Nicole Rodriguez

Not many spectators at Tuesday night’s Cardinal Mooney Catholic High School lacrosse game recognized one of the opposing team’s coaches. Andrew Pollack, donning a collared St. Thomas Aquinas High School lacrosse shirt, blended in with the huddle of other similarly dressed coaches of the Fort Lauderdale varsity team, with whom he discussed strategy on the sidelines a few minutes before game time. But a closer look into Pollack’s eyes reveals profound pain none of his peers bear. Pollack’s only daughter, Meadow, 18, was gunned down in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre on Feb. 14 in Parkland. She was one of 17 students and teachers slain at the hands of a former 19-year-old student.

When state officials were alerted that a diver found human skeletal remains off the south Sarasota County coastline, they recruited a forensic anthropologist from Florida Gulf Coast University to examine a potential crime scene, about 300 feet off Manasota Key. Heather Walsh-Haney, a forensic anthropologist and associate professor and program coordinator for the department of justice studies at the university, studied the remains found submerged in about 20 feet of water in 2016 and determined the bones were not from a current crime scene at all — they were ancient.

After the discovery of a rare, prehistoric Native American burial ground just off Manasota Key, the race is on to preserve the submerged site from the daily thrashing from Gulf waves, storms and erosion that threaten to expose more of the human remains interred there, as well as potential damage from intruders. State archaeologists, Florida Gulf Coast University anthropologists and the Seminole Tribe of Florida are in the early stages of developing a viable method to respectfully preserve the three-quarters of an acre area under roughly 20 feet of water, 300 feet off Manasota Key near Venice.

Beyond the perfectly coifed hair, sequined mini-skirts and energetic routines bubbly cheerleaders with mega-watt smiles perform on the sidelines of National Football League games, it’s not all glitz and glamour. A much darker world exists where the women must hide from players squad managers portray as “predators” and leave restaurants mid-meal if a player walks in.

A local woman’s crusade for equal rights for women in the National Football League has thrust her into the national spotlight, sparking a debate about double standards in the league as more women come forward with similar claims.

Former New Orleans Saints cheerleader and Sarasota resident Bailey Davis hopes her sudden firing from the National Football League team sheds light on gender discrimination in the workplace and spurs a national movement to shatter the glass ceiling that has stifled career advancement for women.