Sports
September 26, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I’ve watched every documentary that has popped up on cable about Muhammad Ali over the years and enjoyed them all. None annoyed me, or annoyed me as much as Ken Burns’s documentary Muhammad Ali (written and co-directed by Sarah Burns, Burns’s oldest daughter, and her husband, David McMahon). Running nearly eight hours over four episodes, the documentary includes extensive footage of Ali that makes it worth viewing. Despite its length,
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September 9, 2021 — John Hinderaker
The NFL season starts tonight, as Paul noted a little while ago. So whoever sings the National Anthem at tonight’s game between the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Dallas Cowboys will have a wonderful stage. I don’t know who will sing the Anthem, but unfortunately it won’t be Victory Boyd. I had never heard of Miss Boyd until an hour or so ago, but she is a
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August 10, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Torri Huske is an 18 year-old swimmer from Arlington, Virginia. At this year’s Summer Olympic Games, she finished fourth in the 100-meter butterfly final, just one one-hundredth of a second behind Emma McKeon of Australia. Huske came back to win a silver medal in the 4×100-meter medley relay, along with Regan Smith, Lydia Jacoby, and Abbey Weitzeil. Huske graduated from high school this year and will soon be headed to
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August 9, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Many conservatives I know and respect declined to watch any of this year’s Summer Olympics because they expected American athletes to display wokeism rather than patriotism. The expectation wasn’t unreasonable and it constituted good cause not to watch. It also helps explain the Olympics’ low television ratings. Reportedly, they were down 49 percent compared to the 2016 Games and 53 percent from the ones in 2012. I decided to watch
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August 8, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
NBA star Kevin Durant is the pride of Prince George’s County, Maryland. More than that, he’ll likely end up surpassing the legendary Elgin Baylor as the greatest basketball player the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area has ever produced. Normally, I root wholeheartedly for athletes from the D.C. area, and I did so for Durant until three things happened: (1) Durant refused even to consider coming home to play for the Washington
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August 7, 2021 — Scott Johnson
There are many interesting angles to Gable Steveson’s Gold Medal-winning performance in the Olympic heavyweight freestyle wrestling competition, but let’s take a quick look at his performance as the clock wound down to zero. Gable is a hometown hero from Apple Valley, Minnesota, and still an undegrad at the University of Minnesota. In the Gold Medal round (previewed here by the university) it came down to the last 13 seconds,
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July 28, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
You might think that white supremacists would be the ones to inject race into discussions of African-American gymnast Simone Biles cracking under the enormous pressure of these Olympic games. For all I know, white supremacists might be doing so. However, the only piece I’ve read that puts a racial twist on this subject is by Candace Buckner, a Black sportswriter for the Washington Post. According to Buckner, exceptional Black women
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July 25, 2021 — John Hinderaker
I have always been a fan of the Olympics, ever since the first games that I remember, 1960 in Rome. I still remember some of the stars of those games, like Wilma Rudolph and Rafer Johnson. I have followed all of the Olympics since, with varying degrees of interest, and I attended the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid for a few days. But this year, my interest approaches zero.
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July 24, 2021 — John Hinderaker
A lifelong baseball fan, I abandoned the game this year after MLB sided with the Democratic Party in its campaign against ballot integrity in Georgia. It wasn’t just that: my home town team has put a “Black Lives Matter” sign and a memorial to George Floyd in right field. If I can’t escape politics at a baseball game, I’d rather go somewhere else. For the first time in decades, I
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July 16, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Contrary to popular belief, Twitter isn’t all bad. Every now and then you see something like this: This is the funniest thing I’ve seen on here I think pic.twitter.com/TNtrm06xGo — beng (@kicknyrgios) July 16, 2021 It is true that “dudes” can have a fine time talking about sports, but I am not sure why this is a sign of psychological deficiency. This is the guy who became briefly famous over
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July 11, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Rachel Nichols covers NBA basketball for ESPN. Her long-running show “The Jump” is devoted exclusively to the the NBA, I believe (I’ve never watched more than a few minutes of it). Nichols is White. Maria Taylor is a sideline reporter and presenter for ESPN. She appears on broadcasts of football and basketball games, and maybe some other stuff. Taylor is Black. Until last season, Nichols had hosted ESPN’s NBA Finals
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June 24, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I missed the moving rendition of the National Anthem by Nicole Raviv with an inspirational assist from the crowd before the Islanders’ June 9 Stanley Cup playoff game against the Bruins (video below). If the Minnesota Wild had been able to make it out of the first round, I might have kept up with the playoffs and caught it at the time. The Wild’s elimination in the first round is
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June 21, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Today the U.S. Supreme Court decided an antitrust case, National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston, on a 9-0 vote. In its opinion, the Court rejected the NCAA’s appeal of a 9th Circuit decision that invalidated the NCAA’s restrictions on colleges’ education-related benefits for athletes. Some are interpreting the decision, and especially Justice Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion, as representing a sort of death knell for the NCAA, a view that I think
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June 3, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Naomi Osaka is one the best female tennis players in the world. She’s also a vocal political activist who promotes the BLM movement (including on the tennis court, where she has worn on her shoes the names of people killed by the police). Osaka doesn’t like talking to the press after matches. When she refused to do it at the French Open, in violation of the rules, officials fined her
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May 15, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Our descent into madness, hatred, and thought control continues apace. The Washington Free Beacon’s Alex Nester has the exclusive story “Virginia Little League Coaches Must Attend ‘Antiracist’ Training.” Subhead: “Positive Coaching Alliance charges up to $10,000 for diversity and inclusion training.” Ms. Nester reports: Little League baseball coaches in Alexandria, Virginia, will be required to take a diversity, equity, and inclusion course this month. In an email to coaches on
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April 16, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Earlier this week, two Washington, D.C. high school football powers clashed on the gridiron. But the game between St. John’s and Gonzaga did not take place in D.C. Nor was it played outdoors. Instead, the game was held at an indoor facility across the river in Northern Virginia. Why? Because Muriel Bowser, the mayor of D.C., did not allow the teams to square off in the city. I’ve tried to
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March 20, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The South Dakota legislature passed a bill banning individuals who were male at birth from competing in girls’ and women’s sports, both at the high school and the college levels. However, Governor Kristi Noem has refused to sign the legislation as passed. Noem favors the ban as applied to high school sports, but not as applied to college. Accordingly, invoking her power to make style and form changes to the
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