Some of our All-City Awards required lengthy deliberation, weighing the pros and cons of a number of potential winners. Then there was our Girls’ Multisport Athlete of the Year Award, which took no time at all.

In fact, the award felt inadequate for an athlete who embodied what this honor was all about: relentless determination, competitiveness, and the versatility to represent her school in four different varsity sports. Our community may never see another season quite like the one Aaya McLyn just had for Long Beach Poly, and The562 was compelled to rename our All-City Multisport Athlete of the Year Award in her honor.

Therefore, McLyn has been selected as the inaugural winner of the Aaya McLyn Multisport Athlete of the Year Award, capping off a peerless senior season for the Jackrabbits. On the boys’ side, the honor goes to Wilson senior Nathaniel Parris.

McLyn’s accomplishments earned her Girls’ All-City Athlete of the Year recognition this year, but what made her year so special was the sheer volume of her contributions. In the fall, she was an All-American and the Moore League Player of the Year in flag football, then during winter she split time between the soccer pitch and the basketball court, excelling in both.

She was the Moore League Midfielder of the year in soccer, where she earned a full ride to Washington State, and was a valuable contributor to Poly’s Moore League champion girls’ basketball team, where she earned second team All-League honors.

In the spring, she was part of Poly’s first-ever CIF-SS championship team in softball, batting .375 for the Jackrabbits with a pair of home runs. In an era of specialization, where young athletes are often encouraged to focus on one primary sport, McLyn’s season was unique and exceptional–something we may never see again.

On the boys’ side, Parris was a key contributor in both basketball and baseball, earning All-Moore League honors in both sports. A four-year contributor on the hardwood, Parris was the senior captain for a young Bruins squad and provided valuable leadership to go with his defensive prowess.

On the baseball diamond, Parris emerged as the leadoff hitter for the Bruins as they earned a share of the Moore League title in 2025. The outfielder wasn’t initially an everyday starter for Wilson, but earned his spot in the order by hitting .386 on the year with a .463 on-base percentage. He also stole 10 bases for the Bruins and was only caught once.

DAVIS, Calif. – With first serve less than three weeks away, the hitters on the UC Davis volleyball team are poised for another great season.

With the addition of Graduate student Maike Bertens Deckart along with a number of experienced upperclassmen, the 2025 hitters core looks to be one of the deepest and most experienced in the Big West this season.

Graduate – Maike Bertens Deckart

A 2023 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Second Team nominee in 2023 for Manhattan, Bertens Deckart comes to the Aggies after leading the Jaspers in kills (307) and kills per set (3.27) in 2024. 

Against Morgan State on September 14 last season, she grabbed a career-high 29 kills and 14 digs in a victory over the Bears. Her versatility on the offensive and defensive ends of the court led to nine total double-doubles during her senior season. 

Prior to her collegiate career, Bertens Deckart also starred for her home country of Chile in the volleyball World School Championships twice during her high school career, in Serbia in 2016 and the Czech Republic in 2018.

Senior – Jade Light

A fourth-year senior out of Sloughhouse, Light looks to elevate her game to another level in 2025 after landing on the 2024 All-Big West Second Team as a junior.

During the Aggies 2024 campaign, Light was a star on the offensive side of the court, ranking second on the team with 3.96 points per set and seventh in the Big West with 3.39 kills per set. On the serve, she ranked first on the team with 40 aces, including four in the Big West Quarterfinals against UC Irvine.

Senior – Victoria Vanos

Coming to the Aggies from nearby San Mateo, Vanos enters year four looking to continue to make an impact for her team after appearing in 15 matches a season ago.

On the road against UC Irvine last year, Vanos connected on a season-high six kills in the Ags four-set win over the Anteaters.

Junior – Breeze Czapinski

Bouncing back from an injury in her freshman year, Czapinski spent 2024 in a reserve role, playing in just 49 sets across 24 matches.

In a conference matchup against UC Riverside, she produced her best career game, totaling a career-high 13 kills, 14.5 points and three blocks across four sets in the Ags win over the Highlanders.

Junior – Reese Diersbock

A former All-Big West Freshman nominee, Diersbock appeared in 27 matches for UC Davis in 2024, making 22 starts.

Posting 208 total kills with 1.96 kills per set across her sophomore campaign, Diersbock continued to produce in the biggest moments, collecting a season-high 12 kills and 15 points in the Big West Semifinals against Hawai’i. She also played well on the defensive end, knocking down 32 blocks throughout the season.

Junior – Brooke Hibino

Working her way back from injury, Hibino is back for her junior season and is looking to become a mainstay in the Aggie lineup.

Across three played sets last year, she posted one kill against UC Riverside on Oct. 8 and one dig against Long Beach State on Sept. 26.

Now fully healthy, Hibino is motivated to get back onto the court and continue making an impact in 2025.

 

A lot has changed since Mexico last participated in the World Championship in 2018. From Japan 2018 to Thailand 2025, Mexico have made a handful of coaching changes at the helm of their women’s national team.

Since 2018, Naranjo Ponce Ricardo De Jesus, Torres Garcia Claudio, Gabriela Isela Alarcon Gomez, Rafael Petry and Nicola Negro have all taken charge of Mexico’s women’s team, the latter two courtesy of the FIVB Volleyball Empowerment Programme.

Mexico’s national teams in both volleyball and beach volleyball have been the beneficiaries of a total of $1,466,000 in coach support and equipment support from FIVB Volleyball Empowerment so far. Italian coach Nicola Negro has been at the helm of Mexico’s women’s national volleyball team since 2023 after taking over from Brazilian Petry, who managed the team from 2020 to 2022.

Petry’s era was largely a rebuilding phase for Mexico, who claimed a silver medal at the NORCECA Pan American Cup Final Six in 2021 and a fifth-place finish at the 2021 NORCECA Championship after losing to eventual silver medallists Puerto Rico in the quarterfinals.

Negro added a layer of success to Petry’s work in 2023 when he guided Mexico to a bronze medal at the Pan American Games. He then achieved a fifth-place finish at the 2023 NORCECA Championship after losing to eventual champions Dominican Republic in the quarterfinals. Then came bronze at the 2024 NORCECA Pan American Cup Final Six and back-to-back silver medals at NORCECA Final Four tournaments in 2024 and 2025.

Italian coach Nicola Negro will lead Mexico at the World Championship

It is this inspiring run that Mexico will be riding on as they head to Thailand for their ninth World Championship appearance at this year’s edition set for 22 August to 7 September. The North Americans earned their spot at the 20th edition through World Rankings as the 11th world ranked non-qualified team.

It will be a memorable occasion for five players — Uxue Amaya Guereca Parra, Samantha Bricio, Grecia Esther Castro López, and Joseline Landeros Palacios — who are all in Mexico’s long list and were part of the team that participated in the 2018 edition.

Mexico will begin their campaign in Chiang Mai on 23 August against Pool F top seeds China, before taking on continental rivals Dominican Republic on 25 August. They will complete their pool phase on 27 August with a match against Colombia.

In their last World Championship appearance in 2018, Mexico made it past the first round but were knocked out in the second round to settle for a 16th-place finish. With only two teams per pool set to qualify for the knockout phase, Mexico will need to be at their best to make it out of Pool F.

In captain Jocelyn Urias and Karina Angelica Flores Gamez, Negro has reliable middle blockers who will offer a solid defensive pivot for his team. Setter Gloria Argentina Ung Enriquez and outside hitter Bricio are in excellent form, having made it to the Dream Team of this year’s NORCECA Final Four tournament held last month.

Lethal opposite Sofia Maldonado Diaz will be looking to lead the scoring charge and make her mark on the global stage. Add Guereca and Castro to the mix and Negro has a team that could make heads turn in Thailand.

PGA pro Max Homa sat at the microphone for his media availability ahead of July’s John Deere Classic. It had been one of the least productive seasons of his career, with a T12 at The Masters standing as his only top-20 finish to that point.

But for all those frustrations on the course, that day, the 34-year-old took time to talk about the challenges he had been feeling off the course… specifically, on why he had largely taken a step back on some social media. “It is quite absurd how comfortable people feel writing awful things,” he said, alluding to the anonymity these platforms provide.

“I don’t know if it’s the gambling world or whatnot. I’m happy they can do it because it seems fun as hell in golf, but people say some bad, bad things. You get people telling you you should die on the internet,” Homa said. “It has nothing to do with not connecting. I love connecting with people, but I try to do it in person a bit more because I have yet to meet somebody in person who has said something even remotely mean.”

That Sunday, Homa finished tied for fifth at John Deere, his best finish of the season. But that wasn’t good enough for “zane_layer3” on Instagram (an account that no longer exists or is unsearchable), who direct messaged a vulgar rant to Homa’s account. The golfer eventually posted a screenshot with the caption “I think he lost his parlay” along with a laughing emoji.

Homa’s performance also wasn’t good enough for “Carl-Watkins-5” on Venmo, who requested $1,900 from Homa with the caption “Bc you can’t putt under pressure.” Homa took a screenshot and responded sharply on his Instagram story, “Gamble like a big boy Carl and take ur lumps like the rest of us.”

This wasn’t the first time Homa has had to deal with the public acting in this manner. Around the time of the 2024 U.S. Open, The Washington Post reported Homa received Venmo requests multiple times per week, with the golfer saying, “That gets old.” A year later, ahead of the 2025 U.S. Open, world No. 1-ranked golfer Scottie Scheffler said he deleted Venmo because he was tired of the interactions he would have with fans on the platform.

“I was either getting paid by people or people were requesting me a bunch of money when I didn’t win, it wasn’t a good feeling. But no, I don’t pay attention to the favorite stuff or anything like that,” Scheffler said, referring to betting odds. “The most that somebody would send me was a couple of bucks here or there.

“That didn’t happen nearly as much as the requests did.”

Venmo was designed to be an easy way for people to pay each other, generally for things such as reimbursements on meals and movie tickets.

However, Venmo’s newsfeed — where users can see what their friends are paying and receiving, if they choose to make that public — inherently creates a social media aspect that encourages engagement. In the social media age, where the veil of anonymity grants those spectators the gusto to disrespect athletes with near impunity, adding money to the mix creates a potentially troubling precedent.

It takes effort and luck to find celebrities on Venmo. For example, Homa has never publicly revealed his Venmo account handle, but a search for his name on the platform reveals an account that very well could be his. Venmo does allow users to make themselves private in the sense that they can limit who sees who their friends are and what payments they make, but it does not have a way for users to be “totally unfindable” to the public, as that would conflict with the central use case for the vast majority of its customers.

It creates a scenario where users can find public figures and continually send them Venmo requests, if they so choose, leaving prominent athletes with really only one solution.

“I eventually had to change my name on Venmo,” Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk told ESPN. “I had it since college — there was a selfie of me and my name. People got a hold of that, so I had to change my name on it and take down my profile picture. Now when I Venmo people they’re probably like, ‘Who the hell is Venmoing me?'”

“Ensuring a safe and positive experience on Venmo is a top priority,” a Venmo spokesperson told ESPN. “Venmo users are prohibited from acting in a manner that could be considered harassment. When we become aware of this taking place on the platform we take immediate action, including potentially banning users from the platform.” While the spokesperson said the company tracks these cases and bans users as necessary, they would not elaborate on how often it occurs.

Venmo requests are just one avenue for people to harass athletes online and can actually be among the more innocuous forms of heckling. Retired professional tennis player Mardy Fish said he heard and saw almost every form of razzing when he was playing tournaments all over the world, but the internet can add a whole new layer to the cruelty.

“The Venmo request seems pretty funny and easy in a ‘haha’ funny way of like, ‘Hey dude, I bet 20 bucks on you, you owe me 20 bucks. Can’t believe you didn’t win.’ ‘Yeah, screw off, whatever,'” he told ESPN. “It’s when they get personal and they start really attacking. Max is a buddy of mine, so I saw what he posted after his final round in John Deere and it’s gross. These people would never say it to your face and they just feel so comfortable with this social media stuff that there’s no accountability. There’s zero accountability.”

From the time Fish began his career in the early 2000s until now, he said there has been a marked difference in the way spectators treat players because of betting being so prevalent, and he’s not the only athlete who shares that sentiment. In an anonymous poll of 133 respondents, The Athletic found that 78.2% of MLB players feel that “legalized sports betting has changed how fans treat you or your teammates.”

“Oh, I’m No. 1 on that list right now. I had so many [fans] at one point that were requesting money. It wasn’t even for winning or scoring — it was for my shots or my hits,” Tkachuk said. “Honestly, I think it’s funny. Like, people really think I’m going to send them money for not making the shots? I’m more pissed that I didn’t win the game or score or whatever it may be. I could care less about not hitting the four and a half or whatever the cover is for the [prop] bet.”

“It’s pretty funny that people get so emotional and mad,” Tkachuk adds. “That’s not even our thought process.”

Fish was at the center of an in-person incident at the American Century Championship, a celebrity golf tournament that he won in 2020 and 2024. In 2023, he held a slim lead over Stephen Curry headed to the final hole and, as he was teeing off on 18, a spectator yelled during his backswing causing him to shank the shot.

Curry would ultimately sink an eagle putt to win the tournament, but Fish claims that he found out later the heckler had placed money on Curry to win. It tarnished what had otherwise been a great event.

“It was more surprising that it happened here because American Century puts on such an awesome tournament and a friendly event, and everybody’s so happy and having a great time. So that’s why it was jarring for us,” Fish said.

The practice of bettors doing anything to get inside athletes’ heads is spreading, and the perpetrators are becoming more brazen. In June, a bettor relentlessly heckled Olympic gold medalist Gabby Thomas during a Grand Slam Track event in Philadelphia, later bragging that his actions caused Thomas to lose her race and allowed him to win his parlay. FanDuel has since banned the bettor from its platform.

In May, an intoxicated bettor overseas sent messages on social media threatening to murder the family of Houston Astros pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. after a bad start. The bettor eventually apologized to McCullers after the Houston Police Department got involved, a byproduct of efforts from the Major League Baseball Players Association to step in to protect its players in serious cases like this one.

“The Players Association takes player safety very seriously and because of that we employ a director of security who is a former FBI agent with law enforcement contacts across the U.S. and internationally,” an MLBPA spokesperson told ESPN. “He regularly fields safety questions and concerns from players and their families on a variety of issues and corresponds with MLB security and individual team security personnel across MLB and MiLB.”

Even college athletes, not at the age nor pay grade to necessarily be dealing with these issues, haven’t been spared from the ire of spurned bettors. In September, then-Auburn quarterback Payton Thorne tried to make light of bettors sending him Venmo requests. “It’s funny. When they lose money, they want their money back. But when they win money on a parlay, no one’s ever sent me any of the money,” he said on “The Next Round” podcast.

In October, the NCAA published a study outlining that at least 12% of publicly posted social media abuse was perpetrated by “angry sports bettors,” with some posts being explicitly linked to betting and others implicitly. The NCAA has made strides to stymie the issue and reported abuse related to sports betting was down by 23%, according to its studies in partnership with the Signify Group.

The sports world changed significantly when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in 2018. The decision opened the floodgates for legal sports betting and instantly turned a recreation, played in the shadows by the few who sought it out, into the mainstream behemoth it is today.

While there are certainly benefits to be had through tax revenue and the elimination of the black market, there are, of course, unintended consequences — and the increased harassment of athletes is a prevalent one. One pro sports official told ESPN that they don’t recall these specific issues being present before the striking down of PASPA.

Sports betting drives engagement and gives fans a way to feel like they’re part of the game, but their use of social media and financial applications presents a troubling mental and emotional dimension that wasn’t present to athletes before this era. By having a literal investment in the action on the field, is it any wonder that some bettors might believe that they are now playing the game themselves?

Because they have paid the price of admission and, maybe, because they believe the customer is always right, the modern heckler seems to feel entitled to the money owed them by the player. Or, maybe they believe they need to play the mental game. Either way, this is not what the players signed up for.

ESPN senior NHL writer Greg Wyshynski contributed reporting for this piece.

Oregon linebacker Bryce Boettcher joined the University of Oregon as a baseball player. Liz Brenner, a multi-sport athlete, excelled at volleyball, track and field, basketball and softball at UO. And Kendre Harrison recently played at Peach Jam, a prestigious high school basketball tournament. He plans to play both basketball and football at UO. We learn more about elite athletes and the power they hold at the college level from Lindsay Schnell, a senior writer covering college sports for The Athletic.

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Chris Miller can be contacted via email at cmiller@jdnews.com. Follow him on X @jdnsports.