Jay Maxson
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College wrestling season is only weeks away, and on Friday ESPN intentionally withheld key information in its celebration of the sport's first transgender wrestler. Non-binary ESPN W writer Katie Barnes featured Mackenzie "Mack" Beggs, the girl who wanted to compete in boys' wrestling, but was forced against her will to win her last 92 matches and two state high school girls' championships in Texas. Beggs is now a member of the Life University men's wrestling team that will start its season in a few weeks, and Barnes is riding this story for all it's worth, skipping over some crucial facts.
In a New York Magazine story claiming the age of athlete-politicians is coming soon, Will Leitch not only endorses the idea, but says a presidential ticket of LeBron James and Megan Rapinoe is already underway. Leitch is jazzed about the idea of athletes seeking public office — particularly those who are aligned with Democrat positions.
With the NFL's quarterback injury toll mounting, the volume on media calls for Colin Kaepernick's return to the NFL has risen to a deafening roar this week. His apologists always call for NFL teams to sign him when a quarterback goes down with an injury, but they've really ratcheted up the anger and intensity in the past couple days. USA Today's Nancy Armour and ESPN First Take's Max Kellerman top the list of shrill media bludgeoning the NFL for declining to restore the anti-American Kaepernick's pro football career.
While beefing about Major League Soccer (MLS) banning the anti-fascist Iron Front banner at its games, retired NBA star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar writes in a UK Guardian rant that curtailing the free speech of athletes or fans is not consistent with our vision of democracy. His is a slanted view of democracy, though, because he also says that if sports leagues allow fans to wear MAGA hats or play the National Anthem, then they must also allow all political activities.
Media disdain for model citizen Tim Tebow is so ridiculous that on Monday Carron J. Phillips, of The Shadow League blog, compares him to law-breaking actress Felicity Huffman. She got 14 days in jail, a $30,000 fine and community service for conspiracy to fix her daughter's SAT scores. Tebow, who angered the Left by going on ESPN Friday to say he opposes pay for college athletes, is "convicted" with Huffman, by Phillips, for the high crime of "white privilege."
Sports writers and sports casters are lining up to take a whack at Tim Tebow for his opposition to payola for college athletes. Several from ESPN alone took shots at him Friday. The topic flared up this week after California lawmakers unanimously passed the so-called Fair Pay to Play Act, which if signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom, will enable athletes to make money off their own name, image and likeness, beginning Jan. 1, 2023.
Another test of ESPN's shaky "no-politics" rule is underway, as First Take's Stephen A. Smith today announced he's invited Colin Kaepernick to come onto the show as a guest. ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro is trying to force the network to stick to sports, but was directly challenged by Dan Le Batard earlier this year and now by Smith trying to lure Kaepernick onto the First Take set. Smith said he has approval from his "bosses," but it wasn't stated if Pitaro is on board with this.
The Deadspin blog has been hating on President Donald Trump throughout his presidency, and today writer David Roth gave him a fresh, sarcastic blistering. In writing about Trump's brain and his sports-related remarks at a Monday campaign rally in North Carolina, Roth said the president has a sulky childishness and elevates landing the 2026 World Cup for America and his friendships with members of the New England Patriots above finding cures for cancer and AIDS.
The Boston Globe, Yahoo! Sports and Deadspin may have established new lows Tuesday for sports media distortion. All three reported that, on Monday night's The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham's interview with guest Benjamin Watson, tight end with the New England Patriots, didn't go the way she wanted it to and she angrily cut off the conversation. That's far from the truth.
The good news is that some in the sports media may be giving up on the idea of Colin Kaepernick ever disgracing an NFL field again. The disgusting news is that one sports writer is suggesting an NFL pregame show hire him as an analyst. It's Bob Raissman of The New York Daily News who says give Kaepernick a microphone and inject some life into pregame shows.
This summer, President Donald Trump has awarded two former NBA greats — Bob Cousy of Celtics' fame and Jerry West of Lakers' fame — the Medal of Freedom. Cousy received his award a couple months back, and West was honored Thursday. Trump did not make the awards without reaping derision from the New York Times, which notes that both men are white and President Trump seems to have issues with current African American NBA players. The Times' writers Michael Crowley and Kevin Draper caught heat from Powerline blogger Paul Mirengoff for their inconsistencies, too.
New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees appeared in a Focus on the Family video last week to promote "Bring Your Bible To School Day," and that was waaaaay too controversial for anti-Christian media. They swarmed over Brees like angry bees for his association with Focus, stinging both with the "anti-LGBT bigot" label. The Washington Post, Deadspin blog, Big Easy Magazine and The Young Turks internet program led the smear against Brees and Focus.
In 1963, racist Democrat governor George Wallace stood in the doorway of a building at the University of Alabama trying to prevent African Americans from integrating the school. In 2019, race-baiting Atlantic magazine writer Jemele Hill is encouraging black athletes to leave "white universities" and segregate themselves at historically black colleges and universities (HBCU's). Hill's story is titled, "It's Time for Black Athletes to Leave White Colleges."
Thursday night marks the opening of the 2019 NFL season in Chicago, and with it, the "swindling" of Colin Kaepernick’s protest movement is all but complete. That's the real story, says Jamil Smith in a Rolling Stone story charging the NFL and its new social justice partner, rapper Jay-Z, with watering down and profiting off Kaepernick's cause to protest police brutality and racial inequality.
Frequent race-baiter William C. Rhoden saw the retirement of the Indianapolis Colts white quarterback Andrew Luck as part of the decline of white privilege. In the opinion of The Undefeated's writer-at-large and author of Forty Million Dollar Slaves, Luck was a "hedge" against the rising wave of black passers. Luck played in a mere 86 games in a six-year pro career, but he's emblematic of an endless battle that has defined black life in America for 400 years, Rhoden alleges.
So we went to a political demonstration and a soccer game broke out. Or, as The Washington Post's Eli Rosenberg puts it, "There is an anti-fascist rebellion brewing in the Pacific Northwest. And soccer is at the center of it." Portland is the epicenter of the politicization of Major League Soccer (MLS), but it's spreading across the country, too. Anti-fascist groups are transforming American pro soccer into political events that are common in European and South American soccer ― with full U.S. media support.
Ready for a really bad joke? Read Sports Illustrated's "100 Figures Who Shaped the NFL's First Century." It's an exercise in political correctness, if not downright zaniness. Malcontent Colin Kaepernick not only made the list, but is the cover photo as well. Several people on the list never set foot on an NFL playing field, and it's apparent the SI staff had ulterior motives behind their bizarre, PC selection process.
Media attempts at gender blurring are big items in sports coverage again this week. Transgenders (see photo of trans athletes who appeared in documentary "Changing the Game") in high school sports in North Carolina and Connecticut are in the news, and a Montana man's presence in a women's cross-country meet Saturday is fanning the debate as well. Sports media are clearly assisting LGBT advocacy groups in the cause of blurring the genders.
As a professional protest profiteer, The Nation's sports editor Dave Zirin has made a living off the stories some of America's most notorious, if not most despised dissident athletes. Most recently, he's written a book on racism with pro football radical Mike Bennett, and now his Edge of Sports podcast glorifies Race Imboden, a U.S. fencer and past Olympian who took a knee on the victory podium at the recent Pan American Games in Peru.
Kaepernick mania is beginning again. It's that time of year when NFL quarterbacks get injured, or retire as the Indianapolis Colts' quarterback Andrew Luck did last night, and sports media are convinced that the notorious Colin Kaepernick is the ticket to the Super Bowl for the team that signs him. Or, as NBC Sports' Mike Florio implied, Kaepernick could potentially save the job of Carolina Panthers' head coach Ron Rivera.