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How Brock Purdy's Super Bowl journey was forged by his dad's minor-league baseball career

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Allegiant Stadium can host up to 72,000 fans for special events like Super Bowl LVIII. If every player in the history of Major League Baseball got a ticket, there would still be almost 50,000 available for Sunday’s game in Las Vegas.

Pat Mahomes, whose son Patrick is the quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs, would have a seat. Shawn Purdy, whose son Brock is the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, would not. Pat Mahomes pitched 11 seasons in the majors. Shawn Purdy pitched eight in the minors.

One game at the highest level, just one, and you’ve got a halo for the rest of your life. Otherwise you’re just like the rest of us, at least when it comes to service time at the summit of baseball. What’s the word? Irrelevant. The sliver of difference seems cruel.

“I played with guys that got called up, and they didn’t have the baseball IQ, they didn’t have the discipline, they didn’t have the winning attitude, all that stuff,” said Russ Ortiz, who pitched in the majors for 12 seasons. “And I was always like, ‘Man, I played with guys in Double A and Triple A that had all those intangibles but never got the chance.’ I would put Shawn down as one of those guys.”

Ortiz was roommates with Purdy in 1997. They were Phoenix Firebirds, one rung below the majors for the San Francisco Giants. He remembers a contraption Purdy lugged around the Pacific Coast League to strengthen his arm away from the park. The squeaking of the ropes lingers for Ortiz, part of the soundtrack of the minors.

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“Yeah, that came from our physiotherapy people with the Angels,” said Eduardo Perez, who roomed with Purdy at an earlier stop. “We all had one; it was a weighted thing with a pulley system on the door. We marked every door in every hotel and every apartment we rented.”

Perez was the Angels’ first-round draft choice in 1991, 17th overall, a Florida State infielder with a star pedigree and a slugger’s build. Purdy was the Angels’ 16th rounder, 428th overall, a starter from the University of Miami with ordinary stuff, a smallish frame — and, as the old scouts would say, a belly full of guts.

The Angels had a habit of finding bright, tough-minded players from Florida; Howie Kendrick, Jeff Mathis, Mike Napoli, Darren O’Day, Orlando Palmeiro, Scot Shields and Perez would all play at least a decade in the majors. Tom Kotchman, the scout who signed Purdy, saw a durable, competitive righty with a sinker, slider and changeup whose confidence belied a low-90s fastball.

“You would have thought he threw 105,” Kotchman said. “And he wasn’t afraid to get on the bus and say something to me. He’d talk some trash, but it was respectful trash.”

That first season, between Miami and the rookie-league Boise Hawks, Purdy threw 218 2/3 innings with 10 complete games. The innings total — unfathomable now — spiked a bit from all the times Purdy fought Kotchman, who also managed Boise, to stay in the game.

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The Hawks went 50-26, and Purdy was their ace. Kotchman gave him the ball against Yakima for the Northwest League championship game, even though Yakima had shelled Purdy the start before. He knew he’d made the right call when Purdy said nothing to his manager in the clubhouse. A self-assured nod was all he needed to see.

Purdy went six strong innings for the win. Teammates mobbed the Hawks’ closer, Troy Percival, after the final out. When Kotchman found game footage recently, he eagerly sent it around to his former players. Purdy got the last word on the local news that night.

“I didn’t get to go the whole distance like I dreamed to, but I held ’em down, the guys got some runs, and I got – we all got – our revenge,” Purdy shouted, above the din in the locker room. “And we’re the champs, baby. We’re number 1.”


The 49ers will seek their own revenge on Sunday against the Chiefs, who beat them in the Super Bowl four years ago. Brock Purdy was at Iowa State then, on his way to the NFL as the final pick of the 2022 draft — the infamous Mr. Irrelevant.

The 16th round, where Shawn Purdy was chosen, would now be close to the end of the MLB draft, which lasts only 20 rounds. Teams could keep drafting as long as they wanted in 1991 — that draft lasted for 1,600 selections — but by round 16, most of the top prospects were long gone. Nobody from Purdy’s round reached the majors.

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“Shawn could have been the last guy drafted, too,” said Joe Maddon, then a roving instructor in the Angels’ farm system. “When they describe Brock, they could be describing Shawn: great makeup, very highly competitive, never quit, tools are a little bit short, but he makes it work.”

Maddon, who managed parts of 19 seasons in the majors, hosts a podcast now with Tom Verducci. They tried to book Shawn Purdy as a guest last winter, when Brock was leading the 49ers to the NFC championship game, but Shawn declined until the season was over.

Likewise, Shawn Purdy did not return messages from The Athletic last week, though he was in contact with old teammates.

“Oh look, Purdy just texted me,” Perez said, chuckling in mid-interview. “I go, ‘Dude, I’m diverting so many calls from media, they want to talk to you and I’m your buffer now. LOL.’ And he goes, ‘Now that’s funny.’”

In 1992, Perez and Shawn Purdy were roommates in Palm Springs, where the Angels had a team in the Single-A California League. A college friend of Perez’s was visiting and mentioned that his father, a sportswear executive, knew some models who would be in town.

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Implausible as it seems, Perez said that his roommate was so focused on baseball that he was reluctant to meet the women. But Purdy’s enthusiasm changed in an instant.

“When he saw Carrie, he looked at me and goes, ‘I’m gonna marry this girl,’” Perez said. “I’m like, ‘Right, brother, whatever you say.’ And he married that girl.”

The next summer, Perez was in the majors and Purdy was back in Palm Springs after straining his ulnar collateral ligament in spring training. He split that season and the next between Single A and Double A, where his progress stalled.

Purdy’s sinker was still keeping the ball in the park, but plenty of hits were dropping in: 86 in 68 Double-A innings across the 1993 and 1994 seasons. His earned run average at that level for the Angels was 7.01, but he fearlessly pounded the zone.

“He had a short, fast arm which gave him good deception, and a very good changeup,” said Todd Greene, who caught Purdy at Single-A Lake Elsinore (Calif.) in 1994 and would play 11 seasons in the majors. “Not overpowering, but he knew how to pitch, he knew who he was and he threw a lot of strikes.”

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Purdy moved on to the Giants organization in 1995, again in Double A but now in a short-relief role, perhaps better suited for a pitcher rarely beaten by homers or walks. Ron Wotus, Purdy’s manager that season in Shreveport, La., said Purdy had an ideal closer’s makeup: steely, persistent, resilient.

“Felipe Alou used to always say something: ‘Trust the man before the player,’” Wotus said, referring to a Giants manager he served as a bench coach. “It’s not the skill or the talent that they have, it’s who they are as a person: their will and desire, those types of things. Brock obviously has that, and so did Shawn.”

Wotus said he considered Purdy a prospect, but the term covers a lot of distinctions. Purdy was not a phenom but a so-called 4A guy, capable of complementing a major-league roster but unlikely to be a star.

That became clear the next season, his fourth at Double A. Purdy was thriving as a closer but lost his job to Ortiz, a younger pitcher and future 20-game winner who was tearing his way through the farm system. The Giants had high hopes for Ortiz and wanted him to close in Shreveport, so that’s what he did.

“I felt bad because I was like, ‘Shawn’s earned it, he’s done well,’” Ortiz said. “I was still learning, and I watched him pitch and the way he handled himself. He was someone I looked up to because of his mental strength and the way he went about his business.”

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For Purdy, that business extended beyond the field. At spring training in 1997, as Ortiz recalls, the Giants let Purdy’s fledgling company — then known as Purdy E-Z Pools & Spas — set up a booth at the ballpark.

Promoted that season to Triple-A Phoenix, Purdy heard rumblings of a call-up in July, but the contending Giants added three veterans in a trade instead. Back in Triple A the next season with the Braves’ affiliate in Richmond, Purdy had a 1.83 ERA through 16 games. Certain he was about to join the Braves — he’d overheard a coach mention the possibility — Purdy felt pain in his elbow while playing catch before a game.

“They flew me to Atlanta, got a needle in the elbow, tried rehabbing for a bit, and it didn’t take,” Purdy said last spring on Maddon’s podcast. “Went in and had surgery, had some bone spurs removed and that was it. My elbow was fine. My business started taking off. I just chose to be a big-league dad.”

Shawn and Carrie have three children; he coached their oldest, Whittney, in softball, and has told Perez that she is the best athlete of them all, with Chubba — the youngest Purdy and the quarterback at Nebraska before recently transferring to Nevada — the second best.

That would put Brock Purdy third, which matches the broad strokes of his story. He is listed at 6-foot-1, an inch taller than Shawn, an inch shorter than Chubba, but his supposed lack of athleticism is probably overplayed.

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“He might not be Deion Sanders, I get that, but the guy has touch, he’s got enough speed to keep defenses honest, and he can drop balls on a dime,” said Bill Bavasi, the Angels’ farm director when Shawn Purdy pitched in their system. “The guy gets written up for great makeup and personality traits, but he’s got athleticism, man.”


Whittney, Chubba, Shawn and Brock Purdy (l-r) with Eduardo Perez in 2012. (Photo courtesy of Eduardo Perez)

Yet there has always been something extra with Brock, an aptitude his father recognized early. When the Purdys would host Super Bowl parties, Shawn told Maddon, most kids would be playing outside. But Brock, at five or six years old, would stand on the coffee table and study the action, trying to think along with the quarterbacks.

“It must have been like his second year of Pop Warner, and I remember talking with Shawn about how smart he was.” Ortiz said. “It was like, yeah, of course he can throw a football, but a lot of kids can throw a football. Being accurate and then actually knowing how to play the position is a different story.

“It’s like with our daughter, we put her in piano at six years old and then really quick her piano teacher was like: ‘She gets it. She can just hear all the notes.’ You hear the same thing from Kyle Shanahan with Brock. You know he’s just got it.”

Shawn Purdy’s experience with a UCL injury helped Brock focus on small, daily milestones in his own recovery from a tear in the playoffs last winter. Brock, a former middle infielder, has also said that playing baseball as a boy — he stopped after his sophomore year in high school — has helped him master different angles as a quarterback.

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What Brock inherited most clearly from his father is harder to define, but those who know Shawn can see it, unmistakably. Shawn’s career statistics were mediocre: a 3.91 ERA, more than a hit per inning, 5.6 strikeouts per nine. Yet somehow he was 21 games over .500, at 58-37. He was a winner.

Brock Purdy has started 26 NFL games, and his team has won 21. The next game will mean more to a lot more fans than Boise versus Yakima in 1991. But expect the son to handle his title shot the same way his father did.

“Look at Brock and look at Shawn, it’s the same guy,” Maddon said. “Nothing overwhelms you, but he beats you.”

(Top photo: Lachlan Cunningham / Getty Images and iStock: bmcent1)

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Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit

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Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit

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A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue. 

Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June. 

Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male. 

 

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Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports. 

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling. 

“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.

Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case. 

(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)

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“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital. 

“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13. 

Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters. 

With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.

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Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college. 

President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice. 

Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”

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SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)

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SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.

“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said. 

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Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush

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Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush

Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.

“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.

Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.

On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.

The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.

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Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.

Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.

(Lindsey Wasson / AP)

The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.

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Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.

His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”

Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.

Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.

A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.

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Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.

A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.

The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.

He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.

“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”

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Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.

“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.

“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”

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Keith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death

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Keith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death

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Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead. 

“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights. 

Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.

 

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“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann. 

One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”

Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”

Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif.  (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.

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After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.

In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.

Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020.  (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post. 

In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. 

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Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”

Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States. 

After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media. 

Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.

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Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)

At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background. 

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death. 

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