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How the Buffalo Bills’ underdog story made them America’s team: ‘The people around us rally with it’

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How the Buffalo Bills’ underdog story made them America’s team: ‘The people around us rally with it’

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — During the Buffalo Bills’ playoff drought, ESPN anchor Kevin Connors used to have a running joke on air. Connors, a lifelong Bills fan from Long Island, would refer to the Bills as America’s Team. It would elicit a laugh from his co-anchor, one baked in sympathy for Connors and the other fans enduring the slog of 6-10 and 7-9 seasons.

Now, though? Connors looks like he was on to something.

“They really have kind of become America’s team,” Connors said this week ahead of Buffalo’s latest playoff clash with the Kansas City Chiefs.

“America loves the story of it. America loves an underdog, but I think they really respect a team that has been there, was bad forever, built it up, gotten pretty good and just keeps getting up off the mat. There’s a level of respect for that.”

It’s not easy to quantify the country’s rooting interest in any particular postseason. BetOnline attempts to do so based on geotagged data from X posts to see how many posts with the official team hashtags are coming from each state. Earlier in the playoffs, their data showed that half of the states in the country were rooting for the Detroit Lions, another franchise that hasn’t ever reached the mountaintop. But the Washington Commanders, a feel-good story in their own right, eliminated the Lions last week. The other remaining NFC team is the Philadelphia Eagles, a team that has won a Super Bowl recently and has a fan base that doesn’t have the coziest reputation. And then there’s the Chiefs, who have won two straight Super Bowls and been to three of the last four. The Bills are the only team left in the field without a Super Bowl win.

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When BetOnline re-ran the data after the conference championships were set, it showed two-thirds of the country is pulling for the Bills. That’s not an exact science, but it makes anecdotal sense.

“People get tired of seeing the same thing over and over,” said Bills guard Conor McGovern, who played for the Dallas Cowboys, the team traditionally referred to as America’s team. “That’s probably why people are rooting for us. They see us as the underdog.”

The Bills aren’t exactly David against Goliath. They’ve been to the playoffs six straight seasons, won a playoff game in five straight seasons and have three 13-win seasons in their last six. Josh Allen is one of the best quarterbacks in the league and arguably the most exciting to watch.

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But this is also a team and a fan base that has been repeatedly kicked in the shins. Forget about the four straight Super Bowl losses in the 1990s or even the 17-season playoff drought, both gut-wrenching in their own ways. Throw out the fact that this region, one of the smallest markets in professional sports, has never experienced a Super Bowl or a Stanley Cup championship. Even without that history as a backdrop, this version of the Bills has built up its own scar tissue. As the Bills became a fixture in national television games in recent years, their lowest moments were on display for the football-watching public. The football world felt the collective anguish of a fan base during Buffalo’s 13-seconds loss to Kansas City. Home playoff losses to the Cincinnati Bengals and Chiefs in the divisional round the last two seasons have made it easy for people outside of Buffalo to wonder how fans keep getting back up.

And all of that on-field sorrow seems trivial when you consider the non-football adversity the team and community have endured. In 2022, the country rallied around the Bills when Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field and nearly died. That same year Buffalo endured tragedy when a racist shooter murdered 10 people and wounded three others at a supermarket in the city’s east side. A devastating Christmas blizzard left 47 people dead in 2022. Too often, the country’s window into Buffalo is centered around struggle.

The Bills have a chance to change that like they did for three hours on Sunday during a thrilling divisional round win against the Baltimore Ravens. More than 42 million people tuned in for what turned into a party at Highmark Stadium. Fans who had been in the parking lots tailgating since the early morning hours finished their night with a vintage Buffalo celebration first in the stadium and then in those same parking lots.

Earlier that week, a Baltimore radio personality called Buffalo, “a city of losers.” After the game, Bills coach Sean McDermott gritted his teeth at the mention of it and delivered an impassioned defense of his adopted hometown.

“It’s a city of winners, it really is,” he said. “These people in this town are winners. I’ve been here just eight years but I consider this my hometown. This place is different and the people here are different. They deserve more than whoever said that about them.”

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Bills safety Micah Hyde started this season on the outside looking in while pondering his playing future. Sitting at home in San Diego gave him a different perspective on how much people outside of Buffalo are pulling for the Bills.

“I think it’s been like that for a while now,” Hyde said. “We’ve been so close to getting over the hump.”

Hyde has also seen this story evolve. He arrived in 2017 as one of the first signings in Sean McDermott’s tenure as head coach. He’s been through every high and low with this regime. He made his career and a home away from home here. And this season, he decided to return as a member of the team’s practice squad to do whatever he could to help this team get across the finish line. Hyde’s son likes to watch highlight videos of his dad before he goes to bed. And those videos make it hit home for Hyde just how far the Bills have come.

“There were some highlights from 2017, it was a home game and there was hardly anybody in the stands,” Hyde said. “To see the organization from where it was to where it is now, it’s two totally different things and it’s honestly really cool to see. That’s why I felt like coming back was a no-brainer. I wanted to be a part of this. I was able to see it from when it was, honestly, a dumpster fire, it was terrible when we first got here, to where it is now. We’re one of the pinnacle places in the league to be a part of.”

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Buffalo as one of the pinnacle places in the NFL is more than lip service to the players in the locker room. The word love is frequent in players’ vocabulary. Love for each other. Love for the game. And love for the community.

“We’re literally like the core of the community,” McGovern said. “It’s all intertwined here. I don’t think there’s a better thing in football than that.”

Or as Hyde put it, “It’s a homegrown team. Everyone sees it as an organization run by good people with good people in the organization, a very good quarterback and a small-town kind of feel. This is America in a nutshell if you want to talk about it.”

Defensive tackle Jordan Phillips is on his third stint with the Bills. His first was in 2018 and 2019. He came back in 2022 for two seasons. Most recently, he started this season with the Cowboys and was released in November. The Bills picked him up. Every time it’s been a no-brainer to return.

“It’s everything,” Phillips said. “It’s all the appreciation you get. I can do what I want to do. I can wear my coat out there. It’s just fun. The people around us rally with it. Why wouldn’t you want to come back? Why wouldn’t you want to be a part of this? The destination wasn’t so much of a destination but now it is. I think that’s the best way to say it. That speaks to the team and the community around it. When you come here you’re like, ‘S—.’ But when you’re here, you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, this is it.’”

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Phillips would know about destination cities. He’s played in some of the league’s biggest markets like Arizona, Miami, New York and Dallas. The more he bounced around, though, Phillips realized how much different Buffalo is. The weather and the nightlife don’t make a destination. In those bigger places, Phillips said there was almost too much other stuff to do and teammates didn’t all live close together. Hanging out away from the facility was rare. In Buffalo, there’s stuff to do but it’s usually stuff the team is doing together.

“You have a bigger bond,” Phillips said. “It’s college vibes. It takes special people and special management to be able to build something like this. Because even before Sean and them got here it wasn’t like this. It does take the people but once you get the right people and the right personnel to buy into what you’ve got going and then you’ve got an MVP quarterback, this is what you can get.”

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This week, as Allen was speaking to reporters, mounds of snow left behind by another lake-effect snowstorm were behind him on the practice field. The temperature dipped and had approached zero. That weather may deter some players from entertaining Buffalo, but it’s helped this group of players find their identity individually and collectively.

“It’s kind of hard to put into words but typically when people think of Buffalo they think of what’s going on right now with the snow and the cold,” Allen said. “You have to be pretty tough to be in a place like this. We feel like we have guys in this locker room that maybe haven’t gotten all the recognition they deserve, coming here on the last leg of their career and just coming here trying to prove something to not just the world but to themselves.”

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That’s part of what makes it believable to think two-thirds of the country could be pulling for the Bills the rest of the way. But even if so many people are behind them, that doesn’t change the underdog feeling the Bills are trying to harness. Phillips quickly pointed out the lack of Bills on the All-Pro and Pro Bowl teams. In his eyes, Buffalo will never get the recognition it deserves.

“That’s not what this is about here,” he said. “It sucks because guys don’t get the national attention that they deserve. But the community gives you so much more. You’re loved here, you know what I’m saying? It’s almost like you’re legends damn near. At the end of the day, that’s all you really need.”

A lot of players on the Bills mention that they’ve deleted social media. So they don’t necessarily notice how much the bandwagon might be filling up. They also know it has a lot to do with the simple fact that the Chiefs have won. Repeatedly. Some fans may complain about the perception that the Chiefs get favorable calls or that Taylor Swift appears on the broadcast too often. But the root of it all is the Chiefs have been standing in the way of the entire league.

Bills tight end Dawson Knox is a Star Wars fan, so he smiled at the comparison of the Chiefs to the Evil Empire.

“We’ll take the extra fans but our fan base as it is we don’t need to add anybody else to make us feel good,” Knox said. “I always view us as the good guys and them as the bad guys, whoever we’re playing.”

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During a meeting before the Bills’ game against the Ravens, coaches showed a video of talking heads disparaging the Bills for one reason or another. They leaned heavily on the underdog role. External motivation shouldn’t be needed this time around. Despite a 4-1 record against the Chiefs in the regular season since Allen and Patrick Mahomes took over, Buffalo is 0-3 in the playoffs against Kansas City. That, and a potential trip to the Super Bowl, are motivation enough.

“It’s like when you’re a little kid and you’re tired of your big brother beating your ass all the time,” Phillips said. “If you want to be the king you have to take the kings out.”

Regardless of how it ends, it’s clear this Bills team isn’t the same one Connors used to jokingly call America’s Team on SportsCenter. This version is the real deal.

“It’s hard to get around it,” Phillips said. “In the coming years, especially when the new stadium is built, it’s going to be like, ‘We’re here.’”

(Top photo: Kathryn Riley, Steven King, Timothy T. Ludwig / Getty Photos)

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Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit

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Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit

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A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue. 

Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June. 

Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male. 

 

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Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports. 

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling. 

“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.

Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case. 

(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)

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“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital. 

“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13. 

Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters. 

With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.

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Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college. 

President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice. 

Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”

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SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)

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SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.

“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said. 

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Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush

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Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush

Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.

“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.

Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.

On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.

The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.

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Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.

Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.

(Lindsey Wasson / AP)

The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.

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Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.

His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”

Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.

Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.

A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.

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Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.

A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.

The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.

He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.

“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”

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Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.

“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.

“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”

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Keith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death

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Keith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death

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Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead. 

“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights. 

Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.

 

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“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann. 

One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”

Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”

Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif.  (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.

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After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.

In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.

Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020.  (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post. 

In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. 

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Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”

Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States. 

After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media. 

Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.

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Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)

At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background. 

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death. 

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