Latest news with #Spartan
USA Today
2 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Iowa State commit, 3-star S Brayden Thomas shares photos from Michigan State official visit
Iowa State commit, 3-star S Brayden Thomas shares photos from Michigan State official visit Michigan State football is working to flip an Iowa State commit, and it looks like they made up some ground this weekend. Brayden Thomas of Lakewood, Ohio shared some fun photos from his official visit to Michigan State this weekend on Saturday night. Thomas posted the photos from his official visit on his Instagram account, which was later re-posted by SpartanMag -- which Thomas then retweeted asking "Spartan nation how we feel about this!?" Check out the social media posts below: Thomas is a three-star safety currently committed to Iowa State of the Big 12. Thomas has been committed to Iowa State since early February, but Michigan State has recently upped their recruiting efforts to flip him their way. Thomas ranks as the No. 71 safety in 247Sports' composite rankings for the 2026 class. He is also listed as the No. 32 player from Ohio and No. 842 overall prospect in the class. Thomas is set to take an official visit to Iowa State next week, according to 247Sports. His visit to Michigan State this weekend could certainly impact that upcoming visit, with the Spartans hopefully putting some more pressure on the Cyclones to retain Thomas' commitment. Stay with Spartans Wire for additional recruiting coverage during official visit season these next few weeks. 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.
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Why Trump's panic over one trans kid among 1,500 CIF track and field athletes is fake news
Fortunately, the high school transgender athlete competing in the girls' jumping events at the CIF State Track & Field Championships over the weekend in Clovis is not a javelin thrower. Had she been, Donald Trump would have spent last week alarming his followers with ghastly tales of innocent bystanders impaled by the mighty, errant javelin heaves of the teen. When Trump goes on a crusade, all truth, reason and perspective saunter out for a smoke break. When he objected to a San Jose State trans volleyball player, Trump told wild — and wildly untrue — tales of opponents suffering injuries from 80 mph spikes of said Spartan. You can't injure opponents by jumping into a sand pit or high-jumping onto a big air mattress, but from Trump's level of alarm and outrage, you might have thought that the SoCal teenager was planning to compete with a nuclear bomb strapped to her back. Trump has signed an executive order banning trans athletes from competing in girls' and women's sports. When California didn't jump to comply on something that does not, after all, have the force of law, he opened up a can of blowhard. 'Please be hereby advised,' Trump trumpeted on social media, 'that large scale Federal Funding will be held back (from California), maybe permanently, if the Executive Order on this subject matter is not adhered to… I am ordering local authorities, if necessary, to not allow the transitioned person to compete in the State Finals. This is a totally ridiculous situation!!!' The high schooler in question did compete Friday in the preliminaries of her three jumping events, and qualified to compete in Saturday's finals. Look, this is an issue, at least insofar as people have been told that's the case by Trump and his cronies. Seven of ten American adults, according to one poll, say they are opposed to transgender athletes competing in girls' and women's sports. But had a poll been taken before Trump made this a moral crusade, 10 out of 10 adults would have had no idea that this was even a thing, let alone a national crisis. I understand the concept of a 'slippery slope,' but fears of any wholesale invasion and destruction of female sports by trans athletes seems to be not a thing that is happening or ever going to happen. The CIF serves 835,000 California high school athletes, and the CIF has long let trans girls to participate in girls' sports, since 2013 statewide, in some school districts 20 years or more. It was never a problem before Trump. There were 1,533 athletes, boys and girls, competing at the state meet in Clovis. Only one of them was a trans person competing in girls' events. The San Jose State volleyball controversy, remember, was about one athlete among tens of thousands of competitors just in her sport. On a middling team in a second-tier conference. As one of less than 10 trans athletes among more than 500,000 college student-athletes. Trump sees one tortoise creeping out onto the highway and calls it a stampede. The state track meet was such a colossal crisis that about a dozen protestors showed up outside the event. One airplane towed a banner. It was, as Trump might say, a protest like nothing we've ever seen before. It would be cool to be able to write that California and the CIF stood their moral and legal ground and told Trump to pound sand, which conveniently can be found in the jumping pits. Instead, the CIF took a stab at appeasing Trump by cobbling together a new rule. The trans girl could compete, but an extra girl would be allowed into the competition, so that no girl would be 'deprived' of a shot at glory by the lone trans competitor. Any medals or places the trans athlete earned would be shared with the competitor who finished just behind her. Never mind that this 'solution' won't work in any other sport, and that it works — sort of, awkwardly — only in the 'field' half of track & field. The effort, no doubt, was genuine. Recognize that many now see this as a problem, and seek areas of compromise. Buy time for civilized discourse and discussion. Yeah, no. The CIF and the state are dealing with a man who is open to discussion and debate, as long as it ends quickly in supplication, followed by tearful gratitude. Not that it matters. Had the CIF and the state and all those 'local authorities' yielded to Trump and kicked one trans athlete out of the state meet, another villain would have been quickly targeted. The trans athlete 'issue' was never a legitimate crisis, it was a convenient club used by a bully to beat California into submission, to further demonize the heathen state. Maybe the way out of this situation would have been for her parents to buy a couple of tickets to a million-dollars-per-plate Trumpy event. They could have raised the money through GoFundMe or whatever. Then, not only would the athlete in question have been given Trump's blessing to compete, the unprincipled prez would have commissioned a bronze of her for his planned statue garden of athletic heroes. Trump recently issued 60 pardons/commutations — not counting 1,500 or more related to the January 6 insurrection — and at least 10 of those free birds have clear financial or political connections to the Pardoner-in-Chief. Ah, but even if Trump had been briefly distracted from the high school track & field controversy, he quickly would have re-aimed his wack-a-mole club at another random California crime against humanity. The CIF's quick fix will be just that. Eventually, you either bow down in surrender, or stand up for what you believe.
USA Today
3 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Former Spartan and brother of MSU head coach lands AHL head coaching job
Former Spartan and brother of MSU head coach lands AHL head coaching job A former Spartan, and brother of head coach Adam Nightingale, is getting his shot at a professional hockey head coaching job. Jared Nightingale spent 2002-2006 patrolling the blue line in East Lansing, before going on to have a 13-year professional playing career. Now, at 41-years-old, he is following in his older brother's footsteps as a coach in the sport. Nightingale has now been hired by the Rockford IceHogs, the AHL affiliate for the Chicago Blackhawks, propelling his career in a very favorable motion forward. In his coaching career, Nightingale has served as an assistant coach for the Omaha Lancers of the USHL, the OHL's Flint Firebirds and Saginaw Spirit, and the IceHogs. He got his first taste of a head coaching gig in the 2024-25 season, running the bench for the ECHL's South Carolina Stingrays, where he won the Brabham Cup and was South Division champions with a 52-15-3 record. Having the opportunity to head coach in the AHL will be massive for Nightingale, who will most likely be able to parlay that into an NHL or NCAA gig, if he chooses to do so. 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 Cory Linsner on X @Cory_Linsner
USA Today
3 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Former Spartan LB and current Assistant AD lands front office role with New York Giants
Former Spartan LB and current Assistant AD lands front office role with New York Giants Former Michigan State football linebacker Darien Harris has carved out a very nice career for himself in an administrative setting. After five successful years in East Lansing, Harris is now moving up to the National Football League. Harris has been hired by the New York Giants front office, and will now be serving in the Director of Player Engagement role. While at MSU, Harris was the Director of Player Relations and Program Advancement from February 2020 to June 2023, before being promoted to the Assistant Athletic Director/Business Development and NIL Strategy, a role her served until his departure. Harris was not only a standout behind the scenes in the athletic department, but also stood out on the field, being an outstanding linebacker for the Spartans from 2012-to-2015. He also served as a team captain during his playing days. 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 Cory Linsner on X @Cory_Linsner
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
M-E's Hopko and Rhode Island head to Baton Rouge Regional
ENDWELL, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH) – The Rhode Island Rams and former Maine-Endwell Spartan Jack Hopko took home the Atlantic 10 Championship over George Mason and are now heading to the Baton Rouge Regional. URI is ranked as the 3 seed heading into the regional, and will open up their run in the NCAA Tournament against Dallas Baptist. The game is at 7:30 pm on May 30th. It can be watched on ESPN+. The Rams finished their season at 38-20. The other teams in the regional at #6 LSU and Little Rock. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
