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Why the Chiefs love Steve Spagnuolo: Exotic blitzes, tough love and home cooking

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Why the Chiefs love Steve Spagnuolo: Exotic blitzes, tough love and home cooking

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Before dawn on a fall Friday, Steve Spagnuolo enters the Kansas City Chiefs facility with a large aluminum pan. The defensive coordinator finds a place for it in the defensive line meeting room, returns to his car and comes back with another pan, this one for the linebackers room. Then he does it again, delivering the final pan to the defensive backs room.

In each pan, there are 15 generous portions of banana pudding. Chiefs defenders will find the pans waiting for them when they come off the field after a light practice. They will have to move quickly to get their highly coveted treat lest invasive offensive linemen move in.

Four days earlier, Steve’s wife, Maria, bought eggs, butter and other ingredients. Then she went on a banana hunt. She needed 25, starting at Aldi and taking only the ones that met her requirements for size and ripeness. She found more at Price Chopper and the rest at Cosentino’s Market. Some were a bit too green, but she put them in the oven or in plastic bags to expedite ripening. Freshness matters, so Maria waited until Wednesday to start the two-day cooking process.

Steve delivers Maria’s desserts every week during the NFL season. Of course, he’s more famous for devising blitzes so bold that no other coach would dare imagine them and coverages so complex they leave quarterbacks cross-eyed. Coaches and commentators testify about his insidious game plans that lure opponents into his web and praise his ever-evolving scheme.

But that’s only part of the story. The rest? It’s in those aluminum pans.

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Sports were the center of Spagnuolo’s universe during his childhood in Grafton, Mass., but were less important to his father, who worked long hours as an accountant and spent his free time listening to music, reading and writing. When Spagnuolo was 12, his parents split up, and his dad wasn’t around much in the years that followed.

Richard Egsegian, geometry teacher, guidance counselor and football coach at Grafton High School, took an earnest interest in every child in his sphere and a special interest in Spagnuolo, who happened to be his quarterback. Egsesian may not have been a wizard of a strategist, but his coaching touched the heart. “He was,” Spagnuolo says, “a man of character.”

Egsegian and Spagnuolo had long talks on bleacher benches after practices. Egsegian once loaded up a few of his players in his Volkswagen Beetle and drove them to the University of Massachusetts to watch one of his former players practice. He treated Spagnuolo to a day at Patriots training camp.

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Egsegian set Spagnuolo on a path to being a coach. After playing wide receiver at Springfield College, Spagnuolo hopscotched like young coaches do, working for six colleges and two World League teams. Then, in 1999, new Eagles coach Andy Reid hired Spagnuolo as a defensive assistant. He worked with Reid in Philadelphia for eight seasons, eventually coaching defensive backs and linebackers.

Those years had an indelible effect on him. In Reid, he found a mentor and someone who always had his back. Defensive coordinator Jim Johnson helped Spagnuolo develop his defensive mentality. Spagnoulo sensed a certain peace in fellow assistant coach Les Frazier, who brought him to church.

Then he met Maria. The first time they were alone together, he looked at her as if he was about to say something romantic. Instead, he said, “You must be a hard worker. Your hands are very strong.” Regardless, she decided to stick with him.


Steve and Maria Spagnuolo make Chiefs defenders feel like family. (Dan Pompei / The Athletic)

He was the Giants’ defensive coordinator in 2007 when the team started 0-2 and gave up 80 points in the first two games. Defensive end Michael Strahan recalls Spagnuolo telling his players he believed in every one of them and wouldn’t trade them for anyone else. And then he pushed them to where they did not know they could go.

“He challenged guys to be better, but he did it in a way that didn’t demean anyone,” Strahan says. “It was like, ‘I know there’s more there. And I believe in you.’”

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In the subsequent Super Bowl, Spagnuolo’s Giants prevailed over Tom Brady and the Patriots — “He’s been the bane of my existence,” Brady said on a recent Fox broadcast.

The victory propelled Spagnuolo to the St. Louis Rams’ head coaching job in 2009. With the Rams, he admittedly didn’t lean on the people around him enough. Given a precious opportunity he knew might never come again, he found it difficult to trust.

“Sometimes when you get that job for the first time, you either think you have all the answers or you’re kind of eager to do things the way you thought they should be done,” he says. “And you learn that it’s best to use as many resources and ask other people as many different questions as you can.”

Current Los Angeles Rams president Kevin Demoff, who had a hand in Spagnuolo’s firing after three seasons, posted about it earlier this year on X. “The team & organization he inherited in STL was a mess, nobody could have had success,” Demoff wrote. “Yet he changed the culture/staff & players believed. An amazing human deserving of the real shot we couldn’t give him.”

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Time has been good for Spagnuolo. A conversation with him always made you feel like you sipped warm brandy, but now the finish is smoother.

“There’s more of a gentleness with people now,” says Maria, who has likewise been good for him. “I’ve seen him have a really tender heart towards some of his players, like a father’s heart.”

Like Egsesian, Spagnuolo never had biological children. He and Maria married when he was 45 and she was 40. Her stepchildren Jeffrey and Crissy and their families make up the extended Spagnuolo family, but many others are considered adopted members.

When safety Quintin Mikell was a rookie defensive back with the Eagles, Spagnoulo asked him how he was settling in. Mikell said he missed home cooking, soul food specifically. Not long after, he found an aluminum pan in his locker with fried chicken, collard greens, black-eyed peas and sweet potato pie.

Maria can cook anything, learning from her paternal grandmother, Angelina Damiani, during her childhood in West Philly. The most important thing she learned from her grandmother: cooking was about more than just cooking.

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“The first thing Jesus did was feed people, and then he showed them kindness and love,” Maria says. “Steve loves the fellas and likes to show them.”

They bring Greek food to Chiefs defensive end George Karlaftis, a native of Athens. His favorite is Giovetsi. “It takes me back home whenever she makes it,” Karlaftis says.

For former Chiefs cornerback L’Jarius Sneed, it’s the banana pudding. “She even cooks better than my grandma, and I don’t put no one above my granny,” says Sneed.

They recently gifted defensive lineman Chris Jones with a bottle of Maria’s homemade Limoncello, which he couldn’t help but sample during a workday. “Oh my God, it’s serious,” says Jones, who had dinner at the Spagnuolos’ home before the season with safety Justin Reid and linebacker Nick Bolton. Each player left with a doggy bag too large to carry on an airplane.

Jones has called Spagnuolo a father figure, as have Reid, Sneed and others. Spagnuolo particularly resonates with players whose relationships with their fathers are strained or nonexistent.

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“I lost my father when I was 13, so I look up to him as a father figure,” Karlaftis says.

Sneed, who was traded to the Titans in the offseason, still texts Spagnuolo weekly and tells him he loves him. Chiefs safety Bryan Cook calls him one of the top five or 10 people he’s ever met. Reid had T-shirts printed in January that read, “In Spags We Trust.”

“He completely changed my life on the field and off the field and post-career,” says Strahan, who became a Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee and host of “Good Morning America” and “Fox NFL Sunday.” “Winning that Super Bowl gave me a life after football that I don’t think I ever would have had if not for him. And I attribute that win to him and his incredible game plan.”

Before their first meeting of the week, Chiefs defenders usually see a Bible verse or a statement about gratitude or another value displayed on the screen. Spagnuolo often begins the meeting by reflecting on the sentiment. Jones, who sits behind Spagnuolo at chapel every Saturday night, calls him his “spiritual muse.”

In December 2021, Sneed’s older brother was stabbed to death. When Sneed found out, his first call was to Spagnuolo.

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“I called him crying,” Sneed says. “He said, ‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong?’ I couldn’t get my words out. ‘Speak to me, LJ, speak to me.’ I said, ‘My brother passed.’ Then he started crying as well.”

In the aftermath, Spagnuolo reached out daily. Spagnuolo still texts Sneed scripture from time to time, and the cornerback finds comfort in knowing Maria prays for him every morning. “He’s someone I call on when I need help, when I’m in danger, whether it’s on the football field or not,” Sneed says.

Early in Cook’s rookie season, he felt lost. He was trying to find his place and needed reassurance that he was on the right path. Spagnuolo had noticed some growth in Cook, and he wanted Cook to see it, too. In his office, Spagnuolo showed Cook a video of his combine interview earlier that year. The player who sat in Spagnuolo’s office looked and carried himself differently.

As he watched, Cook broke down.

“I don’t remember that guy,” he told Spagnuolo. “I’m a different guy now.”

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Cook says it was a major pivot in his life. “I was going through a lot of personal things as well as things with the team,” Cook says. “It reminded me of how far I came, and it inspired me.”


The Spagnuolos made sure Nick Bolton (third from left), Justin Reid (third from right), Chris Jones (right) and guests left dinner with full stomachs — and plenty of food to take home. (Courtesy of the Spagnuolo family)

Despite his velvet touch, Spagnuolo does not coach meekly. His tenacity helped develop Sneed into one of the game’s premier cornerbacks.

“I was kind of lackadaisical when I came into the league,” Sneed says. “He showed me how to practice and run after the ball. He’ll come on the field yelling, ‘Run to the ball!’ He’s going to be on your tail like white on rice.”

Jones, who jokingly calls Spagnuolo a dictator, says they butted heads initially. “I spend a lot of one-on-one time with him,” Jones says. “And it’s not all good times. Sometimes, it’s a cursing out.”

This season, Spagnuolo is leading a Kansas City defense that ranks in the top 10 in points allowed for the fifth time in six years. He won his fourth Super Bowl ring earlier this year — the most of any coordinator in NFL history. Yet he has not had a legitimate interview for a head coaching job in 16 years (not including a token interview after serving as interim coach of the Giants for four games at the end of the 2017 season).

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The legacy of his 10-38 record with the Rams explained things for a while. It didn’t help that Spagnuolo followed that up with a dumpster fire of a season with the Saints — with Sean Payton suspended for Bountygate, Spagnuolo’s defense gave up the most yards in NFL history.

Reconnecting with Reid in 2019 made those memories fade. But now, three championship parades later, Spagnuolo is 64 years old. His cholesterol is a little high. One of his hips wore out and needed to be replaced, but he still can sprint down the sideline to call a timeout, even if he isn’t supposed to.

Will he ever get another chance?

“You’d like to think you’re evaluated not by a number,” Spagnuolo says. “And I think somewhere along the way, somebody may do that. But if they don’t, I’m OK with it. It’s in God’s hands.”

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The failure he experienced has led to a profound appreciation for all he has. With the Chiefs, he provides the yin to the yang of Patrick Mahomes, rides shotgun to the masterful Andy Reid and builds bridges with banana pudding.

This, he knows, is not a bad life.

Inspired by comedian Tony Baker, Steve and Maria instituted a “Cram Award” for the defender with the best hit in a Chiefs victory (Baker posts videos of rams ramming, which he calls “crams”). Saturdays after a win, Spagnuolo plays a video of highlights mixed with Baker’s posts, then a drum roll precedes the announcement.

The winner is presented with an Italian dinner from Maria in an aluminum pan. Recently, it was homemade gemelli in a blush sauce and chicken parmesan in gravy.

“Getting a game ball, I don’t really care about,” Jones says. “But the Cram Award, I mean, you get a dish from Maria.”

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After a recent Chiefs victory, Spagnuolo received texts from Jones and defensive tackle Tershawn Wharton, who had been given Cram awards the previous Saturday. They sent messages of gratitude along with photos of the pans that had contained their dinners.

The pans were empty. Hearts were full.

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

Culture

Celine Haidar, the Lebanon player struck by shrapnel, has loved ones ‘waiting for her to come back to life’

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Celine Haidar, the Lebanon player struck by shrapnel, has loved ones ‘waiting for her to come back to life’

Celine Haidar dances on the upper deck of a crimson open-top bus. Around the 19-year-old midfielder, team-mates sing. A flag bearing the Beirut Football Academy (BFA) crest sways to an undirected melody of car horns, drums and mini trumpets.

It is August 10, 2024. Celine’s BFA team are celebrating their first Lebanese Women’s Football League title, achieved in a flawless, unbeaten season which reached its climax earlier that day.

But there are other noises too — the hum of Israeli fighter jets crawling above and the echo of bombs — while around the bus piles of concrete and twisted metal poke upwards into the sky.

Here, in Lebanon’s capital, life has been delineated by similar sounds and sights of conflict for decades. But they have been ever-present since Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shiite militia based across southern Lebanon, began attacking Israel in solidarity with its ally Hamas — the Palestinian militant group in Gaza that led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

But on August 10, Celine and her team-mates choose to make their own noise. In the car behind them, Celine’s father, Abbas, honks the horn with unbridled pride, prompting the cars behind to follow suit.

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“We had been running from the bombing, the war,” Abbas tells The Athletic from Beirut via video call, with the help of a translator. “But they had a final to play. I told Celine I wanted to be there, despite the sirens, because they chose to play despite the sirens. They won, and we marched in Beirut, with joy and horns and pride.”

In a city accustomed to the wail of air raid sirens, it was a rare moment of rhapsody. Four months later, it would become an emotional buoy from which to cling.

Across October and November 2024, Israel ramped up its pursuit of Hezbollah agents. Civilians, including Celine and her family, evacuated Beirut’s suburbs and sought refuge in Baakline, a village in the Chouf Mountains outside the capital. On November 15, during a lull in the shelling, Celine returned to Beirut to train and work. The following day, Israel issued an evacuation order. While mounting her motorcycle preparing to leave, Celine was struck on the right side of her head by a piece of shrapnel.

Footage of the incident was shared on social media. In it, Celine can be seen wearing white trousers, white trainers and a light green jacket. She lies on a floor of amber tiles, surrounded by still-settling rubble. There is blood on her face. Her long light brown hair spools into a swelling red puddle around her. A man’s desperate screams fill the space.

After two months, Celine underwent throat surgery on December 20 and, finally, is out of a coma. But she cannot move or speak and she rarely registers sounds around her.

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News of the incident travelled around the globe, igniting outrage and sorrow. Celine, a burgeoning star with Lebanon’s national team, became a symbol of the war’s destruction.

For her parents, Abbas and Saana, there is only anguish. They know they are not unique in this setting. More than 3,700 have been killed and 16,000 injured in Lebanon since 2023, according to the Lebanese health ministry, which does not differentiate between combatants and civilians. The conflict is the country’s deadliest in three decades. According to New York Times reporting, it has displaced more than one million people, crippled the economy and left schools, farms, businesses and hospitals in ruins. In Israel, dozens living in frontline communities in the north near the Lebanese border have been killed, with more than 60,000 civilians uprooted. A 60-day ceasefire, agreed in late November, is into its final 30 days.

“We’ve spent all our lives holding our children, hiding them from war, protecting them,” says Abbas, who has witnessed conflict throughout his life in Lebanon.

“We paid a big war tax, a blood tax for our daughters. So, what do we do? What did we do wrong? We only live to raise our children, to make their dreams come true. Celine was beginning her life, building step by step with football. This injury cut off her journey. I hope this experience is passed on.”


Celine Haidar was at the start of what she hoped would be a long and successful career (Samer Barbary/Beirut Football Academy)

For those who know Celine, two things repeatedly come to mind: her irrepressible smile and her incorrigible fight.

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“When we think of Celine, the first thing that comes to mind is the life she brought,” says Saana. “Her spirit, her humour, her toughness, her stubbornness. We miss how she fills the house.”

The youngest of three children, Celine followed a direction only she knew, wearing the clothes and pursuing the hobbies she wanted. While devoutly religious, her zeal for life sometimes grated against Lebanon’s historic conservatism, particularly as she pursued football, a traditionally male enterprise (the nation has only one women’s league, with teams regularly folding).

Yet neither Abbas nor Saana felt they should, or could, stand in her way.

“Celine is Celine, she wants her life as she wants it,” says Abbas. “She can take what she wants and do what she wants. Yes, I give her this opportunity, as I don’t see a difference between girls and boys, but she does not need to take it from me. She did what she wanted with the strength of her personality.”

What Celine wanted most was football. She idolises Cristiano Ronaldo, whose Manchester United shirt remains draped over a chair in her bedroom. Days were spent on fields, honing her trade with the local boys. Her visions were grand: make the Lebanese national team, perhaps move to the United States, eventually open an academy.

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At 17, shortly after helping Lebanon’s Under-18s to glory in the West Asian Cup — just the second time in the team’s history they achieved the feat — Celine was offered to BFA after her previous side, SC Safa, was dismantled. Head coach Samer Barbary initially declined the opportunity. He had midfielders, good ones. And a reputation preceded Celine.

“I’m a very strict coach. I’d heard she was stubborn,” Barbary says, talking via video call in December. “I didn’t think we’d get along.”

Celine, predictably, disagreed.

“She texted me,” Barbary says, a smile sneaking across his face. “‘Coach, I hear you don’t want me but I want to play so you’ll have to take me’. I said, ‘Fine, training is at 6:45 tonight.’ And we began this beautiful journey together.”

In her first two seasons with BFA, Celine helped the club win the under-19 title and a first senior league championship in the 2023-24 season, making 33 top-flight appearances in total.

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Celine Haidar (on a team-mate’s shoulders, centre left) celebrates winning the under-19 title in 2023 (Samer Barbary/Beirut Football Academy)

The increasing consistency of her performances, married with her vision and insatiable aggression, earned her a new reputation as one of Lebanon’s best central midfielders, a “prodigy” according to Barbary. Despite her age, she was a pillar of BFA, wearing the captain’s armband for part of the title-winning campaign.

“They called her ‘Little Captain’, because she was smaller than all of them (about 5ft 5ins, 165cm) but she could lead,” Saana says, lifting her chin high as tears prickle her eyes.

Four times Celine was called into the senior Lebanon national team. With a fair wind, her course was unstoppable: a senior cap, a move abroad, maybe a major tournament.

The day Barbary speaks with The Athletic in late November, Celine should be attending the second day of a coaching course. For Barbary, it is another reminder of how abruptly life has been altered.

“She just needed to keep going,” Barbary says, an ache creeping into his voice. “We were planning on doing this. She was always smiling, always laughing. I just hope she gets that smile back. And she will be my captain again. We are waiting for her to come back to life, for her to be normal or to live a normal life as much as she can. Because they killed her dream.”

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Abbas and Saana never feared their daughter’s spirit might cause her problems. “The only thing we were afraid of for her was war,” Abbas says.

Conflict was never far away in Lebanon, but in October 2023 their fears grew. Barbary rattles off a list of moments that will not leave him. A day in September when players and coaches hit the floor as Israel continued its two-week offensive targeting Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the former leader of Lebanon’s militant Shia Islamist movement (Israel later confirmed his assassination). A day in November when an under-8s and under-12s session was interrupted by bombs.

“The kids began laughing,” Barbary says. “They had become used to the sound. We don’t want kids to get used to the sound.”

The Lebanese Football Association (LFA) postponed all football matches in its affiliated tournaments in late September. But Celine refused to allow the war to disrupt her trajectory. Between evacuation notices, she left the mountains to train in what was considered a safe corner of the capital. Sirens signalled her return to life in the mountains. This was life’s cycle.

But on November 16, the cycle did not repeat. Instead, sirens wailed and Celine’s parents did not hear from her. Saana called Abbas, who was at work, and told him to find her.

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“They were 500 metres away from each other (when the bombs began),” says Saana. A friend called, choking out the message that Celine was hurt. Saana asked where Celine was, her way of attempting to ask the question burning in her throat: how hurt?

“That question, you don’t even dare to ask,” Saana says. Tears stain her cheeks.

Saana was told Celine sustained a head injury and was going to Saint George Hospital in Hadath. Saana could not leave Baakline until the shelling stopped. When she finally arrived, she barged into the emergency room where her daughter lay in an induced coma.

“I saw the doctor cutting her hair off,” Saana says. “I saw her face. It was all blood. She had a gash in her head. They were cutting into it, to save her.”

Bombs continued to fall, eventually striking the hospital. Celine was moved to Saint George Hospital University Medical Center in Achrafieh following a conversation between the president of the BFA and the Lebanese health minister. Another surgery was required to stabilise her condition, before breathing tubes and prayers were assembled around her.

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“I pray I was the one injured,” Abbas says. “I pray for the pain to return to me instead.”

Barbary, who travels daily to Celine’s bedside, took her BFA team-mates to visit her the following Monday. In the hospital lobby, he held a meeting.

“I told them it’s a situation we cannot erase, so we have to continue fighting,” Barbary says. “Because she doesn’t want anyone to stop. When she comes back, when she wakes up, if she can play, she wants to come back to the team playing. Every day we are training and playing for Celine. This is our objective now. We’ll be waiting for her.”

That week at BFA’s training ground, a poster of Celine was erected above the pitches, a reminder of their mission.


The Celine banner is prominent as the players train (Samer Barbary/Beirut Football Academy)

Days are divided into a rota, Abbas, Saana and her elder sister Carole taking shifts to ensure Celine is never alone (Celine’s elder brother works in Africa). Coaches and friends flitter in and out. They check her temperature. They hold her hand. They speak to her about life, about football, about anything.

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“I dedicate my life to Celine,” says Abbas, who no longer goes to work. “All day, I am next to her at the hospital. All my effort in my life is for her, so that she recovers.”

In the scant hours he and Saana are home, sleep does not come.

On occasion, one of Celine’s eyes will open. Her hand will move. But progress is staggered. Complications with the sodium in her blood led to early issues. Sustenance arrived via a feeding tube. One month after the injury, the oxygen machine was removed. Days later, Celine was forced to undergo an emergency tracheostomy, a surgical procedure that creates an opening in the neck to aid breathing.

The refrain is the same among friends and families: Celine is a fighter. But a full recovery requires medical procedures unavailable in Lebanon’s limited healthcare system, leaving her family at the mercy of charity.

“We are hoping someone can read this and help us,” Saana says. “Because we need, God willing, help.”

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Celine’s story, with the graphic video of her injury and its dissemination on social media, grabbed global headlines.

Lili Iskandar, a Lebanon national team-mate who plays for Saudi Arabian side Al-Ittihad, suggests the reason this particular story gained such attention is Celine’s ubiquity: a young person with a life ahead of her.

“When I heard what happened, I thought, I can be her. Anyone can be her,” says Iskandar. “My sister (who lives in Lebanon) sends me texts, saying, ‘I don’t want to die. I’m so scared.’ People ask me in Saudi, why don’t my family join me? The intention is nice, but why is the question always about us leaving our home? Why is the question not about the war leaving us?”

The news of the 60-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, agreed 10 days after Celine’s injury, is welcomed, particularly as Lebanon continues to grapple with a prolonged economic crisis exacerbated by war, political stagnation and the Covid-19 pandemic. But the truce is fragile.

Celine’s family recognise the temptation for some to paint their daughter as a symbol. But they want her to be recognised as Celine: their headstrong little girl who loves football, who “rose from nothing” to wear the Lebanese crest, who loves Ronaldo and Real Madrid, who travels to Egyptian beaches to feel the ocean run between her toes, whose grey long-haired cat still saunters into her room searching for her. She is their youngest child who moved them to a new home to keep them safe during the war, despite the job of protector technically belonging to them.

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In this light, they say, Celine’s story cannot be written as a condition of war but a tragedy of it.

“I want to send a message to all the people who love peace and sports,” says Abbas. “Wars are pure losses for all parties. I hope there won’t be wars. Celine had big ambition. This ambition was killed. But let’s use this moment to give the message that it doesn’t matter your religion, your ethnicity. We’re all human beings. We deserve to have our dreams.”

(Photos: Samer Barbary/Beirut Football Academy; design: Eamonn Dalton)

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Culture

Could Monkeys Really Type All of Shakespeare?

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Could Monkeys Really Type All of Shakespeare?

Science doesn’t usually tolerate frivolity, but the infinite monkey theorem enjoys an exception. The question it poses is thoroughly outlandish: Could an infinite number of monkeys, each given an infinite amount of time to peck away at a typewriter (stocked with an infinite supply of paper, presumably) eventually produce, by pure chance, the complete works of William Shakespeare?

The problem was first described in a 1913 paper by the French mathematician Émile Borel, a pioneer of probability theory. As modernity opened new scientific fronts, approaches to the theorem also evolved. Today, the problem pulls in computer science and astrophysics, among other disciplines.

In 1979, The New York Times reported on a Yale professor who, using a computer program to try to prove this “venerable hypothesis,” managed to produce “startlingly intelligible, if not quite Shakespearean” strings of text. In 2003, British scientists put a computer into a monkey cage at the Paignton Zoo. The outcome was “five pages of text, primarily filled with the letter S,” according to news reports. In 2011, Jesse Anderson, an American programmer, ran a computer simulation with much better results, albeit under conditions that — like the Yale professor’s — mitigated chance.

A new paper by Stephen Woodcock, a mathematician at the University of Technology Sydney, suggests that those efforts may have been for naught: It concludes that there is simply not enough time until the universe expires for a defined number of hypothetical primates to produce a faithful reproduction of “Curious George,” let alone “King Lear.” Don’t worry, scientists believe that we still have googol years — 10¹⁰⁰, or 1 followed by 100 zeros — until the lights go out. But when the end does come, the typing monkeys will have made no more progress than their counterparts at the Paignton Zoo, according to Dr. Woodcock.

“It’s not happening,” Dr. Woodcock said in an interview. The odds of a monkey typing out the first word of Hamlet’s famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy on a 30-key keyboard was 1 in 900, he said. Not bad, one could argue — but every new letter offers 29 fresh opportunities for error. The chances of a monkey spelling out “banana” are “approximately 1 in 22 billion,” Dr. Woodcock said.

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The idea for the paper came to Dr. Woodcock during a lunchtime discussion with Jay Falletta, a water-usage researcher at the University of Technology Sydney. The two were working on a project about washing machines, which strain Australia’s extremely limited water resources. They were “a little bit bored” by the task, Dr. Woodcock acknowledged. (Mr. Falletta is a co-author on the new paper.)

If resources for washing clothes are limited, why shouldn’t typing monkeys be similarly constrained? By neglecting to impose a time or monkey limit on the experiment, the infinite monkey theorem essentially contains its own cheat code. Dr. Woodcock, on the other hand, opted for a semblance of reality — or as much reality as a scenario featuring monkeys trying to write in iambic pentameter would allow — in order to say something about the interplay of order and chaos in the real world.

Even if the life span of the universe were extended billions of times, the monkeys would still not accomplish the task, the researchers concluded. Their paper calls the infinite monkey theorem “misleading” in its fundamental assumptions. It is a fitting conclusion, perhaps, for a moment when human ingenuity seems to be crashing hard against natural constraints.

Low as the chances are of a monkey spelling out “banana,” they are still “an order of magnitude which is in the realm of our universe,” Dr. Woodcock said. Not so with longer material such as the children’s classic “Curious George” by Margret Rey and H.A. Rey, which contains about 1,800 words. The chances of a monkey replicating that book are 1 in 10¹⁵⁰⁰⁰ (a 1 followed by 15,000 zeros). And, at nearly 836,000 words, the collected plays of Shakespeare are about 464 times longer than “Curious George.”

“If we replaced every atom in the universe with a universe the size of ours, it would still be orders of magnitude away from making the monkey typing likely to succeed,” Dr. Woodcock said.

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Like other monkey theorem enthusiasts, Dr. Woodcock mentioned a famous episode of “The Simpsons,” in which the crusty plutocrat C. Montgomery Burns tries the experiment, only to fly into a fury when a monkey mistypes the opening sentence of Charles Dickens’s “A Tale of Two Cities.” In reality, the monkey’s achievement (“It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times”) would have been a stunning triumph over randomness.

Outside cartoons, such successes are unlikely. First, there is cosmic death to consider. Many physicists believe that in 10¹⁰⁰ years — a much larger number than it might seem in type — entropy will have caused all the heat in the universe to dissipate. Far away as that moment may be, experts do think it is coming.

Then there’s the availability of monkeys. Of the more than 250 possible species, Dr. Woodcock selected chimpanzees, our closest genomic kin, to mimic the Bard. He enlisted 200,000 — the entire population of chimps currently on Earth — until the end of time. (Optimistically, he did not to plan for the species’ dwindling or extinction. Nor did he consider constraints like the availability of paper or electricity; the study does not specify which platform the monkeys might use.)

Monkeys intent on recreating Shakespeare would also need editors, with a strict reinforcement training regimen that allowed for learning — and a lot of it, since Dr. Woodcock set each monkey’s life span at 30 years. “If it’s cumulative, obviously, you can get somewhere,” said Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, who discusses the typing monkeys in “The Blind Watchmaker,” his 1986 book about evolution. Unless the typing were “iterative,” though, Dr. Dawkins said in an interview, progress would be impossible.

The new paper has been mocked online because the authors purportedly fail to grapple with infinity. Even the paper’s title, “A numerical evaluation of the Finite Monkeys Theorem,” seems to be a mathematical bait-and-switch. Isn’t infinity a basic condition of the infinite monkey theorem?

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It shouldn’t be, Dr. Woodcock seems to be saying. “The study we did was wholly a finite calculation on a finite problem,” he wrote in an email. “The main point made was just how constrained our universe’s resources are. Mathematicians can enjoy the luxury of infinity as a concept, but if we are to draw meaning from infinite-limit results, we need to know if they have any relevance in our finite universe.”

This conclusion circles back to the French mathematician Borel, who took an unlikely turn into politics, eventually fighting against the Nazis as part of the French Resistance. It was during the war that he introduced an elegant and intuitive law that now bears his name, and which states: “Events with a sufficiently small probability never occur.” That is where Dr. Woodcock lands, too. (Mathematicians who believe the infinite monkey theorem holds true cite two related, minor theorems known as the Borel-Cantelli lemmas, developed in the prewar years.)

The new paper offers a subtle comment on the seemingly unbridled optimism of some proponents of artificial intelligence. Dr. Woodcock and Mr. Falletta note, without truly elaborating, that the monkey problem could be “very pertinent” to today’s debates about artificial intelligence.

For starters, just as the typing monkeys will never write “Twelfth Night” without superhuman editors looking over their shoulders, so increasingly powerful artificial intelligences will require increasingly intensive human input and oversight. “If you live in the real world, you have to do real-world limitation,” said Mr. Anderson, who conducted the 2011 monkey experiment.

There is no free lunch, so to speak, said Eric Werner, a research scientist who runs the Oxford Advanced Research Foundation and has studied various forms of complexity. In a 1994 paper about ants, Dr. Werner laid out a guiding principle that, in his view, applies equally well to typing monkeys and today’s language-learning models: “Complex structures can only be generated by more complex structures.” Lacking constant curation, the result will be a procession of incoherent letters or what has come to be known as “A.I. slop.”

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A monkey will never understand Hamlet’s angst or Falstaff’s bawdy humor. But the limits of A.I. cognition are less clear. “The big question in the industry is when or if A.I. will understand what it is writing,” Mr. Anderson said. “Once that happens, will A.I. be able to surpass Shakespeare in artistic merit and create something as unique as Shakespeare created?”

And when that day comes, “Do we become the monkeys to the A.I.?”

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Anthony Richardson details back injury struggles: ‘I couldn’t even stand up’

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Anthony Richardson details back injury struggles: ‘I couldn’t even stand up’

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson revealed Wednesday that he’s been dealing with a lower back issue that “might be chronic.”

The second-year pro was ruled out for last week’s game against the New York Giants due to back and foot injuries, though it’s his back that’s the main problem. Richardson recently underwent an MRI that he said revealed a “disc thing,” and his status for the Colts’ regular-season finale against the Jaguars remains in question.

Colts coach Shane Steichen initially said last week that Richardson was “really sore” before adding after the Giants loss that Richardson was dealing with back spasms. Richardson provided even more detail Wednesday, when he was an estimated “DNP” on the injury report on a day where the Colts didn’t officially practice but held a walkthrough.

“Last week was tough. I couldn’t even stand up on Tuesday, could barely even walk, crawling around the house,” Richardson said. “But I’m here. I’m standing now. If I can do everything in my power to get on the field, I’mma do so. That was my mindset last week as well, but I could barely move.”

Asked if he’s ever dealt with back spasms before, Richardson said “he’s been dealing with stuff like this since eighth grade, but it’s never been this severe.” Richardson said his back issues stem from a “disc thing” that he’s had for a while and it got “triggered” last week.

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Richardson said he thought his back pain stemmed from frequently working out and running around, but now that he’s been made aware it’s a disc problem, he’s hopeful that he’ll be able to treat and manage it.

“It might be chronic, but there’s plenty of ways to prevent it (from) going on in the future,” Richardson said. “Now that I know what it is, I can find certain ways to stay out of certain positions and just make sure I’m healthy, 100 percent.”

Richardson added that he doesn’t believe he’ll need surgery.

“They say it’s not that severe,” Richardson said. “But God willing, I hope it never gets that severe or to that point. I just hope I can just keep playing throughout the rest of my career with no problems.”

Richardson is arguably the most athletic QB in NFL Scouting Combine history, which is a big reason the Colts selected him with the No. 4 pick in 2023 despite just 13 starts at Florida. However, Richardson has missed three games this season and 16 games through his first two NFL seasons due to shoulder, back and oblique injuries, as well as a concussion.

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The 22-year-old was also benched for two games this season because he wasn’t focused enough during his preparation, according to Steichen. Richardson has gone 3-2 as the starter since returning to the starting lineup, and he’s 6-5 this season. He’s thrown eight touchdowns against 12 interceptions, and his 47.7 completion percentage ranks last in the NFL. Richardson has also scored six rushing touchdowns.

Richardson said he’s aware of the critics, many of whom have labeled him injury-prone, and that they have a right to their opinion since he’s missed a significant amount of games. He added that all he can do is work hard and try his best to be available in the future.

“Hopefully, next year — or this week coming up if I’m able to go – hopefully, I don’t miss any games and I can just stay healthy and just play,” Richardson said.

Required reading

(Photo: Luke Hales / Getty Images)

 

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