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World reacts as Tim Walz empowers trans athletes

United States President Donald Trump has been persecuting one of the most marginalized groups in the world in transgender people, since returning to the Oval Office for his second term. Trump has even outlawed the participation of trans athletes in collegiate sports, despite there being no statistical evidence that being transgender provides a marked advantage. […]

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UWM track reunion brings together generations of excellence

What started as a casual conversation between a few friends last summer turned into a heartfelt reunion for UWM track and field alumni this summer. More than 100 former Panthers, family members and friends gathered June 28 in Milwaukee’s Best Place at the Historic Pabst Brewery to share memories and catch up on each other’s […]

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What started as a casual conversation between a few friends last summer turned into a heartfelt reunion for UWM track and field alumni this summer.

More than 100 former Panthers, family members and friends gathered June 28 in Milwaukee’s Best Place at the Historic Pabst Brewery to share memories and catch up on each other’s lives. They also heard from the team’s current athletes , including six-time Horizon League Coach of the Year Andrew Basler and hurdler Natalie Block, who became UWM’s first Division 1 All-American at the 2025 NCAA Championships.

Michael Hirsch, who ran track and cross country for the Panthers from 1976-80, was in Milwaukee a year prior visiting some fellow former runners. In a particularly nostalgic moment, one friend half-jokingly said that they needed to get everyone back together.

So Hirsch, now a dean at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Texas, took up the challenge, embarking on a year’s worth of logistical and organizational efforts.

He’d put together a smaller gathering back in the late 1990s, but this one quickly grew into a much more complex task, and Hirsch thanked the UWM Alumni Association and the many people who helped track everyone down. Emails were searched for and shared, as was the occasional physical address, and social media sleuths played their part.

All the work came to fruition in Best Place’s Great Hall. As a slideshow of photos and articles from days gone by played in the background, old friends exchanged hugs and smiles, laughter and remembrances.

“I love these people. My UWM days are some of the best days of my life, and I have a wonderful life,” Hirsch said in a quieter  moment. “These are strong people, smart people, kind people, forgiving people, teammates and their families. I was just hoping to see them, and I was hoping that people would spend a lot of time talking and smiling.”

And you didn’t have to be part of those track classes from the 1970s and ’80s to appreciate the scene.

“I love seeing the photos, seeing the classic uniforms and some of those old surfaces, it’s crazy that they’re running on that,” said Block, who heads into her final UWM season after placing 12th in the 400-meter hurdles at the 2025 NCAA Championships, the best-ever national finish among Panther women. “It’s super-cool to see, because that’s how the program grew. You can see it carry forward through generations.”

Hirsch, meanwhile, is proud of how Block and the current generation continue to carry the baton.

“UWM fosters that sort of excellence,” Hirsch said. “We met at the Klotsche Center earlier today, and the coach was talking us through how they support their athletes and how proud he is of their athletes and  how successful and hardworking Natalie has been. Our experience was at a different time, and she’s reached a higher level of excellence, and it’s brilliant.”



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Team USA Olympic Freestyle Skiing Roster: Who’s qualified and key dates ahead of Milan Cortina 2026

The U.S. Olympic freestyle skiing roster won’t fully be determined until January 2026, but four athletes already have clinched their spots on the team for Milan Cortina. Ultimately, the roster could include up to 32 athletes across all disciplines. In freestyle skiing, athletes don’t qualify directly for the Winter Olympics. Instead, they earn quota spots […]

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The U.S. Olympic freestyle skiing roster won’t fully be determined until January 2026, but four athletes already have clinched their spots on the team for Milan Cortina. Ultimately, the roster could include up to 32 athletes across all disciplines.

In freestyle skiing, athletes don’t qualify directly for the Winter Olympics. Instead, they earn quota spots for their countries, and it’s up to each country to name athletes to its Olympic roster to fill those quota spots. U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s selection criteria has broken the selection process into two distinct phases.

At the conclusion of the 2024-25 season, one athlete per event could clinch an Olympic spot by finishing in the top three of the 2026 FIS Base List. Four athletes met that criteria.

The rest of the spots will be filled over the course of the 2025-26 season, with designated selection events being used as the primary way that athletes earn nominations to the team. For more details on the selection process, check out our article on Olympic freestyle skiing qualification.

Meet the members of the 2026 U.S. Olympic freestyle ski team (so far) below.



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Track & Field’s Cole Piotrowski Wins SEC Start-Up Competition – Ole Miss Athletics

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Ole Miss track & field alum Cole Piotrowski was named the winner of the SEC Start-Up business competition, earning a $10,000 investment as revealed on an hour-long SEC Network special for the conference’s second edition of the student-athlete pitch competition.   Piotrowski’s winning idea Godors is a spray that eliminates sport-specific odors […]

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Ole Miss track & field alum Cole Piotrowski was named the winner of the SEC Start-Up business competition, earning a $10,000 investment as revealed on an hour-long SEC Network special for the conference’s second edition of the student-athlete pitch competition.
 
Piotrowski’s winning idea Godors is a spray that eliminates sport-specific odors at their root – rather than covering them up – while also using clean ingredients.
 

Piotrowski recently wrapped up his four-year career with Ole Miss track & field as a middle-distance specialist. Piotrowski, a native of Queens, ran in 34 total meets for the Rebels across his four full seasons with career-bests of 1:50.12 in the 800-meter, 2:25.63 in the 1000-meter and 3:50.22 in the 1500 while also running on several 4×400-meter relays during his career.
 
Bringing together innovative minds and entrepreneurial spirits from across the Southeastern Conference, SEC Start Up is an academic competition in partnership with Regions, the official bank of the SEC, in support of the entrepreneurial ventures of student-athletes.
 
Participants had the chance to pitch their business ideas to a panel of esteemed judges, which included Regions Bank Executive Vice President of Community Affairs Leroy Abrahams, former Auburn men’s basketball player and businessman Daymeon Fishback, content creator and HSN/QVC host Emily Loftiss, and CEO of BIOLYTE Jesslyn Rollins.
 
The new initiative expands business and innovation programming in place at the Conference, including its annual SEC Student Pitch Competition and SEC MBA Case Competition. Since 2011, the SEC has supported the teaching, research and service mission of its member universities through a variety of programs and activities. Learn more at SECAcademics.com.
 



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Blue Jays' Amir Garrett

Now Playing Share Link copied! Garrett (undisclosed) was activated from the 60-day minor-league injured list Thursday. Garrett will return to action after missing over three months of action with an undisclosed injury. The left-hander has allowed one run on two hits and a walk while striking out three batters over two innings in two appearances […]

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Garrett (undisclosed) was activated from the 60-day minor-league injured list Thursday.

Garrett will return to action after missing over three months of action with an undisclosed injury. The left-hander has allowed one run on two hits and a walk while striking out three batters over two innings in two appearances with Triple-A Buffalo this year.

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Broderick Selected in 14th Round of MLB Draft by Colorado Rockies – University of Nebraska

Nebraska junior Luke Broderick was selected in the 14th round of the Major League Baseball Draft by the Colorado Rockies with the No. 407 pick overall in the draft on Monday afternoon. Broderick becomes the eighth Husker pitcher under head coach Will Bolt to be drafted after Mason McConnaughey was selected by the Texas Rangers […]

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Nebraska junior Luke Broderick was selected in the 14th round of the Major League Baseball Draft by the Colorado Rockies with the No. 407 pick overall in the draft on Monday afternoon.

Broderick becomes the eighth Husker pitcher under head coach Will Bolt to be drafted after Mason McConnaughey was selected by the Texas Rangers in the fourth round.

The junior is the fourth Husker to be selected by the Rockies in the draft. Broderick earned second-team All-Big Ten recognition and was named to the Big Ten All-Tournament Team and NCBWA’s Preseason and Midseason Stopper of the Year Watch Lists in his first season with the Huskers in 2025.

The right-hander went 4-2 with a 3.25 ERA in 27 relief appearances and totaled 13 saves, which ranks tied for third-most in a season and sixth all-time in program history. Broderick totaled 43 strikeouts in 36 innings and held opposing hitters to a .225 batting average.

Prior to joining the Huskers, Broderick was selected to the USA NJCAA All-Star Team and helped Team USA to a championship appearance at the historic Honkbalweek Haarlem last summer. The Omaha, Neb., native appeared in one game for the Stars and Stripes, allowing three hits with six strikeouts in 3.1 scoreless innings.



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Water Polo Hall of Famer, former UCSD coach, reflects on the sport’s ‘wild west’ era

Former UCSD Water Polo Coach Denny Harper huddles with his team. (Courtesy of UCSD Athletics) Denny Harper, the UC San Diego men’s water polo coach from 1980 to 2021 and a member of the USA Water Polo Hall of Fame’s 2025 class, said he began coaching when he was in high school. Growing up in […]

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Former UCSD Water Polo Coach Denny Harper huddles with his team. (Courtesy of UCSD Athletics)

Denny Harper, the UC San Diego men’s water polo coach from 1980 to 2021 and a member of the USA Water Polo Hall of Fame’s 2025 class, said he began coaching when he was in high school.

Growing up in Orange County in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Harper was a “classic” football and basketball kid who spent his summers surfing off the coast of Newport Beach.

But during his freshman year at Rancho Alamitos High School in Garden Grove, Harper said he developed Osgood-Schlatter’s Disease — an overuse injury common in growing teens — which caused pain in his knees.

“I couldn’t play football,” Harper said. “Which was at the time the most devastating thing that had probably happened in my life — I cried for about a week or so, and then I got a visit from a guy named Tom Moore.”

Moore was the captain of the high school water polo and swimming teams, and he asked Harper to try out for both.

Harper said he still wanted to play football and wasn’t thrilled about Moore’s proposal.

According to Harper, water polo was a competitive sport in Orange County in the early 1970s — but it had not yet exploded in popularity, as it would over the next two decades.

But he gave the sport a shot.

“I stuck it out and things kind of kicked in for me my sophomore year,” Harper said.

Then, during his junior year, a group of girls who wanted to start a water polo team asked him to be their coach.

According to Harper, he wasn’t sure why they asked him, although he was the captain of the boys water polo team — and a captain of every team he’d played on growing up, regardless of the sport.

Courtesy of Denny Harper.

There were only a few high schools near Garden Grove with girls water polo teams at the time, Harper said, but he began scheduling games using his family’s rotary phone.

Harper said that after the initial shock of being in charge of his peers and friends, he found himself taking the role of managing the team pretty seriously.

“We wanted to get better,” Harper said. “We wanted to win.”

After high school, Harper played water polo for two years at Santa Barbara City College, where he met his best friend, Russ Hafferkamp, a fellow member of the USA Water Polo Hall of Fame.

Denny Harper at the 2025 USA Water Polo Hall of Fame induction ceremony, June 13, 2025. (Courtesy of UCSD Athletics)

In 1976, Harper transferred to San Diego State University, where he played for the men’s varsity team.

While playing for the men’s team, Harper was approached by a former player of his from high school, who asked him if he would coach the school’s fledgling women’s club team.

Harper agreed, and ended up coaching the women’s club team at SDSU for six years, from 1977 to 1983.

Harper said his SDSU women’s teams went 130-18, winning exhibition games over the US National Team and the Hungarian National Team, which was one of the world’s best at the time.

“We won a lot of tournaments,” Harper said of his years at SDSU. “We were pretty much the top dog.”

In 1980, while Harper was coaching the SDSU women’s team — and teaching at Horton Elementary School near Lincoln Park — Hafferkamp approached him and asked if he’d want to coach the UCSD men’s team as well. His friend, the UCSD men’s head coach, was leaving for another job.

Harper agreed.

He said he still has his $800 contract for coaching the UCSD men during the 1980 season — his first paycheck as a coach.

In 1983, UCSD asked Harper to coach the women’s varsity team as well.

He said his two or so years as the UCSD women’s coach were a little awkward because his athletes remembered his success at SDSU.

“They hated me because I always beat them when I was at San Diego State,” Harper said. “So they were like, ‘Why is he here?’”

But his loyalties had flipped. Harper said that as the UCSD women’s coach, his teams never lost to SDSU.

When USA Water Polo began sponsoring a women’s collegiate national championship in 1985, UCSD won the first three tournaments.

Courtesy of Denny Harper.

Harper said that women’s water polo in the 1980s was like the “wild, wild west.”

“I love that era of coaching women’s water polo,” Harper said. “Because everything was on a par. Nobody had any real money, it wasn’t really funded by any [athletic] departments. Coaches weren’t getting paid — it was for the love of the sport.”

After the UCSD women’s championship run from 1985 to 1987, they would win two more national championships under Harper, who stepped down following the 1999 season to focus on the men’s program.

As the UCSD men’s coach, Harper won 697 games and earned 15 national championship berths, placing second in the country in 2000 and third in 1995, 1998 and 2006.

Because water polo competed in an open division — rather than teams being classed as Division I, II or III — Harper said UCSD games were well attended.

According to Harper, the UCSD team improved when he became their coach because he gave his players an offseason conditioning program, moved their practices in 1981 from the indoor, shallow end pool at UCSD to the 50-meter pool at what was then Miramar Naval Air Station, and scheduled games that year against Cal and UCLA, two of the country’s best programs.

In Harper’s second season as the UCSD men’s coach, the program was ranked 10th nationally, which he said was unheard of.

“We were the first team at UCSD to prove you can play up,” Harper said, referring to his squad’s matches against USC, a DI powerhouse, while other programs at UCSD competed at the DIII level.

According to Buc Buchanan, a captain of the UCSD team in 1982, they placed 10th nationally in 1981 despite one player contracting meningitis and another being injured in a bike accident.

In an email, Buchanan said that when Harper arrived as the team’s new coach, “he came across as a confident man, a coach with a plan and a leader with a vision.”

Harper said that the COVID pandemic and an increasing number of administrative tasks influenced his decision to retire.

According to Harper, NIL deals will not become a big thing at UCSD.

“I just don’t see it happening,” Harper said. “It will deter from a long-standing philosophy that kids will still come, because they always have, to UCSD and they’re going to overachieve. Because they overachieve in the classroom … they overachieve in their sports.”

In his retirement, Harper still coaches the San Francisco Olympic Club master’s team during international competitions.

It wasn’t all about accomplishment during his UCSD days, according to Harper.

“If there were shenanigans happening in the ’80s at UCSD, I was the one who was called by [the UCSD athletic director] to somehow keep the boys from going to prison,” he said.

How does he describe those teams now? “A cross between Bad News Bears and the LA Raiders,” he said, “at their peak of Raider-ness.”



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