Culture
France, racial politics and why 'the Mbappe effect' is shaping a bitter election
The morning after France’s opening game of Euro 2024, the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP) published its latest poll ahead of the country’s legislative election.
The top line was that the seemingly unstoppable momentum behind the far-right National Rally Party (RN), bidding to form a government for the first time, seemed to have slowed – dropping from 35 per cent support a week earlier to 33 per cent. The New Popular Front, a coalition of left-wing parties, and President Macron’s centrist Renaissance party had both begun to close the gap.
Such fluctuations are normal during the course of an election campaign, particularly in a country whose political landscape changes as rapidly as that in France, but there was another finding that caught the eye.
IFOP reported a significant shift away from the RN among those between the ages of 18 and 34 (from 31 per cent to 27 per cent). They also reported that 57 per cent of 18-to-35-year-olds intended to vote in the first round — in contrast to the previous legislative elections in June 2022, when only 30 per cent of that age group did so.
Could this be the beginning of the Kylian Mbappe effect?
This was the first poll since the France forward issued a plea to the public to recognise that “the extremes are knocking on the doors of power”. He urged young people in particular to “make a difference” and to “shape our country’s future” in the two rounds of voting on June 30 and July 7.
At a news conference to preview that first Euro 2024 game against Austria, Mbappe said he was “against extremes, against divisive ideas” but also against political apathy.
“That’s why I’m trying to give a voice to these people of my generation,” he said, “because that’s what I was like when I was younger, thinking my voice isn’t going to change (anything).”
Mbappe’s team-mate Marcus Thuram, whose Guadeloupe-born father Lilian was one of the most influential players in the history of the France national team, went further by explicitly urging the public to reject the RN.
“It’s the sad reality of our society today,” he said in response to the RN’s position leading the polls. “We must tell everyone to go out and vote. We all need to fight daily so the National Rally does not succeed.”
Marcus Thuram has made clear his distaste for the National Rally (Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)
For a time, it seemed Mbappe’s and Thuram’s words could make a difference in mobilising younger voters, particularly those from ethnic minorities who are fearful of a far-right government. But any “Mbappe effect” might have been short-lived. New polls over the past couple of days suggest the RN has surged ahead again.
France are many observers’ favourites to win this European Championship, but the prospect of a far-right government assuming power at home has left many players on duty in Germany with a feeling of dread.
As Mbappe said: “I don’t want to represent a country that doesn’t correspond to my values, that doesn’t correspond to our values.”
When France won the World Cup in 1998, it was widely acclaimed as a triumph for multiculturalism. The team included players who had been born in the overseas territories (like Lilian Thuram in Guadeloupe and Christian Karembeu in New Caledonia); or in French-speaking countries in Africa (like Marcel Desailly in Ghana and Patrick Vieira in Senegal); or who were sons of immigrants (like Zinedine Zidane, whose parents arrived from Algeria in the 1950s, and Thierry Henry, whose parents were from Guadeloupe and Martinique); and others like Youri Djorkaeff and Robert Pires, whose heritage was Polish-Armenian and Spanish-Portuguese respectively.
The team was fondly referred to as being “black, blanc, beur” (black, white and Arab) in a riff on the “bleu, blanc, rouge” of the French flag. Jacques Chirac, the president at the time, congratulated a “tricolour and multi-colour team” on creating a “beautiful image of France and its humanity”.
France’s diverse 1998 World Cup winners, including (from left) Bernard Diomede, Lilian Thuram, Didier Deschamps and Thierry Henry (Daniel Garcia/AFP via Getty Images)
But not everyone was happy. Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the Front National (FN) party, which has since rebranded as the RN under the leadership of his daughter Marine, responded by downplaying this huge national celebration as “only a detail of history”. He had previously said it was “a bit artificial to bring players from abroad and call it the French team” and accused some of them of “not singing or not knowing La Marseillaise”, the national anthem.
The World Cup win was hailed in some quarters as a turning point for French society. But unity was short-lived.
In April 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen stood in the presidential election, putting anti-immigration measures at the centre of his manifesto. He secured 16.9 per cent of the vote in the first round, beating the Socialist Party leader Lionel Jospin into third place and securing a spot alongside Chirac on the ballot form for the decisive second round.
In the build-up to the vote, Pires, then playing for Arsenal, warned that “if the extreme right were to win the election, I think more than several (France) players would refuse to take part in the World Cup. We are French, but the team’s roots are from everywhere”. Desailly said it was “imperative to do everything possible to block (Le Pen’s) path to power”.
Chirac won the second round resoundingly, but Le Pen was now a significant player on the French political scene and continued his diatribes against the ethnic make-up of the national team. During the 2006 World Cup, he said that “France does not fully recognise itself in this team” and that their coach Raymond Domenech had “perhaps exaggerated the proportion of players of colour”.
Lilian Thuram, who made 142 appearances for France between 1994 and 2008, responded on that occasion by saying Le Pen was “clearly unaware that there are Frenchmen who are black, Frenchmen who are white, Frenchmen who are brown”.
“If he’s got a problem with us, that’s down to him, but we are proud to represent this country,” Thuram added. “So Vive la France — but the true France, not the France that he (Le Pen) wants.”
On the tram from Dusseldorf central station to the Merkur-Spiel Arena last week, France’s supporters were in high spirits. At one point there was a stirring rendition of La Marseillaise. The whole carriage — other than a handful of Austria fans and a couple of journalists — joined in.
The supporters included Jean-Luc Rutil, 56, and his daughter, Loanne, 23, who had travelled from Paris.
“I personally agree with Mbappe,” Loanne said. “I think it’s right that football players don’t only stick to football. It’s great that they’re talking about politics because politics and the elections affect everybody. He is right to send out the message that it’s important to vote.”
Her father Jean-Luc was less convinced. “I feel the footballers should concentrate on football,” he said. “It’s fine to encourage people to vote, but not to issue directives. We talk about social problems, about racism, but we have been talking about these things since the dawn of time.”
Jean-Luc Rutil, 56, and his daughter, Loanne, 23 (Oliver Kay/The Athletic)
Jean-Luc has been following the France team for decades. He remembers being inspired by the European Championship-winning side of 1984, which included Marius Tresor and Jean Tigana, born in Guadeloupe and Mali respectively. By 1998 there was Thuram, Desailly, Vieira, Karembeu, Henry and Zidane and a team that — much to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s disapproval — reflected the multicultural nation France had become.
Loanne said the team of today feels representative of modern France: “All walks of life, all colours in our team.”
But does it feel representative of a nation which, according to the most recent polls, is likely to elect a far-right, anti-immigration party as its government?
“The French national team is probably about as popular as it has ever been,” says Tom Williams, author of Va-Va-Voom: The Modern History of French Football. “It’s been a great era – finalists at Euro 2016 on home soil, World Cup winners in 2018, World Cup finalists in 2022.
“But at the same time, we have seen the far right on the march and a notable rise in racism and racist abuse within French domestic football. There have been numerous incidents this season, including Nazi salutes, monkey chants. Bastia had a point deducted after a referee’s assistant was racially abused.
“When things go wrong, the cracks appear and far-right politicians try to make an issue of it. Every time French football has hit rock bottom since 1998, people have brought race into it.
“It has often been the non-white players who have been singled out. At Euro 2020, the only real disappointment during the recent era, the player who missed the fateful penalty against Switzerland (Mbappe) ended up being racially abused on social media — similar to the England players (Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka) who missed their penalties in the final against Italy. There is always that kind of undercurrent.”
The discourse around French politics, race and the national team has never gone away. Alain Finkielkraut, a well-known French essayist, wrote in 2005 that the “black, blanc, beur” team had been replaced by one that was “noir, noir, noir” (black, black, black) and that it attracts derision across Europe as a consequence.
In 2011, online newspaper Mediapart published transcripts of a meeting the previous year in which French Football Federation (FFF) officials, unaware they were being recorded, discussed the idea of limits on non-white youngsters entering the football academy system.
Laurent Blanc, who was then coach of the national team, was heard saying that at some academies “we really train the same prototype of players: big, strong, powerful. What are the big, strong, powerful things out there right now? Black people. God knows that in training centres, in football schools, there are a lot of them”. Blanc added that the FFF should refocus and find more young players “with our culture, our history, etc”.
An investigation led by the French sports ministry cleared Blanc of allegations of discrimination. Francois Blaquart was briefly suspended from his role as national technical director pending an investigation, but he too was cleared of any wrongdoing and stayed with the FFF for another six years.
Blanc, Blaquart and others felt their words had been taken out of context. Chantal Jouanno, the sports minister at the time, said the comments made by various FFF officials had been “clumsy and uncalled for”, but that there was no evidence to suggest they had backed discriminatory practices.
“It just sort of died down and went away, but it left a sour taste within French football,” says Williams. “It was a controversy that threatened to have much more significant ramifications than it did.”
Since Jean-Marie Le Pen stood down in 2011, the nationalist movement has continued to grow in support, first under the leadership of his daughter Marine and now under 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, who has widened the RN’s appeal to a younger demographic.
Posters showing Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella ahead of the legislative elections (Denis Charlet/AFP via Getty Images)
Some of its messaging has been toned down, but the anti-immigration message persists. As do the tensions with the France national team.
Mbappe did not mention any party specifically — and appeared to be referring to the NFP coalition as well when he spoke of extremism — but his comments last week were met with anger from the RN.
Bardella told French TV station CNews: “When you’re lucky enough to have a very, very big salary, when you’re a multi-millionaire, then I’m a little embarrassed to see these athletes (…) give lessons to people who can’t make ends meet, who don’t feel safe, who don’t have the chance to live in neighbourhoods protected by security agents.”
There was a similar message from one of the RN’s vice presidents, Sebastien Chenu, who said the French public didn’t want to be “lectured” or “told how to vote” by people “who are disconnected from reality” and “very far removed from their daily concerns”.
But Mbappe’s origin story is far from privileged. He grew up in the banlieue, the vast urban suburban sprawl beyond the centre of Paris. So did many of his team-mates. To suggest they cannot relate to “people who can’t make ends meet” — and vice-versa — seemed like a convenient put-down, but not an accurate one.
Kylian Mbappe, aged 12, talking to French television about racism in football in Bondy in 2011 (Florian Plaucheur and Mehdi Lebouachera/AFP via Getty Images)
“The fact that they’re millionaires or multi-millionaires is irrelevant,” says Philippe Marliere, professor of French politics at University College London. “Mbappe comes from Bondy, which is on the outskirts of Paris but has a completely different landscape to the affluent city. There’s a lot of poverty, a lot of unemployment.”
Bondy is part of Seine-Saint-Denis, the French ‘department’ with the highest proportion of immigrants and the highest poverty rate, with 28.6 per cent of its 50,000-plus residents living below the poverty line according to INSEE (France’s national institute of statistics and economic studies).
“Mbappe’s father is originally from Cameroon and his mother’s family are from Algeria. They are known as very hard-working, law-abiding citizens who are heavily involved in their local community,” Marliere says. “Mbappe appears to share their values and it’s a positive thing when someone achieves great success and they remain true to the values they were raised with.”
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Could this kind of intervention make a difference? “In terms of the outcome, it is harder to say, but it could certainly have an impact because of Mbappe’s status as a national icon,” Marliere says.
“This is a crucial and potentially historic election, in which France could elect a far-right government. This could mobilise younger voters who weren’t previously thinking of voting.”
In the days that followed Mbappe’s and Thuram’s comments, Arsenal defender William Saliba, also from Bondy, suggested the France squad might issue a collective statement. Nearly a week later, it has not materialised.
“We’ve talked about the press release and the subject will come up again,” Real Madrid midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni said at the France training camp in Paderborn on Sunday. “I can’t say we all have the same view of things. I don’t know.
“Everyone in the group is entitled to their opinion. We’ve had strong messages via Marcus and Kylian and I share their point of view. I hate extremes in everyday life. I’m more for a policy of unity.”
The FFF outlined its own position within hours of Thuram’s statement on June 15. It said it is “deeply attached to freedom of expression and citizenship” and “supports the call to go out and vote”, but that it — and the national team — must remain politically neutral. “In this respect,” it said, “any form of pressure and political use of the French team must be avoided.”
But it seems inevitable that the national team will be “used” politically one way or the other. While Jean-Marie Le Pen used to take pot-shots to score political points, Macron has flaunted his affection for the national team and, over recent years, his relationship with Mbappe.
Despite being a Marseille supporter, Macron took credit for helping persuade Mbappe to extend his contract at Paris Saint-Germain in 2022. Mbappe confirmed that the president “strongly advised me to continue in my country”.
Mbappe has attended dinners at the Elysee Palace, including earlier this year for a visit by the Emir of Qatar given PSG’s links to the Qatari state. Macron and sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera visited the team’s training base in Clairefontaine on June 3 before the departure for Germany, standing either side of Mbappe during a photoshoot.
French president Emmanuel Macron with Kylian Mbappe before the squad’s departure to Germany (Sarah Meyssonnier/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Marliere is keen to point out that Mbappe’s statements, in condemning “extremes” (plural), “appear to put him down as a Macronite” rather than someone campaigning for the left-wing coalition.
“But it was still quite a bold and controversial statement,” Marliere says. “The players are celebrated and liked by the French public, particularly when the national team wins. But if they start making their way into political discussions, there is a risk that some will object to that. They will be aware of that risk, which is why I admire the boldness of the statements.”
The stakes are high. This legislative election has been described by finance minister Bruno Le Maire as being potentially France’s most significant since the formation of the Fifth Republic in 1958. While the National Rally is expected to win the most votes in the first round on June 30, the outcome of the second round on July 7 is harder to predict.
It raises all kinds of possibilities: France’s players looking to the stands during a Euros semi-final in Munich or Dortmund and seeing Bardella looking down on them as prime minister; France’s players returning to Paris as European champions on July 15 to be greeted by the leader of a new far-right government that several of them have already denounced.
“I hope we will make the right choice and I hope we will still be proud to wear this jersey on July 7,” Mbappe said.
Mbappe is a patriot, often ending his news conferences or speeches in pre-match huddles with the words “Vive la France”. But his comments over recent weeks suggest that pride would be tested by the election of a far-right government.
In France – and in the French enclave that has been established in Paderborn over the past fortnight – tensions are running high.
(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
HARTFORD, Conn. — As USC’s bench emptied onto the XL Center floor, with the No. 7 Trojans having defeated the No. 4 UConn Huskies 72-70, JuJu Watkins’ hands shot to the sky. Basking in her 25-point performance that lifted USC past UConn for the first time in school history, Watkins turned to the small section of supporters decked out in red and yellow inside the sold-out arena and acknowledged their support.
“It hit a little different knowing the history from last year and how they sent us home,” Watkins said.
The stakes were different this time. In April, in the Elite Eight, the Huskies knocked the top-seeded Trojans out of the NCAA Tournament. But Saturday night’s 2-point victory was meaningful nevertheless. Not only for Watkins and USC senior transfer Kiki Iriafen, but for their coach, Lindsay Gottlieb, who has long admired the program UConn coach Geno Auriemma has built.
“This is a really significant win, and it’s a really significant win because of the stature of UConn’s program and what Geno Auriemma has done for our sport,” Gottlieb said. “For my entire high school (career) on, this is what basketball excellence was. This is what we saw, and it’s challenged all of us to want to be better, to find players who want to be better and be that elite. And I don’t think that’s gone away.”
Gottlieb is in her fourth season with the Trojans, and she aspires to build a sustained program similar to the Huskies. A season ago, USC won its second Pac-12 tournament title in program history and made consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances for the first time in nearly two decades. Over her brief tenure, she has reminded onlookers not only of USC’s history of success — two national titles and three Final Four appearances in the 1980s, Hall of Fame players such as Lisa Leslie, Cynthia Cooper, Cheryl Miller and Tina Thompson — but of what it can be in the present. Watkins, last year’s national freshman of the year and a first-team All-American, is at the center of the latest chapter. Victories like Saturday’s help make lofty aspirations feel more attainable.
USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb wants to emulate what Geno Auriemma has built in Connecticut. (David Butler II / Imagn Images)
Gottlieb grew up just outside New York City, but she wasn’t recruited by Auriemma in high school. Nevertheless, when she was 15 or 16, she accompanied one of her friends to one of his camps. UConn was always the local draw, and following Saturday’s win, she recalled a trip she made during her senior year at Brown University, in nearby Providence, Rhode Island, when she and her father drove to Storrs to see UConn take on Tennessee.
“It was sold out,” Gottlieb said, “and I was in that building and saw this atmosphere.”
Saturday was raucous, too. And Watkins, USC’s star guard, said it might have been the largest crowd she has played in front of. Nearly 16,000 people packed inside XL Center, almost all of whom wore navy and white.
Still, Watkins added, “just to see my family here, all the SC fans, it meant the world.”
If anyone needed reminding, the Trojans’ victory reinforced their status as one of this season’s national title contenders. At 11-1, their lone defeat came at home to Notre Dame by 13 points. It would have been easy, Gottlieb said, for those inside the program to blame each other after that November loss — for the Trojans to fracture.
“As long as we stick together, this can make us better,” she said she told them afterward. “And (the loss) has in every way.”
Entering Saturday’s victory, the Trojans sported the country’s third-best defense and No. 15 offense. They convert in transition (nearly 20 percent of their points come in transition) and off turnovers (averaging 28.7 points per game), important measurables that could serve them well in the future. Their victory over the Huskies reinforced that they could come on the road, in one of the most-anticipated games of the season, and punch first. It proved they could surrender a 13-point halftime lead, trail by a point with just under five minutes to play and still recover.
“No one got off the treadmill,” Gottlieb said.
Of course, having a transcendent star like Watkins helps calm any nerves. Not only did she lead the game in scoring, she added six rebounds, five assists and three blocks, including one just before halftime on UConn star Paige Bueckers. Bueckers was prolific in the second half and finished with 22 points, but she also guarded Watkins as the USC star got off to a fast start in the first quarter.
“Every scouting report that you put together or every film that you watch, it’s very evident that one player can’t guard (Watkins),” Auriemma said. “When she gets into a little bit of a rhythm, you have to hope she misses.”
With the score within one possession with only 4:30 to play, Watkins recorded 6 of USC’s 8 points and assisted forward Rayah Marshall on the lone basket she didn’t score.
“A lot of the things she does is super hard, but she makes it look so easy,” Iriafen said. “We all know she is a superstar, so playing with her definitely relieves pressure on everybody else.”
Any remnants of pressure dissipated even further in the postgame locker room. Players doused Gottlieb with water as she entered. They leaped together in celebration.
“For me now to bring a team here, to know we could do it, and then to actually do it is incredibly meaningful,” Gottlieb said. “Really proud of the big win.”
(Top photo of JuJu Watkins driving between Paige Bueckers, left, and Kaitlyn Chen: Joe Buglewicz / Getty Images)
Culture
Penn State, Louisville volleyball will make history in NCAA championship. Their coaches are why
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — What’s remarkable is not that two women are coaching for the national championship and one will win a title for the first time in the 44 years of NCAA women’s volleyball. It’s remarkable that these women, Katie Schumacher-Cawley and Dani Busboom Kelly, are the two doing it.
Because they are the ideal representatives.
In this historic moment, as Schumacher-Cawley at Penn State and Louisville’s Busboom Kelly match wits before a sold-out KFC Yum! Center and a national ABC audience on Sunday at 3 p.m., they are the embodiment of what it takes to get to the top in an industry dominated by men.
Eighteen of the 20 winningest coaches in Division I women’s volleyball history are men.
“It’s going to be awesome for the sport to get this monkey off its back and move on from this, where it’s not historic that a woman wins,” said Busboom Kelly, 39, in her eighth season and making a second trip to the national championship match with the Cardinals. “It’s just a regular thing.”
Penn State (34-2) and Louisville (30-5) reflect their coaches’ drive and resilience. They won national semifinal matches on Thursday against Nebraska and Pittsburgh, respectively, in dramatic fashion.
Schumacher-Cawley and Busboom Kelly both coached with a steady hand. They fostered confidence from the sideline as their squads’ manufactured comebacks against opponents considered to rank first and second nationally in talent, depth and championship-level experience.
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The Nittany Lions pulled a five-set reverse sweep, fighting off two match points for Nebraska in the fourth set.
At the start of the decisive fifth set, junior libero Gillian Grimes heard a voice of reassurance in the Penn State huddle: “We’re made for this.” The phrase didn’t come from Schumacher-Cawley. But she is why it was spoken.
Louisville players faced pressure all season to earn a spot in the Final Four at home. As stress rose when Pitt won the opening set and took the lead in the second, Busboom Kelly implored the Cardinals to keep their composure.
“This is going to start to work,” she said.
Without star attacker Anna DeBeer, the senior was injured two points into the fourth set, they swarmed Pitt after turning back three set points for the Panthers in the third.
In short, Penn State and Louisville refused to go away. They kept taking huge swings. They played to win.
“We’re not talking about losing ever,” Penn State outside hitter Jess Mruzik. “We’re never counting ourselves out, no matter how big of a deficit we’re facing.”
In matches played in front of an NCAA-postseason record crowd of 21,726, Penn State and Louisville were the tougher teams.
Is it any surprise, considering the coaches?
“Women are tough,” said Nebraska coach John Cook, who’s won four national championships. “And those two are really tough. Look at them as players. They both won national championships, so this isn’t a fluke. These guys are winners. They’re great competitors. And their teams play like it.”
Schumacher-Cawley, 44, is a Chicago brand of tough. She grew up in the city and starred in multiple sports at Mother McAuley High. She played at Penn State, earned two All-America honors and won a national championship, the school’s first in women’s volleyball, in 1999 for coach Russ Rose.
Rose won six more titles. He’s the all-time leader in championships and wins among Division I coaches. In 2008, Schumacher-Cawley was inducted into the Chicagoland Hall of Fame in a class alongside Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers and Andre Dawson.
She ran the program at Illinois-Chicago for eight seasons and returned to Penn State to work for Rose in 2018 — four years after the Nittany Lions’ most recent Final Four appearance until last week.
Schumacher Cawley took over when Rose retired in 2022.
“Following Russ Rose, to take the team back to the Final Four in just three years,” Busboom Kelly said, “take being a man or woman out of it, that’s an amazing accomplishment.”
Early in her third season this fall, Schumacher-Cawley revealed a Stage 2 breast cancer diagnosis and she began chemotherapy. She lost her hair but did not miss a practice with her team.
“We’re obviously wanting to do this for her because she’s been so amazing throughout this season,” said Mruzik, who hammered a match-best 26 kills against Nebraska. “So that gritty five-set win helped put another brick into the piece that we’re trying to build this season.”
Schumacher-Cawley deflects questions about her health and the gender issue in coaching.
“I’m just really excited to represent Penn State,” she said.
Maybe it’ll sink in, she said, the magnitude of two women on the bench, both in charge with a trophy on the court, when they step out under the lights Sunday.
“I’m proud of this team,” Schumacher-Cauley said. “I think I’ve said that every day. I’m proud of their fight.”
The fight transcends volleyball.
Louisville coach Dani Busboom Kelly was the 2021 AVCA national coach of the year. (Sam Upshaw Jr. / Courier Journal / USA Today via Imagn Images)
When Busboom Kelly took over at Louisville in 2017, she doubled the Cardinals’ win total, from 12 to 24, in one season.
In 2019, Louisville advanced to the round of eight for the first time. In 2021, Busboom Kelly was named the national coach of the year as the Cardinals went undefeated until the Final Four, losing in five sets against Wisconsin. A year later, Texas beat Louisville for the national championship.
“She’s led one of the great turnarounds in any college volleyball program,” Cook said.
Busboom Kelly played for Cook at Nebraska from 2003 to 2006. He recruited her off a farm near Cortland Neb. She was a multi-sport star at tiny Adams Freeman High School.
In college, she moved from setter to libero and helped spark the Huskers, alongside future Olympians Jordan Larson and Sarah Pavan, to a national championship in 2006. She won another title with Cook and the Huskers as an assistant coach in 2015.
A year later, she took over at Louisville.
“I hope people appreciate what she’s done here,” Cook said.
Louisville fans appreciate Busboom Kelly, based on the reception Thursday that she and the Cardinals received.
“I think the last time I was on the mic talking about Dani, I called her a badass,” Louisville middle blocker Phekran Kong said Friday at the news conference to preview the championship. “So I’m going to double down on that one. Because she’s legit.”
In the fourth set on Thursday, after DeBeer left with the injury that could keep the senior All-American out of the championship match, middle blocker Cara Cresse promised Busboom Kelly that she would deliver two blocks.
Cresse produced. Momentum flipped. The Panthers fell apart late in the match. Even sophomore opposite hitter Olivia Babcock, crowned Friday as the national player of the year, felt the pressure. The Cardinals embraced it.
“This is for all the people who doubted us,” Louisville outside hitter Charitie Luper said.
Her coach looked on and smiled.
More than to shatter a glass ceiling on Sunday, Busbom Kelly said, she’s excited that a woman will coach her team to the national championship so that athletic directors and future players who might go into coaching understand that it can be done.
“It’s more just being really proud that we can be role models,” she said, “and hopefully blazing new trails.”
(Top photo of Schumacher-Cawley: Dan Rainville / USA Today via Imagn Images
In 1982, George Halas reached into Chicago Bears history to find a head coach and hired Mike Ditka.
In 2025, the team Halas founded needs to consider its history again.
There are candidates with no ties to the Bears who deserve consideration.
Foremost among them is Mike Vrabel, who never should have been fired by the Tennessee Titans and can win Super Bowls — plural — in the right situation. If Ben Johnson of the Detroit Lions is as dazzling as a head coach as he is as an offensive coordinator, he will transform an organization. His defensive counterpart in Detroit, Aaron Glenn, seems to have leadership and coaching qualities that few have. Steve Spagnuolo’s long history of building defenses and relationships may be evidence he could thrive with a second chance. The way Joe Brady has easily lifted the Buffalo Bills offense suggests he can handle more plates on the bar.
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And there are others. Maybe in the final analysis, one of them is best suited for the job.
However, only one person has had a football role on both Bears Super Bowl teams. Ron Rivera was a linebacker on the 1985 champions. On the 2006 Bears that lost to the Indianapolis Colts, he was their defensive coordinator.
Now he should be first in line to interview.
Rivera’s 2006 defense allowed the third-fewest points in the NFL. Without justification, he was fired after that season, and the Bears took a cold plunge. In the 19 seasons since, they have made the playoffs three times and have a .439 winning percentage.
Drafted by Jim Finks, built up by Ditka and mentored by Mike Singletary, Rivera, more than any potential candidate, comprehends what it means to be a Bear. He knows where Chicago’s potholes are. He understands the organizational strengths and limitations, the fan base and the local media.
There is no doubt Halas would have endorsed interviewing Rivera. Same for Walter Payton, who sat across from Rivera on plane rides to and from games.
Ditka was not the only former Bears player to become their coach. In their first 54 years, every one of their coaches except Ralph Jones was a former player for the team. Halas himself played for the Bears. The other Bears players who became the franchise’s head coach were Luke Johnsos, Hunk Anderson, Paddy Driscoll, Jim Dooley and Abe Gibron.
The Bears have been criticized — justifiably — for not considering former Bear Jim Harbaugh as a head coaching candidate. Ignoring Rivera would be making a similar mistake.
History is not the only reason Rivera should be considered. Like Harbaugh, Rivera is a proven coaching commodity. His coaching journey began humbly as a quality control coach for his Bears in 1997. Two years later, he went to work for Andy Reid in Philadelphia as a linebackers coach before returning to Chicago to coordinate the defense in 2004.
Ron Rivera returned to the Bears as defensive coordinator from 2004 to 2006. (Jonathan Daniel / Getty Images)
When he was head coach of the Carolina Panthers, Rivera’s teams made it to the playoffs four times and the Super Bowl once. He was voted coach of the year twice, which makes him one of 13 to be honored more than once. Seven of the 13 are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, with Halas and Ditka among them.
After new Panthers owner David Tepper fired him in 2019, Rivera was unemployed for less than a month when he agreed to lead Dan Snyder’s Washington Redskins, who became the Football Team and then the Commanders in Rivera’s tumultuous tenure as their coach. And he wasn’t just their coach. He was their de facto general manager. Then he became Snyder’s frontman/shield when workplace culture transgressions and financial improprieties came to light and Snyder went underground.
Rivera arguably was the most sought-after coach in the 2020 cycle. The four regrettable years he spent with Snyder, arguably the worst owner in the NFL’s history, changed perceptions. Rivera was not the first to have his reputation diminished by the association.
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In his tenure with Washington before Snyder, the great Joe Gibbs won 67 percent of his games and three Super Bowls. After retiring and returning with Snyder as owner, he went 30-34. As a college coach, Steve Spurrier won 71 percent of his games and a national championship. With Snyder, he won 37 percent of his games. Mike Shanahan, who should be on his way to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, had a .598 career winning percentage and two Super Bowl rings as a head coach before partnering with Snyder. In Washington, his winning percentage was .375.
Rivera’s winning percentage before Snyder was .546, one percentage point better than Vrabel’s. In Washington, it was .396.
Some will question if a defensive-minded coach like Rivera is right for the Bears because of the presence of quarterback Caleb Williams, as if a coach without an offensive background should be disqualified. Hiring a head coach with one player in mind when 53 need to be led is an absurdity.
Tom Landry, Chuck Noll, John Madden, Don Shula, George Allen, Bill Parcells, Marv Levy, Dick Vermeil, Tony Dungy, Bill Cowher and Jimmy Johnson have busts in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Almost assuredly on their way to Canton are Bill Belichick, John Harbaugh and Mike Tomlin. None of them had offensive backgrounds before becoming head coaches.
In 2011, when Rivera was hired in Carolina, there were similar concerns about his ability to handle an offense. With the first pick in the draft, the team chose a quarterback, Cam Newton. Rivera sent offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski, quarterbacks coach Mike Shula and offensive quality control coach Scott Turner to Auburn to meet with the school’s offensive coordinator, Gus Malzahn, and try to understand what Malzahn did with Newton in helping him win a national championship and Heisman Trophy.
Panthers coaches implemented concepts Newton succeeded with at Auburn, including RPO plays that weren’t widely used at the time. Newton was named offensive rookie of the year. Four years later, Newton was voted the NFL’s most valuable player — while playing for a defensive-minded coach.
Rivera connects with players. He earns respect with authenticity, class and toughness. And apparently, these Bears need a coach who will hold players accountable.
The year after Newton was the league’s MVP, Rivera benched him because he refused to follow a team rule requiring players to wear ties on the plane. When Newton showed up tieless, Rivera tried to give him a tie to wear. Newton said it didn’t match his outfit. Rivera told him there would be repercussions, and Newton subsequently was held out the first series of a game. Newton later apologized to the team.
Rivera, who learned about aggressive strategies from Buddy Ryan and his Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Johnson, never has been afraid to take a chance. Before they called the head coach of the Lions Dan “Gamble,” they called Rivera “Riverboat Ron.”
In his first training camp in Washington, Rivera was diagnosed with squamous cell cancer in a lymph node. That season, he had 35 proton therapy treatments and three chemotherapy treatments. Rivera lost 25 pounds and grew so weak he had to be brought into the office with one arm around his wife’s shoulder and one around the team trainer’s. He never stopped coaching and leading, though, and his team rallied, winning five of its last seven games to make the playoffs.
Rivera eventually rang the bell and is cancer-free. For his perseverance, the Pro Football Writers of America voted him the recipient of the George Halas Award, which is given for overcoming adversity.
The significance of Rivera winning the award named after the founder of the Bears should not be lost on those entrusted with maintaining the Halas legacy.
(Top photo: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)
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