The Stream

The Brew: Scripture-Quoting Coaches, Women’s Sports Dominating Dudes, and Bad News for Woke Sports Illustrated

By Al Perrotta Published on January 22, 2024 •

Al Perrotta

Happy Monday to you!

We’re getting sporting on this Monday. But first, big news from the campaign trail.

Gov. Ron DeSantis Drops Out of 2024 Race, Throws Support to Trump

He needs a new nickname. Perhaps “Relaxed Ron.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended his 2024 campaign Sunday and endorsed former President Trump.

“Now, it’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance. I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee and I will honor that pledge. He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repacked form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.” 

If you missed it, here’s his statement. He couldn’t look more at ease and happy if he were poolside in Miami with a fruity drink.

Trump said he was “very honored” to have the governor’s endorsement. Nikki Haley celebrated that the race was now down to “one man and one woman.” And “may the best woman win.”

We talked all about the DeSantis news in an updated edition of Resolute along with some of the weekend’s other campaign-related news.

Coaching Brothers Jim and John Harbaugh Share Their Faith

Quite a busy weekend for brothers Jim and John Harbaugh. Jim is football coach of the National Champion Michigan Wolverines while John coaches the AFC Championship-bound Baltimore Ravens.

On Friday, Jim made an unexpected appearance at the March for Life introducing former NFL player and featured speaker Benjamin Watson.

Coach Harbaugh then took part in the March and discussed with Christian sports journalist Jon Root his ardent support for the unborn.

As Not the News shares, Harbaugh also relayed how a full 70 players on the Michigan team were baptized this season. Michigan. A secular school steeped in the usual leftist campus indoctrinations.

Amen.

Then Saturday, fresh off of the Ravens’ convincing victory over the Houston Texans Coach John Harbaugh brought out, not a playbook, but the Good Book. Mama would be proud of his boys.

“Greatness, power, glory, victory and honor belong to you,” he quoted, and he wasn’t talking about star quarterback Lamar Jackson. “Because everything in heaven and earth belongs to you. The Kingdom belongs to you, Lord. You are the head and the ruler over everything.”  (1 Chronicles 29:11)

But in some area of sports, God’s order is openly mocked.

Dude Wins Ladies Golf Tournament … Closes in On Qualifying for the LPGA

Hailey Davidson won last week’s NXXT Women’s Classic near Orlando. Davison has also finished 7th and 9th in previous NXXT tournaments this season, putting the golfer at the top of the NXXT rankings, far ahead of the #2.

Hailey Davison is a biological male.

The sick irony, NY Post reports? NXXT Golf describes itself as a professional women’s golf tour designed to “elevate women’s golf.”

Now thanks to his victory and ranking, Davidson is one step closer to qualifying for the LPGA.

Unlike swimmer Lia Thomas, Davidson had undergone over five years of hormone treatments and full surgery before being allowed to compete against women. But still. You’re playing with a corked club and built like a linebacker.

The NY Post story also uses the female person pronoun for Davidson. Megyn Kelly says “PRONOUNS ARE A GATEWAY DRUG to a very sick ideology.

Sadly, that ideology permeates schools.

Biological Male Dominates Girl’s High School Basketball

Title IX might as well be toilet paper. Out in California, a male named Henry Hanlon has been chewing up the league. Scored 26 points in a game last week in San Francisco, athlete-turned-activist Riley Gaines reported.

She says this is the third consecutive game Hanlon has scored over a third of the team’s points.

Make that four straight games. The San Francisco Waldorf high player dropped a game-high 24, leading Waldorf to victory over Jewish Community.

Outkick reports that Averroes, a college prep school for Muslim students, refused to play Waldorf because it “did not want its female athletes to play a contact sport against males and be forced to share locker room facilities with him.”

It’s not just basketball. Hanlon is letters in three sports, leading Waldorf to the CIF North Coast Championship in volleyball. But it’s not as if towering over the other players gives someone an advantage in basketball or volleyball. Who’d give you that idea?

But the California Interscholastic Federation could care less about demoralizing, traumatizing girls, denying them opportunities and putting them at risk. 

“All of our athletes, all the eligible athletes, are afforded the opportunity to compete with the gender they feel most comfortable with,” scoffed CIF Associate Executive Director Brad Seymour.

Sports Illustrated Lays Off a Majority of Its Staff … Could Wokeness Have Played a Part?

Here’s an idea. Let’s say you have a famous sports magazine. A magazine heavily dominated with male readership. Your best-selling issue each year, thanks to a bit of marketing genius, is a “Swimsuit Edition” that fills that natural sports lull between the Super Bowl and the start of baseball season.

How many of you would go, “You know what would be a good idea? Toss transgenders into our swimsuit edition amid the most beautiful women in the world!” Well, that’s precisely what the once great Sports Illustrated did.

And now it’s the latest example of “Go Woke Go Broke.” Sports Illustrated’s parent company has been forced to lay off a large number of SI’s employees.

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Yes, the magazine business is crumbling overall. You get real time stories and amazing sports photography online. And yes, in this case you are also dealing with a licensing arrangement being terminated that is forcing the move, and someone may come along to rescue the Sports Illustrated brand. Indeed, current owner Authentic Brands Group says the Sports Illustrated brand will continue. But SI is on the ropes. And they have themselves, in part, to blame.

Can anyone put it better than actor James Woods?

UPDATE: Royal Curse? Now Fergie, Duchess of York, is Battling Cancer

What a rough stretch for the England’s royal family. Last week, we learned Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, had major abdominal surgery. Then news came that King Charles III is having prostate surgery. Now we learn that fresh off fighting breast cancer, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, has been diagnosed with an aggressive skin cancer. Fergie is said to be in “high spirits” despite the diagnosis.

For all the palaces and prestige, they are a family … and families sometimes just have those kind of years.  We pray for them and all families that find themselves right now getting hit right and left.

Along The Stream

Jason Jones and John Zmirak teamed up for “We Shall Go on to the End of the Long March for Life. We Shall Never Surrender.”

And Mark Judge is back with the insightful, if sobering, “We Gave Away Our Freedom.”

 

Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream, co-author, with John Zmirak, of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and co-author of the counter-terrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.

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