Sports

The Caitlin Clark Rules

Published

2 months ago

June 22, 2025

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You’re reading The Sporting Scene, Louisa Thomas’s weekly look at the world of sports.

There was a way, for a while, to beat Michael Jordan: by beating him up. The Detroit Pistons did it year after year, deploying a defensive scheme that involved trapping him over and over, shoving him through screens, bullying him through picks, sending two or three bodies on him, and knocking him off balance, off his shot, off his cool. They called their strategy the Jordan Rules.

It was smart. Jordan was unquestionably the best player in the league, unstoppable on his own terms, but the Pistons eliminated the Chicago Bulls from the playoffs three years in a row. There was a personal edge to the strategy, too. Jordan was a talent of historic proportions, and the most popular player in the game. But he was also human, with his share (and more) of foibles and appetites, and he pissed off a lot of people—partly by his actions, and partly just by being Michael Jordan. Isiah Thomas, the Pistons’ leader, reportedly organized a plan to keep the ball away from Jordan during the 1985 All-Star Game, when Jordan was a rookie, because the veterans were jealous of all the attention that Jordan was already getting, and wanted to send a message that he had to wait his turn. The Freeze-Out Game, as it came to be known, was probably more of a media concoction than the full truth—Thomas had always denied it—but there’s no question that Jordan used such slights, or his perception of them, as fuel.

The N.B.A. back then was a niche entertainment—beloved by some, but financially tenuous, at times moribund. A few players and rivalries had broken through into the popular consciousness—particularly Magic Johnson and Larry Bird—but, as late as 1986, playoff games were shown on tape delay rather than aired live. Jordan changed everything. By the time the sportswriter Sam Smith published a book about the Bulls’ 1990-91 season, in which Jordan and the Bulls finally broke the Pistons’ stranglehold on the Eastern Conference, Jordan was one of the most famous men on the planet. Smith called his book “The Jordan Rules.” The title alluded not only to the way the Pistons defended him but also to the accommodations that the Bulls made for their star, on account of the special status he had in the league. He was a phenomenon, as unique a cultural figure as the sport has seen. But he couldn’t have done it alone. The Jordan Rules weren’t Jordan’s rules. He didn’t write them.

On Tuesday night, Caitlin Clark was poked in the eye by the Connecticut Sun guard Jacy Sheldon, who crowded Clark as she reeled; she pushed Sheldon, and then was rammed to the ground by Sheldon’s teammate Marina Mabrey. Clark had been shoved and grabbed all night, and had done a little shoving herself; much of it had escaped the censure of the refs, which set the scene for the scrums that followed. By the end of the night, there had been five technical fouls and two flagrant fouls issued, and three players had been ejected. (One of the five technicals was later upgraded to a flagrant foul.) Everyone agreed that the referees should have kept tighter control of the game. The low quality of officiating has been an ongoing problem for the W.N.B.A. But that’s not what triggered the news alerts that followed. It was seeing Clark get pushed around, again.

The image of Clark burying absurd three-pointers off the dribble and on the run—as she did in that game against the Sun, and as she had done three days before in a win against the defending champions, the New York Liberty, who had previously been undefeated—is one of the most inspiring things in all of sports. And the media and online chatter that surrounds Clark is one of the most depressing. A lot of that discussion (a polite word for it) centers on whether Clark is overly targeted by her opponents, and why. Social media is flooded with compilations of her being whacked and hitting the deck.

For longtime fans of the league, and, it seems, for more than a few people in and around it, the context of all that contact is important. The league is “very physical,” these tenured fans explain to the new ones (or “casuals”). Players, especially rookies, get this treatment all the time. And Clark is a very good player—a great one—but she’s not on the level of A’ja Wilson, or Breanna Stewart, or Napheesa Collier, at least not yet. Failing to recognize this context, these fans suggest, is a kind of erasure: it diminishes the history of a league that has long been full of great players, most of them Black and many of them queer.

Even some of Clark’s biggest supporters are careful to consider her as a key figure in the long progression of the sport, rather than as a sui-generis phenomenon. The sports journalist Howard Megdal, founder of the Next, an online outlet that focusses on women’s basketball, recently wrote a book about Clark that goes deep on the history of basketball in Iowa, where she’s from. In Megdal’s telling, Clark—with her charisma, her all-American backstory, her reasonable handling of such fraught circumstances, and yes, her race—is helping to supercharge a surge of interest in women’s basketball that was already well under way. And there’s plenty of evidence to back that view. W.N.B.A. ratings have been rising for years. The sport was succeeding and finding new audiences despite egregious underinvestment. Although Clark is clearly the league’s biggest draw, ratings have been breaking records even when she doesn’t play. The owners of the Golden State Warriors paid a fifty-million-dollar expansion fee to join the league in 2023 before Clark had joined the pros. Just a few years earlier, teams were selling for about a fifth of that. The Golden State Valkyries’ valuation now is projected to be nearly ten times that—in some part because of the attention Clark has brought to the sport, but not because she fills the stands at the Chase Center, in San Francisco, every night. The Valkyries are projected to bring in fifty-five million dollars in revenue from sponsorships and ticket sales this year alone, far more than Clark’s team, the Indiana Fever, raked in last year. They are succeeding because they are resourced and marketed like an actual professional sports team.

To others, any effort to downplay Clark’s individual appeal is preposterous. “As the most promising day in the history of the WNBA arrives, the American cultural spotlight shines brighter than it ever has on a female athlete in a team sport, and on the possibility she brings to lift basketball and all women’s sports to a place they have never been,” the USA Today columnist Christine Brennan wrote, ahead of Clark’s league début. “But the glare of that bright and sometimes harsh light hasn’t fixed on the magical Caitlin Clark alone. Over the past couple of weeks, it has focused on the players who have come before her, some of whom strangely appear to be having trouble accepting and dealing with her fame, even as they will benefit greatly from it.” Brennan, whose book about Clark, “On Her Game,” will be published in early July, believes that the W.N.B.A. is fumbling the ball by not more aggressively promoting Clark. After the scuffles between the Fever and the Sun on Tuesday, Brennan suggested that the W.N.B.A. needed to protect its most popular player. “This happened last night to the most important audience magnet and TV and corporate draw in the history of a business (WNBA) that is desperately trying to advance and succeed in a very crowded, male-dominated sports marketplace,” she wrote on X, quote-tweeting a video of the altercation captioned “This league treats her like a punching bag.”

Brennan has been writing about women’s sports for decades, and, like Megdal, she tries to place Clark’s ascendance in context. But her history highlights the success of Title IX and of the U.S. women’s soccer team, along with Iowa, and her argument is that Clark is a singular figure. In this view, Clark is a living revolution, a rupture in the history of women’s basketball and maybe in all of women’s sports. And there’s evidence to support this view, too. Twice as many people watched the W.N.B.A. draft last year, when Clark was drafted, compared with this year, for instance. Ratings and attendance when Clark plays are significantly higher than when she does not. (Her games averaged more than a million viewers last season; the league’s other games averaged less than half that.) No other player in the history of women’s basketball comes remotely close to her celebrity. It’s hard to think of an analogue who drives such a high percentage of interest in attention in any other team sport. “When will these ladies realize, accept, and appreciate @CaitlinClark22 is the best thing that ever happened to women’s basketball,” the tennis legend Chris Evert wrote on X, quoting one of Brennan’s tweets.

“Yeah, she gets targeted,” the former Celtics player and N.B.A. Hall of Famer Paul Pierce said, on Kevin Garnett’s podcast, after the matchup between the Fever and the Sun. “It’s like Jordan got targeted,” he went on. “The ‘Jordan Rules.’ They had the ‘Jordan Rules.’ When you’re so good, yeah, you’re gonna get targeted. It just is what it is.”

It’s an obvious comp, even if Clark hasn’t yet achieved the kind of success that Jordan eventually achieved. And the comparison can be extended, giving us another way to think about Clark. Was Jordan inevitable, or was he sui generis? Does he deserve the credit for the explosion of interest in the N.B.A. around the world, or was he a talented player in the right place at the right time? It’s an interesting question, but it’s one that, thirty years later—and in the wake of reports that the Los Angeles Lakers are being sold at a valuation of ten billion dollars, months after the Boston Celtics sold for six billion, which had been a high-water mark for any team sale in the United States—seems very much beside the point. The league became a juggernaut. No star could quite match Jordan, but that hardly mattered. They burned bright enough. And the idea that the Pistons, or any of his opponents, should have thanked Jordan at the time is more than ridiculous. For one thing, Jordan wouldn’t have become Jordan without their spite.

Clark has lately been bulking up, as Jordan once did. She spent the off-season in the weight room, doing single-leg plyometrics so that she couldn’t be knocked off balance as easily. Her arms are jacked now. She knows the game plan against her. Her own coach, Stephanie White, helped to write it—she coached the Sun last year, when the team knocked the Fever out of the playoffs, before coming to the Fever in the off-season.

There is a Midwestern wholesomeness to Clark; it’s part of her broad appeal. But she can be ornery and just as competitive as Jordan was (even if the stories about her compulsions—so far, at least—involve Halloween candy rather than gambling). Along with those videos of Clark getting mauled on the court, there are popular online clips decoding her trash talk. We don’t yet know if the animus that Clark faces—whether it’s professional or personal, whether it’s race-related or not—will activate her. All that bumping and bruising puts her at a higher risk of injury and exhaustion. Playing against the Valkyries, on Thursday night, two days after the Sun game, she was held to two points in the first half, and missed all seven of her three-point-shot attempts. But she has also shown an electric ability to turn defeat, and doubt, into motivation. After Clark was left off the U.S. Olympic team—an omission that Brennan holds up as evidence that the old guard is out to get her—her scoring and playmaking exploded, and she dragged the Fever, which had lost nine of its first eleven games, into the playoffs. As Megdal writes, when U.S.A. Basketball left Clark off the team, “The best possible thing happened for Clark and the Fever.” She seems to take special pleasure not only in scoring but in making a show of her dominance, and of proving herself.

One of the themes of Smith’s “Jordan Rules” is that Jordan needed his teammates to win. The Bulls needed to exploit the space that all the attention on Jordan left open. But Jordan also needed the Pistons; he needed the doubters to drive him, and he needed the bumps to make him strong. I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up saying the same of Clark. They are both, as the former N.B.A. commissioner David Stern said of Jordan, “at once credible and incredible,” both tied to this earth and seemingly transcending it, part of history and engaged, thrillingly, in its disruption. ♦

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15-year-old from Maui wins national titles in beach volleyball | News, Sports, Jobs

Milaniakai Padilla won the AAU National Volleyball Championship for two-player girls beach volleyball in her age category, along with Lia Ray of Florida. Photo courtesy Padilla family. At 15 years old, Milaniakai Padilla of Maui has already won two national beach volleyball titles in two-player women’s competition for her age group — a gold in […]

Published

2 minutes ago

August 14, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Milaniakai Padilla won the AAU National Volleyball Championship for two-player girls beach volleyball in her age category, along with Lia Ray of Florida. Photo courtesy Padilla family.

At 15 years old, Milaniakai Padilla of Maui has already won two national beach volleyball titles in two-player women’s competition for her age group — a gold in the AAU National Championships and an AVP National Championship in 2025.

“She understands what it takes, and her goal is to be in the Olympics,” said her mother, Melissa Padilla.

Milaniakai Padilla is a student at Seabury Hall who carries a 4.0 grade-point average as she continues to train for volleyball.

On Aug. 15-17, she will be playing with Seabury Hall at a preseason Pride of the Windward Side Volleyball Tournament at Les Jardin Academy in Kailua, Oahu, a competition that attracts top high school girls varsity teams in the United States.

At 5 feet, 9 inches tall, she plays outside hitter in indoor volleyball competition and also competes in track and field for Seabury. She was also on the Maui Interscholastic League All-Star Division II team.

Melissa said Milaniakai enjoys studying engineering and is also a four-year student in Hawaiian language.

Padilla showed versatility in her game partnering with different players in national championships, winning the AAU title with Florida-based Lia Ray and then the championship in the AVP with Virginia Beach standout Saddie Stafford.

In a third competition for AAU National Queen of the Court tournament, she earned a silver medal with Sage Illion of Wichita, Kansas.

Milaniakai Padilla has won two national championships in beach volleyball for girls age 15 group in 2025 and has been selected among a special group of athletes to undergo national training. Photo courtesy Padilla family

Padilla, who started playing beach volleyball during COVID, credits her coaches, including Scotty Zucco of the Aloha Volleyball Association and Danny Alvares, the University of Hawaii head volleyball coach, for training her.

She said she learned the basics from Zucco, including daily training, and Alvarez has taught her beach strategy and a higher skill level of playing.

She has been flying on weekends to training at the Outrigger Canoe Club in Waikiki, with Alvarez’s help and training with an elite group of athletes.

She’s been training also with Rebecca Jakeway of OM Maui Health & Fitness in Kula.

Padilla also hopes to continue her training with AVP professionals Bill and Kelly Kolinske.

She was selected to participate in the volleyball training program for the National Team Development Program for the United States a year ago and hopes to return this year.

Her mother Melissa Padilla said Milaniakai is good at what she does and has been willing to forego some of her social activities to further her training in volleyball.

Milaniakai admires and respects Kristen Nuss, the all-time winningest college beach volleyball player in NCAA history, her mother said.

Milaniakai also has been following the Crabb brothers, Trevor and Taylor, professional beach volleyball players out of Honolulu.

Milaniakai comes from an athletic family. Her mother played college soccer for Virginia Wesleyan. Her grandfather played basketball at King’s College at Briarcliff Manor in New York.

She said her volleyball activities have been made possible because of her family.

“I am grateful to my family for their unlimited support and sacrifices,” she said.

Milaniakai Padilla. Courtesy photo

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North Dakota’s Curry, St. Thomas’s Hill picked as Summit League’s 2025 NCAA Woman of the Year Nominees

Story Links SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – North Dakota’s Kenna Curry and St. Thomas’s Jade Hill were selected as the Summit League’s nominees for the 2025 NCAA Woman of the Year award, League officials announced Thursday. The NCAA Woman of the Year program was established in 1991 and honors the academic achievements, […]

Published

14 minutes ago

August 14, 2025

Your Sports Nation

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – North Dakota’s Kenna Curry and St. Thomas’s Jade Hill were selected as the Summit League’s nominees for the 2025 NCAA Woman of the Year award, League officials announced Thursday.

The NCAA Woman of the Year program was established in 1991 and honors the academic achievements, athletic excellence, community service and leadership of graduating female college athletes from all three divisions.

The Woman of the Year selection committee, which is made up of representatives from the NCAA membership, will choose the Top 30 honorees from among those nominated with 10 selections coming from each of the association’s three divisions. The committee will select the 2025 NCAA Woman of the Year recipient from the Top 30 that will be announced in October.

Curry, an Elk Point, S.D., native, understood the importance of discipline, resilience, hard-work, and support from a young age. Curry brought that mindset and skills to the collegiate level as she welcomed new challenges and opportunities during her freshman year at North Dakota.

Fast forward three years, Curry is now a college graduate with Cum Laude honors from UND. She earned a bachelor’s degree in communication sciences & disorders, accompanied by a minor in psychology and certificate in special education.

Curry is a three-time member of the Summit League Commissioner’s List of Academic Excellence, a five-time honoree of Summit League Academic Honor Roll, and four-time selection to the University of North Dakota Dean’s List. The academic accolades do not stop there as she was twice named to the Indoor Track & Field USTFCCCA All-Academic Team (2023, 2024) and once picked to the Outdoor Track & Field USTFCCCA All-Academic Team (2023).

On the track, Curry was an NCAA Outdoor Track & Field First Team All-American (2025), a two-time NCAA Indoor Track & Field Second Team All-American (2024, 2025), twice selected as Summit League Indoor Field Athlete of the Year (2024, 2025), twice selected as the Summit League Indoor Track & Field Championship MVP (2024, 2025), a three-time member of the Indoor and Outdoor Track & Field All-Summit League Team (2023, 2024, 2025), a one-time recipient of the Summit League Outdoor Field Athlete of the Year (2025), and the Summit League Outdoor Field Championship MVP (2025).

Curry also won six different Summit League event championships during her career, including two at the 2025 Summit League Indoor Championship (shot put, weight throw), the weight throw at the 2024 Summit League Indoor Championship, two more at the 2025 Summit League Outdoor Championship (shot put, hammer throw), and the shot put at the 2023 Summit League Outdoor Championship.

Off the track, Curry has most recently volunteered her time with the National Student Speech Language and Hearing Association, where she attended monthly meetings to discuss how to impact the future of speech language pathology. Amongst other activities, she also volunteered her time with the likes of National Girls & Women in Sports Day (participated in fellowship/empowerment event), Blue Zones Project and Safe Kids (walked children to school safely on Walk to School Day), and the Special Olympics of North Dakota (volunteered at bowling practice and track & field practice).

Since stepping foot on St. Thomas’s campus, Hill has possessed a hard-working attitude and passion to learn which has led to individual and team success. That consistent attitude has propelled Hill, who began her collegiate basketball career in the winter of 2021, to graduate this past spring with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a 3.82 GPA.

Across Hill’s career, she was a three-time selection to the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team (2022-2023, 2023-2024, 2024-2025) and a University of St. Thomas Honor Roll member every semester during her time with the Tommies.

On the court, she earned a Summit League Honorable Mention nod as a senior. As a junior, Hill collected Summit League Second Team All-Conference (2023-24) accolades while also being named to the 2021-22 Summit League All-Newcomer Team as a freshman. In her time at St. Thomas, Hill became the program’s all-time assists leader while also scoring more than a 1,000 career points.

During her senior campaign, Hill recorded a career-high 14.3 ppg and career-high 4.6 apg, which led to her Summit League Honorable Mention nod. Hill closed her collegiate career averaging 13.1 ppg (1,558 total points) and 4.0 apg (474 total assists). Hill was also a threat on the defensive side of the ball, recording 183 career steals. She departs St. Thomas with a load of experience as she averaged 34.1 minutes per game over the course of her career.

The Minneapolis, Minn., native volunteered with a variety of different organizations during her four years on the Tommies’ campus. Hill spent many hours a week in the elementary school system serving as a mentor and teacher’s aide in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, while also associating with the tutor-mentor program at Maxfield Elementary School where she gained valuable field experience. Hill also volunteered a large chunk of her time to organizations such as the Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Presbyterian Homes, and Feed My Starving Children events.

#ReachTheSummit

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2025 Women’s Volleyball Season Opens Friday

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The NAIA Women’s Volleyball season officially opens on Friday, August 15. The first matches on the schedule will be at the Keiser (Fla.) Palm Beach Classic, featuring two courts starting at 8 a.m. ET: Keiser (Fla.) vs. Spring Arbor (Mich.) and IU East (Ind.) vs. Montana Western. 2024 CHAMPIONSHIP RECAP Indiana […]

Published

19 minutes ago

August 14, 2025

Your Sports Nation

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The NAIA Women’s Volleyball season officially opens on Friday, August 15. The first matches on the schedule will be at the Keiser (Fla.) Palm Beach Classic, featuring two courts starting at 8 a.m. ET: Keiser (Fla.) vs. Spring Arbor (Mich.) and IU East (Ind.) vs. Montana Western.

2024 CHAMPIONSHIP RECAP

Indiana Wesleyan won its second consecutive Red Banner in 2024. The Wildcats closed out the championship match in dramatic fashion. Runner-up Bellevue (Neb.) sat at match point with a score of 14-8 before IWU rattled off an eight-point run to win the set 16-14 and the match 3-2. This was only the Bruins first appearance in the championship match and only the fifth time that Indiana Wesleyan had been forced to a fifth set during the 2024 season. There have only been eight championship matches that have been played in five sets. Five of those matches spanned from 2020-2024.

For the first time in recent history, both teams were represented by female head coaches: Trish Siedlick of Bellevue and Candace Moats of IWU. Moats became the eighth female head coach to win a title in 2023 and the 2024 title was the 14th time that a female head coach has won the title in the NAIA.

Southern Oregon advanced to the semifinals for the first time in program history, and Corban (Ore.) made its second semifinal appearance.

Eastern Oregon advanced to the quarterfinals for the third consecutive year and sixth time overall, while Concordia (Neb.) made its third quarterfinal appearance. St. Thomas (Fla.) and Montana Western advanced out of pool play for the first time in program history, as Montana Western made some noise in pool play after upsetting the No. 1 seed Northwestern (Iowa) to see its first quarterfinal appearance.

Twenty-two of the 24 teams that won their opening round were hosts. The visiting teams that won their opening round matches were William Carey (Miss.) and Missouri Baptist.

No new teams joined the tournament field in 2024. Every team that qualified had done so at least once in previous years. The Cascade Collegiate Athletic Conference qualified six teams into the field. Grace (Ind.) closed a 23-year gap as they re-entered the tournament field for the first time since 2001 and fell just short of advancing to the final site in a match that went to five sets.

GAMES TO WATCH/FEATURED GAMES – WEEK 1

DATE	TIME	AWAY	HOME	NEUTRAL SITE
Aug. 15	10:00 AM	Texas Wesleyan	William Carey (Miss.)	Halo Classic (Our Lady of the Lake)
Aug. 15	12:00 PM	Taylor (Ind.)	Montana Western	Palm Beach Juniors Classic (Keiser)
Aug. 16	11:00 AM	Dakota Wesleyan (S.D.)	Valley City State (N.D.)	VCSU Triangular
Aug. 20	2:00 PM	Viterbo (Wis.)	Missouri Baptist	Spartan Invitational (Missouri Baptist)
Aug. 20	4:30 PM	Viterbo (Wis.)	St. Thomas (Fla.)	Spartan Invitational (Missouri Baptist)
Aug. 20	7:00 PM	St. Thomas (Fla.)	Missouri Baptist	Spartan Invitational (Missouri Baptist)
Aug. 21	10:00 AM	Midland (Neb.)	Viterbo	Spartan Invitational (Missouri Baptist)
Aug. 21	11:00 AM	MidAmerica Nazarene (Kan.)	Indiana Wesleyan	IWU Invitational
Aug. 21	12:00 PM	St. Thomas (Fla.)	Corban (Ore.)	Spartan Invitational (Missouri Baptist)
Aug. 21	12:30 PM	Concordia (Neb.)	Columbia (Mo.)	IWU Invitational
Aug. 21	2:30 PM	Corban (Ore.)	Viterbo (Wis.)	Spartan Invitational (Missouri Baptist)
Aug. 21	3:00 PM	Columbia (Mo.)	Indiana Wesleyan	IWU Invitational
Aug. 21	4:30 PM	Midland (Neb.)	St. Thomas (Fla.)	Spartan Invitational (Missouri Baptist)
Aug. 21	6:00 PM	Nelson (Texas)	William Carey (Miss.)	Big Sky Challenge (Montana Tech)
Aug. 21	6:00 PM	Valley City State (N.D.)	Morningside (Iowa)	Siouxland Invitational
Aug. 21	6:30 PM	Concordia (Neb.)	MidAmerica Nazarene (Kan.)	IWU Invitational
Aug. 22	10:00 AM	Midland (Neb.)	Missouri Baptist	Spartan Invitational (Missouri Baptist)
Aug. 22	10:00 AM	Bellevue (Neb.)	College of Idaho	Hope International Summer Slam
Aug. 22	1:00 PM	Midland (Neb.)	Corban (Ore.)	Spartan Invitational (Missouri Baptist)
Aug. 22	1:30 PM	Columbia (Mo.)	MidAmerica Nazarene (Kan.)	IWU Invitational
Aug. 22	12:00 PM	Mount Vernon Nazarene (Ohio)	Southern Oregon	Hope International Summer Slam
Aug. 22	4:00 PM	Corban (Ore.)	Missouri Baptist	Spartan Invitational (Missouri Baptist)
Aug. 22	5:15 PM	IU Kokomo (Ind.)	Aquinas (Mich.)	Onset Tournament
Aug. 22	4:30 PM	McPherson (Kan.)	Morningside (Iowa)	Siouxland Invitational
Aug. 22	4:00 PM	Nelson (Texas)	Carroll (Mont.)	Big Sky Challenge (Montana Tech)
Aug. 22	4:00 PM	Eastern Oregon	Providence (Mont.)	Big Sky Challenge (Montana Tech)
Aug. 22	7:00 PM	Rocky Mountain (Mont.)	Morningside (Iowa)	Siouxland Sports Academy Tournament
Aug. 22	7:00 PM	Valley City State (N.D.)	Northwestern (Iowa)	Siouxland Invitational
Aug. 22	6:00 PM	William Carey (Miss.)	Montana Tech	Big Sky Challenge (Montana Tech)
Aug. 22	6:00 PM	Mount Vernon Nazarene (Ohio)	The Master’s (Calif.)	Hope International Summer Slam
Aug. 22	6:00 PM	Bellevue (Neb.)	Southern Oregon	Hope International Summer Slam

For NAIA composite schedule/scores CLICK HERE

WVB NEWS

Preseason Top 25 Poll, CLICK HERE

Aug. 26, Players of the Week No. 1 – For archive & full calendar CLICK HERE

Sept. 3, Top 25 Poll No. 1 – For archive & full calendar CLICK HERE

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WSFA Sports team to hold live, digital-only sports chat Tuesday

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) – Friday Night Football Fever for 2025 is about to get underway and the WSFA 12 Sports team is getting you ready for all the action! Coming up on Tuesday, Aug. 19, Sports Director Rosie Langello and Sports Anchor/Reporter Davis Baker will hold a live, digital-only chat to talk about the upcoming […]

Published

24 minutes ago

August 14, 2025

Your Sports Nation

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) – Friday Night Football Fever for 2025 is about to get underway and the WSFA 12 Sports team is getting you ready for all the action!

Coming up on Tuesday, Aug. 19, Sports Director Rosie Langello and Sports Anchor/Reporter Davis Baker will hold a live, digital-only chat to talk about the upcoming high school football season.

The broadcast will stream at 6:45 p.m. on WSFA.com, the new WSFA Fever 12 Sports app, our news app, and on our Facebook and Youtube pages!

You’ll also be able to see it at the top of this article!

Not reading this story on the WSFA News App? Get news alerts FASTER and FREE in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store!

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Springfield College Athletics Graduate Assistants Land Jobs For Upcoming Year

Story Links Springfield, Mass. – August 14, 2025 – The Springfield College Department of Athletics is fortunate enough to have graduate assistants, that while pursuing a Masters degree, also work as coaches, athletic trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, and administrators. This year’s group has landed a variety of jobs at some of […]

Published

36 minutes ago

August 14, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Springfield, Mass. – August 14, 2025 – The Springfield College Department of Athletics is fortunate enough to have graduate assistants, that while pursuing a Masters degree, also work as coaches, athletic trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, and administrators. This year’s group has landed a variety of jobs at some of the top institutions and organizations in the country and will continue Springfield College’s tradition of educating and fostering some of the top young talent in athletics and education.

Football:

Owen Straley – Defensive Quality Control – Columbia University

Athletic Training:

Christa Carr – Athletic Trainer at Lehigh University

Cara Gustafson – ATI Physical Therapy – Worksite Solutions

Athletic Administration:

Sam Edge – Manager of Athletic Events and Marketing Promotions – Bentley University

Strength and Conditioning:

Greg Baker – Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach – Georgetown University

Chris Prizio – Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach – Quinnipiac University

Cadin Maynard – Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach – Toronto Blue Jays

Men’s Soccer:
Christian Da Cruz – Assistant Men’s Soccer Coach – Denison University

Women’s Basketball:

Katelynn McCann – Assistant Women’s Basketball Coach – Bowdoin College

Elizabeth Thompson – Assistant Women’s Basketball Coach – Ithaca College

Men’s Basketball:

Casey Lane – Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach – Amherst College

Bernard Palmer – Assistant Boy’s Basketball Coach – Springfield Commonwealth Academy

Field Hockey:
Taylor Klesyk – Assistant Field Hockey Coach – Sewanee University of the South

Men’s Lacrosse:

Zach Chandler – Assistant Men’s Lacrosse Coach – Holy Cross

Men’s Volleyball

Jordan Amling – Head Men’s Volleyball Coach – Lycoming College

Women’s Volleyball:

Emma White – Assistant Women’s Volleyball Coach – Centre College

Meredith Hollinger – Assistant Women’s Volleyball Coach – Lander College

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Panther volleyball begins 2025 preseason with Purple and Gold Scrimmage

UNI volleyball – Purple & Gold Scrimmage Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025 3 p.m. CT Cedar Falls, Iowa | McLeod Center CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — Panther fans will get their first opportunity to see the 2025 UNI volleyball team in action this weekend as the Panthers host their annual Purple and […]

Published

37 minutes ago

August 14, 2025

Your Sports Nation

UNI volleyball – Purple & Gold Scrimmage

Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025

3 p.m. CT

Cedar Falls, Iowa | McLeod Center

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — Panther fans will get their first opportunity to see the 2025 UNI volleyball team in action this weekend as the Panthers host their annual Purple and Gold Scrimmage on Saturday afternoon.

First serve is scheduled for 3 p.m. CT inside the McLeod Center with doors opening one hour prior. The event is free and open to the public with UNI’s clear bag and new cashless gameday policies in effect. Concession stands will be open for sales with volleyball team merchandise also available for purchase on the concourse.

Parking will be available in the lots located west, southwest and south of the McLeod Center. Fans traveling to Cedar Falls are also advised of on-going road construction near the intersection of University Avenue and Hudson Road when approaching campus.

Saturday’s scrimmage marks the first step in a season-long journey for the Panthers who will be in pursuit of their fourth consecutive Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) regular season and tournament championships this fall. UNI posted a 26-8 record in 2024 and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament before falling to eventual national runner-up Louisville.

The Panthers, who enter the 2025 campaign receiving votes in the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA)/Taraflex Preseason Coaches Poll, return 11 players from last season’s roster, including a pair of All-MVC outside hitters in Lily Dykstra and Cassidy Hartman. Northern Iowa also returns the setter duo of senior Sydney Golden and sophomore Reese Booth, with redshirt sophomore defensive specialist/libero Taryn Rice also back.

UNI added seven new faces to the roster in the offseason with the signing of six high school prospects in Payton Askelsen, Sophie Buysse, Grace Hannam, Kiana Landers and Kate and Molly Shafer. The Panthers also signed middle blocker Lindsay Oldendorf via the transfer portal from San Francisco.

Following their intrasquad scrimmage on Saturday, UNI is scheduled to play one final exhibition match at South Dakota on Aug. 23 before its Aug. 29 season opener at home against reigning Big 12 champion Arizona State. The Panthers will also host South Dakota State on Aug. 30 as part of opening weekend inside the McLeod Center. The full 2025 UNI volleyball schedule can be found HERE.

Single-match and season tickets for the 2025 volleyball season can be purchased online through the UNI Ticket Office, by calling 319-273-4849 or through email at tickets@uni.edu.

UNI volleyball action can be followed all season long on social media on Facebook (UNI Volleyball), X (@UNIVolleyball) and on Instagram (@univolleyball). The full 2025 schedule and roster, along with the latest Panther news and information can be found online at UNIpanthers.com.

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