Sports
November 18, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell explains the struggles of alleged franchise-quarterback-to-be J.J. McCarthy as a matter of mechanics. O’Connell says he reminds McCarthy during the game, “Feet and eyes.” It sounds like a basic problem, even for an NFL rookie. From my own youth I recalled the successful debut of rookie Fran Tarkenton versus the Bears in September 1961. Sixteen years later, Vikings coach Bud Grant pulled the quarterback in
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November 17, 2025 — Scott Johnson
The Minnesota Vikings are headed south in the standings as quarterback J.J. McCarthy plays at a sub-NFL level. The Vikings coach, the local sportswriters, and the local sports broadcasters seem to attribute McCarthy’s poor performance to his youth and inexperience. They may be right. I don’t know. However, I think back to Fran Tarkenton’s debut with the Vikings in September 1961. It was the Vikings’ first game, period. They were
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November 10, 2025 — John Hinderaker
The Democrats’ signature issue is their demand that men be allowed to participate in women’s sports. But around the world, opinion is moving in the opposite direction, on this and other “trans” issues. Thus, it was reported today that the International Olympic Committee will ban men from women’s competitions: The International Olympic Committee is set to announce a ban on transgender women in female competition early next year after a
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October 27, 2025 — Scott Johnson
I’m not a gambling man, but I bet the indictments handed up last week against Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, and others will be hard to beat for human drama. It may be time for The Godfather Part IV and Godfather Part V. Either one might rival Part II as a sequel. I want to focus on Chauncey Billups in these comments as a
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August 19, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Twelve National Football League teams announced, more or less simultaneously, that they are adding male cheerleaders to their rosters for the coming season. One of those teams is the Minnesota Vikings. It is fair to say that these announcements have gotten a mostly negative reaction. Rightly or wrongly, the Vikings have taken the most heat: The controversy has even made international news. This is from the Telegraph: Some have tried
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August 16, 2025 — John Hinderaker
No, he didn’t die. But the era in which Colin Kaepernick, who had two or at most three good years in the NFL and hasn’t played a down in nearly a decade, and who had a losing record as a starter, could be regarded as some kind of cultural icon, has officially come to an end: Director Spike Lee’s multi-part documentary series for ESPN Films about former NFL quarterback Colin
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July 22, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Is that a news flash, or what? What’s funny about this story is that it involves The New York Times. And someone who is a lot smarter than the folks at the Times, Olivia Dunne. Livvy Dunne, if you have recently emerged from a cave, is a gymnast who competed at LSU and pioneered the “name, image and likeness” revolution that has remade college sports, for better or worse. Dunne,
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June 12, 2025 — John Hinderaker
I was at a business dinner in Texas last night, in a restaurant that had multiple screens displaying various sports events. One of them was tuned to the annual Republican-Democrat baseball game. Our group of conservatives cheered the GOP team as they annihilated the Democrats 13-2, winning for the fifth straight year. The game raised a record amount for charity, as 30,000 tickets were sold. The Democrat team was shockingly
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June 7, 2025 — John Hinderaker
We have followed (here and here) the story of the Champlin Park, Minnesota girls’ softball team, which was powering its way to the state title game behind the heroics of a six-foot tall pitcher who, until age nine, was named Charles. Charles became a girl, Marissa, and Champlin Park became state champion last night, behind yet another shutout performance by its star fastballer, Marissa Rothenberger. The linked Star Tribune story
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June 7, 2025 — Bill Glahn
How can this end well? USA Today reports, Unless altered on appeal, the arrangement will allow — though not require — schools to directly pay their athletes for the use of their name, image and likeness [NIL] (don’t call it pay for play), subject to an annual cap based on a percentage of a defined set of Power Five athletics department revenues. These payments could begin July 1. Amateurism has
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June 6, 2025 — Scott Johnson
I commented yesterday on the Minnesota state girls’ softball tournament with reference to Bill Shipley’s column “How One Young Man Altered The Landscape of Girls’ High School Softball In Minnesota.” John added: “It has been reported that when Charles Rothenberger was nine years old, his mother had his birth certificate altered to change his name to Marissa and his sex from male to female. As far as I have seen,
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June 5, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Over the weekend our friend Bill Shipley wrote about the “trans woman” pitcher who is powering the Champlin Park high school girls’ softball team to the state championship game tomorrow — Bloomington Jefferson versus Champlin Park. Marissa Rothenberger is the pitcher’s legal name. Bill anticipated Rothenberger’s impact on the tournament in the essay “How One Young Man Altered The Landscape of Girls’ High School Softball In Minnesota.” As I observed
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February 22, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Minnesota, like California and Maine, has announced that it will not follow President’s Trump’s executive order which takes various measures to prevent men from competing in women’s sports. The Minnesota State High School League asked Attorney General Keith Ellison for guidance, given its view that Minnesota’s civil rights act requires schools to permit men to compete in women’s sports. Attorney General Ellison has now responded with a letter opinion telling
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February 16, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Currently the Four Nations round-robin hockey tournament is in progress. The U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland are participating. It started with two games in Montreal, and will continue with two games in Boston. Last night, a fired-up Team USA beat Canada 3-1 to take a commanding lead in the tournament going into the final two games. The evening began with a hostile Canadian crowd, that included Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,
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February 10, 2025 — John Hinderaker
President Trump has issued an executive order that, in various ways, seeks to prevent men from competing on women’s sports teams. The state of California has announced that it will not abide by Trump’s executive order, and will continue to allow men in women’s sports. That has gotten quite a bit of publicity; what is less well known is that the Minnesota State High School League has said the same
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February 6, 2025 — Scott Johnson
On the first day President Trump recognized that God created man and woman. He — i.e., Trump — followed up with the February 4 “Dear Colleague” letter issued by the Acting Director of the Department of Education and with the February 5 executive order Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports. This is a triumph to be savored — by the brave girls and women who struggled for the day, by
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December 26, 2024 — John Hinderaker
The Associated Press announced its awards for the top women athletes of 2024. Caitlin Clark won the title, as you would expect. But then you have this: Olympic gymnast Simone Biles was second with 25 and boxer Imane Khelif was third, getting four votes. What is odd about this is that Imane Khelif isn’t a woman. He is a man who boxed in the women’s division in the Paris Olympics.
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