Free Republic

One of the WNBA’s most prominent voices wants her league to consider the place of women in America at the birth of the country before agreeing to wear a celebratory jersey patch. Aces forward Brianna Turner, the players association treasurer, balked at the idea that WNBA All-Stars should wear the “USA 250” patch on their jerseys that other professional sports leagues have adopted to celebrate America’s upcoming 250th birthday.

Ned Jarrett, twice a NASCAR premier-series champion as well as a second-year inductee into the NASCAR Hall of Fame and one of the first competitors to make a successful transition from the race car to the television booth, has died. He was 93. The Jarrett family made the following statement: “With profound sadness, the family of NASCAR Hall of Fame driver and radio/TV personality, Ned Jarrett, announces his passing on Thursday, June 4, 2026. He died peacefully of natural causes at his home in Newton, North Carolina, with his family by his side. He was 93 years old. Our father...

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he has accepted an invitation from New York Knicks owner James Dolan to attend an NBA Finals game at Madison Square Garden next week. "The answer is yes," Trump said. "[Dolan] has invited me, and I'm going. I'll be there. It could be Monday. Maybe I'll do both [Game 3 and Game 4]." The Knicks, who are playing in the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999, hold a 1-0 series lead over the San Antonio Spurs before Friday's Game 2 in San Antonio. New York's 14-point comeback victory in Game 1 on...

Transgender athlete AB Hernandez advanced in three girls' jumping events, earning the top place in two, during the preliminary round of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) state track & field championships on Friday. Hernandez, who has been at the center of a national controversy for competing in girls' competitions dating back to last May, will now contend for the state title in girls' long jump, high jump and triple jump on Saturday evening.

Americans long have leavened their powerful global image with goofiness, a cheerful confidence that can deflect international wonder over certain strains of ignorance into a smile. Behold, for example, the cheesehead hat. Made of sofa foam and sunny yellow defiance, the hat was created in the late 1980s in response to the taunting faced by supporters of sports teams in Wisconsin, which has long called itself America’s dairyland. “Cheeseheads!” residents of neighboring Illinois said. The insult was embraced and, yes, turned on its head — particularly in the realm of a certain football team named the Green Bay Packers. Soon,...

Trans athlete AB Hernandez turned in first place finishes in long jump, triple jump and high jump MOORPARK, Calif. – "It’s an outlier." That’s the common argument from left-wing transgender activists. They say that biological males taking the spotlight from girls in girls' sports isn’t the big deal that it’s made out to be by "the right" ... because it "hardly ever happens." Tell that to the high school girls from California, like senior Reese Hogan of Crean Lutheran, who are watching it happen, yet again. Transgender track athlete AB Hernandez was standing atop multiple podiums on Saturday and is...

Former NBC Sunday Night Football sideline reporter Michele Tafoya is dominating the early Republican primary race for Minnesota’s open 2026 U.S. Senate seat. A Quantus Insights survey conducted May 6-8 among 663 likely Republican primary voters puts Tafoya at 52 percent, a staggering 43-point lead over her closest competitor. Former basketball player Royce White sits at 9 percent, followed by Adam Schwarze at 4 percent and Tom Weiler at 2 percent. More than a quarter of likely GOP primary voters, 27 percent, remain undecided, leaving room for the field to shift before primary day. Still, the size of Tafoya’s advantage...

The mother of a transgender high school athlete publicly trashed California’s policy allowing girls to share the first place podium if they came in second. AB Hernandez came in first at three events during Saturday’s California Interscholastic Federation’s Southern Section championship final: long jump, high jump and triple jump. Despite that, girls who came in second were allowed to share the podium due to a new California policy, per Fox News. Trans athlete AB Hernandez won first place in the high jump, long jump and triple jump at the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Southern Section finals on Saturday. So too...

The mother of controversial transgender high school track athlete AB Hernandez publicly shared a post slamming California school officials for allowing biological female athletes to receive duplicate podium placements and medals at state track competitions. The post, from the trans active group Rainbow Families Action, included the letter from the California Interscholastic Federation allowing the change ahead of Hernandez’s domination of the long jump, high jump and triple jump at Saturday’s California Interscholastic Federation’s Southern Section championship final. ”All these big, tough ex-athletes at CIF, and the most courage they could muster was to hand this to coaches at AB’s...

World Cup fans are banned from bringing in pre-revolutionary Iran flags and apparel to stadiums this summer — while the controversial Palestinian flag will be allowed. FIFA has ruled items with the symbolism will not be permitted at this year’s iteration of the globe’s most-famous soccer tournament, The Athletic reported on Tuesday. FIFA says the flag violates their code of conduct, which states “banners, flags, fliers, apparel and other paraphernalia, that are of a political, offensive and/or discriminatory nature” will not be allowed at event venues. The Palestinian flag is an “officially approved flag of a member association of FIFA,”...

If I didn't have my garage radio tuned to NPR (my early warning system) I never would have known about the stealth plan to build yet another "professional sports complex" with a price tag of $2.3 billion in Hillsborough County. I don't even know which sports team this one's for. The article featured Tampa's Mayor exclaiming they still had a lot of work to do on it but she hoped the "Commission" wouldn't need to "raise taxes" (hint, hint) to get it done. Excuse me, Ms. Mayor but where the hell have you been? In 2024 the County Commission got...

A transgender athlete in California so dominated the state finals that it brought protest and outrage from fans and parents in attendance. It also brought a very unusual move from event officials. AB Hernandez, 17, a senior at Juniper Valley High School, took first place in the girls’ long jump, high jump, and triple jump during this weekend’s California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section finals. The ill feelings toward Hernandez were obvious, not just from protesters and parents but also from female competitors who seemed to avoid the trans athlete after the win. Having evidently anticipated the backlash and, potentially, the...

Michael B. Jordan closed out Amazon‘s Upfront presentation at the Beacon Theatre in New York on Monday not as an actor, but as a producer with a growing slate of major television projects. Through his production company Outlier Society, Jordan unveiled three series in development for Prime Video: The Greatest, Delphi, and Fourth Wing, each representing a different register of his ambitions behind the camera. The most culturally significant announcement of the three is The Greatest, a biographical series about Muhammad Ali that marks the first project about the boxing legend’s life to receive authorization from his estate. Created by...

The NFL ended a mandate that all 32 teams hire a minority coach as an offensive assistant ahead of the 2025 season and not because of recent pressure from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who on Wednesday issued an investigative subpoena to the league over its hiring practices. Uthmeier, who in March threatened potential civil action against the NFL over the league's Rooney Rule, said Wednesday that the NFL had changed diversity language on its website and that it had "capitulated on some of their discriminatory hiring quotas," while arguing that the revisions raise new questions about the policy. He...

Iran’s football federation has shared a list of conditions with FIFA surrounding the country’s participation in the upcoming 2026 World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico, including a ban on LGBTQ+ pride flags. The Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFIRI) told FIFA that it would compete in the competition “without any retreat from our beliefs, culture and convictions” and insisted that the hosts “must take our concerns into account”, as per Out Sports. The list of 10 demands for Iran’s participation comes after the FFIRI’s president, Mehdi Taj, was denied entry to Canada before the FIFA...

It’s safe to say the WNBA is the most toxic and dysfunctional professional sports league in US history. And the league is incapable of learning from its mistakes. As Joe Hoft reported earlier this year, Caitlin Clark was injurted in the 2026 pre-season opener for the Indianapolis Fever. They had their golden goose, and they ran it over. To date, rather than provide officiating that was fair and protected Clark, the league allowed women in the league to pull, push, hit, poke, hammer, and totally abuse Clark. The beatings and abuse took their toll. No one could have put up...

'm all about respect and sportsmanship, but I also love a healthy dose of gamesmanship, and that seems to be what we're getting from the Vegas Golden Knights. Vegas is still in the playoffs and currently tied with the Anaheim Ducks 2-2. However, they were the talk of hockey at the end of the regular season when they fired then-head coach Bruce Cassidy with just eight games left in the season and the team on track to make the playoffs. It was a shocker — especially after Cassidy led the team to a Stanley Cup in 2023 — and the...

Jason Collins, the first openly gay player in the NBA, died following a “valiant” battle with Stage 4 glioblastoma, his family announced Tuesday. Collins was 47. The ex-Nets player and 13-year NBA veteran had revealed his diagnosis in December in a piece published by ESPN. Stage 4 glioblastoma is one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer.

Longtime NFL quarterback Craig Morton, who led the Denver Broncos to their first Super Bowl appearance, died on Saturday. He was 83. Morton spent the end of his career with the Broncos, and he helped lead them to their first playoff appearance and Super Bowl berth during the 1977 season. The team went 12-2 that year in the regular season before losing to the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl XII. Morton spent 18 years in the league in total, first with the Cowboys after the franchise selected him with the No. 5 overall pick in the 1965 NFL Draft. He...

I'm not sure what's more of a clown show: The boy being allowed to take 1st in all these girls' track events, or a Fox News host calling him a "she." Host Brian Kilmeade referred correctly to the transgender high school athlete, AB Hernandez, as a male. But host Ainsley Earhardt then immediately and repeatedly referred to Hernandez as "she." The segment talked about the importance of saving girls' sports ... while accepting the delusion that boys can be called "she." Pick a lane, Fox News!