Sports
The WNBA is taking another significant step forward

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — I’m not a fan of the players or the teams. However, I’m a fan of historical moments. An incredible historic moment took place Sunday night on the Barclays Center in Brooklyn when the New York Liberty, one among the unique WNBA teams, won their first WNBA championship.
Led by Finals MVP Jonquel Jones, Liberty defeated the Minnesota Lynx 67-62 in extra time. If any fan base deserved to win a championship, Liberty fans did it. Liberty has reached the WNBA Finals five times and has never won. Their fans have watched, waited and followed this band for 27 years, first at Madison Squares Garden.
When Knicks owner James Dolan put the team up on the market and sent Liberty to Westchester, Liberty fans followed him. The Liberty played in Newark, and in 2004 they even took the stage at Radio City Music Hall. Ultimately, the Liberty was purchased by the owners of the Brooklyn Nets, Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai. When it became clear on Sunday that the long-awaited championship moment had finally arrived, the Barclays Center erupted in muted joy from fans who had been waiting for a championship moment for nearly three many years.
For those that could have had their first taste of WNBA basketball – college refugees who were dropped at the league by Caitlin Clark or Angel Reese – the Liberty-Lynx Finals could have been a revelation. For longtime WNBA fans, these Finals simply underlined what they already knew: The women on this league are incredibly talented, passionate and committed to a cause — improving women’s basketball and ladies typically.
Catalina Fragoso/NBAE via Getty Images
With the exception of the second match, which Liberty won after losing, every final match ended with a possession victory. In the primary game, Minnesota overcame an 18-point deficit and defeated Liberty 95-93 in extra time. In Game 3, Liberty needed a 3-pointer by Sabrina Ionescu to secure an 80-77 victory. The Lynx won Game 4 82-80 after two last-second fouls by Bridget Carleton. This marked the start of the historic drama that unfolded on Sunday.
Sunday’s victory capped a historic season not just for Liberty, but in addition for a league that has been screaming for attention in a competitive sports market that an excessive amount of ignores or marginalizes women. Just like there are men who won’t ever vote for a presidential candidate, no matter her qualifications, there are also men who is not going to listen to the WNBA. Fortunately, the league continues to thrive without them.
Despite the NFL, college football and hockey seasons being in full swing, despite the Major League Baseball playoffs being underway, the voice of the WNBA has finally been heard.
- ESPN estimated viewership increased 170% to 1.2 million per game.
- WNBA teams sold 400,000 tickets in a single month.
- 21 matches attracted over 1 million viewers each. In eighteen of those games, the Indiana Fever and Clark were their No. 1 draft pick.
There’s little question that Clark and fellow Chicago Sky rookie Reese played significant roles within the league’s historic leap forward this season, but they were under no circumstances saviors. The WNBA might have fresh leadership soon, but with so many great players, it doesn’t need saviors.
WNBA commissioner Cathy Englebert made a mistake last month when, at the peak of the debates surrounding Clark and her initiation into the league, she was asked during a television interview about racism and misogyny directed on the WNBA’s predominantly black players. Engelbert said: “There is no more apathy. Everyone cares. If you remember, it’s kind of of a moment of that bird magic, in the event you remember 1979, when these two rookies got here back from an enormous college rivalry, one white, one black. And so now we have this moment with these two.
“But one thing I know about sports: you need competition. That’s what makes people watch. They want to watch important matches between rivals. They don’t want everyone to be nice to each other.”
Engelbert later posted a press release on social media explaining her position. “To be clear, there is absolutely no place for hate or racism in the WNBA or anywhere else.” But Englebert made point: Polarization attracts attention. She was unsuitable to say that, unlike the NBA within the Nineteen Seventies, the WNBA didn’t need a savior. The league needs consistency, perseverance and continuous development. It needs competitive finals just like the one we just saw.
Melissa Tamez/Sportswire Icon
Most of the coverage of the WNBA was concerning the cheerleaders and support. I’m guilty of this too. The WNBA is a league, but it surely is also a movement, a crusade. This made the league clean up; this is what separates the WNBA from other major leagues. The WNBA champions empowerment and social justice while rebuking misogyny. During a conversation last summer on the Paris Olympics, Nadia Rawlinson, co-owner of Chicago Sky, said, “Eighty percent of the people on the court are African American. A large number of these people identify as LGBTQIA. The league is about equality, access, opportunity, fighting for justice, getting a seat at the table.”
In 2021, players campaigned against Atlanta Dream co-owner Kelly Loeffler, who has been a vocal supporter of Donald Trump in his bid to retain his Senate seat. She lost. WNBA players have long advocated for LGBTQ rights. They dedicated the 2020 season within the Say Her Name campaign for Breonna Taylor. WNBA players have grow to be a respected political force. A yr later, Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner was detained in Russia. Her arrest highlighted how WNBA players are forced to compete overseas to complement their income.
I’m undecided how long the WNBA’s activist imperative will last. It may grow to be a victim of its own popularity and expansion. The league will add one team next season and two more in 2026.
The WNBA has made another U-turn, but there are still more twists and turns to barter and mountains to climb. According to for a report within the New York Postthe league could lose $40 million this season. The Post’s report also found that NBA players receive about 50% of the NBA’s basketball revenue in comparison with 10% for the WNBA. Sports economist David Berri told the New York Post: “NBA men have never been as underpaid as WNBA women are today.” This may change in the following 20 years.
But within the here and now, the WNBA took another significant step forward this season, culminating in a historic moment for the Liberty. As a lover of historical moments, I felt lucky to have the opportunity to experience this.
Sports
Jalen Milroe can follow the Jalen path in NFL

Star Black playmakers aren’t any longer an exception – they’re the rule. Throughout the entire football season, this series will discover the importance and influence of black QB from bottom -up to NFL.
Indianapolis-keep me, should you heard it earlier: playmaker Alabama born in Texas, who’s a stronger runner than a passerby, will probably be called outside the first round of the NFL Draft.
The playmaker was undefeated in Sec as a primary -year starter.
The playmaker never played for the same offensive coordinator.
The name of the playmaker is even Jalen.
But it isn’t clear that Jalen hurts. This winter he was busy winning the Super Bowl MVP, and he didn’t play Iron Bowl or against Michigan.
Instead, it’s a former playmaker of Crimson Tide Jalen Milroewho last week Combine Combine tried to convey the case to the trainers and evaluators that he – like his namesake – is price being their playmaker franchise in the future despite questions on his ability.
“I went through adversity. I saw everything as a quarterback, “Milroe said on Friday. “I played at the most difficult conference in the country. It would be easier to play at other conferences, but what I could see in Sec catapulted me that I was ready to play NFL. “
Justin Casterline/Getty Images
Departing from Katy in Texas, she originally got involved in Texas in 2019, but a 12 months later she fell to Alabama. After he was sitting behind the Crimson Tide Starter Bryung for 2 seasons, Milroe took his reins in the 2023 season. He helped Alabama survive Sec (8-0) this 12 months, won by the conference rival and two-time defender Georgia in the SEC championship, which caused Crimson Tide to the play-off collection.
But while Milroe had a big arm (his 10 yards for the test took third place in Sec in 2023), the pass was not his strong suit. For two seasons as a starter Milroe never achieved 3000 yards in one season, the first starter of Alabama, who did it because it … hurts.
Hurts, from Houston, led Crimson Tide to the National National Championships in 2016–17, but during these two seasons were lower than 5,000 yards. While Hurts was a singular Rusher (1,809 yards and 21 sticks) at the moment, his weakness as a passerby is known for led to the spare Tua Tavailoa during the break of the national championships in 2017.
In the mix, Milroe decided that despite his pedestrian passes, he was still worthy of being a start at NFL.
He is aware of his weaknesses and swore that he worked in the ass to enhance outside being “one dimension.” He could move when his legendary trainer, Nick Saban, retired after the 2023 season, but decided to not fall off. He traveled six miles a day to ensure that that something was left in the fourth quarter in the fourth quarter. He studied progression and reads after I-SNAP to lift his IQ in football.
Unlike the forecast sorts of the first round, Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders, Milroe threw a mix on Saturday, hoping that he would show the bands that he has mechanics to do that to the playmaker NFL. It turned out to be a mixed bag. Milroe showed strong arm strength and a very good location of sail routes, curls and it while throwing exercises, but fought accuracy on intermediate and on the routes.
“That’s so many things that I can learn more where I am today and where I will be when it comes to day 1, starting with NFL,” said Milroe before Saturday exercises. “Always be a game student, at all times attempt to develop, because it would be so many opportunities in which I can look back and say that it was the moment after I grew up as a playmaker.
“That’s right now, I’m just trying to grow as much as possible, put my best foot forward and just look for development.”
Derick E. Hingle/Getty Images
Milroe was asked that he was one other playmaker in Alabama to succeed in the mix, following in the footsteps of the role (who moved to Oklahoma in 2019), Tavailoa, Mac Jones and Bryce Young. Milroe said he appreciates being in the company of others, but he added that it’s difficult to check him with others.
“We had different bands, we had different players around us, we had a different system,” he said.
But when he specifically asked what he could study the journey of Hurts-from the first manager of the game after the super Bowl-Milroe master said he inspired him his companion Alabam.
“The most important thing I learned from J. Hurts is how he kept his head (I) always continued to work,” said Milroe. “He at all times raised his game, he has never been self -deserved, and all the pieces you see is great progress from him.
“And I have to applaud him as a person, he as a man, because he is definitely inspiring for many playmakers of my image, as well as many playmakers throughout the country. He leads to all of us. “
The couple isn’t completely similar. Hurts had about 20 kilos on Milroe when he was in college. Milroe has a stronger arm, while Hurts played more and not using a mistake of football: Milroe threw 17 interceptions and ate 67 bags for 2 seasons as a starter in comparison with 10 captures Hurts and 43 bags.
But they can each be changing the game when their teams need them. In a highly publicized match against Georgia at the starting of the last season, Milroe finished almost 82% of his passes on 374 yards and two appointments, adding 117 yards to the ground for the next two results.
Milroe can also match the wounds in the so -called “Jalen-ISMS. “
“Climbing upstairs is not easy, but when you reach the top of this mountain, you will learn so many things when it comes to adversity when it comes to difficulties, things along the way,” said Milroe in a mix.
Sports
Like Tommie Smith and John Carlos from 1968. Black Power Salute inspired me to find my goal

I’d say that I grew up within the household to be sure that that me and my siblings were aware of the black history. My parents invested in the gathering of black encyclopedias. On the duvet we had a version of the Bible with Black Jesus. Our house was stuffed with books of black novelists and thinkers, and if a black document appeared, we watched it. I watched all movies made on television about Dr. King, each “Roots” and “Alex Haley’s Queen” and I sat for all 14 hours “Eyes on the reward”-as a toddler. Bless my heart.
Having said this, there have been pockets of black history, and more likely that I had no opportunity to delve into once I was a toddler. The college was where all the will for information and understanding of the combined. I attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., One of a very powerful historically black universities within the country. It was there that I met people from around the globe whose knowledge about black history differed (often depending on the colleges and the communities by which we lived), but everyone had hunger to learn more.
One day, through the first yr, I remember one among my friends in a T -shirt by which I had definitely seen before, but I never paid attention to. There was a black and white screen printing on the shirt (what I do know now) the enduring moment on the Olympic Games in Mexico in 1968, where on the rostrum for 200-meter medals, Tommie Smith, John Carlos (races 1. And 3. Place Finaners) Everyone gathered a black fist in gloves while he played “Star Spangled Banner”. Peter Norman, the second place from Australia, wore a human rights badge, like Smith and Carlos.
Not only did they raise the fist of black power (although they each said it was for human rights), they received medals in black socks to represent poverty within the black community, and Smith wore a black scarf for black pride. Carlos showed solidarity with blue-wheeled employees, unpacking the jacket and wore a necklace from the beads for individuals who were lynched. Due to the state of Black America in 1968 and a continuing struggle for equality and civil rights, there have been calls to a boycott of the Games. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was also killed in April this yr – and all three athletes were inspired enough to find a way to do it on the rostrum, which led to one of the crucial durable images of public protest.
I remember how I learned history and realized that on the most important scene these brave men used their moment of triumph and victory to quietly protest against the conditions of underrated communities in America. I felt strengthened; We often discuss standing on the arms of giants, however the more I got into the history of black in America, the more I spotted what number of giants there have been. In college I used to be very bad and for a while ready to burn every part that represented the establishment or any obstacle to black liberation. I felt like all those individuals who even saw their space on the planet in reference to individuals who could never give you the option to speak as heroes whose lives were to be modeled later. Especially since it was also fastidiously that putting people in front of him can often bring an enormous personal loss.
When Smith and Carlos took their position, they were booed on the stadium and ordered to be sent home by the International Olympic Committee. The athletes returned home, but they weren’t welcomed by the hero, but as a substitute of rough sleds, and even in some cases the specter of death. They were also not beloved by athletes. Two men, associated eternally in history, even have a good relationship –Carlos even claims that he let Smith go within the race Because “Tommie Smith would never put his fist in the sky if I won this race,” the claim that Smith denies.
History ultimately has a way of rights, but it surely took a few years and realizations on the front of social policy, in order that the actions of those persons are perceived as brave and needed, not only selfish and smug.
The lessons that I learned from College and continuous reading and education I gained (my head remained within the book about black history) were one among the best advantages in HBCU. The very variety of books I learned about about which I actually have never heard of – I actually have upheld me all my life.
That is why I remember sooner or later I used to be walking around Washington, the eastern Washington market and a street seller was selling different photos of moments in black history, and he had a 40 -inch photo within the Tommie Smith and John Carlos frame. I paid for it in money and spent it across the capital of the country until I returned home. I do know that it happened in 2005 (I finished Morehouse College in 2001) because I just moved to my first apartment with no roommate and it was the very first thing that I actually have ever suspended on the wall. This picture within the frame still hangs on the wall in my home in 2025 and I used it to teach my children about sacrifice and privilege and how you may have to discuss individuals who cannot.

The query that my youngest children often ask: “How do I know who can’t speak for herself?” Which is an incredible query. For this I answered an easy fact, pointing to the photo:
“These men have made a gesture that gave people whose most of us, including them, would never see or never know them, but on which life negatively affects the alternatives of the wealthy and the federal government. Sometimes you may have to take this chance to say something because you do not know in the event you’ll ever have such a big platform.
Son, there may be at all times someone who cannot speak for himself, and you may have to use it in a voice, because perhaps the thing you say or a stand that can help someone you understand, live a greater life. ”
I take advantage of words that may understand a little bit higher, but I can inform you that my children have a look at this photo on a regular basis, and once one among my sons said: “These guys are heroes, right?”
I say yes, they’re. They are the heroes of the Black History.
They will live eternally for speaking, and even quietly, in solidarity with those that couldn’t.

(Tagstranslate) @Ap
Sports
Main Treasury Official Morgan State University, Sterling Steward, died

Morgan State University announced that his older associate athletics director and tax director, Sterling Steward, died.
No reason for death was disclosed, but the college has confirmed his contribution since he was employed in December 2022.
Morgan State University Athletics mourns Sterling Steward’s departure https://t.co/avjzilxhja
– Grizzly Life (@grizzlylife22) February 26, 2025
Steward died on February 26. In Morgan State he was accountable for the event of university programs, supporting partnerships and strengthening the financial and operational success of the Faculty.
“Sterling was more than a colleague-he was a respected leader, mentor and friend,” said in a written statement by Den Freeman-Patton, vice chairman and director of inter-university athletes. “His passion for athletics and commitment to raising Morgan programs were visible in everything he did. He worked tirelessly to ensure that our sports students had resources and the possibilities of distinction, and its impact will be felt for many years. We expand our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones, especially his three sons and sister when we mourn this huge loss. “
While the steward worked in Morgan, strategic growth and cooperation occurred. His work with the institutional development department helped to offer more opportunities and created lasting relationships to support sports programs.
Steward earlier he worked At the University of New Orleans (UNO) as an assistant to the college athletics director for strategic income generation. He also made stays on the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Savannah State University, Mississippi Valley State University, Alabama State University, Kentucky State University, Eastern Oregon University and Xavier University in various roles, including for a senior consultant athletics director and sports director.
He was from New Orleans, who received the title of bachelor and master’s degree on the University of Southern Mississippi. He won a bachelor’s degree in the sphere of coaching and administration/history of sport and his master’s degree in the sphere of sport management.
(Tagstransate) Morgan State Universiry
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