Culture
Marvin Gaye's NBA All-Star Game national anthem, 40 years later, still moves souls
Editor’s Note: This story is included in The Athletic’s Best of 2023. View the full list.
For one afternoon, America’s anointed theme song had a suede soul, velvety enough to be simultaneously sexy and spiritual.
For one afternoon, patriotism masqueraded as a Motown kind of cool. The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., was graced by a superstar’s serenade, stirring together hope and love, resilience and confidence, into a concoction delightful enough to be served on the rocks.
For one afternoon, the time set aside to honor America became a historic homage to the rhythm and blues of Blackness, a tribute to the resilient genius of African American culture.
And after that afternoon in Inglewood, neither “The Star-Spangled Banner” nor the NBA would ever be the same.
The NBA was not always, as some of its critics would later say, “woke.” Or even a Black league, as it’s now known.
For its first three-plus decades, the league was as strait-laced and non-controversial as the other major U.S. sports leagues. While individual star players like Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson pointed out the inequalities faced by the league’s Black players, both on and off the court, the NBA as a whole was conspicuously conservative. So much so, it was considered a big ask when then-Suns owner Jerry Colangelo went to CBS Sports president Bob Wussler in 1975 requesting two minutes at the top of the network’s upcoming broadcast of the All-Star Game in Phoenix so crooner Andy Williams could sing “By The Time I Get to Phoenix” with Henry Mancini’s orchestra.
It was into this vanilla void that stepped Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., on Feb. 13, 1983, on the floor of The Forum — at the time the home of the Los Angeles Lakers and, that day, the site of the NBA All-Star Game.
He was resplendent in a steel-blue suit, set off by a light-blue banker’s shirt and a blue gingham tie; a dangling white handkerchief added a bit of extra flair. His aviator sunglasses with the gradient and thin temples popped beneath the spotlight-style lighting on the court. This was a legend on a different level, and the awe of the audience was tangible from the moment he stepped to the mic.
No nexus between ballers and entertainers existed back then. No celebrity game during All-Star Weekend. (There was no All-Star Weekend; it was a one-day, one-game event.) The most notable, public friendship between an NBA star and musicians was Bill Walton’s lifetime affinity for the Grateful Dead.
Hip-hop was in its infancy as a commercially viable genre. Kurtis Blow was 18 months from releasing “Ego Trip,” his 1984 album featuring one of the first meshes of hoops and bars, “Basketball.” It would be a while before lyrics about star ballers were the norm.
Gay, though, was already a superstar. Adding an E to his surname, Marvin Gaye became one of Motown’s biggest stars during nearly two decades with the label, a musical leviathan whose seminal 1971 album “What’s Going On” was voted, almost 50 years later, as the greatest album of all time by Rolling Stone. It was more than just an innovative leap of popular music, but a soundtrack of social consciousness. It spoke of a time for a plighted community, and to a struggle still ongoing today.
Singing was only part of his incredible musical talent. But Gaye’s voice — stirring, sultry and defiant all at once — had become vox populi.
Gaye’s career was a paeon to surviving life’s tribulations and persevering. His ballads with Tammi Terrell. His 1968 classic “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” which he reimagined into his own amazing, plaintive wail a year after Gladys Knight and the Pips’ version. His baby-making anthem “Let’s Get It On.” Even his bouts with depression — an issue throughout his life — and years of drug abuse. Fans claimed all of it, the angelic crooning and the flawed humanity.
By the early ’80s, Gaye had again fallen into depression. He was, however, in the beginnings of a comeback, having released his 17th album, “Midnight Love,” late in 1982. The album featured the hit “Sexual Healing,” which got Gaye back to the top of the charts at age 43. He was living cleaner, trying to deal with his demons.
Four months later, he seemed to glide onto The Forum floor. Minutes later, he had again reshaped a song in his voice, turning the national anthem into a ballad, a soulful call for our collective nation to, at long last, live up to the promises in the song’s words.
Ten days after his performance at the All-Star game, Gaye won his first Grammy. (Armando Gallo / Getty Images)
In ’83, Gaye was the second choice to sing the anthem at the All-Star game.
“I originally wanted Lionel Richie to do the anthem,” said Lon Rosen, now the executive vice president and chief marketing officer of the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 1983, the then-23-year-old Rosen was director of promotions for the Lakers and Kings, as well as special events for the Forum.
“The NBA was much different than it is now,” Rosen said. “The local team would really run most of the event. It was really like a normal game; there wasn’t much different. I had to get the anthem singer, but I did have to get approval. We worked with the TV network on the introductions.
“Back then, it was just a one-day event. … So, it was really more like a normal game with a little bit of input from the league on maybe one or two approvals. Because we had so many national games, we’d worked with the (CBS TV producers) Bob Stenners and Mike Burkses and Sandy Grossmans. It was a normal game for us.”
But someone — Rosen didn’t say who — in commissioner Larry O’Brien’s office vetoed Richie, who was starting his solo career and who would have three of Billboard’s Top 100 songs by the end of the year. Instead, Rosen went to Plan B: Gaye. He got approval to reach out to the singer, who quickly agreed to sing the anthem.
Gaye came to the Forum on Saturday, the day before the game, to rehearse — just as the East team was finishing its practice.
“We do the rehearsal, and it’s six minutes long,” Rosen said. “And we only have, really, 2 1/2 minutes. So, he’s done with it, and I said to him, ‘Marvin, we have to shorten it.’ He wouldn’t really focus on what I was saying. He was kind of turning around. I was kind of, like, going in a circle with him. It was kind of bizarre. And one of his, they weren’t really handlers, kind of stopped me from going in a circle with him.
“(Gaye) ended up saying, ‘OK, I’ll come back tomorrow with a shorter version.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you come in and let’s do it at, like, 11 o’clock?’ The game was at 12:30 (p.m.), or something.”
The next morning, game day, brought new anxiety to the young Lakers executive.
“He didn’t show up at 11,” Rosen said. “He didn’t show up at 11:15. He didn’t show up at 11:30. He didn’t show up at 12. By then I’m like, ‘Holy crap, what do I do?’ There was an usherette that worked (at the Forum) that I actually went to high school with; that was my backup anthem singer during the regular season. She was ready to sing the anthem.”
Seemingly at the last minute, Gaye arrived, walking down the center aisle of the Forum, dressed to the nines, with a cassette tape in his hand. It was the drum track that had been laid down Saturday by Gaye and his longtime collaborator, guitarist Gordon Banks, at Gaye’s sister’s house in L.A. Rosen quickly got the tape upstairs to the building’s sound engineer.
Standing on the East team’s introduction line was Marques Johnson, in his fourth All-Star game, a young star with the Milwaukee Bucks. Born in Louisiana, Johnson and his family moved to Los Angeles when he was a child. He starred at nearby Crenshaw High before becoming all-America at UCLA.
“I just remember being out on the floor when Marvin came out,” Johnson said. “It’s back home for me in Los Angeles. I had flown this kid out from Milwaukee who actually was a burn victim, Maltese Williams. He had gotten in a fire and he was in a coma, and he came out of the coma. I was visiting him at the hospital in Milwaukee and then had the idea to bring him out for the All-Star Game. It was just a big, exciting time.
Isiah Thomas stood near his Eastern Conference teammate. He, like so many his age, was a big fan of Gaye. Thomas said he’d met him a couple of times. The first time was his rookie season in 1981. He and Magic Johnson saw Gaye perform at the Palladium in L.A.
“He hit ‘Distant Lover,’” Thomas said. “Oh, man. G–damn. Whoo! He sung the s— out of that song!”
Thomas said they went backstage to meet Gaye after the show. Magic Johnson did all the talking. Thomas, starstruck, stood there silent. It was all he could to keep his mouth from hitting the floor.
Two years later, he was centerstage with Gaye at the All-Star Game. Still starstruck.
“So Marvin walks out,” Thomas said. “They got his music, he grabs the mic … just as cool as ever. But the anthem music doesn’t come on. It’s another beat. The first thing you notice is, ‘Wait a minute; this ain’t the national anthem soundtrack.’”
There have been other memorable versions of the anthem. Whitney Houston delivered a powerful rendition before Super Bowl XXV in 1991, days into the Gulf War. But if Houston’s adaptation fit neatly into the jingoistic narrative of a nation at war, Gaye’s version spoke to a different kind of patriotism, one in which Black Americans were, still, waiting for the country to do what it said it was going to do.
“I listened to it again (last month),” Marques Johnson said, four decades later, “and I got chills.”
“I will never forget it as long as I live,” said Thomas, then appearing in the second of his 12 All-Star Games. “It was the most amazing feeling in the world.
“I remember when he walked onto the floor, with his sunglasses on. We all loved Marvin Gaye. We knew how cool he was. But you’ve got to put yourself in our place as players. For the anthem, you stand straight, at full attention. Hands by your sides, or you put your hand over your heart. The place is silent, except for the person who’s singing.”
In a 1987 Showtime special about his life and career — premiering three years after Gaye was shot and killed in 1984 by his father, Marvin Gay Sr., following an argument at his parents’ Los Angeles home — Gaye said, “I felt that singing it with that kind of music in the background gave me an inspiration. And I asked God that when I sang it, that it move men’s souls.”
No one remembers what happened in the game. No one. Including the players.
“If you ask anybody about the L.A. All-Star Game, they say, ‘That’s the Marvin Gaye national anthem game,’” Thomas said.
Totems like the anthem were still sacrosanct. They were not to be altered, amended, reinterpreted. Gaye had sung the anthem before sporting events many times, but with more of the traditional rendering.
In October 1968, Gaye sang the anthem in Detroit before Game 4 of the World Series between the Tigers and Cardinals. That was toward the end of a year in which America nearly came unglued. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated within weeks of one another in the spring, with King’s death in April touching off riots in large swaths of the country, accelerating both the decline of Black-owned businesses in the inner cities and White flight to the suburbs.
The Democratic national convention, in Chicago in August, became the scene of a police riot to quell protestors, at the behest of Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley.
But when Gaye sang the anthem at the World Series, he sang it straight, at the request of the Tigers’ legendary play-by-play man, Ernie Harwell, who was in charge of picking anthem singers during the Series.
(Ironically, before the next game, Game 5, of the Series, folk singer Jose Feliciano sparked a controversy when he sang the anthem — a guitar version in which Feliciano took a few liberties with the song’s tempo that, today, seem harmless, but which were almost universally panned at the time and damaged his career.)
Two weeks after the World Series, U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who’d won the gold and bronze medals, respectively, in the 200-meter dash at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, each raised a fist, upon which each wore a black glove, during the playing of the anthem at the medal ceremony. They were, they said, protesting poverty, calling attention to the murders of slaves and lynchings of freed Black people, and celebrating Black Unity. Within 48 hours, they were kicked out of Mexico City.
Gaye had been sports-adjacent even as he became a musical icon. He worked out for the Detroit Lions in 1970, believing he could “score a touchdown” the first time he touched the ball — even though he’d never played in high school or college. He had befriended Lions Hall of Fame defensive back Lem Barney and Pro Bowler Mel Farr; both are among the background singers on “What’s Going On.”
Years later, Gaye knew the significance of the court where he stood, the magnitude of the players lined up behind him and the intimacy of the setting.
By the end of the first line — which Gaye shortened to “Say, can you see,” omitting the opening “Oh” — the crowd began gasping and squealing.
“He gets to singing, and, I swear, I’ll never forget it,” Thomas said. “He’s singing, and without you even realizing what you’re doing, you’re swaying. You’re supposed to be standing at attention. But, you’re swaying. And I’m thinking ‘I’ve gotta stop swaying.’
“But then I look at the players on the other end, and they’re swaying, too. And you look at the audience, and they’re swaying, too.”
Gaye started ramping up towards the end of the song, turning up the passion on his lounge vibe. He raised clenched fists as he leaned into “banner,” stretching it out with a run. By the time he throttled back to smooth out “yet waves,” the crowd of 17,505 could no longer resist the melody. They started, on their own, clapping to the beat of the drum track.
“You’re going, ‘What the hell?’” Thomas said. “‘This is the national anthem. Ain’t nobody supposed to be moving. And they’re really not supposed to be clapping. I’ve never been in a building since where everybody was moving and swaying and clapping.”
Marques Johnson noticed, too.
“I was facing three former teammates: Jamaal Wilkes from UCLA, Alex English with the Bucks and Kiki VanDeWeghe from UCLA,” he said. “I looked at each one of their faces. Kiki kind of smirked, like, ‘What’s going on?’ Jamaal kind of looked and we shared a moment. Same with Alex. Kind of like, ‘Whoa.’
“The first thought was something to the effect of, like, the uber-patriots, Marvin’s kind of messing with the national anthem. ‘Boy, he’s going to get some blowback for this.’ But then as he went on, and it was so iconic and funky and soulful, all that good stuff, that wasn’t the thought. I was just standing there and enjoying the moment, realizing that this is a unique, special experience that we were all a part of.”
Gaye bent the song to his will and tempo, going fast on some sections, slowing down in others. He’d squat a little when really belting and used his hands to help emphasize his points. He adlibbed in some open spaces — “through the perilous fight … oh lawd … oooooh, the fight” — and in others he dropped his head and his arms to barely back off the mic, letting the beat build anticipation for his next riff.
“As great as Whitney was,” Thomas said, “Wasn’t nobody clapping when she sang it.”
The players, of course, couldn’t join in.
“You wanted to clap,” Marques Johnson said. “But I knew I couldn’t do that. National TV, you can’t just start partying and boogying to the anthem. But then the crowd, they started clapping the last 30 seconds or so. They started clapping and really getting into it and grooving. It was a real special, iconic moment to be a part of.”
When Gaye finished, Rosen said, “He walked right out of the building, and I never saw him again.”
The immediate reaction, in some quarters, was not sanguine. Rosen thought he was going to be fired, after O’Brien, as Rosen recalled, “tore me a new (one)” when Gaye was finished. Phones rang with angry callers.
Fortunately for Rosen, his immediate boss, the late Jerry Buss, the Lakers’ owner, loved Gaye’s rendition, so his job was secure.
Over time, what Buss recognized, what the players knew instantly, became clearer to the masses. What happened that one night in Inglewood became the watershed moment it deserved.
Marvin Gaye’s performance not only legitimized the A-list worthiness of the NBA All-Star Game and the league itself, but it opened the door for future artists to express the diversity of the U.S. through creative license with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” For one day, the anthem was dipped in Blackness by one of the all-time greats and came up magic.
“I wish I could have broken protocol; forget the (player) introductions and all this, we’ve got to go give it up to him,” Marques Johnson said, four decades later. “‘Cause he knew what he had done. And as players, sitting there and listening to it, there was a vibe, a special vibe, that you had really heard something. … He turned that thing into his own, a funky rendition that, I dare say, nobody else has ever approached.”
(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton/The Athletic; photos: Andrew D. Bernstein, Brian Drake and David Redfern / Getty Images)
PALO ALTO, Calif. — On a steamy Thursday afternoon at Stanford’s Smith Family Stadium, every Cardinal player and coach not on the field stands against the dugout rail, shouting encouragement at someone. Including, between every pitch, a chorus of “Yeah, NiJa!”
NiJa is Stanford pitcher NiJaree Canady, a 6-foot sophomore, who finds herself in a bind against rival Cal. She began the top of the fifth inning with a walk, a passed ball and a single. Now, the Bears have executed a double steal to pull within 4-2. There are no outs and a runner at second. It’s a 2-2 count.
But on her 89th pitch of the afternoon, Canady unleashes a searing rise ball to strike out leadoff batter Lagi Quiroga swinging. Canady smiles and exchanges an excited clap with shortstop River Mahler.
And then, in an instant, the inning is over, with Canady notching another strikeout and a two-pitch groundout in the eventual Pac-12 tournament win.
With the NCAA Tournament opening this week, college softball has steadily increased in popularity over the past decade. Viewership for the Women’s College World Series finals reached a record 1.85 million viewers in 2021 and notably passed the Men’s CWS championship with 1.6 million viewers in 2022. The WCWS has reached at least 1 million viewers in each of its last four seasons (it did not air in 2020), and some believe the sport may be on the verge of a women’s basketball-like breakout.
A handful of recent stars – Alabama’s Montana Fouts, Oklahoma’s Jocelyn Alo, Tennessee’s Kiki Molloy – have captivated audiences over those 10 days in Oklahoma City. Still, the last softball player to transcend into the mainstream sports world was arguably Arizona pitcher Jennie Finch more than 20 years ago.
Canady, a Topeka, Kansas, native and star pitcher with 256 strikeouts in 168.2 innings and a 0.50 ERA, could be that generational player.
“NiJaree’s extremely competitive. I think she might be the face of college softball right now for that reason,” said Reese Atwood, the top hitter for No. 1 Texas who in February slammed one of five home runs hit against Canady this season. “She’s one of those standout players that just everyone knows her name in the game.”
Canady burst on the national scene as a freshman at last year’s WCWS, where she struck out Oklahoma star Tiare Jennings on consecutive at-bats, unleashing her now-familiar fist pump and howl after both.
“I feel like I show my emotion a lot on the mound,” said Canady. “Especially if it’s a good battle.”
She then closed out a 2-0 upset of Alabama, threw a one-hit shutout with nine strikeouts against Washington and helped the Cardinal take the No. 1 seed Sooners to extra innings before falling to the eventual champs a second time.
Now, a year later, as the eighth-seeded Cardinal begin their quest to return to Oklahoma City, members of the softball community mention Canady alongside the all-time greats. In particular, because of her rare ability to combine velocity (she was clocked at 75 mph in last year’s WCWS) with sorcery. Her rise ball – a pitch with backspin that appears headed to the strike zone, only to rise as it breaks – is virtually unhittable.
“I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever seen (a rise ball) like hers in my whole life,” said Stanford pitching coach Tori Nyberg, a Cardinal pitcher in the early 2000s. “Monica Abbott is in a class of her own, but in terms of the velocity, she’s the only person I can think to compare to hers.”
Abbott, a four-time All-American at Tennessee from 2004-07 and NCAA career strikeout leader, holds the Guinness World Record for fastest softball pitch at 77 mph. She predicts Canady will break it.
“NiJa is already throwing as fast as I was as a pro,” said Abbott, now an ESPN analyst. “Her limit does not exist. I think she could potentially reach 80 (mph).
“I don’t know — can NiJa be the Caitlin Clark of softball? I kind of believe she can.”
When Patty Gasso arrived as Oklahoma’s head softball coach in 1995, her team spilled into the first row of bleachers at home games. Pushed to a public park, the entire roster could only fit into the dugout once the school opened Marita Hynes Field three years later.
That’s why the yard sign outside Oklahoma’s new, $48 million Love’s Field advertising recreational softball at that same public park is so telling. It’s a reminder of where college softball once was, and a sign of how far the sport has come.
“Every day we come out when there’s a crowd, it’s still a wow moment for us. We’re still trying to get used to this,” said Gasso, whose No. 2 seeded Sooners are playing for their fourth consecutive national title this postseason. “I think everyone is just in disbelief, to be honest.”
Instead of overflowing into the bleachers, Oklahoma’s roster nearly spills onto the field as players lean over the dugout fence chanting. When Oklahoma’s leadoff hitter steps into the box, every fan stands, points to the air and slowly chants “OOO-U” like during kickoff at a football game. For a regular-season home series in April, attendance tops 4,100 at each game, but that’s not a surprise. The program beat its single-season attendance record (43,647 across 30 games in 2018) in just 11 home dates this season.
Such a cool @OU_Softball tradition!
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— Devin Newsom (@DevinNewsom) April 20, 2024
Gasso describes playing at Love’s Field, the largest on-campus softball facility in the country, as “more overwhelming” than at Hall of Fame Stadium, recently renamed Devon Park, the home of the WCWS. And atmospheres like this one are popping up nationally. Northwestern and Stanford are building new homes, while Devon Park recently underwent renovations to expand its capacity to 13,000. Florida State, the 2021 and 2023 WCWS runner-up, made $1.5 million worth of upgrades to the Seminole Softball Complex before last season, funded exclusively by booster donations. Simultaneously, new programs at Duke and Clemson, which started in 2017 and 2020, respectively, jumped to relevancy.
When the NCAA staged its first softball tournament in 1982, the sport was predominantly a West Coast fixation. It remained that way for two-plus decades, with either a California school or Arizona winning 20 of the first 23 championships. In that first year, automatic berths were granted only to the Big Eight and Western Collegiate Athletic Association, but as more conferences sponsored college softball, AQs increased. By 2003, every eligible conference nationwide received an automatic berth to the expanded 64-team bracket.
“I was the loudest person that said, ‘Crappy idea. We need the best teams in the postseason,’” said Sue Enquist, UCLA’s seven-time national champion head coach from 1989-2006. “They’re like, ‘No, we’ve got to build the sport nationally.’
“Fast forward to 2005. Carol Hutchins and her Michigan team came and upset us in the finals. And for the first time ever, you have a snow belt team win the championship. Now, all the big schools in those eastern conferences, SEC, ACC are like, ‘Sh–, we can win!’ And the sport exploded.”
As the sport spread nationally, so did the talent. Canady is a prime example, ranking as the No. 11 recruit in the Class of 2022, per recruiting ranking site Extra Innings Softball. Last year, EIS coined the Kansas City region as an emerging hotbed for college pitchers, with Canady as one of the top products.
“I love that NiJa represents a region of our country in Kansas for so many more fans,” said Jessica Mendoza, a former outfielder at Stanford and current MLB broadcaster at ESPN. “Forever it was California, Texas and Florida, those were where every player came from.”
With that comes increased parity. After revealing this season’s postseason bracket, Division I softball committee chairman Kurt McGuffin said parity in the sport is “gaining ground” and will continue to make the job of the selection committee more challenging than before.
In the 2024 season, 307 Division I softball teams competed (296 full members with 11 transitioning from lower divisions) compared to 245 teams in 2000 and 143 teams in 1982.
“I’ve always been proud that I’ve been able to actually live through the growth of the sport,” said former Arizona coach Mike Candrea, the winningest coach in college softball history. “And the sport is absolutely still climbing.”
A big part of that climb was more exposure.
When former Stanford infielder and current Pac-12 Network broadcaster Jenna Becerra played from 2008-11, her parents followed most of her games on a website that tracked the play-by-play using stick figures. “I hit lefty and righty, and they never knew which side of the plate I was hitting on,” she said.
A dozen years later, ESPN platforms aired nearly 3,200 regular-season NCAA Division I softball games in 2024. Viewership of the regular season is up 25 percent from 10 years ago, and this was the most-watched season since 2015. All this comes during a season that competes with the MLB and postseasons in the NHL and NBA.
The early days of college softball’s media partnership with ESPN shaped its format and pushed the sport’s executives to be forward-thinking when it came to rule changes, Enquist said.
Need more hitting? The NCAA Rules Committee agreed to move back the mound. Need to see the ball better? They made it yellow. And when all that worked, former ESPN VP of programming and acquisitions Carol Stiff asked, “Why don’t we do best of three?” So, the sport replaced its championship game with a three-game series in 2005.
“There was a sense of trust and expertise,” Stiff said of those postseason rule meetings. “One hundred percent of everyone that was in that room wanted to grow the game and do what’s good for the game.”
Although the length of games has increased slightly in recent years, college softball is historically fast-moving. An action clock holds the pitcher, catcher and batter responsible for keeping the flow. This season, the time for the pitcher to begin their motion after receiving the ball was reduced from 25 to 20 seconds, while the batter and catcher have to be in position to play with at least 10 seconds left.
“It’s really easy to become a softball fan once you start paying attention,” said Stanford coach Jessica Allister. “It’s a fun sport to watch, it’s fast-paced, the players are athletic, there are big plays, big moments, there’s great energy, there’s great cohesion.
“And I think the more often we can get people to tune in one time, they keep coming back.”
Average attendance at the WCWS has also seen a steady rise. The 2023 series averaged 12,290 fans across nine sessions, a nearly 30 percent increase from 10 years ago and an 86 percent increase from the first WCWS in Oklahoma City in 1990.
“By the time you get to the Women’s College World Series, not only is everything televised, hundreds of games have been showcased to lead up to that moment,” said Mendoza, “(so you have a really good idea) who the players are that are going to be there.”
And it’s those players who hold the keys to the sport’s next breakthrough.
UCLA shortstop Maya Brady always wanted to play college softball. She remembers feeling giddy before her mom took her to her first UCLA game; Maureen Brady covered Maya’s room in blue and gold decorations before they went.
Sports ran in Maya’s blood. Maureen was an All-American pitcher at Fresno State and Maya is the niece of two-time World Series champion Kevin Youkilis and seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady. Maya quickly jumped onto the college softball map, named freshman player of the year in 2020 and repeating as the Pac-12 player of the year last week.
Now, Brady is on the other side of interactions with those giddy young fans at games, many of whom say they play with jersey No. 7 because of her.
Enquist said part of the pull to college softball is the players’ transparency.
“Would we be as popular a sport if we were just a bunch of robots out there being super competitive? Probably not,” Enquist said. “We’re an individual sport that is really camouflaged as a team sport. When I get up to the plate it’s an individual sport. There aren’t nine people getting in the box with me.”
Limited professional opportunities mean most players stay for their full eligibility, adding to the competitiveness and making them more recognizable as their college careers progress. Among the stars, there’s Oklahoma’s Jennings, a top 10 player of the year finalist who is quietly climbing to the top of Oklahoma and WCWS record books. There’s Nebraska’s Jordy Bahl, the former Oklahoma ace who missed this season with an injury but holds high expectations when she returns next year, and Tennessee’s Karlyn Pickens, who joined Abbott this year as the second Lady Vol to be named SEC pitcher of the year. There’s two-way powerhouse Valerie Cagle, the reigning player of the year who helped put Clemson on the map.
“I thought I could come in and accomplish all these goals and no one would care. Now, looking back I understand it’s very unrealistic,” said Cagle, who set a school record in hits (83) while pitching with a 1.56 ERA last season. “That’s so cool to me that people recognize softball and are excited about it.”
And then there’s Canady, whose impact goes beyond the mound.
Natasha Watley, a four-time first-team All-American at UCLA and two-time Olympian who runs a foundation dedicated to diversity in softball, said Canady is inspiring the next generation.
“I have a young daughter now; to see a Black pitcher at Stanford University – that’s normal. That wasn’t the norm for me,” Watley said. “I don’t know if she realizes how powerful it is.”
Canady said she noticed early on the lack of diversity in the sport (only 6 percent of college softball players are Black, according to NCAA data), “but that was something that helped me want it even more.”
A two-time state champion and Kansas Gatorade Player of the Year, Canady grew up playing numerous sports alongside her brother, B.J., now a freshman defensive lineman at Cal. In the second grade, she briefly played offensive line. She was a four-star basketball recruit in high school before focusing on softball as a senior.
“Her hitting coach (growing up) told us she could go off to college and be all-conference in basketball,” said her father, Bruce Canady, “but if she sticks with softball, they would talk about her for a long, long time.”
That talk began last summer in Oklahoma City, and will only intensify if Canady and the Cardinal make another run over the next three weeks.
Becerra, who has called many of Canady’s games, marvels at this moment for both the pitcher and the sport.
“Somehow, she’s gotten even better since last year,” Becerra said. “No one’s really sure how that’s possible, but that’s what generational talent does.”
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; photos: Eakin Howard, Katharine Lotze / Getty Images)
RALEIGH, N.C. — Evgeny Kuznetsov, in his inimitable, impish way, promised “hell” for the New York Rangers if they had to come back to North Carolina for a Game 6 in this increasingly indescribable second-round series.
Oh, but this wasn’t hell. Not even with a “raise hell” theme for the night. Not even with AC/DC’s “Hells Bells” blaring before puck drop. Not even with Carolina’s notoriously loud fans reaching new heights as the Hurricanes took a two-goal lead into the third period at PNC Arena. This was nothing.
No, hell is what would have followed a potential Game 7 if the Rangers never pulled out of this tailspin in time to salvage this series. Hell would have been living with the utter failure of losing in the second round after winning the first seven games of the playoffs. Hell would have been the infamy of becoming the fifth team in Stanley Cup playoff history to blow a 3-0 series lead. Hell would have been trying to sleep while endlessly reliving Jordan Martinook’s singular, spectacular save in the second period of Game 6 when he swept Ryan Lindgren’s shot off the goal line from his belly after it had already beaten Frederik Andersen through the legs.
Hell would have been always knowing they had let a golden opportunity at winning the Rangers’ second Stanley Cup in 84 years slip through their fingers, frittering away one of the best seasons in franchise history.
“I (was) just scared thinking about that,” Artemi Panarin said.
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Panarin can admit that now. Now that the Rangers have proven their mettle. Now that Chris Kreider has etched himself into Rangers lore alongside the likes of Matteau and Messier with a natural hat trick to turn a 3-1 third-period deficit into a 5-3 Game 6 victory in front of a silenced, shell-shocked Carolina crowd. Now that the Rangers’ next game at Madison Square Garden will be against either the Florida Panthers or the Boston Bruins in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final rather than in a winner-take-all Game 7 against the never-say-die Hurricanes.
Postgame locker rooms in the NHL are never all that rowdy after series victories that don’t involve the Stanley Cup itself. The players are too tired and there’s too much work left to do. Save the champagne and the plastic wrap and the ski goggles for late June. So there wasn’t much celebration in the cramped visitors room at PNC Arena after this one. But there was a palpable sense of relief, knowing that the Rangers only flirted with infamy, rather than set a date with it.
“To be honest, I kind of felt nervous on the bench when we were a couple goals down,” said Panarin, who sometimes seems incapable of the usual wall of casual bravado that most pro athletes throw up. “And still in the third period, we were down. I was actually nervous. But we did it — thank God.”
Funny how quickly things can change.
The Rangers were dead in the water, down 3-1 and handling the puck like a hand grenade, missing the net over and over again. Then Carolina goaltender Frederik Andersen lost a Mika Zibanejad puck in his skates and Kreider whacked it in.
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The Rangers power play was lifeless, having gone nine straight chances with nary a goal, and precious few real chances. Then Kreider tipped in a rising Panarin shot and the game was tied.
The game seemed destined for overtime as both teams battened down the hatches. Then Kreider capped his hat trick and it was the Hurricanes left scrambling.
Nine minutes. Nine minutes for a 3-1 deficit to become a 4-3 lead, for Kreider to go from franchise pillar to franchise legend, for an all-time Rangers choke job to become an all-time Rangers gut-check, for an all-time Hurricanes comeback to become an all-time what-if.
“They’re a great team,” said Barclay Goodrow, who finally eased the tension with a 143-foot empty-netter with 48.1 seconds left. “It’s not like we go up 3-0 and they’re going to roll over and quit. They’re a really good team and we knew they were going to fight back. We maybe had a letdown game last game but I think throughout the season, whenever that’s happened, we’ve rebounded and came back stronger the next game.”
Doing it in the regular season is one thing. Doing it in the postseason is quite another. And now the Rangers know what they’re capable of. New York’s top two lines could have been on milk cartons the last couple of games. In Game 6, they combined for four goals and six assists over the last 35 minutes. Shesterkin found his all-world form just as Kreider did, denying Carolina captain Jordan Staal from point-blank range shortly before Kreider’s equalizer on the power play, then stoning Andrei Svechnikov unchecked from the low slot with 2:39 left, with Andersen pulled. The Rangers were tested — truly tested — for the first time, and they aced it.
The Rangers were never going to go 16-0; that simply doesn’t happen in the NHL. It’s better this way. Championship teams are forged in the fires of frustration and futility. Championship teams find a way.
On the other end of the handshake line was a team still trying to find that way. For the fourth straight season, the Hurricanes looked the part of legitimate contender. For the fourth straight season, their playoff run ended without a victory beyond the second round. There were the usual culprits, too. For all their strengths — the relentless forecheck wreaking havoc in the offensive zone, the Rod Brind’Amour-esque work ethic that leads to miraculous plays like Martinook’s save, the deep back end that allows them to control the tempo so well — the Hurricanes still didn’t get enough scoring from up top, and still didn’t get enough saves from in goal. Jake Guentzel, their big trade-deadline addition, the long-sought-after sniper, was absolutely terrific in his brief time in Carolina, but had no goals and just one assist in the last three games. Sebastian Aho got a big goal off an Andrei Svechnikov feed to make it 3-1 midway through the second, but that dynamic top line still finished the postseason having been outscored 5-4 at five-on-five.
And then there’s Andersen. Playoff Freddie (technically an unfair nickname, but Late In A Series Freddie doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue) reared his ugly head again, falling to 5-8 when facing elimination (including wins in Games 4 and 5). He made just 19 saves on 23 shots, his save percentage in elimination games falling to a paltry .897. He’s 0-4 with an .856 save percentage in Game 7s, so even had the Rangers not pulled this one out of their Broadway hat, Carolina would have had a lot to overcome on Saturday night.
It’s a familiar refrain, and a familiar pain.
“This is a tough way to end a really good year,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “These guys played their butts off all year. But this is what you’re going to remember. That’s the hard part.”
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Now the Rangers get a few days off, and they can sit back and watch the Bruins and Panthers beat up on each other for another game (preferably two). All that tension that had been weighing on them since dropping Game 4 is lifted now, but it’ll be back with a vengeance when the puck drops next. All that work and all that sweat and all that energy expended, and they’re only halfway there. That’s playoff hockey — an unrelenting, agonizing, excruciating mental and physical grind, beautiful but brutal at the same time.
A hell of sorts, you might say.
But one the Rangers now know they can handle. One they now know they can thrive in.
“We just tried not to be frustrated,” Panarin said. “That’s the playoffs. It’s up and down every time. It’s hard to do sometimes. But we did it.”
(Top photo: Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
After a generational college run at Iowa, Caitlin Clark started her professional career this week in Indiana, where the median college graduate earns $52,267 annually, according to the U.S. Census American Consumer Survey.
But Clark isn’t your average young professional.
She’s one of the biggest stars in the country with major name recognition and commercial appeal as she enters the WNBA. She sells out arenas, inked a $28 million Nike endorsement deal and made television ratings skyrocket — and her pro potential has prompted widespread arguments about the economics of women’s basketball.
In her first season with the Indiana Fever, she’ll modestly surpass that Indiana median with $76,535 in salary. Even considering the WNBA’s five-month season, it’s a pittance compared with many other athletes, especially those hyped as having the potential to change the trajectory of their sports.
Victor Wembanyama, the top pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, made $12.16 million in his first season, roughly 80 times more than Clark per game. The NFL’s No. 1 draft selection, Caleb Williams, will earn about $1 million in salary in 2024, plus a signing bonus that will net him upward of $7 million. Even Paul Skenes, who was the top pick in the 2023 MLB Draft but is far from a household name, signed a contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates worth about $9.8 million, which includes a $9.2 million bonus.
The WNBA’s revenues far trail those of other major North American leagues. But Clark’s salary also lags behind professionals in niche sports like bowling, surfing and bull riding.
The base salary for a contracted player in the Professional Pickleball Association is $75,000. The top five ranked players on the PPA Tour will average $1.5 million this year in prize money and payouts. Ten players in the Professional Bowlers Association made more last year than Clark’s rookie salary. The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association featured 25 bull riders whose paychecks exceeded $76,535 with the top-ranked rider making nearly Clark’s entire four-year contract worth ($338,056) in 2023 from National Finals Rodeo earnings.
Clark’s relative small salary has become such a national conversation that even the president weighed in on it.
Women in sports continue to push new boundaries and inspire us all.
But right now we’re seeing that even if you’re the best, women are not paid their fair share.
It’s time that we give our daughters the same opportunities as our sons and ensure women are paid what they deserve.
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 16, 2024
One major difference between the WNBA and its counterparts across many other sports is that WNBA players earn a smaller fraction of league revenue. While NBA players have negotiated a 50-50 split of basketball-related income, WNBA salaries represented 9.3 percent of the league’s revenue in 2023. Kelsey Plum, the Las Vegas Aces star and first vice president of the players association, has repeatedly said that WNBA players want a bigger piece of the pie, not necessarily a raw salary bump. “We’re not asking to get paid what the men get paid,” she said. “We’re asking to get paid the same percentage of revenue shared.”
Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has pushed back on the narrative surrounding Clark’s pay. At the CNBC Changemakers Summit, Engelbert explained that Clark could earn up to half a million in WNBA wages in 2024. However, that additional compensation relies on Clark using team and league marketing agreements as well as earning individual honors and advancing in the playoffs.
Nothing is guaranteed beyond her base salary, which resembles the paychecks seen in leagues far newer than the WNBA, which is in its 28th season. The No. 1 pick in the Pro Volleyball Federation, Asjia O’Neal, is earning $60,000 in the PVF’s inaugural season. The PWHL is also paying its players an average of $55,000 in its first year. The newer leagues have said that their sponsorships and media rights are important revenue drivers. But the WNBA draws major sponsors, too, including Google, Nike and CarMax, and has rights deals with ESPN and Amazon.
Given the WNBA’s position in the major sports landscape, perhaps it’s unreasonable to compare Clark to Wembanyama, Williams or Skenes. But she’s also just being out-earned by the lowest paid NBA player on a two-way contract ($559,872), some NFL practice players ($12,000 per week minimum) and minimum-salary earners in the NHL ($750,000).
1. Future Olympian, 18, earned $80,000 winning one multi-day event this spring and totaled $219,000 in five 2024 events.
2. Finnish pro ranked No. 15, $77,350 prize earnings in 14 events, never finished higher than third in 2023.
3. According to Sports Business Journal, the Charlotte Hornets entertainer makes an annual salary of $100,000 — not even the highest among NBA mascots.
4. Miami Marlins signed the 17-year-old catcher to a 1-year deal worth $75,000 in the 2024 class. He’s been assigned to the Dominican Summer League Marlins in the minor leagues.
5. The MLS midfielder made a $75,325 base salary in 2023 as the 789th highest paid player.
6. The Professional Pickleball League base starting prize money and payouts for a contracted player is about $75,000.
7. The golfer made $78,414 from participating in 11 events (best finish tied for 23rd) in 2023.
8. Despite not placing in a majority of competitions, the 20-year-old ranked No. 26 and earned $76,439 in 2023.
9. The chess grandmaster made nearly $80,000 for winning one tournament — the Grand Swiss — in November 2023.
10. Ranked 481st worldwide in total earnings, the Fortnite player won $83,475 last year.
The WNBA’s current position in its evolution is often compared to when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird entered the NBA, which spurred a wave of popularity that the league has ridden for decades. When Bird was drafted in 1978, he signed a five-year contract with an average annual value of $650,000 (that figure does not account for inflation). Johnson’s average salary was $460,000 over his first five seasons.
Proponents of the WNBA hope that Clark can help encourage similar rivalries, with rookies like Angel Reese of the Chicago Sky and numerous other players bringing previous history in the NCAA Tournament and other matchups.
At an April donor event, Southern California head coach Lindsey Gottlieb cited Clark’s salary as a reason to advocate for more money toward women’s college basketball. Although Clark and USC star JuJu Watkins have lucrative endorsements, Gottlieb said that neither is “going to get paid her value and worth in terms of the basketball.”
The hope for Clark and other WNBA players is that change is on the horizon. The league historically has struggled to sustain its financial footing through investment. Within the past decade, even legacy franchises such as the New York Liberty and Los Angeles Sparks almost folded. Teams have lacked adequate practice facilities, and players have often competed overseas to supplement their incomes.
Now, teams have become generally more competitive and new ownership groups in Atlanta, Las Vegas, New York and Phoenix are focused on making WNBA life more attractive, fiscally and with perks. The WNBA has pursued more corporate partnerships and media deals to improve the value of the league. The league had an estimated $200 million in revenue in 2023, doubling its 2019 total, according to Chiney Ogwumike, former vice president of the players association. The WNBA recently announced it will spend $25 million in each of the next two seasons on charter flights. And it hopes a new media rights deal — the current one, which nets about $50 million combined from broadcast partners, expires in 2025 — will provide another influx of cash.
Consider the NWSL’s new broadcasting deal that pays $60 million annually compared to the previous amount of $1.5 million, which helped increase the salary cap 40 percent from 2023 to 2024. Now multiple players’ contracts pay in the high six figures annually and are valued at seven figures over their lifetime. No WNBA player has ever signed a million-dollar-plus contract.
That million dollar barrier may fall before Clark signs her next deal. And yet her salary may never reflect what other stars get in similar positions without a significant change in the finances of the WNBA.
(Visual data: Drew Jordan / The Athletic; Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photos of Caitlin Simmers, Caitlin Clark, Hugo the Hornet, Charlotte Thomas, Sofiane Djeffal and Vidit Gujrathi: Aaron Hughes / Getty Images, Gregory Shamus / Getty Images, Matthew Grimes Jr./ Getty Images / Atlanta Braves, Meg Oliphant / Getty Images, Sofiane Djeffal / Getty Images, Vidit Gujrathi / Hindustan Times)
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