NCAA

Sports media can’t stop complaining about Louisiana State University’s new head football coach, Lane Kiffin. A cliché tells us what’s really going on here: they hate him cause they ain’t him.   Kiffin spent the last five years resurrecting Ole Miss’s once-mediocre football program. The Rebels are currently 11-1, ranked sixth in the AP poll and have almost certainly secured a playoff spot. But that didn’t stop Kiffin this morning from getting on a plane bound for the swampy fields of Baton Rouge, home of the most attractive coaching vacancy in a year filled with big openings.“After a lot of prayer and time spent with family, I made the difficult decision to accept the head coaching position at LSU,” Kiffin said in a statement.

March Madness markets itself on the chaos, the unpredictability, and the Cinderella stories that make the NCAA basketball tournament one of the most beloved sporting events in America. Most years, the really shocking upsets are usually out of the way by the end of the first weekend. By the time the tournament reaches its most critical rounds, fans are fortunate if there is a single Cinderella still dancing. Over the last thirty tournaments — I would say years but the 2020 tourney was canceled due to Covid — only two national champions have started the tournament as lower than a three seed. In that same span, only two Final Fours did not feature a one seed, while thirteen Final Fours over the past three decades have contained multiple one seeded teams.

Reka Gyorgy showed commendable courage this weekend for finally speaking out against the National College Athletic Association's rules regarding trans competitors. The Virginia Tech swimmer and Olympian was bumped out of a finals spot in the 500 free due to transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas's participation. In a letter posted to her Instagram account, Gyorgy wrote, "It feels like that final spot was taken away from me because of the NCAA's decision to let someone who is not a biological female compete... [Thursday] is the result of the NCAA and their lack of interest in protecting their athletes." Gyorgy is one of the first NCAA female swimmers to speak publicly about the negative impact Thomas's participation in the sport has on women.