'Meet the Spartans' fan event to return next week
Michigan State announced on Tuesday that the "Meet the Spartans" event will return next week on August 21. This is the first time Michigan State is holding the event during fall preseason since 2019. The event had previously ran every year from 2003 to 2019 before it was forced to be canceled in 2020 due to COVID-19. Michigan State held a similar fan event last spring as part of the team's open practice.
Here are the critical details for the event:
Full details for the event can be found here.
Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan State news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Robert Bondy on X @RobertBondy5.
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Atlantic
6 minutes ago
- Atlantic
King of the Hill Now Looks Like a Fantasy
When Hank Hill, the stalwart, drawling protagonist of King of the Hill,returns to Texas, he kneels in the airport and kisses the floor. More than 15 years have passed since audiences last saw him—the show, which debuted a new season last week, ended its original 12-year run in 2009. Viewers learn that Hank and his wife, Peggy, have recently moved back to their yellow house on Rainey Street, in suburban Arlen, after several years living in Saudi Arabia. Hank had taken a job as a propane consultant there, where the couple had lived in an idyllic simulacrum of an American small town, a place that put Hank in mind of 'what things were like in the '50s.' Then and now, the slice-of-life comedy—which also stars Hank and Peggy's son, Bobby— mainly concerns neighborhood antics unfolding across Rainey Street's living rooms and lawns. (Bobby, for his part, is now a chef who lives in Dallas.) Yet its premise lands differently today than it did a decade and a half ago. Today, when only a quarter of Americans reportedly know most of their neighbors, and nearly as many say they feel lonely and disconnected from their community, King of the Hill 's focus on neighborly relations is comforting, even idealistic—a vision of suburban America with strong social ties that, for the most part, isn't riven by cultural or political divisions. As such, the show feels like a playbook for a type of rosy coexistence that, in the real world, seems harder and harder to come by. From the Hills' perspective, Arlen has primarily changed in ways they find inconvenient. Now Hank has to contend with ride-share apps, boba, and bike lanes that interfere with his commute—adjustments that are perturbing to him. But these signs of the times are easier for him to accept than the realization that some things, or people, haven't changed; they've deteriorated. Almost immediately after reuniting with his friends, Hank learns that Bill Dauterive, his longtime friend and neighbor, hasn't left his bedroom since the COVID lockdowns of 2020. Hank had been Bill's de facto lifeline for years, helping his friend even when it meant pushing himself wildly outside his comfort zone, such as getting a tattoo of Bill's name and donning a dress alongside him. Without Hank's stabilizing presence, Bill's well-being seems to have declined to the point that even Netflix—which he'd been watching nonstop—sent someone to his house to perform a wellness check. Horrified by Bill's sorry state, Hank vows to get his friend 'back on track.' But when his former boss calls to offer him an attractive job that would take him back to the Middle East, alongside all the amenities he could want, Hank's new dilemma seems to crystallize. Listening to the tempting offer, Hank stares across his lawn toward Bill, who's using a garden rake to drag a package in through his window without leaving his room. Does Hank really want to be back in this neighborhood, where his relationships create inescapable obligations and daily nuisances? By choosing to stay in Arlen, Hank and Peggy reaffirm King of the Hill 's core message: that belonging to a community is a worthwhile enterprise that requires ongoing commitment. In the case of Bill, that ultimately means enticing him back into society with the appetizing waft and convivial chatter of a barbecue party—a small coup for social connection amid the inertia of alienation. Mike Judge, one of the show's co-creators, has said that the character of Hank was partially inspired by neighbors he once had in suburban Texas, who saw Judge struggling to repair a broken fence in his yard and helped him fix it, unprompted. This habitual caretaking—the act of showing up for others, regardless of convenience or reward—is part of what the political theorist Hannah Arendt called the ' web of human relationships,' conceived on an ethic of tolerance and responsibility that goes deeper than simply enjoying your neighbors' company. After all, Bill can be a buzzkill, and the Hills' other neighbors, such as the conspiratorial Dale Gribble across the alley and the holier-than-thou Minh and Kahn Souphanousinphone next door, are flawed too. For the Hills, staying in Arlen means forgoing a more comfortable life to lump it with some weird personalities. But without taking pains to help one's neighbors, a resilient, tolerant community could not exist. And without that web of relationships, even the most Stepford-perfect town is a spiritual desert. While Bill's storyline dramatizes how isolation can hollow out an individual's life, King of the Hill also explores how withdrawal can fray community ties more broadly. One episode finds Peggy aghast that her neighbors are pulling away from one another and receding into their technology: Many Arlen locals now pretend not to be home if their doorbell cameras reveal chatty-looking strangers on their doorstep; some even post paranoid warnings to an anonymous neighborhood forum, fearmongering about 'strange people' sightings (half of which turn out to just be Dale). Peggy takes it upon herself to bring the neighborhood together by erecting a lending library in her front yard. The initiative works well—until her books spread bedbugs, making everyone even angrier and more suspicious of one another. Peggy doesn't want to admit that she's responsible for a public-health fiasco, but the show underscores that a community can't function on good intentions alone. Sometimes, restoring harmony requires a willingness to lose face—which she does. After confessing to causing the outbreak, she leads a group effort to burn the infested books in a bonfire. 'Texas morons have book-burning party,' is how one anonymous forum user describes them. But at least the whole street comes together in the end, with someone strumming a guitar as the pages crackle. King of the Hill 's belief in the innate power of moral character remains one of its most appealing traits—but the revival glosses reality in order to preserve its gentle equilibrium. Many viewers have described the series as 'small c ' conservative: Hank values the familiarity of his traditions more than he's vocal about his political beliefs, but he also once refused to lick a stamp with an image of Bill Clinton on it. Judge has described its humor as 'more social than political.' In an episode of the original series, the Hills meet then-Governor George W. Bush at a presidential-campaign rally; world events that occurred during Bush's presidency, however—such as 9/11 and the Iraq War—never came up during the show's original run. Now neither do ongoing stories that have kept Texas in the news, such as the state's restrictive anti-abortion laws. The reveal that Dale was briefly elected mayor of Arlen on an anti-mask campaign is the closest the show comes this time around to commenting on today's culture wars. Some viewers may find it difficult to reconcile the show's good-humored, inclusive portrayal of everyday suburban life with the political and social fragmentation found within many American communities today. A version of the show that more directly explored real-world tensions could have sharply captured the moment into which King of the Hill returns. However, its obvious distance from real life encourages viewers to suspend disbelief and immerse themselves in its true politic: participating in the ritual of neighborhood life, regardless of whether that just means standing in an alley with a beer, contributing to a frog chorus of 'Yups' until everyone's made it through another day together. All of this principled neighborliness may sound Pollyannaish, but the show's optimism seems intentional. King of the Hill has always held a distinctive place in Judge's canon: Though his other film and TV projects, such as Idiocracy, Beavis and Butt-Head, and Silicon Valley, mercilessly skewer what some critics have defined as 'American suckiness,' King of the Hill celebrates American decency. The show's narrative arcs continually reinforce that social trust is key to communities weathering any crisis, that being moral in the world can be a matter of looking out our windows and recognizing how we can serve one another, whether that's by fixing a fence or checking in on a friend. That's the evergreen charm of the Hill family: their pragmatic belief that helping out is just what neighbors do. Or, as a Girl Scout chirps to Hank while handing over a box of Caramel deLites, 'It's nice to be nice.'
USA Today
10 hours ago
- USA Today
MSU basketball listed among top teams in Big Ten in latest preseason rankings
Today's edition of the ROTHSTEIN 45 is now LIVE following recent 10:1. Purdue2. Houston3. St. John's4. Florida5. Michigan6. UConn7. UCLA8. BYU9. Duke10. Texas TechCC: @FDSportsBook, @ Michigan State basketball remains just outside of the top 20 in the latest preseason rankings from one of the game's top analysts. Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports has released an updated batch of preseason rankings for the 2025-26 college basketball season, and the Spartans remain listed just outside the top 20. Rothstein has the Spartans at No. 21 in his updated version of the rankings that were released on Tuesday. Among Big Ten teams, the Spartans rank No. 5 in Rothstein's list but there is a notable drop off after the top three. He has Purdue (No. 1), Michigan (No. 5) and UCLA (No. 7) all in the top 10, and then next from the Big Ten is Oregon (No. 20) one spot before the Spartans. Michigan State is the reigning Big Ten champs and went the furthest of any team from the league in the NCAA Tournament by reaching the Elite Eight this past season. However, the Spartans have lost a number of key pieces off that highly-successful team, including leading scorers Jase Richardson and Jaden Akins -- so many like Rothstein anticipate a step back from the Spartans next season. As I've said during most of this offseason, I feel like anywhere from No. 15 to No. 25 is about right for the Spartans in next year's preseason poll. I would be quite surprised if they were any higher than No. 15 and shocked if they were unranked when the official preseason polls drop in a few months. Click on the post below to see the complete updated rankings from Rothstein: Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan State news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Robert Bondy on X @RobertBondy5.
New York Post
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