With a deep inhale and wide smile, Jordan Beck let out the worst-kept secret in Arizona high school softball, and came as close as anyone wearing black and red to acknowledging the history that’s been made on the east end of Brown Road.

The Arizona Cardinals didn’t need this.

Ever wonder where the latest gadgets and technology designed to make the world a better place come from?

On the second floor of a back building on the campus of Chandler High School, wires, metal and ingenious student planning come together to make an inanimate object come to life.

Fittingly for a guy who’s about to become “big time,” Dion Jordan’s life has been hectic.

Rick McConnell didn’t intend to spend the last 28 years coaching boys basketball at Dobson.

Here are the East Valley high school varsity football schedules for 2013. This list will be continuously updated.

Mill Avenue has always been a hot spot for tourists, students, and locals alike. With the constant flow of people and changing demographics, it is typically no surprise when a new restaurant or bar opens.

LOS ANGELES -- I’m here in a nice getaway from too-early 90-degree temperatures back in the East Valley this weekend. Low 80s here.

Who'll stop the reign?

Someday, the talent pool will dry up enough and the Chandler High girls track program will be challenged for state supremacy. That day, however, is not in the immediate future.

Somehow, Brophy’s boys tennis team might have gotten stronger.

Soccer and ball players will soon find more fields around Mesa for a game, now that the city has begun work on projects approved by voters in November’s bond election.

It's true we tend to better remember things that happened most recently, but it's unlikely anyone who witnessed Saturday night's 66-65 final in double overtime saw a better basketball game in the past several years than what Corona del Sol and Mountain Pointe took to two overtimes before the Aztecs won in fitting fashion for this night.

Mesa wrestling coach Bob Williams has taken multiple trips to Europe (namely Germany), the Middle East and the former Soviet Union during the past couple decades, both with high school kids and international competitors.

On Jan. 22, Priest Willis slipped on a pair of powder blue football gloves, aligned his hands in the sign of a ‘U’ and confirmed to the college football world what everyone long suspected: He was verbally committing to UCLA.

Here are the local athletes expected to sign Letters of Intent with colleges beginning Wednesday. For additions, email varsity@evtrib.com and include the athlete's name, high school, sport and college of choice.

Longtime football assistant Tim Rutt is expected to become Gilbert's new football coach, according to three sources with knowledge of the situation.

Marcos de Niza cornerback Priest Willis, the top-rated recruit in the East Valley, verbally committed to UCLA in a press conference at the school Wednesday night.

A former Arizona legislator will be sentenced Wednesday for felony convictions for seeking and accepting bribes while he was a Tempe city councilman and misleading donors about a scholarship fund that benefited his relatives.

James Contes is a good student with plenty of academic college options, but nothing yet for football.

PROVO, Utah — Mikaela Merrill was in the middle of her fall semester at Brigham Young University when she abruptly altered her college plans and signed up for a Mormon mission.

A pair of Tempe restaurants is fighting for the appetite of nearby college students, and doing so in what could be considered a similar fashion: by featuring menus of chicken, chicken and more chicken, along with a side option or two for good measure.