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USA Today
2 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
SCOUT shows how Nets asst. GM BJ Johnson began his basketball dream
SCOUT shows how Nets asst. GM BJ Johnson began his basketball dream The Brooklyn Nets have four first-round picks to use in the upcoming 2025 NBA Draft and from now until June, they will have to figure out the best players to select. Brooklyn has been giving fans a behind-the-scenes look into what the scouting process has looked like with their SCOUT series and episode two is giving a glimpse into one of the key figures in the scouting process. "My hope was to always walk on at Villanova because that was the school I really wanted to be at. When it was time for tryouts, they couldn't find my name, they couldn't find my paperwork," Nets assistant general manager BJ Johnson said of his time at Villanova. Johnson tried to walk on at the school, but it seemed like the team didn't want him until things suddenly changed. "I remember after our women's (basketball) practice, I would have to run the stairs in the pavilion. I saw the men's team coming out to practice and I see them pointing up to us, like, oh, they're gonna kick me out of practice," Johnson continued. "They tell me to come downstairs. They invited me to be on the men's team. At that point, no tryout, nothing. It was just like that." Johnson, who played for legendary Villanova head coach Jay Wright, was able to make the Villanova basketball team as a walk-on after being cut from the team after tryouts during his freshman season. Johnson went on to play three seasons at Villanova before graduating with a bachelor's degree in computer science and a minor in Chinese prior to beginning his post-playing basketball career with USA Basketball in 2005. "I tried out my freshman year, but I got cut. I was really disappointed because I worked so hard and I thought I was going to make it. But it wasn't the right time for me. Looking back, it really was the best thing that could have happened to me. Because it gave me the chance to meet a lot of people and get involved in a number of different activities," Johnson said in 2002 in an interview with Villanova's newspaper.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
The Other American ‘Popes'
WHEN WHITE SMOKE DRIFTED over the Sistine Chapel and the name Leo XIV was announced earlier this month, billions of Catholics and non-Catholics alike around the world raced to learn more about the new pontiff. Born Robert Francis Prevost and raised in Chicago, he is the first American to ascend to the papacy. He is a product of an American Catholic family and an alumnus of American Catholic institutions, having graduated from Villanova and the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago before joining the Order of St. Augustine and spending years in missionary service in Peru. As news of his election spread, so did Chicago-themed memes and other displays of hometown pride. A small number of Americans, though, believe we've already had an American pope. Unrecognized by the Vatican and distant from mainstream Roman Catholicism, a handful of would-be pontiffs have made claims to the throne of St. Peter, enjoying support from internet users, eliciting the curiosity of many who came across them, and attracting followings—dedicated if not large. Few of these figures ever set foot in a seminary, let alone rose through the clerical ranks; you won't find them in cathedrals or basilicas. Their holy haunts are garages, rental halls, and the occasional roadside chapel. And while they can be found at the very edge of the religious fringe, these figures personify the continuing challenges to papal authority presented by and within our postmodern age. The main thing that unites this diverse bunch of papal claimants is their shared rejection of Vatican II. Convened between 1962 and 1965, the Second Vatican Council was a landmark effort by the Roman Catholic Church to engage more directly with the modern world. Initiated by Pope John XXIII, the council introduced sweeping reforms: It permitted the Mass to be celebrated in vernacular languages rather than Latin, emphasized ecumenical dialogue with Orthodox and Protestant communities, redefined the Church's relationship with non-Christian religions (especially Judaism), and shifted the Church's tone from one of hierarchical authority to one of pastoral outreach. For many, these changes felt like an enlivening wind, in keeping with Pope John's (possibly apocryphal) call to 'open the windows of the Church' and let some fresh air into it. Chief among the council's champions was Pope John Paul II, who had attended Vatican II as a young bishop and later embodied its spirit through global outreach, interfaith dialogue, and a renewed emphasis on human dignity. He also helped modernize the papacy itself, embracing television, global travel, and media interviews to bring the Church's message to a wider, contemporary audience. Keep up with all The Bulwark's articles, newsletters, podcasts, and livestreams—and pick which ones show up in your inbox: But while some Catholics found Vatican II exhilarating, for others, it was deeply disorienting. Many Catholics felt alienated by the rapid changes, whether because they preferred the Latin Mass or were uncomfortable with various other reforms. This sense of upheaval gave rise to movements like the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970, which flatly rejected key aspects of Vatican II and has maintained an uneasy relationship with Rome ever since while undergoing continuous institutional and communal growth. Even among conservative Catholics who don't go as far as SSPX, Vatican II remains a point of deep concern and contention, and it remains an abiding preoccupation among hyperonline Catholic commentators. The resurgence of young Catholic women wearing veils, the renewed popularity of the Latin Mass, and the proliferation of apologists defending every conceivable Church teaching all point to a growing skepticism toward, or at least a re-evaluation of, Vatican II's more open ethos. There are also those so radical as to not only reject the council but also to deny the legitimacy of the popes who have upheld it. These are the sedevacantists—those who believe 'the seat'—sedes, referring to the papal throne—is 'vacant,' which is to say, the one who currently occupies it is illegitimate. Sedevacantists hold that this has been the case since the 1958 death of Pope Pius XII on the grounds that all officially recognized popes since Vatican II have embraced its alleged heresies. In the words of Philippe Roy-Lysencourt, a scholar of Catholic traditionalism, 'For these movements, the council is like a foreign body in the life of the Church, like a cancer to be fought.' While its community of adherents is small and fragmented, sedevacantism represents the furthest extreme of traditionalist dissent—after all, who else would answer 'no' to the question, 'Is the Pope Catholic?' And way out at the furthest reaches of the sedevacantist world, we find a handful of those who, unwilling to wait for a legitimate pope to emerge, have taken matters into their own hands. These are the people who have conducted their own conclaves in living rooms and hotel conference rooms, and who claim to have found St. Peter's true successor living in their own hometowns. Share THE STORY OF OUR COUNTRY'S original homegrown papal claimant must be regarded as a prelude, because his actions took place decades before the Second Vatican Council that would unite the later generation of faux popes in opposition to it. Adam Anthony Oraczewski, a Polish-born immigrant, declared himself 'Pope Adam II' in 1927 following several years of religious mischief, fraud, and forgery, much of his behavior likely resulting from undiagnosed mental illness. At one point, he circulated a photo to newspapers that depicted him in an approximation of papal garb; a reporter at one of the papers pointed out that the young would-be pontiff had left his tennis shoes on for the picture. It would be half a century before the first of the Vatican II–rejecting American-born papal claimants would emerge. Chester Olszewski was originally an Episcopal priest in Pennsylvania. After encountering Anne Poore, a visionary claiming miraculous experiences and stigmata, Olszewski embraced a radical traditionalist Catholicism. He would eventually claim to receive his own mystical visions, and in 1977, he proclaimed himself Pope 'Chriszekiel Elias,' later adopting the name 'Peter II.' He led a small sect calling itself the True Catholic Church, rooted in apocalyptic Marian devotion; it has since faded into obscurity. A little over two decades later, in 1998, Lucian Pulvermacher, a former Capuchin friar from Wisconsin, was elected pope by a roughly fifty-member conclave of sedevacantist lay people associated with the True Catholic Church network. Taking the name 'Pius XIII,' he operated his ministry and issued papal decrees from a trailer in Kalispell, Montana, and later from Springdale, Washington. He died on November 30, 2009, at the age of 91. His followers' plans to convene a new conclave to choose a successor have so far come to naught. Another: Citing inspiration via mystical revelation, Reinaldus M. Benjamins of Malone, New York, claimed to be 'Pope Gregory XIX.' But as 'alternative popes' researcher Magnus Lundberg writes, little is known of Benjamins today. But the best-known American claimant to the papacy is the late David Bawden, known to many by his chosen papal name of 'Pope Michael I.' Born in Oklahoma in 1959 and raised in a fiercely traditionalist Catholic household, David Bawden came of age believing that the Second Vatican Council was not a reform but a rupture, one that cut the institutional Church off from its own timeless teachings and liturgical beauty. His family refused to attend the post-conciliar Mass, clung to pre-1958 catechisms, and eventually aligned with the dissenting SSPX. Bawden enrolled in an SSPX seminary but was dismissed after a brief tenure, prompting him to pursue his theological education on his own—through books, correspondence with traditionalist and sedevacantist Catholics, and fervent prayer. By the mid-1980s, he had moved on from the SSPX to embrace outright sedevacantism. Join now Convinced that the Catholic Church was in a state of emergency, Bawden took a radical step. In 1990, at the age of 30, he gathered five others (including his parents) into a makeshift conclave in a Kansas thrift store chapel. They elected him pope by unanimous vote. He took the name 'Michael I' and claimed divine sanction to restore what Rome had lost. From a farmhouse-turned-chapel in Delia, Kansas, he spent the next three decades issuing papal decrees, publishing newsletters, and maintaining a website called 'Vatican in Exile.' Toward the end of his life, he had a channel on YouTube, a platform on which his sermons, theological discussions, interviews, and explanations of his papal claim have been watched by thousands. While many dismissed him as a crank, a curiosity, a theological prank, or a person disturbed in the manner of his predecessor Oraczewski, Bawden's sincerity was difficult to deny. As documented in the 2010 film Pope Michael, he lived with monastic simplicity, took no salary, and led a quiet life of devotion alongside his elderly mother, Tickie. He prayed daily for the Church, answered emails from curious seekers, and carried out his self-imposed papal duties with unwavering conviction. In 2011, after more than two decades without the ability to celebrate the sacraments (despite claiming to be pope), Bawden was ordained a priest and consecrated a bishop by Robert Biarnesen, an independent bishop from a schismatic Old Catholic lineage (he himself had only just been consecrated a month prior by Bishop Alexander Swift Eagle Justice). Because Bawden had never been ordained by a bishop, valid or otherwise, prior to this, he had taken himself to be unable to perform even the most basic sacramental duties of the priesthood, let alone exercise the full authority of his alternative papacy. Beginning in 2011, though, Bawden at last felt authorized to celebrate Mass, hear confessions, and ordain others, a possibility that he seized with his first (and possibly only) seminarian, Phil Friedl. His movement remained minuscule, with perhaps a few dozen core followers, but the internet gave Pope Michael surprising reach, drawing adherents from as far away as India and the Philippines. One of those, a Filipino bishop named Rogelio Martínez, became his right-hand man and, after Bawden's death in 2022, Martínez was elected by his predecessor's remaining followers to become 'Pope Michael II.' He still posts to the movement's YouTube channel, but viewership remains scarce. Share LEO XIV'S PAPACY HAS NOW BEGUN. The Chicagoan begins his tenure at a time when papal authority is contested. Pope Francis, pastoral reformer that he was, was a figure of great controversy among both liberals and conservatives in the Church, and especially among hyperonline traditionalists, for whom he represented a corruption of the office. For years, such figures accused him of sowing confusion, undermining tradition, and embracing a modernist agenda. Some of his critics began to flirt openly with sedevacantist ideas, creating a cultural commotion in the Church. So it is that in our digital present, when YouTube apologists, livestreamed liturgies, and anonymous Twitter accounts shape the Catholic imagination, the claims of figures like Bawden no longer feel quite so radical or strange. This is part of what Leo XIV has inherited from Francis: a Church that is struggling, along with every other societal institution, to find its way in an increasingly chaotic information environment—a virtual world in which, it seems, everyone gets to be their very own pope. Zap this article over to a friend or zip it up onto social media: Share
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
"I'm hoping this is a wake-up call for Brunson" - Charles Barkley thinks the Knicks play better when Jalen Brunson gets off the ball
The New York Knicks' bench gave them a huge boost as they defeated the Indiana Pacers 106-100 in crucial Game 3 of the 2025 Eastern Conference Finals. Known for being a starter-heavy team, the Knicks had nine players playing at least 11 minutes, all scoring at least 2 points, on Sunday night. They rallied from an early 20-point deficit to win the game and cut the Pacers' series lead down to 1-2. Advertisement With contributions from a lot of players, New York survived a 6-18 shooting night from Jalen Brunson, who finished with a series-low 23 points. But while everyone was praising the Knicks' bench for stepping up, Hall of Famer Charles Barkley looked at things differently. According to "Sir Charles," everyone on the Knicks played well because Brunson did not monopolize the ball as he was forced to sit out a significant number of minutes due to foul trouble. "I'm hoping this is a wake-up call for Brunson. Like, 'Yo man, you going to have to get off the ball.' They've had their best two spurts in the series, Game 1 and today, where everybody's getting involved. He has to learn from that and get off the ball a little bit more," said Barkley. Knicks have made big runs with JB on the bench Brunson averaged 38.5 minutes per game in Games 1 and 2 but played only 31 in Game 3 due to foul trouble. As Kenny Smith noted during the post-game show, the Knicks were a +6 during the game with the Villanova product on the bench. And as we saw during the game, the Knicks made their runs with their star on the bench. Advertisement After Brunson committed his third foul with 1:36 left in the second quarter and the Knicks were down 40-58, they cut the lead to 45-58 at the half. Then, after JB committed his fifth foul at the 7:03 mark of the fourth quarter and the Knicks were up by only one point at 89-88, his teammates held the fort. The game was tied at 98-98 when he re-entered the game with 1:37 left to play. Also, in Game 1, Brunson left at 10:05 in the fourth quarter due to foul trouble. At that point, the Knicks were up 94-92. When JB returned with exactly five minutes left to play, his team was comfortably ahead at 111-98. Unfortunately, they blew that lead and lost, but as Barkley noted, the Knicks went on a run with the 6'2" guard on the bench. Related: "Magic was a little bit too big and too strong" - Scottie Pippen recalls guarding Magic Johnson after he torched Michael Jordan Teague blamed Brunson for the losses Barkley isn't the first talking head to call out Brunson's ball dominance in the ECF. After the Knicks lost Game 2, former Atlanta Hawks All-Star guard Jeff Teague said that the Knicks can't get into an offensive rhythm because Brunson is monopolizing ball. Advertisement "Jalen Brunson holds the ball for… The shot clock is 24 seconds; he's holding that bit** for 17," said Teague. "Trying to get a pick and roll, bring another dude, bring another dude, I'm going one-on-one, I'm going one-on-one. If he don't make it, it's like fu*k. It's the way he hold the ball; they don't get no rhythm. That's why when he comes out of the game, all of a sudden, the pace picks up, the tempo picks up. All of a sudden, you see people start hooping a little bit." Make no mistake, the Knicks won't be where they are right now if not for Brunson, who is having another MVP-type season. While he has always delivered the big baskets for the NY squad, we've seen the Knicks play better as a team when he is off the floor. This isn't saying that the Knicks are better off without him because they are not. But perhaps the ball should move more on offense for the Knicks since they won Game 3 with contributions from many players. Related: "I never really cared" - Josh Hart admits he had a hand in the decision to come off the bench in Game 3 vs. Pacers
New York Times
6 days ago
- General
- New York Times
‘Relatable' Pope Leo XIV's popularity with U.S. sports fans may extend to a rabbi near you
Rabbi Joseph Schultz was pleased when he heard the Catholic Church had elected its first pope born in the United States. He was even happier when he learned that Pope Leo XIV was, like himself, raised in the Chicago area. And then came the most exciting reveal of all: the new pope, born Robert Francis Prevost in 1955, is a longtime sports fan whose interests include the Chicago White Sox, Chicago Bears and the athletic program at Villanova, from which he graduated in 1977 with a bachelor of science in mathematics. Advertisement Wait, did Schultz hear that right? The Chicago White Sox? 'My daughter was visiting us, as she does most days, and she was reading the newspaper,' said Schultz, who is 96 and lives with his wife, Bella, in a tidy, book-filled apartment at an assisted-living community in Newtonville, Mass. The rabbi remembers the conversation this way: His daughter, Reena Schultz, said, 'Oh my goodness, Dad, the new pope is a fan of the Chicago White Sox!' Not only did Schultz grow up a White Sox fan, but he also once had a cup of coffee as the team's batboy. He was about 14 at the time, he said, which would mean we're talking 1943 or thereabouts. Seems the regular batboy was unavailable for a couple of weeks, and teenage Joe Schultz, whose family lived on Richmond Street in the Marquette Park neighborhood of Chicago's southwest side, was recruited as a fill-in. Schultz is fuzzy about some of the details — 'It was just for a while, and a long, long time ago,' he said — but what he does remember is that old Comiskey Park, home of the White Sox, was a special place where all the problems of the outside world went away as soon as you stepped through the turnstile. 'You got the sense that you were with family,' Schultz said. 'That's what the White Sox were to me. The players were very, very cordial and very nice, and we were nice to them.' Added Schultz: 'I believe Pope Leo is that kind of man. This is a man who reached out to the disadvantaged people of Peru and brought them close to the church.' While it doesn't appear Pope Leo was ever a diehard, bubble gum card-collecting White Sox fan, he did make it to Game 1 of the 2005 World Series, this during his 'Father Bob' days as a priest with the Order of Saint Augustine. Screen grabs and video from the Fox television broadcast, showing the future pope in the stands, have been circling the globe since being published by the Chicago Sun-Times. Naturally, there's plenty of hometown pride when Schultz talks about White Sox fan Pope Leo. Think about it. Whatever your religious beliefs, wouldn't you be pleased if somebody from your old neighborhood — and with your rooting interests — grew up to be pope? 'I always viewed the pope as this untouchable person who maybe is hard to relate to,' said Katie Tantino, 44, who played on the women's basketball team at Villanova from 1999 to 2003 (as Katie Davis, before marrying) and in 2020 was inducted into the school's Varsity Club Hall of Fame. 'And in a spiritual way, maybe that's necessary because that's what you want. You want this authoritative person. Advertisement 'But now you have this person who's a little bit more relatable. You can mix the two. Before, when the pope was announced, it was exciting for a few minutes and then you kind of moved on from it. But it hasn't left. There's pride there, and an interest in wanting to learn more about him and from him.' John Kelly, 43, a lifelong Bears fan who grew up in Chicago, put it this way: 'At least in the United States, and I can't speak for other countries, it means he might be able to resonate with more people because of his understanding of how our society is so tied into sports. Maybe his appreciation for sports is along the lines of why I think they are important. And I think sports are important for community and perseverance and shared identity.' Added Kelly: 'For Bears fans, having a pope who understands and appreciates the cultural impact of sports can be seen as a bridge between spiritual leadership and everyday passions, reinforcing the idea that faith and daily life are interconnected.' Vice President JD Vance gifts Pope Leo XIV a personalized Chicago Bears jersey during their meeting this morning, as a nod to the Pope's birth state.@CatholicNewsSvc — CatholicTV (@CatholicTV) May 19, 2025 Eddie Damstra, 27, a lifelong Bears-White Sox-Bulls fan who grew up just south of Chicago in Orland Park and now lives in Santa Monica, Calif., believes it 'humanizes' a pope to be a pronounced sports fan. 'And I saw a picture of him at an Aurelio's pizza place in Homewood and said to myself, 'I've been there!' ' Damstra said. 'What that tells us is that he partakes in and enjoys some of the same things we do.' Rabbi Schultz goes so far as to state his belief that Pope Leo's familiarity with sports, along with the life lessons Schultz believes the pope learned growing up in Dolton, Ill., just south of Chicago, can help inspire him to solve some of the world's problems. Advertisement That's a big ask (and perhaps cloaked in naivete), but Schultz points to the map and returns to their shared history: His old house in Marquette Park is 15 miles north of the small home on 141st Place in Dolton where the then-Robert Francis Prevost used to live. 'I grew up in a very racially charged area,' Schultz said. 'But then you'd go to a White Sox game, and none of the racism was there. It was an escape for those of us who had to live with that on a day-to-day basis. We could go to a White Sox game, sit in the stands and watch baseball and have a wonderful time. 'I've been giving this a lot of thought. We need a man like this pope to establish, with the aid of people of means, a United Nations office for displaced people. He has all the credentials. He has all the experience to do something like that. And he should have the aid of people of other faiths.' 'Displaced people,' as Schultz puts it, are but one challenge facing Pope Leo. He will need to address the church sexual abuse scandal, Vatican budget issues and what roles he believes women should play as the Catholic Church moves into the middle of the 21st century. The LGBTQ+ community is waiting to see if Pope Leo offers the kind of inclusive message that Pope Francis did. With all this going on, the pope's standing as a sports fan — even one with a World Series ticket stub on top of his dresser — will only go so far. But put philosophies aside and, yes, of course, Chicagoans and Villanova folks dig the idea of having a celebrity fan who happens to be pope. The New York Knicks have Timothée Chalamet. The Boston Celtics have Donnie Wahlberg. The Los Angeles Dodgers have a cast of A-listers that goes back to Frank Sinatra hanging out with manager Leo Durocher in the clubhouse at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field. The White Sox, Bears and Villanova Wildcats now have Pope Leo XIV. 'To me, it's like (six) degrees of Kevin Bacon,' Tantino said. 'My seven degrees of the pope are not that far. Some of the people I know have met him, and he was here in the last couple of years. That's cool.' But there's another way to look at this. Advertisement While it's perfectly acceptable to believe Pope Leo's years of experience as a sports fan will help him build teamwork around the world, we should hope he uses sports to get away from it all now and then. Even in this age of legalized betting, a nonstop whirl of commercials encouraging everyone to overdose on beer and lots of outrage over who stands for the national anthem and who takes a knee, sporting events remain a splendid vehicle for escapism. And Rabbi Schultz is correct about how a White Sox game, any game, can be a great way to hang out with friends and unwind for a few hours. Is that wishful thinking? Perhaps. But it can't hurt for Pope Leo to find an occasional Sunday to kick back on the couch and watch a Bears game. 'I hope he does that,' Damstra said. 'Lord knows, they could use the help.' (Photo courtesy of Rabbi Joseph Schultz)
CBS News
19-05-2025
- General
- CBS News
What is Pope Leo XIV's Wawa order? We enlisted an Augustinian priest from Delco to find out.
In the weeks since Cardinal Robert Prevost became Pope Leo XIV, many in the Philadelphia region have taken some time to wrap their heads around the new pope's connection to Delaware County, Pennsylvania. One question that has come up is, what was the Villanova University alumnus' Wawa order? We asked a Delco native who has an office in the Vatican City overlooking Saint Peter's Basilica to find out the questions the Delaware Valley wants answered. "He's getting lots of questions," Augustinian Father Joe Farrell said. "That one might be the most unique, Delaware County-focused question." Farrell, a Delaware County native, chatted with CBS News Philadelphia from his office in the Vatican City. He said he asked Pope Leo XIV some questions on our behalf about his time at Villanova, Wawa and the Super Bowl LIX-winning Philadelphia Eagles. Farrell said before he was pope, "Father Bob" prayed, said Mass and had lunch with him every single day. "But among us, he is still Father Bob, Bob," he said. Farrell was our ticket to inquire with Pope Leo XIV. CBS News Philadelphia: "You were kind enough to ask him some of our pressing questions here from Philadelphia. He declined to say what his Wawa order was, I understand." Father Joe Farrell: "He did. He was not specific about it. He said he certainly has fond memories when he was a student at Villanova of going to Wawa." The connections seem to be endless around Villanova's campus. Father Bernie Scianna, a senior associate dean of students for student support at Villanova University, first met then-Father Robert Prevost in 1984. He said the selection surprised him, but it wasn't a shock. "Yes, I know him well. I kept saying Bob has the right disposition and connections and now he is Leo," Scianna said. "We're working to call him Leo. We have a connection, a real connection to Pope Leo." While Pope Leo XIV is from Chicago, we inquired about the Philadelphia Eagles. "He was non-committal with the Eagles," Farrell said. "He was very happy when the Eagles won the Super Bowl. He rejoiced with those of us from Philly." Farrell said he did not hear the Holy Father say "Go Birds" at any point during the Super Bowl. The Augustinians were planning to honor Cardinal Prevost at an event in August here in Philadelphia. But since becoming pope, he is no longer able to attend.
