Sports

Boys Will Bully Boys in a Stylish if Schematic Summer-Camp Psychodrama

Published

1 month ago

May 19, 2025

The idea of adolescence as a horror story is not new, but it’s given a splashy workout in Charlie Polinger’s queasily stylish debut feature, in which the swimming pools, lockers rooms and bunk-bed dormitories of a boys’ water polo camp are a puberty petrie dish livid with sinister bacteria. Drawn from experience and benefiting from some standout performances among its well-selected young cast, “The Plague” has a familiar coming-of-age narrative, but stranger, subtler undercurrents of creeping dismay at the men these boys will become when, at this formative age, cruelty chlorinates the water they swim in.

Sensitive, 12-year-old Ben (Everett Blunck) comes to the Tom Lerner Water Polo Camp in the summer of 2003 as an outsider twice over. He’s not only joining after the second session has started, he’s also a new arrival to the area. And, as we understand from an early conversation with his affable but ineffectual coach (Joel Edgerton, who also produces) a reluctant one: there’s hurt in the studied neutrality of his tone when he describes how his mother uprooted their lives to be with her new lover. Perhaps the wrenching change-up of father figure fuels Ben’s anxiety to fit in, but also maybe that’s just the way he is. When one of the kids’ endless games of would-you-rather makes him choose between “not fucking a dog but having everyone think you did, or fucking a dog and no one knows,” Ben opts for, well, screwing the pooch.

More from Variety

In any wolf pack, the Alpha is obvious and even among these cubs, Jake (a superb Kayo Martin) is easily identifiable as the ringleader. Deceptively cherubic beneath a shock of tousled strawberry blonde hair, and wearing a surprisingly adult expression of skeptical watchfulness, Jake is initially friendly enough to the newcomer — at least once Ben begins answering to the nickname “Soppy,” devised after Jake picks up on his very minor speech impediment.

There’s an easier target for Jake’s lazy but keen-eyed ridicule. Eli (Kenny Rasmussen) was presumably already an oddball — into magic tricks and solo flailing dance moves and lurching non-sequitur conversation — even before he developed a disfiguring skin complaint. The angry-looking rash that covers his arms and torso is probably some sort of eczema or contact dermatitis, but the boys are still of an age to be fascinated by lepers and curses and so Jake declares it “the plague.” Eli is ostracized, to the point that all the kids dive for another cafeteria table if he so much as pulls up a chair.

Good-natured Ben, in the throes of a panicky uncertainty that from the outside is sweetly poignant, if only because it will be gone in a year or a month or a minute, feels for Eli’s predicament— possibly more than the quite contentedly peculiar Eli does for himself. But as he barely has enough social capital to guarantee his own acceptance into Jake’s circle, Ben befriends the outcast cautiously, away from prying eyes. It’s fine to make taboo transgressions if nobody knows about it.

DP Steven Breckon punctuates “The Plague” with interludes of woozy underwater photography, in which the boys’ bodies dagger into the pool and then tread water, resembling so many headless sea horses. Sometimes, while Johan Lenox’s excellent, ’70s horror-inflected, nightmare-choir score reaches a bombastic crescendo, the girls of the synchronized swimming class who share the pool and fire the boys’ crude erotic imaginings, are shown inverted, so they appear to be dancing floatily across the water’s underside surface. These subaquatic symphonies give a touch of the phantasmagoric to a milieu that’s otherwise cleverly recreated from the banal remembered details of an early noughties childhood: the Capri-Suns, the pop tunes, that brief phase where kids believe that smoking kitchen-cupboard nutmeg will get them high.

Perhaps too the subjective nature of Polinger’s memory of a time when the peer-group dynamic was so much more influential than any peripheral authority figure, accounts for why these kids are so often unconstrained by adult supervision. Jake naturally takes advantage of that freedom to continue his offhand reign of terror, one he can maintain without ever really lifting a finger. Almost all of the violence in “The Plague” is self-inflicted and therefore easily disavowed by this tweenaged tyrant – a character so vivid that it’s tempting to imagine a more provocative movie told from the bully’s perspective. But as “The Plague” ramps up to an impressively eerie, body-horror-styled finale, it takes a rather more expected turn toward a significant, if hardly triumphal moment of personal growth for unhappy camper Ben. Teetering on the brink of adult society with its own bewilderingly insidious notions about masculinity and conformity, you can dive in or you can be pushed, and it’s only then you can know if you’ll sink or swim.

Best of Variety

Link

Sports

Simpson Track and Field Program Announces Coach Promotions | KNIA KRLS Radio

Simpson College director of track and field Heath Moenck announced on Wednesday that James Hoffman and Ashlan Burton will be promoted to new roles within the program.Associate head track and field coach Hoffman will be promoted to head coach, while Burton will be named the new associate head coach. Since 2023, the Simpson track and […]

Published

11 minutes ago

June 26, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Simpson College director of track and field Heath Moenck announced on Wednesday that James Hoffman and Ashlan Burton will be promoted to new roles within the program.
Associate head track and field coach Hoffman will be promoted to head coach, while Burton will be named the new associate head coach.

Since 2023, the Simpson track and field programs have elevated to new heights, highlighted by a national championship by Spencer Moon in the 10,000m race in 2024. The men’s and women’s programs have combined for 14 NCAA All-Americans, 14 USTFCCCA All-Region selections, 28 A-R-C All-Conference performances, and a staggering 63 A-R-C All-Academic honors.

Hoffman graduated from Simpson in 2006 and previously served on the football coaching staff before joining the track and field staff as an assistant coach focusing on sprints. Hoffman began his role as associate head coach in August 2023.

Burton joined the Storm coaching staff in June 2023, working primarily with the throwers. Burton was a seven-time NCAA Division II All-American at the University of Central Missouri. Since 2023, Storm throwers have collected numerous top-10 school marks in the shot put, hammer, discus, and javelin.

Hoffman and Burton’s promotions mark an exciting new chapter for Simpson track and field as the Storm continue to build on the recent national success both on and off of the track.

Link

Sports

Local prep summer league gets underway with new home at Wyandotte Roosevelt – The News Herald

WYANDOTTE — When it comes to prep sports, volleyball may be about as active as any during the summer months, if not more. In addition to the very many club level commitments, there are also high school summer leagues taking place. One of the prominent ones locally made its annual return with a new home […]

Published

12 minutes ago

June 26, 2025

Your Sports Nation

WYANDOTTE — When it comes to prep sports, volleyball may be about as active as any during the summer months, if not more.

In addition to the very many club level commitments, there are also high school summer leagues taking place. One of the prominent ones locally made its annual return with a new home on Wednesday.

Over at Roosevelt High School, several different schools competed in a slew of modified matches. It’s the latest site for the local summer league following its inception, which originated elsewhere altogether in years past.

“The first summer leagues we were invited to were out at Schoolcraft College,” Roosevelt varsity head coach Alan Edwards said. “It was difficult for all of these Downriver teams to get out there. They were trying to do freshman, junior varsity, and varsity at exactly the same time. That made it difficult, especially if you had kids on vacation.

“Then the next year, they wanted to do it twice a week,” Edwards continued. “I thought, ‘how in the world were we going to pack these kids up and go back and forth twice a week?’”

The glaring logistical issues for the teams in the area effectively resulted in breaking off and forming their own local-based summer league, which is something of a relaxed and condensed version of the annual News-Herald Invitational held in October during the school year.

In addition to Edwards’ Roosevelt squad, programs from Allen Park Cabrini, Dearborn Divine Child, Dearborn Edsel Ford, Flat Rock, Lincoln Park, Trenton, and Southgate Anderson were all on hand.

“We took over to bring it here to Downriver, because it was hard to go out (to Schoolcraft College),” Roosevelt varsity head coach Alan Edwards said on Wednesday. “You want to try and make it work. We struggled with the, ‘everybody plays at the same time’ approach.

“We eventually stumbled into the format that we’re doing now, one that we liked.”

Roosevelt High School is the third and latest stop of the league. Following Schoolcraft, it first migrated to Metro City Church in Riverview, which allowed for for matches to run concurrently on three courts. That same alignment then transitioned over to the Taylor Sportsplex for a couple more summers.

Now, setting up shop on his team’s own floor has allowed for expansion in the league.

“I didn’t think that they would let me, but I asked,” Edwards said. “But with four courts, we can now have eight teams instead of six.”

While they have neutralized a lot of the obvious travel and commitment woes from years prior, Edwards says they also carried over a lot of the concepts from the original Schoolcraft-based league. Among those was playing in 20-minute “waves” and seeing both varsity and JV players get garner playing time.

“It has worked so much better,” Edwards said. “If you had some kids that were out of town, you can slide some (sub-varsity kids) in and figure out where to play them. We have kids that are playing up and down, so we’re trying to figure out where they go.”

The Wyandotte Roosevelt girls’ volleyball team battled their DRL rivals from Trenton in their third and final wave of competition at the annual local summer league on June 25, 2025. (MADISON HOOL — For MediaNews Group)

The offseason is always going to vary from one program to the next. Edwards knows that as much as anyone.

It’s why he is cognizant of making sure all of his players, regardless of experience level, are finding time to hone their craft during the summer.

“Everybody does it differently,” Edwards said. “We probably have only 30-40 percent of our players active in club. We use this to teach skill and to get some weight training in. We’ll also do some position traning. For us and a few other schools, this is our chance to give them an opportunity to play. Some teams will run just open gyms as well.

“We try to do a little bit of it all, to try and catch the kids up.”

An added bonus, Edwards says, is the high level of camaraderie between he and his counterparts in the sport.

Several of the schools that will be members of the league this summer are returning regulars in some capacity. Plus, most of the coaches, if not all of them, cross paths outside of the high school season, if not work together on the club circuit.

Edwards on Wednesday said one goal is to expand the summer league even further, perhaps with teams from outside the Downriver region altogether. And whether or not it remains at Roosevelt beyond this summer remains to be seen.

Regardless of its location, what will remain is a strong fraternity of coaches dedicated to teaching the game and developing players, even if it is in a more abbreviated, less intense atmosphere.

“It’s a major learning thing,” Edwards said. “It’s why we don’t even keep score. Every 10 minutes, we’re changing lineups to see what works and what doesn’t. You can change it into working on different drills so it’s not just serving. Later in the year, we may work on balls coming in from the sideline, getting faster on defense and offense.

“Since everybody knows each other, nobody has a problem doing that.”

PHOTOS: Girls Volleyball – Summer League at Wyandotte Roosevelt, Week 1

Originally Published: June 26, 2025 at 2:15 AM EDT

Link

Sports

Arizona State introduces plans for a new track and field stadium

Graham Rossini on Arizona State’s continued investment in track & field Rossini said work is underway to rebuild the “track and field infrastructure” at ASU. The current track and field stadium is unsuitable for competitive use and hasn’t hosted a home meet in years. While other universities have cut track and field programs, ASU remains […]

Published

27 minutes ago

June 26, 2025

Your Sports Nation

The current track and field stadium is unsuitable for competitive use and hasn’t hosted a home meet in years.
While other universities have cut track and field programs, ASU remains committed to all 26 of its sports.

While Olympic sports at the NCAA level across the country face upheaval following the approval of the House settlement bringing revenue sharing and roster limits, Arizona State appears headed in the opposite direction.

ASU is doubling down on its commitment to Olympic sports with an investment in a new stadium for the track and field team, according to ASU’s athletic director, Graham Rossini.

“Track and field is definitely a sport that has been affected by the House settlement and what the roster caps look like, and how cross-country can fit into the track and field number,” Rossini told The Arizona Republic on Thursday, June 26.

“We’ve also got the reality that we need a track and field facility. So we’re hard at work with our coaches, the rest of the institution, figuring out solutions that will allow us to really rebuild the track and field infrastructure at ASU.”

Right now, Arizona State’s track and field team practices at Sun Angel Stadium just off Rural Road, next to Mullett Arena. Part of Mullett Arena extends almost to the track at ASU, meaning some of the outside lanes near the 100-meter start are uncomfortably close to the exterior of the building.

“It’s no secret that our current stadium is not suitable for competitive use,” Rossini said. “We can use it every day to work out and get better. But we haven’t had a home meet on campus in several years now.

“We’re hard at work, with track and field being one of the capital projects that we are going to be able to green light, hopefully in the near future.”

Rossini declined to give The Republic an exact timeline, but repeated “nearish future.”

As for the location, the stadium would be moved.

“It would not get rebuilt in its current spot,” Rossini said. “That land has been earmarked as part of the Novus Innovation Corridor. As we rebuild a new track facility, we will find a different location on campus.”

No location was given, but there is a plot of land nearby available for ASU to use – Karsten Golf Course, east of Rural Road, has been closed since 2019.

Rossini said the ASU tennis stadium also would be moved.

“The track and field and tennis facilities are something we are talking a lot about and identifying a future state for them to make sure those sports can continue to recruit and compete at a high level,” Rossini said.

While many Olympic sports, such as swimming, diving and volleyball, have seen trickle-down effects of the House settlement, there may not be a sport more affected by the settlement than track and field. The roster limits imposed include the cross-country team. This essentially means two different team sports have to fit under a roster cap.

On June 17, Washington State announced that it was cutting all field events and some sprint, hurdle and jump events from its track and field program to solely focus on the distance events.

Does ASU have any plans for something similar?

“We have not gone in-depth on that, they just wrapped up their season about a week and a half ago,” Rossini said. “We haven’t had the chance to do our year-end conversation in terms of what are some of the disciplines that we really want to isolate.

“We are known as a great sprinter school. That’s what coach (Dion) Miller’s background is. If you look at our heritage in the sport, we’ve had great success with sprints and some of the team relays. I can’t speak to specifics of how it’s going to look in the fall, as we just wound down the season. But again, we want to do everything we can to make track and field compete at a high level.”

The commitment from Rossini affirms the position he took on May 6 when he said the school was investing in all of its Olympic sports.

Arizona State is trying to position itself as an outlier in a post-House settlement era.

“When I took the job, President (Michael) Crow said all 26 sports are important,” Rossini said. “Football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball need to take a big jump as soon they can. We’re on our way there. But our Olympic sports are where a lot of our legacy and our heritage come from.”

As of now, Rossini said that no cuts to Olympic sports programs at ASU are planned.

“Our plan is 26 sports moving forward,” he said. “We’re going to do everything in our power to resource them, to maintain that. It’s the most sports in the Big 12 by a wide margin. … We have not had any conversations about cutting sports to navigate what’s coming at us.”

Since the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, Arizona State athletes have won 66 medals, most recently put in the spotlight by swimmer Léon Marchand’s four individual golds in Paris this past summer.

Logan Stanley is a sports reporter with The Arizona Republic who primarily focuses on high school, college and Olympic sports. To suggest ideas for human-interest stories and other news, reach out to Stanley at logan.stanley@gannett.com or 707-293-7650. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @LSscribe.

Link

Sports

Olivia Babcock Named an ESPYS Nominee for Best College Athlete in Women’s Sports

PITTSBURGH – Olivia Babcock was tabbed an ESPY nominee for best college athlete in women’s sports, announced on Thursday. She is one of four recipients in the category including JuJu Watkins (University of Southern California, basketball), Kate Faasse (University of North Carolina, women’s soccer) and Gretchen Walsh (University of Virginia, swimming). She is the first […]

Published

28 minutes ago

June 26, 2025

Your Sports Nation

PITTSBURGH – Olivia Babcock was tabbed an ESPY nominee for best college athlete in women’s sports, announced on Thursday. She is one of four recipients in the category including JuJu Watkins (University of Southern California, basketball), Kate Faasse (University of North Carolina, women’s soccer) and Gretchen Walsh (University of Virginia, swimming). She is the first Pitt female athlete in history to receive a nomination.

Hosted by Shane Gillis, The 2025 ESPYS will air live from The Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Wednesday, July 16, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and will stream live on ESPN+. The ESPYS will also be available to stream on-demand the next day on Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+. The star-studded ceremony will relive the best moments of the year, honor leading athletes and performances, and bring together the sports industry’s fan favorites and biggest stars.

Top celebrities from sports and entertainment will gather to recognize nominees and honor winners in categories such as “Best Athlete – Men’s Sports,” “Best Athlete – Women’s Sports,” “Best Breakthrough Athlete,” “Best Record Breaking Performance,” “Best Championship Performance,” and “Best Comeback Athlete.”

Per tradition, The 2025 ESPYS will also showcase the achievements of inspiring and courageous athletes who embody the spirit of The ESPYS through three pillar awards – the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage, the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance, and The Pat Tillman Award for Service. Honorees for each of these awards will be announced in the coming weeks. The show supports ESPN’s ongoing commitment to The V Foundation for Cancer Research, launched in 1993 by ESPN in partnership with the late Jim Valvano.

Babcock is tabbed an ESPY nominee after winning the Honda Award for volleyball and being named an AAU Sullivan Award Semifinalist and the AVCA National Player of the Year.

She led the Pitt offense and averaged 5.94 points per set, 4.72 kills per set, 1.82 digs per set and 0.62 aces per set. Babcock won two AVCA National Player of the Week and three ACC Offensive Player of the Week awards last season.

ESPYS Release

Link

Sports

Five Named to CSC Academic All-District Women’s Track/Cross Country Team

Story Links BALTIMORE, MD – Johns Hopkins placed five individuals on the 2025 College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District Women’s Track and Cross Country Team it was recently announced. Nominees must be at least a sophomore academically and athletically, have at least a 3.50 cumulative GPA and be a […]

Published

47 minutes ago

June 26, 2025

Your Sports Nation

BALTIMORE, MD – Johns Hopkins placed five individuals on the 2025 College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District Women’s Track and Cross Country Team it was recently announced.

Nominees must be at least a sophomore academically and athletically, have at least a 3.50 cumulative GPA and be a starter or significant reserve. First, Second and Third Team Academic All-America Women’s Track and Cross Country Teams will be announced on July 15.

Including the five selections this season, the Johns Hopkins women’s cross country/track & field teams have now produced 56 Academic All-District selections since 2003. Three Blue Jays – Sara Bartlett, Annie Huang and Mackenzie Setton are making their second consecutive appearance on the team.

Johns Hopkins’ 2025 CSC Academic All-District Selections
Sara Bartlett (Sr.)
Major: Public Health
• 8x Centennial Conference medalist with 2 gold and 6 silver
• All-American in the triple jump 3x (indoor-1, outdoor-2) with one 1st team and two 2nd team finishes
• 2025 Centennial Conference Indoor Champion in the Long Jump and Triple Jump
• 11 top-five finishes at Centennial Championships in career
• Rhodes Scholar Finalist

Annie Huang (Gr.)
Major: Molecular & Cellular Biology (UG), Biotechnology (G)

• 5 career 1st Team All-American at NCAA Indoor & Outdoor Championships
• 9x NCAA Qualifier with top-13 finishes in all 9 events

• 6x Centennial Conference Champion (individual & relay) and 7x medalist (top-3 finisher)
• Holds the 2nd-best time in school history in indoor 800 (2:09.33) and outdoor 800 (2:07.48)
• 2025 Centennial Conference Indoor Track Athlete of the Year
• 5x Centennial Conference Champion in 2024-25: Indoor: 400-meter, 4×400, DMR. Outdoor: 1500, 4×40

Lianne Saussy (Jr.)
Major: Molecular & Cellular Biology
• Member of fourth-place DMR team at the 2025 NCAA Indoor Track Championships
• 11x medalist at Centennial Championships with 8 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze
• Seven top-4 finishes at Centennial Championships in 2024-25: Indoor: DMR (1^st), 4×400 (1^st), 400-meter (4^th), 200-meter (4^th). Outdoor: 400 Hurdles (3^rd), 4×100 (1^st), 4×400 (1^st)
• Member of 4×400 and 4×800 indoor relay teams and 4×100 and 4×400 relay teams that hold JHU records

Harrinee Senthilkumar (Sr.)
Major: Neuroscience
• 12x Centennial Conference medalist with 8 gold, 1 silver, 3 bronze
• 3x NCAA Qualifier
• 2025 Centennial Conference Champion in the Indoor Mile and third place in the Outdoor 1500
• Member of JHU-record-holding 4×800 relay teams (outdoor and indoor) and DMR team (indoor)
• Six-time Centennial Conference Academic Honor Roll selection

Mackenzie Setton (Jr.)
Major: Molecular & Cellular Biology
• Earned Second Team All-America honors in the Mile with a 14^th-place at the 2025 NCAA Indoor Track Championships
• Member of the 4x800m relay team that set a Division III national record at the 2025 Penn Relays
• Six-time medalist at the Centennial Championships with one gold, three silver and two bronze
• Member of First Team All-America DMR team at the 2024 NCAA Indoor Track Championships