The Next Big Youth/High School Sport - Flag Football

 

Bloomberg - "Flag Football’s Boom Is Shaking Up Youth Sports"

"According to data from the National Federation of State High School Associations, more than 100,000 American high school girls played flag football at school during the 2025-26 academic year, which constitutes a 48% jump from the previous year and an increase of more than 550% from just five years ago. By the NFL’s numbers, approximately 800,000 girls from age 6 to 17 now compete in some capacity. In a 2025 report, Project Play, the Aspen Institute’s youth sports initiative, found that flag football was the only team sport that grew its overall participation among American kids from 2014 to 2024. The report’s authors put it bluntly: “In the decades to come, we may view youth sports as two eras — before flag football exploded and after.”"

Training Where the World's Best Marathoners Train

 

New York Times - "Aiming for My Fastest Marathon, I Turned to Distance Running’s Mecca"

Jalen Brunson - Hero

NY Mag - "Jalen Brunson’s Victory Lap"

60 Minutes with Lamine Yamal

Previously,

Soccer's Next Chosen One - Lamine Yamal (Jul. 2024)

Erling Haaland - the Viking

 

New Yorker - "Erling Haaland Plays Like a Viking"
By Zach Helfand

"Haaland’s style of play elicits not wonder but terror. He is enormous: six feet five, two hundred pounds, about the size and speed of the N.F.L. wide receiver Randy Moss. Watching him, I sometimes find myself giggling as I might over a big, obscene crash at a demolition derby. The play that did this to me most recently came in Norway’s first World Cup game, against Iraq. Haaland had already scored twice; Iraq’s Marko Farji was moving the ball across his box, with Haaland twenty yards away, until he suddenly broke into a sprint of bizarre ferocity—he has a quirk in his running form that causes his arms to thrash from side to side—heading straight at Farji, who, though still far from Haaland, seemed to abandon all soccer instinct and took off with the ball in the opposite direction, toward the sideline, while Haaland, for some reason, just kept chasing, and caught up to Farji right before they both went out of bounds, but in his overexuberance, before he could dislodge the ball, he knocked Farji to the ground and earned a foul, which caused him to let out a long scream, whether in frustration or as some battle-cry catharsis, I’m not sure. I’d never seen anything like it. I wanted to see more."

2026 World Cup Preview

 

FT - "Simon Kuper’s World Cup: Who will win?"

WSJ - "Can America’s Golden Generation Avoid the World Cup Curse?"
The Athletic - "A near-perfect World Cup opener takes the USMNT into uncharted territory"

WSJ - "The ‘Colosseum’ of Ear-Splitting Noise and Flying Trash That Will Open the World Cup"

BBC - "When will an African side win the World Cup?"

New Yorker - "How the Moroccan World Cup Team Became a Symbol of the Global South"

The Athletic - "Inside the making of Norway’s ‘Viking’ photo for World Cup"

The Capital Clubs

 

FT - "Arsenal, PSG and ther rise of the capital club"
By Simon Kuper

2030 World Cup and the World's Largest Football Stadium in Casablanca Morocco

 

Wikipedia - "Hassan II Stadium"
Populous - "Stade Hassan II — Casablanca Stadium"
Dezeen - "Official images of world's largest football stadium in Morocco revealed"
Reuters - "Morocco aims to complete stadium for World Cup final bid by end of 2027, official says"

Wikipedia - "2030 World Cup"
Reddit - "Host cities for the 2030 FIFA world cup"

Arsenal's Path and Tactics to the EPL Title

 

The Athletic - "‘Toxic’ to title: Inside Arsenal’s first Premier League for 22 years and how they nailed their ‘win window’"
By James McNicholas

The Athletic - "Mikel Arteta’s title-winning tactics: Embracing transitions and riding the set-piece wave"
By Ahmed Walid

New Wolves Look

 

Timberwolves Press Release

Timberwolves Unveil Site

The Magic City Night That Never Happened

 

The Ringer - "A Magic City Night to Remember"
New York Times - "It Was Going to Be Magic City Night at the Atlanta Hawks. Then the Outrage Poured In."

Atlanta Hawks - "Hawks to Celebrate Atlanta's Iconic Cultural Institution ‘Magic City’ During the Team's “Magic City Monday” Game Against the Orlando Magic on Monday, March 16"

I better get that ring. This year.

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Why did a 1983 Bob Grich just sell for $8,885 on eBay?

 

Reddit investigates.

(Wikipedia, Baseball Reference)

Ellen Hughes - Mom of Quinn, Jack, and Luke

 

The Athletic - "She raised 3 NHL stars. Now Ellen Hughes hopes to help the U.S. women’s hockey team win gold"

Nike Reintroduces ACG (All Conditions Gear)

 

NIKE.com - "Nike Reintroduces ACG: An Outdoor-Performance Brand for Athletes Who Thrive in the Wild"

NIKE.com - "The Birth of ACG: The Summit that Launched a Legacy"

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The Kwakwaka'wakw Nation Roots Behind the Seahawks Logo

 

BBC - "NFL team's logo links Super Bowl fans to indigenous roots"

Related,

Scientific American - "Seattle heads back to the Super Bowl. What even is a seahawk anyway?"

Nike's 2026 World Cup Kits

 

Footy Headlines - "Nike 2026 World Cup/National Team Kits Leaked - 30 Kits"

Previously, 

The 2026 USMNT World Cup Jersey Leaks (Jan. 26)
2026 World Cup Kits (Nov. 25)

The 2026 USMNT World Cup Jersey Leaks

 

Sports Illustrated - "USMNT’s 2026 World Cup Home and Away Jerseys Leak"

Footy Headlines - "USA 2026 World Cup Home Kit Leaked - Full Look"

Previously,

2026 World Cup Kits

The Return of Kevin Garnett to the Timberwolves

 

The Athletic - "Kevin Garnett’s Timberwolves return was a move years in the making"

"This reunion between the alpha wolf and his pack has been years in the making, which only means the party that comes with his return will be that much louder.

“I’ll be there,” Towns said. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

“It’s going to be electric, man,” Gray said. “Minneapolis is his home. He hasn’t changed the area code on his phone. It’s still 612. That connection is still there. It’s going to be him coming back to a fan base that essentially helped raise him and grew him into the man that he is now. I feel like it’s going to be really emotional, but it’s a lot of excitement.”"

Related,

Popularity of Running

 

Field Notes Mag - "Running is More Popular Than Ever. But Why Now? And Can It Stay Cool?"