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A year after Adam Johnson’s death, why are NHL players resistant to skate-cut protection?

Published

2 months ago

October 28, 2024

A year after Adam Johnson’s death, why are NHL players resistant to skate-cut protection?

The thought comes in flashes, sudden reminders. When a player gets checked into the bench and his legs dangle over the boards. When someone goes hard to the net, trips over a stick and goes soaring through the air, legs flapping behind him like coat tails. When there’s a battle in the corner and guys are kicking at the puck in an effort to dislodge it.

Even when someone just hops over the boards for a shift change. It’s always there, gnawing at Chicago Blackhawks center Jason Dickinson.

“Personally, it’s never not been on my mind,” Dickinson said. “Ever since I was in junior, I was always super paranoid about my arms being up on the boards and someone jumping over. It was always there in my head that those are blades. Those are sharp. I’ve been cut by much duller things.”

Dickinson’s been on both sides of skate cuts. He had a harrowing near-miss two seasons ago when he caught a skate to the collarbone in a game against the Vegas Golden Knights. And last season, he very nearly took out the eye of Boston Bruins center Jakub Lauko while falling into the boards. Both instances have stayed with him, serving only to deepen that nagging concern in the back of his mind.

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Dickinson is a thoughtful and conscientious player. So if anyone in the NHL were going to embrace cut-resistant technology — around the neck, around the wrists, around the Achilles tendons — it’d obviously be Dickinson, right?

Wrong.

“I don’t wear a shirt when I play — I get super hot,” Dickinson said. “So wearing something on my wrist or my neck, I’m going to sweat even more than I already do. So am I at risk for cramping? So I understand. I tried wearing them and I just started overheating. I want to wear them. I wanted to wear them. But I also need to feel good. So if I’m on the bench and I’m getting light-headed or I’m cramping, now I’m also at risk for injury elsewhere. It’s a tough thing.”

One year ago this week, former Pittsburgh Penguins forward Adam Johnson died after an opponent’s skate sliced his neck during a game in Britain’s top hockey league. Amid the shattering grief within the global hockey community arose a discussion about the need to better protect hockey players from what essentially amounts to a three-millimeter-wide knife blade affixed to each player’s foot. As the game gets faster and faster and the players get bigger and bigger, more and more players are losing control of their legs in high-speed collisions in front of the net, along the boards and at the benches. Edmonton Oilers forward Evander Kane had his wrist cut open by Pat Maroon’s skate two years ago. Former Ottawa Senators defenseman Erik Karlsson had his Achilles tendon lacerated by Matt Cooke 11 years ago. Nearly every player has a story about a near-miss; they all just got lucky.

Hockey players see themselves as invincible, a foolhardy but necessary mindset in a fast and violent game. Johnson’s death reminded everyone that they’re not. The on-ice death of a peer was going to serve as a catalyst for change, for players to adapt. It had to.

So one year later, what has changed at the NHL level?

Hardly anything at all.

Neck protection is now mandatory at many of the lower levels, but in the NHL, most teams have one, maybe two, often no players wearing any. They cite comfort. They cite the awkward appearance. They cite their routines.

“I’m not necessarily surprised,” said Blackhawks winger and Johnson’s former Minnesota-Duluth teammate Joey Anderson, who was required to wear a neck guard after Johnson’s death because he was in the AHL at the time, and who continues to wear it in the NHL. “At this age, guys are pretty stubborn. They’re into their routines and set in their ways. It’s hard for guys to change.”

The option to be stubborn, though, is increasingly limited to players at the highest level.

Since Johnson’s death, USA Hockey has made neck protection mandatory for players competing in youth, girls, high school and junior hockey. The International Ice Hockey Federation has done the same for players in all its tournaments, rather than simply those featuring teenagers. All three Canadian major junior leagues now have mandates on the books; the Western Hockey League had been the holdout.

Perhaps most relevantly, the American Hockey League — the final pre-NHL step for many players and a league long used as a testing ground for rule and equipment changes — is now requiring neck protection for all its players and officials.

“Hopefully that’s what’s going to end up happening as we move forward here, that it’s just going to be a piece of their equipment,” AHL president and CEO Scott Howson told the Associated Press before his league started its season. “With the different products out there, hopefully all the players can find something that they can adapt to and eventually like — or, at the very least, not notice when they’re playing hockey.”

In other words, regardless of whether NHL players are on board, the market for neck protection has never been more robust.

The hope, according to those within the industry, is that increased demand leads to higher quality, more options and more palatable price points.

The comfort factor is crucial for widespread adoption by professionals, but it’s less of a pressing issue for beer leaguers, children and others who are competing in leagues with mandates already in place. For that captive audience, according to many manufacturers and stakeholders within the game, the question is a little more simple: How well does the cut-resistant equipment actually work?

“Mandating a piece of equipment which is potentially ineffective is not the answer. The answer is more complicated than just making a rule,” Dr. Mike Stuart told The Athletic. Stuart is the chief medical officer for USA Hockey, a member of the IIHF medical committee, the father of three former NHL players and a longtime champion of increased safety standards in the game.

“We have to make sure what we’re doing is going to be effective,” Stuart said. “And that means developing high-quality and affordable cut-resistant products.”

It’s not that the current standard is lacking, Stuart said. Hockey Canada has long required neck protection certified by Canada’s Bureau de normalisation du Quebec (BNQ), and the BNQ standard is the baseline for the Hockey Equipment Certification Council, a non-profit organization that USA Hockey relies on to certify safety gear such as helmets and visors. The HECC says its goal is to have certification for neck guards in place by 2025. Manufacturers can already apply to the program.

It’s a starting point, according the HECC — not the finish line.

“Let’s try for the best cut-resistant materials with the best anatomic coverage,” Stuart said. “But let’s also test it as best we can and make it hockey-specific.”

T.J. Oshie (right) wears neck protection while his teammates, including John Carlson (left), do not. (Jeff Vinnick / NHLI via Getty Images)

For finicky NHL players, comfort and maneuverability is just as important as efficacy when it comes to protective gear. Capitals winger T.J. Oshie’s equipment company, Warroad, was already offering protective gear, and Johnson’s death sparked a massive increase in interest. Warroad’s most effective product in this area is the Tilo “neck and wrist top,” a turtleneck of sorts that offers skate-cut protection around the neck and wrists. Oshie was involved in the design of the shirt, and his experience with standalone neck and wrist sleeves informed the process.

Oshie is American, but whenever his youth teams played in Canada, they were required to wear neck protection. The ones they used were thick, bulky pieces of foam that were hot and itchy and generally awful to wear.

“We’d just end up taping it into a little ball and it turned into a necklace,” Oshie said. “It wasn’t protecting anything.”

Players competing during IIHF tournaments have done the same. “I have pictures from national teams where players would remove the cut-resistant material and wear a little piece of cloth around their neck to satisfy the requirement,” Stuart said. “As a medical professional trying to prevent catastrophic injuries, that mandate is not effective.”

Modern neck guards are made of thinner but stronger fabric, but they still fall out of place or bunch up, leaving much of the neck exposed. Same with the wrist sleeves. By including them as part of the shirt, Oshie said the protection stays in place where players need it. Unsurprisingly, it’s not cheap — the Warroad website lists it at $199 per shirt.

After Johnson’s death, Warroad couldn’t keep up with the initial flood of orders and requests, but Oshie immediately brought some of the shirts to the rink in Washington. A handful of Oshie’s Capitals teammates tried the shirt. None of them stuck with it. They were surprised at how much more comfortable it was than the old bulky guards, but they still found it too warm, too noticeable, too different.

“The one thing I’ve seen in the last 17 years that I’ve been in the league is hockey players aren’t very quick to change what they have,” Oshie said. “Some of the greats in the league now are still using the same cup from when they were in juniors. There’s definitely a superstition thing that goes along with hockey players. When they find something they like, they’re sticking with it. Even if there’s something better.”

One of the first things Oshie did every summer when he was at the University of North Dakota back in the mid-2000s was take the infernal cage off his helmet. A clear view of the ice felt freeing, but it did leave him feeling a little exposed. So he tried a visor. Didn’t take. It always fogged up, there was a glare and it affected his sight too much. So Oshie took off the visor and went old-school, free and easy.

“I was still a stubborn college kid. I was like, ‘I don’t need a visor,’” Oshie said. “Then I took a skate to my right eye and eyebrow. I was like, ‘All right. Maybe I do need a visor.’”

He’s worn one ever since. He learned to manage the fog. He got used to the glare. He can see the puck just fine. It was the same thing the first time he wore his own brand’s shirt, with the built-in neck and wrist protection. After a few practices, it felt entirely normal, like any other article of clothing.

Oshie, who’s sidelined long-term with a chronic back issue, wore the shirt for the duration of last season. But he was very much the exception. While his Warroad gear is in all 32 locker rooms, he said the Philadelphia Flyers’ Travis Konecny is the only NHL player currently wearing the specific Tilo neck-and-wrist protection shirt.

Edmonton Oilers winger Jeff Skinner does wear neck protection, made by Bauer, but he didn’t have some sort of epiphany like Oshie did in college. Johnson’s death didn’t cause a fundamental shift in the way he thought about the game and his own invincibility. Skinner was with the Buffalo Sabres last year, and shortly after Johnson’s death, a stack of turtlenecks designed to protect the neck from skate cuts showed up in the locker room, as it did in a lot of locker rooms. Skinner tried it.

“For me, I don’t know, it felt fine, so I just kept it,” he said.

The Oilers’ Jeff Skinner wears a Bauer neck protector. (Codie McLachlan / Getty Images)

Skinner only wears the turtleneck during games, not practices. Deep down, he knows the inherent danger of his sport, but it’s not something he thinks about all the time. After all, skate cuts are hardly the only potentially catastrophic injury on the ice. There are rising slap shots headed right for your face and elbows from hard-charging defensemen, and a torn ACL or broken leg can happen at any moment.

“If it happens right in front of you, then maybe it crosses your mind,” he said of skates endangering players. “There’s a lot of stuff going on. There’s body parts flying everywhere, and the puck you’ve got to worry about.”

Skinner commended the league and the manufacturers for making protective gear available, but he also doesn’t blame players who don’t want to wear them. Hockey players are notoriously finicky about the equipment they wear — skates must be tied just so and tape must be applied here, not there. Some players change skates constantly, some wear the same pair all season. Same with sticks and gloves. Some players wear lucky undershirts that have more holes than fabric after years of use. Some, like Dickinson, don’t wear anything at all under their gear.

“Equipment’s a personal thing,” Skinner said.

Johnson’s death hit Anderson harder than most, as the two had been friends and teammates. Wearing the protective collar was a no-brainer for Anderson. But you won’t see him proselytizing around the locker room.

“Guys can see it,” Anderson said. “I’m not an old guy, especially in this locker room. It’s not really my place to push things on guys. If someone asked me, I’d encourage it. But it’s not my place to step in. At the younger levels, they’re enforcing it now. Guys (in the NHL) are just grandfathered into their ways.”

And that’s how the change is likely to happen — slowly, from the ground up. With so many of the lower leagues now requiring protective gear, younger players will grow accustomed to it and bring it with them once they graduate to the NHL. Dickinson guessed that in 10 years, 90 percent of the league will be wearing neck protection regardless of whether the NHL requires it. After all, helmets weren’t mandatory in the NHL until 1979, but Craig MacTavish was still going lidless as late as 1997 because he was grandfathered in.

The rise of concussions didn’t convince all players that helmets were worthwhile. Gruesome eye injuries from sticks and pucks didn’t change hearts and minds overnight about visors. And Johnson’s death, shattering as it was for the hockey world, did little to change NHL players’ attitudes about protective neck gear.

“The story did end up fizzling out,” Dickinson said. “Unfortunately, it’s not a hot topic. But I think it should still be on guys’ minds. There’s real risk.”

There’s also real reason for optimism, even if it takes a generation to bear out. Stuart has witnessed it — and spurred it — firsthand. In 2002, while a co-director of the Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center, he co-authored a study on facial protection in hockey. He presented that research to the AHL, and it helped prompt the league to make visors mandatory for the 2006-07 season. Seven years later, they were mandatory for new NHL players. He sees that as “a kind of prelude” to the cut protection dialogue.

“I’m very encouraged because I think the entire hockey family is becoming more accepting. They realize the importance. And we also certainly understand the comfort factor, the cost factor,” he said. “These are all things that we have to work together on to make it not only effective but comfortable and affordable. And I think that’s happening.”

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic. Photos: Patrick Smith, Jeanine Leech / Icon Sportswire, Brett Holmes / Icon Sportswire / Getty Images)

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Pacers’ Tyrese Haliburton heard the haters, and now he and Indiana are clapping back

Published

58 minutes ago

January 10, 2025

Press Room

Pacers’ Tyrese Haliburton heard the haters, and now he and Indiana are clapping back

The trolls finally got one, but not for long.

NBA social media has become a cesspool of negativity, where fans come together to commiserate about why this player is overrated and that team is garbage. Today’s athletes are so inundated with criticism from the anonymous morass that most of them have learned to push it away.

Even when it affects them, they rarely admit it publicly. Bullies only get their power from the acknowledgment. But everybody has their moments.

For the first month of this season, as his Indiana Pacers were losing and he was playing his worst basketball in years, that was Tyrese Haliburton. To the outside world, it looked like his dominant form from 2023 may have been a mirage. Internally, Haliburton started to wonder if they were right.

“I got too caught up in outside noise and allowing myself to think such negative thoughts about myself internally,” Haliburton shared with The Athletic recently. “It was the first time in my life that I had real self-doubt behind everything I was doing. … I feel like my personal struggles were leading to the team’s struggles.

“A lot of our games early, that we were right there to win, I just wasn’t playing my best basketball and I think that was taking away from us winning games.”

Last season, the Pacers marched on to the Eastern Conference finals, even if Haliburton’s form fell off after a midseason hamstring injury. They entered this campaign with hopes of taking the next step, but things went south early on as their star player still looked like a shell of himself.

When Haliburton was in a funk in the past, he would pull out his phone and seek the trolls trashing him. He often would do it during halftime, looking for fuel to power the Pacers’ redlining offense. Proving haters wrong was the cathartic release he needed to get in touch with himself and his game.

The problem was — from the moment this season started — he knew better than anyone that he couldn’t clap back. He went scoreless in the second game of the season, a blowout loss to the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden, and knew something wasn’t right.

Haliburton was telling confidants that he was playing poorly, reading his mentions and actually agreeing for a change. That’s when his skills trainer Drew Hanlen could see the pressure was getting to the 24-year-old.

“This year, for whatever reason, it was just hurting him,” Hanlen said.

The more he struggled, the more he receded into old habits. Haliburton lost his aggression to attack the paint, unable to beat defenders with a first step off of that recovering hamstring.

He looked tentative, trying to sit back as a distributor and losing some of the edge that made him a two-time All-Star. The problem was twofold, starting with his health.

“He rushed back early last year to make the All-NBA 65-game rule and he was never fully healthy,” Hanlen said. “Then at the Olympics, he re-aggravated it. So after the Olympics, he couldn’t work out and had to let it heal. So he worked out zero times the entire summer.”

The breaking point came in Charlotte on Nov. 8, a 20-point loss that sent the team spiraling below .500. He once again missed every 3, couldn’t get to the line and fully accepted he was the problem.

“It was so bad,” Haliburton said. “That was the first time I was so frustrated with myself, so frustrated with the group. But it was more about myself. How can I be better?”

Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton hit rock bottom in a loss at Charlotte on Nov. 8. (Robert Goddin / Imagn Images)

It started with cutting out the distractions and sources of anxiety. He deleted X from his phone in an attempt to go cold turkey on immersive doomscrolling. He started going back to church, recognizing he was getting caught up within himself and wanting to look at the positives in life.

“That’s been good for me to read my Bible more. It’s been good for me,” he said. “My relationship with the Lord has been really big for me internally, to be the best version of myself and just trying to pour energy into our group and that’s been helping us.

“After that, things have clicked and changed for me. I feel light years better.”

Haliburton was not the same player entering the season, but the Pacers changed as well. Andrew Nembhard showed in the postseason he could be the two-way guard the team needed, while Bennedict Mathurin’s return from a torn labrum added another scorer to the mix.

This roster did not call for Haliburton to dominate the ball like he did in the past, especially with his quickness in the half court diminished. To figure out his future with the Pacers, he had to tap into his past.

When he was drafted by the Sacramento Kings in 2020, he had to squeeze his distinct skill set into a crowded backcourt. De’Aaron Fox was the star point guard and Buddy Hield was the shooting guard, two traditional representations of the positions. Where did a fluid playmaker fit into the dynamic?

Hield taught him how to move in space to make himself open, even when the opposing coach wrote on the locker room whiteboard with a cascade of underlines to not let that happen. Though Haliburton said he initially couldn’t stand the way Hield played, they eventually found a synergy playing off each other. When the two friends were traded to the Pacers together, coach Rick Carlisle put the ball in Haliburton’s hands full time and they started running the two-man actions they were developing in Sacramento.

While the focus on Haliburton’s struggles in early 2024 focused on his hamstring injury, it coincided with Hield being traded to Philadelphia. But Nembhard’s emergence allowed Haliburton to operate as more of a two-guard, putting into practice the lessons he learned from Hield.

“Since Buddy’s been gone, I’ve learned to play off the ball a little bit more,” Haliburton said. “It’s been part of the growth figuring out how I can stay involved while off the ball, how I can use my gravity as a shooter. I just try to use my gravity to impact the game in other ways. I think that’s what I learned from Buddy, playing aside him for so long.”

Haliburton is not the typical point guard who can beat anyone off the bounce. He has a high dribble, is not overtly physical and doesn’t have a bag of go-to shots like most All-Star playmakers. He is someone who thrives in chaos, getting where he wants when he is up in transition or attacking against the grain of the defense.

Nembhard running point allows Haliburton to leak out in transition earlier, so he can then run around screens to catch the ball on the move. It also allows Haliburton to set up a cross-match early in a possession, like when he got Miami’s Haywood Highsmith off him before the play began so he could attack Tyler Herro in space.

Now Haliburton is finally starting to get downhill more consistently from give-and-go actions with Myles Turner by refining that combo guard role he first learned in Sacramento. In recent weeks, Turner and Haliburton have looked more in sync, as evidenced by Turner knowing where Haliburton was cutting even when getting the ball at an awkward spot on the floor.

“I think that Ty is finally starting to realize that he can get guys so much more open than just passing the ball,” Turner told The Athletic. “He talks to me, like, ‘Yo, go right here and do this and do this, and do that.’ And then lo and behold, I get the ball. So I think he’s starting to analyze the game a lot more, and then he picks and chooses his spots to start scoring.”

The true turning point came at the end of 2024. Haliburton had his worst performance since the first week of the season when they blew a fourth-quarter lead in Oklahoma City on Dec. 26 and then looked passive the next night in a blowout loss to the Boston Celtics.

But they stuck around Boston and he looked more aggressive than ever in a rematch two nights later, scoring 10 of his 11 baskets inside the arc to take the Celtics out in crunchtime. Sprinting over Turner screens while Nembhard handled the ball, getting to the rim suddenly seemed easy.

Haliburton recorded 33 points and 15 assists with six 3s and no turnovers at Miami last week. The only other time that has happened in NBA history was on Nov. 14, 2023 — by Tyrese Haliburton.

With Nembhard back in the lineup, Haliburton finally looks free.

“Their importance to each other is evident,” Carlisle said. “They complement each other well. Andrew allows Ty to play off the ball and when Ty has the ball, Drew knows the game and knows how to play without the ball too.”

Indiana fell into a hole when Nembhard missed 12 straight games in November due to left knee tendinitis, but the Pacers have flipped their season around since his return in early December. He is the spirit of their defense and the glue to their offense. Multiple players on the team called him their X-factor to winning.

They enter Friday’s game versus Golden State at 10-3 since Dec. 13, ranking fourth in the league in net rating at plus-8.7 over that stretch, per Cleaning the Glass. Indiana (20-18) has gone from 11th to sixth place in the Eastern Conference entering Friday, and Haliburton is finally starting to look like the All-Star he was a season ago.

He’s averaging 20.4 points and 9.6 assists per game while shooting 40.2 percent from 3 during this time. Of the 25 lineups with at least 300 possessions played this season, the Pacers’ starting group with Nembhard has the league’s best defensive rating, per Cleaning the Glass.

They are finally coming together now that Haliburton has the backcourt partner he needs to free up his game, looking like an evolution of the team that nearly beat the Celtics four times in the conference finals but never sneaked away with a win.

As Carlisle made clear recently during a West Coast trip in late December, the Pacers welcome all those expectations that were earned from last season’s run.

“We’re trying to win a championship,” he reminded a room full of reporters.

His presence alone is proof positive of their mission, as the coach who won it all with Dallas in 2011 came to Indiana a decade later with the expressed intent of turning this team into a legitimate title contender.

Their group moved closer toward that goal with the Pascal Siakam trade last season, landing the two-time All-Star forward who signed a four-year, $189.5 million extension in the summer. And when the Pacers stumbled early — due to a rash of injuries to nearly half of Indiana’s rotation — Carlisle wasn’t about to let any of the outside skepticism seep into his program. So he kept pushing.

“There’s nothing wrong with high expectations,” said the 65-year-old Carlisle, who is 11th all-time in wins among coaches. “What you don’t want is a situation of apathy, where expectations are low and all you’re ever doing is selling hope. That’s not why I came here, that’s not why (Pacers president of basketball operations) Kevin Pritchard is doing his job and that’s not what our ownership is about.”

Health remains an issue. Small forward Aaron Nesmith (left ankle) has been out since Nov. 1. There was the Nembhard injury. Second-year guard Ben Sheppard missed a month with an oblique and rib injury. Big men Isaiah Jackson and James Wiseman, who were slated to support Turner down low as key reserves, both suffered torn Achilles’ tendons within days of one another at the start of the season. The Pacers had to hit the transaction market earlier than expected to bring in Thomas Bryant as the new backup big.

The Pacers are over .500 now, but their identity is solidifying as the team gets closer to full health. The championship aspirations that seemed farfetched a few weeks ago are at least reasonable once again.

“It’s just not being satisfied. That was the message in training camp,” Turner said. “Obviously, we had a hell of a run last year, but let’s stop talking about last year. That’s over and done with. And yeah, we’re pushing toward a (NBA) Finals run. That’s really where all of our eyes should be in this locker room.”

The fans still flooding Haliburton’s mentions will probably laugh at that notion. He is still searching for consistency and will have to push through his latest mild ankle sprain to ensure he doesn’t fall back into old habits again. But he won’t have to face that music now unless he wants to.

“(Fans) can’t wait for a team to be doing bad so people can dunk on you on Twitter, you know what I mean? The s— is so stupid,” Haliburton said. “It’s just part of it. People want to see us not do well so they can talk s—.”

Now that Haliburton is in a better place, maybe he can crack his phone open, see a bunch of trash emojis and crack a smile. They can talk all they want, but he’s ready to clap back on his terms, one drive at a time.

(Top photo of Haliburton: Catalina Fragoso / NBAE via Getty Images)

Sports

NFL Draft prospect Kyren Lacy wanted for negligent homicide for alleged role in fatal hit-and-run

Published

2 hours ago

January 10, 2025

Press Room

NFL Draft prospect Kyren Lacy wanted for negligent homicide for alleged role in fatal hit-and-run

Police in Louisiana have issued an arrest warrant for LSU receiver and NFL Draft prospect Kyren Lacy for negligent homicide after police allege he fled a deadly car crash last month.

Louisiana State Police said in a press release issued Friday that Lacy, 24, was driving “recklessly” and speeding past other cars while driving on the highway Dec. 17.

Kyren Lacy of the LSU Tigers scores a touchdown against the Oklahoma Sooners Nov. 30, 2024, in Baton Rouge. (Imagn)

According to police, Lacy was “crossing the centerline and entering the northbound lane while in a designated No-Passing Zone” when a driver of a pickup truck in the northbound lane swerved to avoid a head-on collision with Lacy.

The actions of the pickup truck caused the driver of the vehicle immediately behind it, a Kia Cadenza, to swerve to avoid colliding with Lacy’s car, but the driver instead collided head-on with another vehicle in the southbound lane.

A passenger in the Kia Cadenza identified as 78-year-old Herman Hall was transported to a hospital before eventually dying, police said.

In addition to being wanted for negligent homicide, Lacy is facing a felony hit-and-run charge after police say he “drove around the crash scene and fled” without stopping to render aid or call 911. He also allegedly failed to notify law enforcement about his involvement.

LSU Tigers wide receiver Kyren Lacy (2) runs after a catch and scores a touchdown against Oklahoma Sooners defensive back Billy Bowman Jr. (2) during the first quarter at Tiger Stadium. (Stephen Lew/Imagn Images)

RAMS STAR RECEIVER DEMARCUS ROBINSON CHARGED WITH DUI FROM HIS NOVEMBER ARREST, DAYS BEFORE PLAYOFF GAME

Lacy’s warrant also includes a charge of reckless operation of a vehicle. According to Louisiana State Police, the former LSU star has since been in contact with law enforcement.

Lacy transferred to LSU in 2022. This season, he caught 58 passes for 866 yards and nine touchdowns. He did not play in LSU’s win over Baylor in the Texas Bowl Dec. 31.

Lacy declared for the 2025 NFL Draft just two days after the crash.

LSU Tigers wide receiver Kyren Lacy runs onto the field as seniors are honored at Tiger Stadium. (Stephen Lew/Imagn Images)

“LSU has truly made a big impact on my life on and off the field, these past 3 years. Playing in Death Valley, for the best fans in the country, was an experience I will never forget. Not too many people get to fulfill a dream like this. I am forever grateful for it,” Lacy wrote in his announcement.

“I want to express my appreciation to all my coaches, support staff, and trainers for helping develop me as a football player, but most importantly as a person. Although, we didn’t accomplish our goal of winning a national championship, I promise to take all of those life lessons with me in the next chapter of my life.”

LSU did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

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Lakers coach JJ Redick vows to help rebuild L.A. after losing home in fire

Published

2 hours ago

January 10, 2025

Press Room

Lakers coach JJ Redick vows to help rebuild L.A. after losing home in fire

Lakers coach JJ Redick, speaking for the first time since he and his family had their Pacific Palisades home destroyed by a fire that devastated a community, fought back tears as he talked about the loss he and his neighbors suffered, the resolve to rebuild Los Angeles and the sanctuary basketball provided him on Friday as the team held a practice.

The Lakers are scheduled to host San Antonio on Saturday night at Crypto.com Arena, and despite the unimaginable loss Redick and his family suffered this week, he wants the Lakers to play.

“Being around the guys and coaching — and I told them this — we’re prepared for whatever tomorrow. We obviously are going to work with the NBA, the Spurs, the city and do what’s right,” he said. “I want to play tomorrow, I want to coach tomorrow. I want these guys to play tomorrow and if we can play, we’ll play.

“I do believe for everybody, for everybody that has been impacted by this, there is a grieving process. There’s a healing process. I can only speak for myself, part of my healing and grieving process is being here with these guys and coaching basketball.”

Tears filled Redick’s eyes as he recounted a conversation he had with his wife, Chelsea, after seeing the destruction in Pacific Palisades with his own eyes Wednesday morning.

“I’m not sure I’ve wept or wailed like that in several years,” he said. “And she said to me, ‘I was very hesitant to move out here. I was very hesitant for you to go into coaching. I’ve never loved living somewhere more than I’ve loved Brooklyn, and I’ve never loved the community more than I love the community I’ve had in Brooklyn. And then, you know, it’s like, we move out here and the Palisades community has really just been so good to us.’

“And … I think that’s the part for us that we’re really struggling with is just the loss of community. And I recognize that people make up community, and we’re going to rebuild and we want to help lead on that. But all the churches, the schools, the library, like it’s all gone.”

In particular, the community’s recreation center had become an important place to the family beginning with the first time they saw the house that they rented and filled with their most important possessions while trying to find a permanent base in Los Angeles.

“The day we visited the house and decided we wanted to live in the house, we’re like, let’s go explore the village. And we stumbled upon the rec center and there was some summer rec league basketball games going on. One kid, Milo, was playing. I was like, ‘Oh, he’s pretty good.’ He ended up being one of our neighbors; they lost their home. The rec center was like this, this place we were at every day. I mean, flag football, basketball, the playground, baseball, tennis courts. Like it’s just … and everyone we knew was there every day. And … it just hurts to lose that.”

Redick said he and his family were committed to being a part of the recovery effort in the city.

“For our family, we’re as committed as ever to Los Angeles,” he said. “We recognize, like it’s not just our community that has been impacted by this. There’s people in Malibu, there’s people in Brentwood, there’s people up in the Valley, there’s people in Pasadena … it’s all over L.A. And if there’s anything we can do to help and lead, we will. … We’re still figuring that out. It’s still pretty fresh, but, we’re committed to helping other people as much as we can. And we’re going to do that. And we recognize that it’s going to be a long process. …

“This has impacted so many people. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me and my family. We’re gonna be all right. We’re gonna be all right. There’s people that, um, you know, because of some political issues and some insurance issues are not going to be all right. And we’re going to do everything we can to help anybody who’s down and out because of this.”