state Page 15 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Julie Ertz, the USWNT’s most irreplaceable player, retires
I’m a sucker for a midfielder. Especially one like Julie Ertz. It’s not that I played there or anything. It’s just something about a player who sees all the angles on both sides of the ball before being anywhere near it that gets me, I think. Xabi Alonso is my favorite Liverpool player of all time. ...
Maybe Noah Lyles was right about the NBA after all
The NBA announced Wednesday morning that the Dallas Mavericks will take on Euro League champions Real Madrid in a preseason exhibition on Oct. 10 in Spain. It isn’t unusual for the NBA to send teams to other countries for games before the start of the regular season, but this announcement’s timing ...
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson has taken quite a star turn during the FIBA World Championships
It was a long shot for Jordan to qualify for the second round at the 2023 FIBA World Championships. They are 0-3 through three games and were throttled by USA, 110-62. However, through the defeats a player bloomed. The leading scorer in the FIBA World Cup is, unsurprisingly, Luka Dončić at 30 points...
HBO's 'BS High' doc is somehow more truthful than 'Swamp Kings'
I normally have a firm policy against critiquing any work that I have not entirely consumed. That is an edict that I was almost completely comfortable breaking away from as soon as I saw the trailer for Netflix’s Swamp Kings. Everything in it suggests a somewhat compelling watch, except for the firs...
Christian Pulisic is having fun
If you’ve found yourself lost on soccer Twitter the past week, and it is a haven for the truly wayward as we’ve all had our brains addled by too many pre-dawn wakeups and day beers, you’ve probably seen a lot of “Pulisic is so back!” tweets and hashtags. Whether Pulisic is actually “back” is another...
A tribute to Terry Funk, an unsung wrestling god
Legendary wrestler Terry Funk died yesterday. He was 79. I am certainly nowhere near a talented enough writer to eulogize him properly. Nor have I been a fan long enough or deeply enough for long enough to try and encompass his whole career. The thing is, no one is, so it’s not a personal failing. F...
USWNT captain Lindsey Horan said the quiet part out loud
It started to percolate during the latest Summer Olympics, delayed a year to 2021 because of the pandemic. The United States women’s national team — the former two-time-defending World Cup champions — not only looked vulnerable, but they also appeared average. Not average for the Stars and Stripes —...
Deuce Vaughn is proving that size doesn't matter in the NFL
Deuce Vaughn has Mike McCarthy drawing up a brand new offensive playbook...
Fantasy Football Rankings 2023 - PPR Kicker (K)
This slideshow is based on 2022 NFL season data from Sportradar. Rankings were compiled by an AI engine that were then reviewed and edited by the editorial staff....
Count Tua Tagovailoa among the Sound of Freedom’s ‘forgotten viewers’
The movie rage hitting the theaters this summer extends beyond Barbie, and Oppenheimer. There’s a hidden treasure, one could even call it forgotten, and the independent, umm, film has brought in nearly $175 million. The Sound of Freedom — an action thriller about a child trafficking ring starring Ji...
Vlatko Andonovski was bad at a very tough job
If one didn’t want to kick dirt on Vlatko Andonovski as he recedes from the USWNT manager job, and kicking dirt is kind of what we do around here, it would be wise to point out the size of the task he was faced with. He took over a team that had won two World Cups on the spin, so there was really no...
Victor Conte: Players are still doping and the leagues know it
There is a warped irony in the timing between Netflix’s new sports-doping documentary, Untold: Hall of Shame, and the most recent suspension of a professional athlete for violating a league’s performance-enhancing drug policy....
A non-USWNT World Cup Final is still good for the game
As tough as it is not to have the U.S. Women’s National Team in the FIFA Women’s World Cup final after winning the last two tournaments, the Spain-England final on Sunday is arguably better for the overall health of the game worldwide....
The continuing adventures of Angel Hernandez, Leo Messi is doing that thing again, and charter flights in women’s sports rears its ugly head
If you haven’t been following the touring artist exhibition that is Angel Hernandez attempting to call balls and strikes, or simply trying to disprove the utility of rules and conventions in society at all, in various Major League parks this summer, you’re missing one of the truly great examples of ...
Blindsided: Michael Oher claims he was never legally adopted by the Tuohy family in court filing
Michael Oher just finished a press tour for his new book. The preface discusses how he became a rarity — a famous offensive lineman — and how the 2009 movie that chronicled his journey to Ole Miss and the NFL, The Blind Side, made him well known beyond football circles. The film dives into Oher’s jo...
It shouldn’t be horrible for the next American to suit up with Chelsea
How American soccer players are treated in the Premier League has always been an interesting conundrum. Unless you’re a goalkeeper or somehow wind up at Fulham, heightened levels of scrutiny are at your doorstep that don’t appear in other top leagues around the world. There have been a few other saf...
USWNT’s treatment is the latest example of right-wing hatred for ‘nasty women’
Indigenous Americans were almost eradicated. Black people were enslaved. Asians are mistreated. Millions still want to “build a wall.” People of color have been oppressed for centuries, and each group has its own plight. But misogyny has stood the test of time. The overturning of Roe v. Wade, the re...
Klay Thompson tells us how he really feels about Jordan Poole trade
There was a lot of talk surrounding the Jordan Poole trade situation that saw him shipped away from the Golden State Warriors to the Washington Wizards. We’ve heard from almost everyone involved, directly or indirectly, in the altercation between Poole and Draymond Green, which many feel led to JP n...
World Cup Day 18: And then, sometimes, you just win
If the previous day’s lesson, at least for the USWNT, was that soccer sometimes just decides you’re going to lose because that’s what it wants, then the current European champions England showed that sometimes you just win, even when all logic dictates that you shouldn’t. Who knows what’s left on th...
If players on the Orlando Magic had heart they’d kneel during the national anthem — again
Jonathan Isaac being one of only two members left (Markelle Fultz) from the Orlando Magic’s roster from their time in the 2020 Bubble is irony at its finest. It speaks to the high amount of turnover that occurs in the league, as well as being an example of just how fast the “Black Lives Matter” move...