Weddle

text: On July 23, 2007, the San Diego Chargers signed Weddle to a four-year, $4.16 million contract that includes $3.47 million guaranteed and a signing bonus of $1.81 million.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Throughout training camp, Weddle competed against Clinton Hart to be the starting strong safety. Head coach Norv Turner officially named Weddle the backup strong safety to begin the regular season, behind Clinton Hart. Defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell also used Weddle as a nickelback during his rookie season.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle made his NFL regular season debut in the season-opener against the Chicago Bears and recorded three solo tackles and made his first NFL sack on quarterback Rex Grossman in a 14–3 victory. On October 28, 2007, Weddle recorded five combined tackles, broke up a pass, and made his first NFL interception in a 35–10 victory against the Houston Texans in Week 8. He made his interception off a pass attempt by quarterback Matt Schaub in the third quarter. Weddle was inactive for the Chargers' Week 11 loss at the Jacksonville Jaguars after suffering an injury the previous week. In Week 17, he collected a season-high six combined tackles during a 30–17 victory at the Oakland Raiders.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle finished his rookie season with 53 combined tackles (42 solo), six pass deflections, a sack, and an interception in 15 games and 15 starts.


title: Eric Weddle

text: The Chargers finished atop the AFC West with an 11–5 record. On January 6, 2008, Weddle appeared in his first NFL playoff game as the Chargers defeated the Tennessee Titans 17–6 in the AFC Wildcard Game. The following week, he collected five combined tackles, a pass deflection, and intercepted a pass attempt by quarterback Peyton Manning in a 28–24 victory at the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Divisional Round. On January 20, 2008, Weddle recorded seven combined tackles as the Chargers lost 21–12 at the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle entered training camp slated as the starting free safety after Clinton Hart was moved to strong safety. Hart replaced veteran Marlon McCree, who was released during the offseason. Head coach Norv Turner named Weddle and Hart the starters to begin the regular season.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle made his first NFL start in the season-opener against the Carolina Panthers and recorded a season-high 11 combined tackles (seven solo) and deflected a pass in their 26–24 loss. On September 22, 2008, Weddle recorded seven combined tackles, a pass deflection, and intercepted a pass by Brett Favre during a 48–29 victory on Monday Night Football against the New York Jets in a Week 3. In Week 7, he collected a season-high 11 solo tackles in the Chargers' 30-10 victory against the New England Patriots. On December 28, 2008, Weddle tied his season-high of 11 combined tackles (ten solo) and broke up a pass in a 52–21 win against the Denver Broncos in Week 17. His 11 combined tackles in their season finale marked his eighth game of the season with at least ten combined tackles.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle finished the season with a career-high 127 combined tackles (105 solo), five pass deflections, a sack, and an interception in 16 games and 16 starts.


title: Eric Weddle

text: The Chargers finished atop their division with an 8–8 record and clinched a wildcard berth. On January 3, 2009, Weddle made seven combined tackles and three pass deflections in the Chargers' 23–17 victory against the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Wildcard Game. The following week, he collected 11 combined tackles (nine solo) and sacked Ben Roethlisberger during a 35–24 loss at the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Divisional Round.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Defensive coordinator Ron Rivera retained Weddle and Hart as the starting safety duo to begin the 2009 regular season. The Chargers established a secondary that included cornerbacks Antonio Cromartie, Quentin Jammer, and Antoine Cason.


title: Eric Weddle

text: On September 20, 2009, Weddle collected a season-high ten combined tackles (nine solo) during a 31–26 loss to the Baltimore Ravens in Week 2. The following week, Weddle recorded seven combined tackles, a pass deflection, and returned an interception for his first career touchdown in a 23–13 win against the Miami Dolphins in Week 3. Weddle intercepted a pass by quarterback Chad Henne, that was intended for wide receiver Davone Bess, and returned it for a 31-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. He injured his knee during a Week 12 victory against the Kansas City Chiefs and was sidelined for the next two games (Weeks 13–14). Head coach Norv Turner opted to rest Weddle for the playoffs and listed him as inactive for their Week 17 victory against the Washington Redskins.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle finished the 2009 season with 82 combined tackles (78 solo), seven passes defensed, two interceptions, 1.5 sacks, and a touchdown in 13 games and 13 starts.


title: Eric Weddle

text: The San Diego Chargers finished atop the AFC West with a 13–3 record and received home-field advantage and a first round bye. On January 17, 2010, Weddle sacked quarterback Mark Sanchez in a 17–14 loss against the New York Jets in the AFC Divisional Round.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle entered training camp slated as the starting free safety. Head coach Norv Turner retained Weddle as the starter to begin the regular season, along with Steve Gregory. On November 28, 2010, Weddle recorded four solo tackles, a season-high two pass deflections, and returned an interception for a touchdown during a 36–14 victory at the Indianapolis Colts in Week 12. He returned an interception by quarterback Peyton Manning, that was intended for wide receiver Reggie Wayne, in the third quarter. In Week 17, he collected a career-high 16 combined tackles (11 solo) and deflected a pass in a 34–20 loss at the Cincinnati Bengals. He finished his fourth season in the league with 96 combined tackles (80 solo), ten pass deflections, two interceptions, a touchdown, and was credited with half a sack in 16 games and 16 starts. Pro Football Focus gave Weddle an overall grade of +12.6 in 2010.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle became an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career after the 2010 NFL season and was ranked as the second best free agent safety on the market, behind Quintin Mikell, by Pro Football Focus. He received serious interest from multiple teams, including the Cincinnati Bengals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Denver Broncos, Carolina Panthers, Minnesota Vikings, Dallas Cowboys, and Houston Texans. He stated during an interview that his top priority was to come to an agreement with the San Diego Chargers. Weddle was heavily recruited by the Texans, but stated he'd only consider signing with the Cowboys, Panthers, Jaguars, and Vikings if he was unable to come to terms with the Chargers.


title: Eric Weddle

text: On July 28, 2011, the San Diego Chargers signed Weddle to a five-year, $40 million contract with $19 million guaranteed and a signing bonus of $13 million.


title: Eric Weddle

text: The Chargers' new defensive coordinator Greg Manusky opted to retain Weddle as the starting free safety to start the regular season, along with strong safety Bob Sanders. In Week 2, Weddle recorded a season-high 11 combined tackles (eight solo) in a 35–21 loss at the New England Patriots. On October 31, 2011, he made seven solo tackles, two pass deflections, and intercepted two pass attempts by quarterback Matt Cassel in the Chargers' 23–20 overtime loss at the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 8. His performance marked the first game of his career with multiple interceptions. In Week 14, he made three combined tackles, a pass deflection, and recorded his seventh interception of the season in a 37–10 win against the Buffalo Bills. On December 26, 2011, Weddle was voted to play in the 2012 Pro Bowl, marking the first selection of his career.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle finished the season with 88 combined tackles (70 solo), 11 passes defensed, and a career-high seven interceptions in 16 games and 16 starts. On January 29, 2012, he appeared in the 2012 Pro Bowl as part of the AFC and made two interceptions in their 59–41 loss to the NFC.


title: Eric Weddle

text: On January 5, 2012, the San Diego Chargers fired defensive coordinator Greg Manusky after one season. He was replaced by linebackers coach John Pagano and it was speculated by the media that he was released due to the defense's lack of aggression.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Head coach Norv Turner retained Weddle as the starting free safety in 2012. He started alongside strong safety Atari Bigby. On November 18, 2012, Weddle recorded six combined tackles, deflected a pass, and returned an interception for a touchdown in a 30–23 loss at the Denver Broncos in Week 11. He intercepted a pass by quarterback Peyton Manning, that was thrown to wide receiver Matt Willis, and returned it 23-yards for a touchdown in the first quarter. The touchdown marked his third career pick six. In Week 15, he collected a season-high ten combined tackles (seven solo) during a 31–7 loss to the Carolina Panthers. On December 31, 2012, the San Diego Chargers fired general manager A. J. Smith and head coach Norv Turner after finishing the season with a disappointing 9–7 record. He finished the 2012 season with 97 combined tackles (83 solo), nine passes defensed, three interceptions, and a touchdown in 16 games and 16 starts. His teammates voted him as the Chargers' MVP in 2012 and he also was named to the Associated Press All-Pro Team. Pro Football Focus gave Weddle an overall grade of +27.7, which ranked as the top grade among qualifying safeties in 2012.


title: Eric Weddle

text: John Pagano remained the San Diego Chargers' defensive coordinator and retained Weddle as the starter at free safety. Head coach Mike McCoy officially named him the starting free safety to start 2013, opposite strong safety Marcus Gilchrist. On November 3, 2013, he collected a season-high 15 combined tackles (nine solo) in a 30–24 loss at the Washington Redskins in Week 9. On December 27, 2013, it was announced that Weddle was selected to play in the 2014 Pro Bowl.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle finished the season with 115 combined tackles (88 solo), nine pass deflections, two interceptions, two fumble recoveries, a forced fumble, and a sack in 16 games and 16 starts. He received an overall grade of +11.3 from Pro Football Focus in 2013.


title: Eric Weddle

text: The Chargers finished third in the AFC West with a 9–7 record and earned a wildcard berth. On January 5, 2014, Weddle recorded six combined tackles and deflected a pass in their 27–10 win at the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Wildcard Game. They were eliminated the following week after losing 24–17 at the Denver Broncos in the AFC Divisional.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle and Marcus Gilchrist returned as the starting safeties for the Chargers in 2014. In Week 4, he recorded four combined tackles, deflected a pass, and made his only interception of the season off a pass by quarterback Blake Bortles in a 33–14 win against the Jacksonville Jaguars. On October 19, 2014, Weddle made a season-high 13 combined tackles (ten solo) during a 23–20 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 7. On December 23, 2014, Weddle was voted to play in the 2015 Pro Bowl, making it his third consecutive Pro Bowl selection.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle finished the season with 114 combined tackles (91 solo), eight pass deflections, two forced fumbles, and an interception in 16 games and 16 starts. Pro Football Focus gave Weddle an overall grade of 18.9 and ranked him as the top safety among all qualifying safeties in 2014. He also ranked as the 86th best player in the league on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2014.


title: Eric Weddle

text: On May 25, 2015, it was reported that Weddle was expected to holdout and skip organized team activities after he did not receive a contract extension from the Chargers. Weddle was on the last year of his five-year contract and was due $7.5 million in 2015. On June 15, 2015, Weddle officially ended his holdout and was required to attend minicamp. He read a prepared statement and said,


title: Eric Weddle

text: Head coach Mike McCoy named Weddle the starting free safety to begin the regular season, along with strong safety Jahleel Addae. He was inactive for two games (Weeks 7–8) after sustaining a groin injury. His injury ended his 86-game streak of consecutive starts that began in 2010. On November 8, 2015, Weddle recorded a season-high 13 combined tackles (nine solo) during a 22–19 loss to the Chicago Bears in Week 9. On December 20, 2015, he made two combined tackles and a pass deflection during a 30–14 victory against the Miami Dolphins in Week 16. The following day, Weddle was received a $10,000 fine from the San Diego Chargers for behavior that was detrimental to the team after he did not report to the team locker room during halftime. Weddle opted to watch his daughter perform as part of the halftime show along with her cheerleading group and did not receive permission from management. Weddle's agent, David Canter, said he planned to file a grievance with the NFL Players Association and said that he felt disrespected by the way things were handled. The following week, he played his last game with the Chargers and recorded three combined tackles in a 23–20 loss at the Oakland Raiders in Week 16. On December 28, 2015, the San Diego Chargers placed Weddle on injured reserve for their Week 17 matchup at the Denver Broncos. Weddle later stated he was able to play and he was told he was unable to travel with the team due to the limited size of the plane.


title: Eric Weddle

text: On March 16, 2016, Weddle signed a four-year, $29 million contract with the Baltimore Ravens, with $13 million guaranteed. Head coach John Harbaugh officially named Weddle the starting strong safety to begin the regular season, alongside free safety Lardarius Webb.


title: Eric Weddle

text: On September 18, 2016, Weddle recorded six combined tackles, a pass deflection, and intercepted a pass by Josh McCown in a 25–20 victory at the Cleveland Browns. The interception marked his first pick as a member of the Ravens and


title: Eric Weddle

text: became his 20th interception of his career. On December 12, 2016, Weddle collected a season-high 11 combined tackles (six solo), deflected a pass, a sack, and intercepted a pass attempt by quarterback Tom Brady during a 23–30 loss at the New England Patriots in Week 14. On December 21, 2016, it was announced that Weddle was selected to be a second-team alternate for the 2017 Pro Bowl. He finished the 2016 season with 89 combined tackles (48 solo), a career-high 13 pass deflections, four interceptions, a sack, and a forced fumble in 16 games and 16 starts. Weddle earned an overall grade of 92.4 from Pro Football Focus which was the highest among all qualified safeties in 2016.


title: Eric Weddle

text: On January 23, 2017, it was announced that Weddle was selected to play in the 2017 Pro Bowl to replace safety Devin McCourty who reached Super Bowl LI as a member of the New England Patriots. Weddle was voted by teammates to be a captain for the AFC.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle moved back to free safety after the Baltimore Ravens signed free agent strong safety Tony Jefferson. Weddle and Jefferson were officially named the starters to begin the season. In Week 4, Weddle recorded a season-high eight combined tackles, two pass deflections, and an interception in the Ravens' 26–9 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. On December 3, 2017, Weddle made three combined tackles, a pass deflection, recorded a strip/sack, and returned an interception for a touchdown during a 44–20 victory against the Detroit Lions in Week 13. He returned an interception by quarterback Jake Rudock for a 45-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter and recorded a strip/sack on Matthew Stafford that was recovered by teammate Willie Henry in the second quarter. His pick six became the fourth of his career and his performance earned him AFC Defensive Player of the Week. On December 19, 2017, it was announced that Weddle was voted to the 2018 Pro Bowl. He completed the season with 63 combined tackles (49 solo), eight passes defensed, six interceptions, a sack, forced fumble, and touchdown in 16 games and 16 starts. Pro Football Focus gave Weddle an overall grade of 82.4, which ranked him 24th among all qualified safeties in 2017.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle returned in 2018 as the Ravens starting free safety. He finished the season with 68 combined tackles, one sack, and three pass deflections in 16 games and 16 starts. He was named to his sixth Pro Bowl, and third straight. He was ranked 100th by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2019.


title: Eric Weddle

text: On March 8, 2019, Weddle signed a two-year contract worth $10,502,050 with the Los Angeles Rams. During Week 4 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Weddle recorded a team-high 15 tackles and 2 passes defended in the 55-40 loss. He finished the season second on the team with 108 tackles, along with four passes defended.


title: Eric Weddle

text: On January 12, 2022, after it was announced that Los Angeles Rams safety Jordan Fuller would miss the 2021 playoffs with an ankle injury and safety Taylor Rapp had entered concussion protocol, Weddle came out of retirement and signed with the Rams' practice squad. He was promoted to the active roster during the playoffs and led the team with nine tackles in the NFC championship game against the San Francisco 49ers, which the Rams won to advance to Super Bowl LVI. Weddle and the Rams beat the Cincinnati Bengals in the Super Bowl 23–20, earning Weddle's first career Super Bowl championship. In the first quarter, Weddle suffered a pectoral muscle tear that would require surgery, but he refused to leave the game and continued playing.


title: Eric Weddle

text: After the Super Bowl, Weddle announced he was retiring again, with his goal of a championship ring achieved after a 14 year career.


title: Eric Weddle

text: On February 19, 2022, it was announced that Weddle would be taking over the head coach job at Rancho Bernardo High School. After assisting incumbent head coach Tristan McCoy for one season, Weddle will assume the complete title of head coach.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle married his former high school sweetheart, Chanel, in La Jolla in 2005, before his junior year at Utah. They have four children.


title: Eric Weddle

text: While in college at the University of Utah, Weddle converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.


title: Eric Weddle

text: Weddle’s rise through the NFL was chronicled in the book "No Excuses, No Regrets: The Eric Weddle Story", which was written by Trent Toone and published by Shadow Mountain. The book, which tells his story of overcoming adversity and accomplishing impossible dreams, became available to readers in May of 2014. Weddle’s former coach from his college years, Kyle Whittingham, wrote the foreword.


title: Fire triangle

text: The fire triangle or combustion triangle is a simple model for understanding the necessary ingredients for most fires.


title: Fire triangle

text: The triangle illustrates the three elements a fire needs to ignite: heat, fuel, and an oxidizing agent (usually oxygen). A fire naturally occurs when the elements are present and combined in the right mixture. A fire can be prevented or extinguished by removing any one of the elements in the fire triangle. For example, covering a fire with a fire blanket blocks oxygen and can extinguish a fire. In large fires where firefighters are called in, decreasing the amount of oxygen is not usually an option because there is no effective way to make that happen in an extended area.


title: Fire triangle

text: The fire tetrahedron represents the addition of a component in the chemical chain reaction, to the three already present in the fire triangle. Once a fire has started, the resulting exothermic chain reaction sustains the fire and allows it to continue until or unless at least one of the elements of the fire is blocked. Foam can be used to deny the fire the oxygen it needs. Water can be used to lower the temperature of the fuel below the ignition point or to remove or disperse the fuel. Halon can be used to remove free radicals and create a barrier of inert gas in a direct attack on the chemical reaction responsible for the fire.


title: Fire triangle

text: Combustion is the chemical reaction that feeds a fire more heat and allows it to continue. When the fire involves burning metals like lithium, magnesium, titanium, etc. (known as a class-D fire), it becomes even more important to consider the energy release. The metals react faster with water than with oxygen and thereby more energy is released. Putting water on such a fire results in the fire getting hotter or even exploding. Carbon dioxide extinguishers are ineffective against certain metals such as titanium. Therefore, inert agents (e.g. dry sand) must be used to break the chain reaction of metallic combustion.


title: Fire triangle

text: In the same way, as soon as one of the four elements of the tetrahedron is removed, combustion stops.


title: Fire triangle

text: The oxidizer is the other reactant of the chemical reaction. In most cases, it is the ambient air, and in particular one of its components, oxygen (O). By depriving a fire of air the fire can be extinguished, such as when covering the flame of a small candle with an empty glass. To the contrary, if air is blown over a wood fire (as with bellows), the fire is activated by the introduction of more air.


title: Fire triangle

text: Some chemicals, such as fluorine gas, perchlorate salts such as ammonium perchlorate, or chlorine trifluoride, act as oxidizers, sometimes more powerful ones than oxygen itself. A fire based on a reaction with these oxidizers can be very difficult to put out until the oxidizer is exhausted; that leg of the fire triangle cannot be broken by normal means (i.e., depriving it of air will not smother it).


title: Fire triangle

text: In certain cases such as some explosives, the oxidizer and combustible are the same (e.g., nitroglycerin, an unstable molecule that has oxidizing parts in the same molecule as the oxidizeable parts).


title: Fire triangle

text: Reaction is initiated by an activating energy — in most cases, it is heat. Several examples include friction, as in the case of matches, heating an electrical wire, a flame (propagation of fire), or a spark (from a lighter or from any starting electrical device). There are also many other ways to bring sufficient activation energy including electricity, radiation, and pressure, all of which will lead to a temperature rise. In most cases, heat production enables self-sustainability of the reaction, and enables a chain reaction to grow. The temperature at which a liquid produces sufficient vapor to get a flammable mix with self-sustainable combustion is called its flash-point.


title: Fire triangle

text: Without sufficient heat, a fire cannot begin, and it cannot continue. Heat can be removed by the application of a substance which reduces the amount of heat available to the fire reaction. This is often water, which absorbs heat for phase change from water to steam. Introducing sufficient quantities and types of powder or gas in the flame reduces the amount of heat available for the fire reaction in the same manner. Scraping embers from a burning structure also removes the heat source. Turning off the electricity in an electrical fire removes the ignition source.


title: Fire triangle

text: Without fuel, a fire will stop. Fuel can be removed naturally, as where the fire has consumed all the burnable fuel, or manually, by mechanically or chemically removing the fuel from the fire. Fuel separation is an important factor in wildland fire suppression, and is the basis for most major tactics, such as controlled burns. The fire stops because a lower concentration of fuel vapor in the flame leads to a decrease in energy release and a lower temperature. Removing the fuel thereby decreases the heat.


title: Fire triangle

text: Without sufficient oxygen, a fire cannot begin, and it cannot continue. With a decreased oxygen concentration, the combustion process slows. Oxygen can be denied to a fire using a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher, a fire blanket or water.


title: Fire triangle

text: The water can have two different roles. In the case of a solid combustible, the solid fuel produces pyrolyzing products under the influence of heat, commonly radiation. This process is halted by the application of water, since water is more easily evaporated than the fuel is pyrolyzed. Thereby energy is removed from the fuel surface and it is cooled and the pyrolysis is stopped, removing the fuel supply to the flames. In fire fighting, this is referred to as surface cooling.


title: Fire triangle

text: In the gas phase, i.e. in the flames or in the smoke, the combustible can not be separated from the oxidizer, and the only possible action consists of cooling down. In this case, water droplets are evaporated in the gas phase, thereby lowering the temperature and adding water vapour making the gas mixture non combustible. This requires droplets of a size less than about 0.2 mm. In fire fighting, this is referred to as gas cooling or smoke cooling.


title: Fire triangle

text: Cases also exist where the ignition factor is not the activation energy. For example, a smoke explosion is a very violent combustion of unburned gases contained in the smoke created by a sudden fresh air input (oxidizer input). The interval in which an air/gas mix can burn is limited by the explosive limits of the air. This interval can be very small (kerosene) or large (acetylene).


title: Fire triangle

text: Since these reactions are well understood, it has been possible to create specific water-additives which will allow:


title: Fire triangle

text: Water-additives are generally designed to be effective on several categories of fires (class A + class B or even class A + class B + class F), meaning a better global performance and usability of a single extinguisher on many different types of fires (or fires that involve several different classes of materials).


title: Fire triangle

text: In the context of wildland fire, the fire triangle can be scaled up to apply to fire spread over landscapes (scales of days and several kilometres) and recurrence of fire over time (scales of decades and hundreds of kilometres). Thus, while heat is important to ignite a flame, topography is important for aiding fire spread especially by preheating upslope fuels, and ignitions sources are important to help explain recurrence on longer time scales. Similarly, while oxygen is relevant to sustain a flame, weather and associated winds feed oxygen into a spreading fire, and the longer-term pattern of weather is summarized as climate. Lastly, "fuels" is the term to describe what burns in a single flame to the range of materials burnt in a spreading wildfire, but fuels vary over larger space and time scales in what is called vegetation.


title: Fire triangle

text: At the smallest scale, the combustion fire triangle, individual fuel particles are ignited once at a critical temperature, and fire transfers energy to the nearest surroundings. Combustion events range on the scale of several seconds to a couple of days and their effects are monitored at the quadrant scale. The largest scale, in contrast, describes the fire regime concept. Global climate change drives many of the factors involved in the 'wildfire' and the 'fire regime' triangles. For example, with respect to the fire regime, a particular vegetation type will support a characteristic fire in terms of recurrence, intensity, seasonality and biological effects; a change in vegetation type will have implications for a changing fire regime.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Philip Douglas Taylor (born 13 August 1960) is an English former professional darts player. Nicknamed The Power, he dominated darts for over two decades and won 214 professional tournaments, including a record 85 major titles and a record 16 World Championships. In 2015, the BBC rated Taylor among the ten greatest British sportsmen of the last 35 years. He is the richest and most powerful darts player in history.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Taylor won eight consecutive World Championships from 1995 to 2002, reached 14 consecutive finals from 1994 to 2007 and reached 21 world finals overall, all of which are records. He held the world number one ranking for thirteen years in total, including eight in a row from 2006–2013. He won 70 PDC Pro Tour events, which was a record until Michael van Gerwen passed it in February 2019. Taylor hit a record 11 televised nine-dart finishes (and 22 overall). He was also the first person to hit two nine-dart finishes in the same match.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Taylor played in competitions organised by the British Darts Organisation (BDO) until 1993. Amidst growing disenchantment with the BDO, he was among 16 top players who broke away to form their own organisation, the World Darts Council, now known as the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). He won the PDC Player of the Year award six times (2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012) and was twice nominated for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, in 2006 and 2010; in the latter event he finished as runner-up, making him the only darts player ever to finish in the top two. He was inducted into the PDC Hall of Fame in 2011. Taylor retired from professional darts after the . In 2022 he entered the inaugural 2022 World Seniors Darts Championship, and lost to Kevin Painter in the quarter-finals.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Taylor was born to Doug and Liz Taylor on 13 August 1960 in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent. He left school at the age of 16, and after holding a few jobs including as a sheet metal worker, he would spend most of his early working days making ceramic toilet roll handles, for which he earned £52 a week. Although he liked to play darts and football as a child, he never took up the games seriously until 1986 when he moved into a terraced house in Burslem, living near to Eric Bristow's pub the Crafty Cockney.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: A few months later, his wife Yvonne bought him a set of darts for his birthday and he started playing weekly, occasionally at Bristow's pub. By 1986, he was selected for the county team and playing at Super League level. Bristow started sponsoring him by loaning him £10,000 later that year to help him get started as a professional darts player, to take care of his family and on the condition that he give up his job in the ceramic industry.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Bristow sponsored Taylor and they travelled to Las Vegas where Taylor was beaten in the first round of the North American Open as he struggled during his first year on tour.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Taylor's first title came at the Canadian Open in 1988, defeating then World Champion Bob Anderson in the final. After reaching the quarter-final of the British Open and the semi-final of the Winmau World Masters in 1989, he qualified for the World Championship for the first time in 1990. Although he had achieved some success in Open events, he went into the 1990 World Championship as a 125–1 unseeded outsider. He beat number six seed Russell Stewart 3–1 in the first round, Dennis Hickling 3–0 in the second round, Ronnie Sharp 4–2 in the quarter finals and Cliff Lazarenko 5–0 to reach the final. He would then meet his mentor, Eric Bristow.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Bristow had been suffering with dartitis since 1986 but had recovered his world number one ranking to be the top seed in the event. After sharing the first two sets, Taylor beat Bristow 6–1 in sets to claim his first world title. For the rest of 1990, Taylor dominated the Open events taking the titles in the Isle of Man, Finland, North America, Denmark as well as the British Pentathlon, British Masters, Europe Cup and the game's second major tournament at the time, the Winmau World Masters.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Taylor's defence of the World Championship in 1991 ended at the quarter-final stage with a loss to Dennis Priestley, who went on to win his first world title. He picked up fewer titles in 1991 losing both his Danish Open and World Masters titles in finals to Rod Harrington. Taylor regained the World Championship title the following year beating Mike Gregory 6–5 in the final in a deciding leg. Gregory had missed six darts to win the title himself. Taylor has described the win as one of the favourites of his career. In 1993, Taylor became the landlord at the Cricketers Arms in Newcastle-under-Lyme.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: From a peak during the 1980s, the game of darts had lost many sponsors and almost all television coverage. Players felt that the BDO was no longer serving the interests of the game at the top level. In 1993, Taylor was among a group of top players, which included every previous world champion, who broke away from the game's ruling body, the British Darts Organisation, and formed their own organisation, the World Darts Council (WDC), later renamed the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC).


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: In the 1993 World Championship, the last unified World Championship to be held, Taylor lost in the second round to Kevin Spiolek. The BDO refused to allow the new organisation to set up and run their own tournaments, so the WDC players decided that they would no longer compete in the BDO World Championship. They founded the WDC World Darts Championship as an alternative. In the first WDC World Championship in 1994, Taylor lost to Priestley. However, Taylor would go on to dominate the event for the following decade and beyond.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: After losing to Priestley in the final of the first PDC World Championship in 1994, Taylor began to dominate the event. Rod Harrington reached his first World Championship final in 1995 and, although he had won his previous three finals against Taylor in 1991 and 1992, Taylor took the title 6–2. It would be Harrington's only appearance in a World Final.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: The finals of 1996, 1997 and 1998 would all feature Taylor and Priestley in a repeat of the inaugural final in 1994. Priestley achieved the first 100 average in a final in 1996 but still lost 6–4. The 1997 final saw Taylor recover from 0–2 down to win the title 6–3, and the 1998 final saw Taylor lose just two legs in the entire match en route to a 6–0 win and an average of 103.98. Taylor's victory and sixth title in 1998 meant that he had surpassed his mentor Eric Bristow's haul of five World Championships.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Taylor's record at Blackpool in the WDC's second major event, the World Matchplay, was not as strong early in his career as it has been in recent times. Taylor lost to Bob Anderson in 1994, Peter Evison in 1996 and Ronnie Baxter in 1998. However, he still won the event twice in the first five years of its existence, beating Priestley 16–11 in 1995 and Alan Warriner-Little 16–11 in 1997.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Taylor stretched his PDC World Championship unbeaten run to a record eight consecutive years beating Peter Manley in the 1999 and 2002 finals, Priestley for a fourth time in 2000, and John Part in 2001. Part would finally end the run by beating Taylor 7–6 (sets) in the 2003 World Championship final. Sid Waddell attributed this defeat to a weight-loss of three stone which he claimed affected Taylor's balance and resulted in him throwing "a quarter to half an inch below the 60 bed". Taylor went into the game a 1/7 favourite with bookmakers, but Part raced into leads of 3–0 and 4–1. Taylor fought back before ultimately being defeated 7–6.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Taylor would improve his record at Blackpool during this spell. After losing the 1999 semi-final of the World Matchplay to Manley, he would go on to win the title for the next five years (2000–2004) beating five different opponents in the final: Alan Warriner-Little (2000), Richie Burnett (2001), John Part (2002), Wayne Mardle (2003) and Mark Dudbridge (2004). By the end of 2004, Taylor had won 11 World Championships and seven World Matchplays.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Taylor has faced the incumbent BDO World Champion in challenge matches on two occasions. In 1999, he beat Raymond van Barneveld by 21 legs to 10 in a one-hour challenge dubbed "The Match of the Century" at the Wembley Conference Centre. The second challenge match came in 2004 against Andy Fordham at the Circus Tavern. Taylor was leading 5–2 in sets when Fordham, suffering a suspected asthma attack, abandoned the match.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Taylor reclaimed the World Championship in 2004 after edging Kevin Painter in the final 7–6 following a sudden death leg. After the match, having trailed 4–1 and 5–3, Taylor described himself as "a very lucky man" claiming that "Kevin out-played me". Referring to the epic World Championship final the previous year in which he had been defeated by John Part, Taylor added: "Last year was a good final, but this is one of the best".


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Taylor would continue his dominance throughout 2005. However, after winning his 13th World Championship title in January 2006, he lost four matches in televised tournaments during the first half of the year. He lost to Jelle Klaasen and Simon Whitlock in the International Darts League tournament, and twice in a row to Raymond van Barneveld in the UK Open and the Las Vegas Desert Classic. He bounced back in the second half of the year to win the World Matchplay, the World Darts Trophy (a BDO affiliated event), and the World Grand Prix.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: The 2007 World Final was contested between Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld. The match was tied at 6–6 in sets with van Barneveld leading 2–1 in legs. However, Van Barneveld missed four darts and Taylor tied the set at 2–2. The set went to 5–5 before van Barneveld won the sudden death leg for his fifth World Championship (four with the BDO and one with the PDC). Taylor said: "Of all the finals I've played in, I would probably put this one as the best."


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Chris Mason hit the headlines for criticising Taylor in the newspapers before their last 16 match at the 2007 World Championship and allegedly swearing at him during the post-match handshake on-stage after Taylor beat him 4–0. He did apologise to Taylor after the tournament ended, but received a £750 fine and a four-month ban (suspended for 12 months) from the Darts Regulation Authority.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: 2007 proved to be Taylor's most barren year in terms of major title success. He was defeated at the International Darts League and the World Darts Trophy in the Netherlands. At the UK Open in Bolton, he suffered an 11–4 loss to van Barneveld. He lost to Mark Dudbridge


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: at the Las Vegas Desert Classic, and lost at the World Matchplay in Blackpool. At the World Grand Prix in Dublin, he lost to Adrian Gray. Taylor feared that his career was in decline but vowed to continue until 2012.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Having appeared in 14 out of 14 PDC World Darts Championship finals between 1994 and 2007, Taylor's record run came to an end in 2008 where he was beaten in the quarter-final. This was the first time that he had not reached the final stage of the PDC World Darts Championship. Taylor had been taken to the final set in each of his first three rounds before eventually losing to Wayne Mardle 5–4 (sets) despite leading 3–0 at one stage.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Before the start of the Premier League tournament, Taylor unveiled some new black 26g darts. Despite a poor start to his Premier League Darts campaign which included three defeats in his first four matches, Taylor ultimately finished at the top of the Premier League standings. He beat Adrian Lewis 11–1 with a 112.68 average in the semi-final, and went on to win his fourth consecutive Premier League title with a 16–8 victory over Wade whilst averaging 108.36. He won his second US Open title in May 2008, defeating Colin Lloyd in the final. At the UK Open, Taylor was defeated 10–9 in the quarter-final by Raymond van Barneveld.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Taylor went on a surge of form from the spring of 2008, by winning his fourth Las Vegas Desert Classic title. Taylor then went on to win the World Matchplay, World Grand Prix, the inaugural European Championship, and the Grand Slam of Darts.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: In the 2009 world final, Taylor beat Raymond van Barneveld 7–1 for his fourteenth World Championship title. His 110.94 three-dart average was the highest recorded in a PDC final. His average during the course of the tournament was 104.08. In June, Taylor beat Colin Osborne 11–6 in the final of the UK Open. It was his third title overall at the event and his first since 2005. His tournament average was 107.38.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: More success followed throughout 2009 with Taylor winning his fifth Las Vegas Desert Classic at what was the final instalment of the event. Taylor would also win the World Matchplay, the World Grand Prix, the European Darts Championship (achieving an overall 3-dart average per tournament of 111.54) and, for the third successive time, the Grand Slam of Darts in November.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Taylor began 2010 by winning his fifteenth World Championship title. He beat Simon Whitlock in the final 7–3 with an average of 104.38 and sealed victory with a 131 checkout. Taylor lost in the semi-final of the Players Championship at the Circus Tavern in Purfleet. Whilst attempting to defend the title he won in 2009 at the inaugural staging of the event, Taylor lost to eventual champion Paul Nicholson. Taylor admitted, following his defeat, that he had had little time to practice after his World Championship win. Taylor made history in the 2010 Premier League final against defending champion James Wade by hitting two nine-dart finishes in the same match. This was the first time that this had been done in professional darts.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: By the summer of 2010, Taylor was the holder of the World Championship, the World Matchplay, the Premier League, the UK Open, the European Championship, the World Grand Prix and the Grand Slam of Darts. In fact, the only major televised title not held by Taylor at this time was the Players Championship Finals. At the UK Open, Taylor broke the world record for the highest average in a televised game by averaging 118.66 against Kevin Painter in round four- he won the match 9–0. These noteworthy performances, in addition to his longevity, contributed to Taylor's nomination for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award in 2010. He was voted runner-up to A.P. McCoy.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: However, defeats in the World Grand Prix, the Grand Slam, as well as a surprising loss to Mark Webster five sets to two in the quarter-final of the 2011 World Championship, meant that Taylor began 2011 as holder of four major titles- the World Matchplay, the Premier League, the European Championship and the UK Open.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: He would bounce back and win his first major tournament in seven months at the 2011 Players Championship by beating Gary Anderson 13–12 in a thrilling final.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Taylor went on to win the World Matchplay for a record 12th time in 18 years in 2011. He beat Mark Hylton 10–8 in the 1st round, Wayne Jones 13–7 in the 2nd round, Wes Newton 16–5 in the quarter-final, Andy Hamilton 17–9 in the semi-final and James Wade 18–8 in the final. His overall tournament average was more than 106.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: One week later, Taylor went to Düsseldorf to compete in the 2011 European Championship. He was aiming to win his fourth consecutive European title and did just that by beating John Michael 6–3, Mervyn King 10–3, Paul Nicholson 10–7, Simon Whitlock 11–4 and Adrian Lewis 11–8. He had a tournament average of 105.15.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: On 27 September, Taylor competed in Group One of the Championship League and won all seven of his qualifying games: 6–3 against Adrian Lewis, 6–2 against Terry Jenkins, 6–3 against Wes Newton, 6–2 against James Wade, 6–3 against Simon Whitlock, 6–2 against Gary Anderson and 6–1 against Mark Webster. Taylor finished the group stage with a maximum 14 points, a leg difference of +28 (42 legs won and 16 lost), as well as £2,100 won during qualifying. However, he lost the semi-final 6–5 against Wes Newton but still won a further £500 in that match. This took his total winnings for the day to £2,600. As a result of not winning Group One, Taylor returned the following day to play in Group Two.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: In Group Two, Taylor won six out of his seven games. He lost his fourth match 6–4 to Simon Whitlock, but defeated James Wade 6–1, Mervyn King 6–4, Paul Nicholson 6–0, Mark Webster 6–3, Wes Newton 6–4 and Andy Hamilton 6–1. He would finish top of the group with 12 points, a leg difference of +21 (40 legs won and 19 lost), as well as £2,000 won in qualifying. Taylor beat Paul Nicholson 6–3 in the semi-final and Simon Whitlock 6–5 in the final to win Group Two and progress to the Winner's Group.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: In the Winner's Group, Taylor won all seven of his qualifying games. He beat Gary Anderson 6–5, Steve Beaton 6–3, Mervyn King 6–3 (hitting his 10th nine-dart finish in competition in the process), Mark Walsh 6–3, Simon Whitlock 6–5, Paul Nicholson 6–1 and Dennis Priestley 6–2 to qualify top of the group. He beat Steve Beaton 6–1 in the semi-final and Paul Nicholson 6–1 in the final to win his second Championship League title. Taylor won £6,600 in the group stages as well as a further £10,000 for winning the title.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: In November, Taylor won the Grand Slam of Darts by beating Gary Anderson in the final 16–4. However, he was unable to defend his Players Championship title following an 8–5 loss in the last 16 to Mervyn King.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: In 2012, Taylor failed to make the quarter-finals of the PDC World Championship for the first time in his career following a shock four sets to one defeat in the second round by Dave Chisnall.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Taylor, looking to improve upon England's second round exit in 2010, represented England alongside Adrian Lewis in his second World Cup of Darts. Taylor began the tournament sluggishly, losing his singles matches against Ken MacNeil of Canada and Gary Mawson of the United States. Despite this, England progressed following a sudden-death leg against Canada and a doubles victory against the United States. A comfortable 5–1 win over Wales booked England's place in the final against the Australian pairing of Simon Whitlock and Paul Nicholson. Taylor won both his singles matches (including a 105.93 average against Whitlock). However, England lost the doubles meaning that the tie was level on points at 3–3 and consequently, would require a sudden-death leg. It proved to be a tense finale as Australia missed four darts to win the title. Taylor also missed two before Lewis took out double five to clinch England's first World Cup of Darts title.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Four days later, Taylor played Lewis in the first week of the 2012 Premier League and managed to draw 7–7 despite being 6–1 down. He averaged 112.79, which was until 2015 the highest average achieved by someone without actually winning the match. Taylor hit the ninth televised nine-darter of his career in the second week of the Premier League on the way to an 8–5 win against Kevin Painter. Two weeks later, he beat Simon Whitlock 8–4 and registered the highest three-dart average in the history of the tournament of 117.35. In week 13, Taylor beat James Wade 8–1 and averaged 116.10 in the process. Taylor ended the league campaign top of the table (eight points ahead of second placed Simon Whitlock) and was the only player to have a positive leg difference. In the 14 game league phase, Taylor had registered five of the top fifteen televised three-dart averages in the history of the game. In the semi-finals, he faced James Wade against whom he had inflicted heavy 8–1 and 8–2 defeats during the league stage. The semi-final, however, was much more competitive. Taylor trailed early on before winning four consecutive legs to lead 6–4 before Wade responded to level at 6–6. Taylor then took out a 149 finish, with Wade on 57, to break before closing out the match 8–6 to reach the final against Simon Whitlock. Taylor looked to be heading for a comfortable win in the final as he raced into a 7–2 lead. However, the Australian stormed back to level at 7–7. Nevertheless, Taylor held his nerve to win the last three legs of the match to complete a 10–7 win and to seal his sixth Premier League title.


title: Phil Taylor (darts player)

text: Taylor won the third event of the Players Championship in March with a 6–1 victory over Wes Newton while averaging 113.54. He also hit a nine-darter earlier in the tournament during his second round match against Tony West. He reached the final of the fourth Players Championship event a day later where he lost 6–5 to Dave Chisnall. Taylor hit his second nine-dart finish of the weekend in a first round match against Peter Hudson.