Michigan State and Coach Jonathan Smith are entering what most expect to be a difficult season. Coach Smith and his coaching staff are taking over a messy situation in East Lansing, but they have already begun to turn things around for Michigan State’s football program. 

It has been a few years since Michigan State reached a bowl game, and many do not believe this will be the year they break that streak. However, Smith and Michigan State can do so this season with good coaching, good play on the field, and a little luck. While they have a four-game stretch that no team in the country would want to play, they still have six very winnable games on the schedule. 

Arguably, the most challenging aspect of a new coaching hire is the new coaching staff recruiting their desired players and then getting the most out of those players on the field. Smith and his coaching staff had a rough start in the transfer portal but recovered nicely. They’ve also done a solid job on the recruiting trail, nearly filling their 2025 recruiting class and getting started on the 2026 recruiting class. 

Smith and his coaching staff have taken care of nearly everything they can off the field this offseason. Soon, they will have to perform well as a team on the gridiron. A critical aspect of recruiting is on-field performance. Many schools host recruits during big games and want to perform well in those games so the recruits can get an accurate idea of what to expect if they commit and are enticed to sign with that school.

This is one of the most critical aspects of what a bowl appearance in Smith’s first season at the helm could do for him and his coaching staff. College football programs are built on recruiting, and potential recruits want to play for a winner. 

While Michigan State will undoubtedly take its fair share of losses in the first year under Smith, a bowl bid would be a massive success for him and his coaching staff. It would give them even more of a pitch to recruits of the impending turnaround for Michigan State football.

Smith and his coaching staff can tell recruits their hopes and plans for a turnaround, but a bowl bid in his very first season would be all the proof he needs of what is coming for Michigan State’s football program. It would be immediate proof that Michigan State is headed in the right direction. A bowl bid would say more to potential recruits than any words or sales pitch Smith and his coaching staff could come up with.

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The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) candidates in the 2024 US presidential elections, Joseph Kishore and Jerry White, announced Thursday that their campaign had submitted “far in excess” of the required signatures to appear on the ballot in Michigan.

The ballot access laws for third-party candidates are different in every state, compounding the difficulty of running a nationwide campaign. For Michigan, the socialist campaign was required to gather at least 100 signatures from a majority of the state’s 13 congressional districts and at least 12,000 total. A campaign manager for Kishore/White told this reporter that the campaign exceeded that total in at least 11 congressional districts, and as a whole the campaign submitted 20,000 signatures.

Presidential candidate Kishore stated in a video accompanying a press release that the gathering of the signatures was a “tremendous achievement” that “would not have been possible without the self-sacrifice and dedication of SEP supporters from throughout the state and indeed across the country.”

Vice presidential candidate Jerry White said, “In the course of this campaign, we spoke with hundreds of thousands of people. There is enormous opposition to the genocide in Gaza, the escalating global war, extreme levels of social inequality and the turn of the ruling class toward dictatorship and fascism…

“As we turned these petitions in, the Republican National Convention was being held, a festival of fascistic reaction. In the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Trump, the line from the Democrats and Biden, dripping in blood from the genocide in Gaza, is “unity”—which means the unity of the ruling class in war abroad and war on the working class at home.”

Explaining the purpose of the SEP campaign, Kishore stated that it “gives expression to the interests of the working class, in the US and throughout the world.

“We are developing within the working class an understanding that our interests cannot be realized except through the fight against capitalism–that is, the taking of power by the working class, the expropriation of the rich, and the creation of a society free of war and exploitation, a society based on equality.”

Michigan is considered a “must win” state by both the Republican and Democratic campaigns. It is the third most populous state in the Midwest, with over 10 million people and 15 Electoral College votes. President Joe Biden won the state in 2020 by roughly 155,000 votes, while Donald Trump was able to best Hillary Clinton in the state in 2016 by some 11,000 votes.

In addition to the automotive industry, which still employs over 1.1 million workers in Michigan, tens of thousands of workers in the state labor at technology companies, such as Google, and in the healthcare industry, including at major facilities at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the Detroit Medical Center and Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, and Corewell Health, a recently merged system that covers the entire state.

As of this writing, Kishore and White of the SEP would join Jill Stein of the Green Party and right-wing anti-vaccine zealot Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the ballot in Michigan. The campaign for Dr. Cornel West is still awaiting certification by the state, according to their campaign website.

In a bid to block the emergence of an independent, left-wing movement in the working class to the capitalist two-party system, both the Democrats and Republicans have used the courts, legislature and election boards to deny ballot access. Just this week, Democrats on the North Carolina State Election Board voted to block West from appearing on the ballot despite the fact that his campaign submitted over 3,200 verified signatures above the minimum limit.

According to the SEP campaign manager, a majority of the signatures were collected in populous Wayne County, home to Detroit, with over 1.7 million residents. The Kishore/White campaign was warmly received throughout the county, including in Dearborn, which is home to the largest Muslim population in the US per capita.

In Dearborn and throughout the state, there is mass outrage over the Democratic Party’s and Biden’s unwavering support for the genocide in Gaza, which a recent Lancet study estimated has claimed the lives of over 186,000 people. Petitioners for Kishore/White regularly campaigned outside halal grocery stores, mosques and community events, where they explained that the fight against Zionism requires a break from both the Democratic and Republican parties and a fight against the capitalist system which they all defend.

While over 11,000 signatures were gathered in Wayne County alone, the campaign also garnered over 6,000 signatures total in the other three counties of the greater Detroit-Ann Arbor metropolitan area, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw. Over 650 people signed the petition each in Genesee County, home to Flint, and Kent County, where Grand Rapids is located. Triple-digit signature totals were also gathered in Ottawa, Kalamazoo, Ingham and St. Clair counties. In total, the campaign gathered signatures in 74 of Michigan’s 83 counties.

The widespread and broad support for the socialist campaign in Michigan refutes notions advanced by demoralized middle-class elements that workers and students in the United States are hopelessly backward and incapable of entertaining the possibility of a socialist perspective.

Less than two years ago, some 5,000 autoworkers voted for socialist Will Lehman for president of the UAW, including many in Michigan. This was an expression of growing opposition in the working class to the UAW apparatus and support for an internationalist and socialist perspective.

The SEP is continuing to gather signatures in other states where it is fighting to get on the ballot.

LAKE MICHIGAN – There’s being in the right place at the right time – and then there’s clearly being prepared for the unexpected.

A man overboard incident during last weekend’s Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac sailboat competition led to a dramatic 20-minute rescue amid a storm that lashed Lake Michigan with some big waves and 46 mph winds.

Boat crews worked together to rescue the sailor who’d been tossed into the big lake at night. Luckily, he was prepared, too. He had a self-inflating floatation device, an emergency beacon and a strobe light.

“He was lit up like a Christmas tree,” said the owner of the boat who facilitated the rescue.

Race organizers gathered all the details of the on-the-water drama. Here’s what they shared:

The tense moments began Saturday night when the severe storms were rolling across Lake Michigan. It was a threat mostly to members of the contest’s Racing Division, which had left Chicago’s Navy Pier earlier in the day for the 333-mile trek to Mackinac Island. The oldest annual freshwater race in the world is known as America’s Offshore Challenge.

Shawn Dougherty, a crew member aboard the Callisto, was helping take the spinnaker down during the storm when a large gust of wind hit the boat and he was knocked into the water.

Dougherty was not tethered to the Callisto. But he was wearing a personal flotation device and a bag that had an Automatic Identification System emergency beacon that allows others to track his position via a distress signal. He also had a good strobe light, a knife and a whistle, race officials said.

Callisto’s owner, Jim Murray, said he saw Dougherty fall into the lake. Crew members hit their man overboard button, which locked in Dougherty’s location for rescuers.

An untimely rudder issue meant the Callisto was not immediately able to return to where Dougherty had fallen into the water.

“As soon as the man overboard (MOB) distress call went out, at least three boats in the vicinity responded to offer assistance, including the Santa Cruz 52 Madcap owned by John and Marian Hoskins,” a race spokesperson said.

At the time Dougherty went into the water, Hoskins was down below on his boat monitoring the radio – a safety habit of his during bad weather.

“Majority of the time it’s a boring job, but it’s important to have that designated person on board, exactly for this reason,” Hoskins said. “The lesson here is I was ready for this call. We quickly established we were the closest boat to offer assistance and my crew jumped into action.”

The Madcap’s crew lowered its sails and motored in the overboard sailor’s direction. The beacon and strobe made him hard to miss.

Dougherty was scooped up about 20 minutes after he fell in the lake.

“Everyone knew exactly what to do. Who’s the spotter, who’s operating the searchlight, who’s in charge of the lifesling. We had our best driver on the helm, so the approach was nothing to worry about,” Hoskins said. “We were able to clearly communicate with Shawn in the water and could tell he was calm, he was not injured and very much in control, which helped to release our tension.

“It was a textbook recovery, thanks to the great preparation and coordinated teamwork.”

Because of the dicey weather conditions, Dougherty ended up staying on the Madcap for the rest of the race, though the rules prevented him from acting as a crew member on board.

It was Dougherty’s third Chicago-to-Mackinac race. “Every single event we go through the same preparation and practice,” he said. “We do so much racing together as a team but we practice this [scenario] over and over again.”

Wind conditions made this year’s running an extremely fast race, with a new record being set by Maverick’s crew.

But the rescue effort also earned a reward – and lots of cheers once all the crews reached Mackinac Island. Madcap’s crew was awarded the Arthur B. Hansen rescue medal by US Sailing. It recognizes not only outstanding seamanship but good situational awareness that results in a sailor’s rescue.

“We do our best to ensure the sailors and boats are extremely well-equipped and prepared,” said Winn Soldani, chair of the 115th Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac presented by Wintrust. He commended both crews for how they handled the situation. “From required Safety at Sea seminars, man overboard drills and an extensive list of equipment – this is exactly why all of it is worth it.”

“There’s a reason offshore sailors get along so well,” Callisto’s Murray said. “When you go to sea, you’re putting your trust in not only your crewmates, but all the people that you’re racing against.

“Madcap was incredible. You can’t thank somebody enough for something like that. It is one of those things that’s very heartwarming about the sport. And I think it separates sailing from other sports; that this really is a big family out there when you’re on the water together.”