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If NBA teams can raise division-title banners, they should be able to raise a banner for the In-Season Cup
The inaugural In-Season Tournament is nearing its conclusion, which can only mean one thing: How can we find a new way to dump on it? Fortunately, a contrived controversy has been delivered on cue. The winner of this weekend’s In-Season Tournament will have to navigate the thorny situation over how ...

Ain’t no love in the heart of NFL ownership for running backs
On the field, running backs have an offensive line to protect them. Off of the field, all they have is each other. The position with the shortest career span in the NFL has become the one that comes with the hardest fight to receive a contract that properly compensates their contributions. The deadl...

Draymond Green has nobody to blame but himself
Draymond Green’s footprints being logged into the NBA’s evidence locker is the least surprising event on everyone’s playoff bingo card. The Golden State Warriors’ loyal foot soldier has accumulated a track record of highlight kicks longer than David Beckham while maintaining a permanent victim statu...

March Badness: Scandals defined the year in college hoops
In a year devoid of a dominant blue blood or player, college basketball stayed in the headlines for the worst reasons. Preseason No. 1 UNC whiffed on the season and missed the tournament entirely. Gonzaga is relying on a normal supply of veteran talent, but is less interesting to watch for casual fa...

These are the best — and worst — Super Bowl National Anthems
Assuming you’ve got all your Super Bowl snacks and fixings in time, the Super Bowl National Anthem is the first real indication that the game is about to start. At least, that’s usually when everyone at the Super Bowl party starts shhhing everyone else. Not necessarily because everyone gets misty-ey...

One and done: NFL head coaches who only lasted a season or less at the helm
Not surprisingly, the Denver Broncos fired head coach Nathaniel Hackett after the team was embarrassed — AGAIN — in primetime. The Los Angeles Rams beat them 51-14, and Russell Wilson was once again dog shit. ...

The national anthem played on a saw? Now I’ve seen everything
Playing or singing the national anthem at a professional sporting event is an honor to several musicians. Not only is it an opportunity to showcase their tremendous talent, but it also provides validation to the artist, telling them, “Yes, your music is good. Would you do us the honor of starting ou...

Don’t support Gabe Kapler’s protest during the national anthem if you took issue with Colin Kaepernick’s
Six years ago, a Black football player decided he wasn’t going to stand during the national anthem because America wasn’t holding up its end of the bargain when it came to protecting the people he cared about. The country lost it, and he lost his job. Six years later, a white baseball manager has de...

Deshaun Watson’s contract will change QB negotiations forever
Precedent, precedent, precedent. There may be countless takeaways from the Cleveland Browns’ newest QB hire, but the salary contingencies they’ve set up for Deshaun Watson are sure to set a league-wide standard that will have a significant impact on future quarterback contracts....

Whitney, Marvin, Jimi and the best <em>Star-Spangled Banner</em> performances ever
Mickey Guyton, a four-time Grammy nominated country artist, will sing the national anthem at Super Bowl LVI. She’s just the latest decorated performer to sing at the Super Bowl....

Women's soccer players protested sexual harassment and were cheered — great… but that rarely happens when athletes protest racism
Protesting is American as capitalism. However, the support your protest will — or won’t — receive in this country is always determined by the race and gender of the protesters....

The San Francisco Giants, the ones who stood out
I had about four different drafts of this in my head before I actually sitting down (or in my case, stand up, as I work in reverse) and writing it. I wanted to proclaim the Giants as the anti-rebuild success story, which they kind of are. But not wholly, because it’s one year....

Nonsensical criticism of USWNT soccer proves right-wing media should hush
It’s getting embarrassing at this point....

U.S. Soccer nixes ban on anthem protests, and one guy's dissent exposes the hypocrisy of the right wing
U.S. Soccer has had a rule since 2017 that players must stand for the national anthem. As of Sunday, that rule is gone, allowing American players to do the most American of things: use their freedom of speech to express themselves by taking a knee if they so choose....

Bluefield College’s white president suspends Black basketball players for kneeling, proving again how the GOP’s call for ‘unity’ is unreasonable
Six weeks ago, when the entire world watched homegrown white American terrorists storm the U.S. Capitol in a dangerous temper-tantrum/coup, Colin Kaepernick’s name and image kept being mentioned. The people that called Kaepernick unpatriotic for peacefully kneeling during a racist song because polic...

NBA doubles-down on national anthem, will require all teams to play it before games
The NBA is doing the most right now....

O, say, can you see Mark Cuban's point? No one even noticed lack of national anthem, so let it go
Somehow it escaped most everyone’s attention for 13 home games that the Dallas Mavericks weren’t playing the national anthem before any of them, which pretty much tells you how important the tradition actually was in the first place. The Mavs hadn’t been allowing fans into the arena until Monday’s g...

L.A. Kings Cover Up Taylor Swift Banner In Attempt To Break Totally Real Curse
Los Angeles Kings fans filing into Saturday’s home opener against, coincidentally(?), Nashville were treated to a pleasant surprise: a big, blank space where, previously, a banner celebrating Taylor Swift’s 16 sold-out concerts had been displayed. Kings fans are hopeful that this will reverse the fr...

UMBC Raises The Only Good Banner
UMBC men’s basketball became one of the few programs that got to lift multiple banners to commemorate the previous season’s accomplishments on Friday. The first celebrated the Retrievers’ America East Championship. The second was just another reminder that they were the first No. 16 seed to knock ou...