Sports
Inside 72 hours at Tennessee: How did it fall apart for Nico Iamaleava and the Volunteers?
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Thursday evening, Tennessee’s quarterbacks gathered for an annual tradition, with Nico Iamaleava among them.
On their off day ahead of Saturday’s spring game, Tennessee’s quarterbacks sat around the table at quarterbacks coach Joey Halzle’s home. His wife, Cara, made tacos. It was mostly business as usual, despite a report earlier in the day that returning starter Iamaleava was in negotiations for a new contract. He’d all but begun the era of school-affiliated collectives spending big money on recruits when he signed an $8 million deal with Tennessee as a high school senior for his name, image and likeness.
A few hours after the initial report emerged, Iamaleava’s father blasted both the report and reporter, denying negotiations were taking place a week before the 10-day spring transfer portal window opened.
“More games being played off the field than on the field,” his X post read in part.
It was part of a whirlwind 72 hours that ended with the Volunteers publicly parting ways with their returning starting quarterback after a contract dispute that could shift the power dynamics of college sports and impact programs far beyond Tennessee. Three years after signing a game-changing deal, Iamaleava became college football’s first high-profile, public holdout.
Tennessee had gone about its business with a low-key set of spring practices mostly focused on the usual position battles and rebuilding a defense and offensive backfield missing key stars headed to the NFL.
Iamaleava was part of that amid negotiations, and aside from a few minor details, there weren’t many red flags that a divorce was imminent. Tennessee hoped Iamaleava would leap a second-year starter set to make $2.2 million in the final year of a four-year contract that started paying him as a senior in high school.
After Tennessee’s 2024 season ended in Columbus, Ohio, with a lopsided loss to eventual national champion Ohio State in the first round of the 12-team College Football Playoff, Iamaleava’s camp had explored the possibility of a transfer, including engaging in conversations with representatives at Miami, who eventually signed Georgia transfer Carson Beck, paying him more than $3 million.
With Tennessee’s spring season about to wrap, Iamaleava’s camp, including family friend and former Florida personnel staffer Cordell Landers, was adamant nothing was happening.
“The family are happy (with Tennessee),” Landers told CBS Sports. “There are no (contract negotiations); they’re happy with the contract they have.”
It quickly became clear that wasn’t true, despite the public denials. Tennessee officials were frustrated with the ongoing negotiations, said a source briefed on those conversations, but were hopeful for an amicable resolution. Iamaleava does not have an agent; his father and Landers were handling the bulk of negotiations with programs and their collectives.
Friday morning after Iamaleava’s father hit send on that post, Tennessee took to the practice field for its final workout before Saturday’s Orange & White Game.
The Vols’ starting quarterback was a no-show.
Iamaleava hadn’t informed Tennessee he planned to be absent, according to a team source. No one on staff could get in contact with him throughout Friday.
And when Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel walked off the practice field, he learned there was still no word from Iamaleava.
In that moment, Heupel decided the program would be moving on from Iamaleava, who had mixed results in his first year as a starter as a redshirt freshman. He threw 19 touchdown passes, with six in six games against SEC bowl teams; four of those six came in the season finale against Vanderbilt. In three consecutive games at midseason against Arkansas, Florida and Alabama, the Vols failed to score in the first half. Tennessee rallied to beat rivals Alabama and Florida and reached the Playoff, but largely did so on the back of a defense ranked fifth nationally in yards per play and running back Dylan Sampson’s school record 22 touchdowns.
Iamaleava was good, but not good enough for Tennessee’s staff and collective to decide to satisfy a demand nearing the top of the quarterback market at $4 million, according to the source briefed on the conversations. They added that nothing materialized into any meaningful negotiations.
“I’m proud of the stand we took as a university,” former Tennessee coach and athletic director Phillip Fulmer told The Athletic.
Iamaleava’s sudden holdout and departure will have lasting ramifications in the sport. (Photo: Lance King / Getty Images)
Friday’s absence pushed the relationship between Tennessee and Iamaleava to the point of no return, even if Iamaleava managed to salvage his relationship with the coaching staff and Heupel suddenly felt the urge to welcome back his starting quarterback.
“On Friday, he lost the locker room,” one program source said.
Quarterbacks Jake Merklinger and early enrollee George MacIntyre, both made available after Saturday’s spring game, were present at that Thursday dinner but said they found out about Iamaleava’s absence at practice the same time as the rest of their teammates: when he didn’t show.
“I’ve been a part of some really talented teams that haven’t won a whole lot because there were individuals on those teams,” said Alabama transfer tight end Miles Kitselman, who caught four touchdowns from Iamaleava last year, more than any returning player. He added there was “no other group” he wanted to work with and compete alongside than the players Iamaleava left behind.
Iamaleava’s multiyear contract is a rarity; most players sign one-year deals. His original contract from March 2022, the infant days of NIL, was written when the NCAA’s pay-for-play ban still seemed enforceable. There is no stated requirement he play for the Vols to collect his money, but it includes a standard integrity clause that allows for termination if the player does not “conduct himself in a manner exhibiting utmost character and integrity.” The collective also negotiated the exclusive use of his NIL through the end of the term, December 31, 2025. That seemingly means Iamaleava himself would need to terminate the agreement for another school to pay for his NIL rights.
More recent NIL contracts give the collective an out if the player transfers and, in some cases, even include a buyout provision.
In the three years since Iamaleava signed his record-breaking multiyear deal in March 2022, he’s been passed by at least a dozen other quarterbacks and would have been well below the highest-paid at his position in 2025. In that same span, Tennessee mounted a legal defense to preserve his eligibility with the NCAA looking to restrict athletes from signing NIL deals while still in high school. The university enlisted the state’s attorney general, among others, to secure an injunction that allowed Iamaleava to stay on the field and further open the door for more money to flood into locker rooms across the country.
Those efforts have put Tennessee back on the market for a quarterback when the 10-day spring transfer portal window opens on Wednesday. Merklinger is the presumed starter for now.
“With only two scholarship players at the quarterback position, we’re going to have to find another guy,” Heupel said.
Among 247Sports’ top eight quarterbacks in the Class of 2023, Texas’ Arch Manning is now the only one who hasn’t transferred from the school he signed with out of high school.
Where Iamaleava goes next is uncertain. Signing with another SEC school is highly unlikely, as he wouldn’t be immediately eligible because of a conference rule banning immediate eligibility for intraconference transfers who enter the portal after Feb. 1.
A return home to Southern California could be in order. UCLA director of player personnel Stacey Ford coached at Warren High School in Downey, Calif., when Nico, a Long Beach, Calif., native, starred there. Appalachian State transfer Joey Aguilar is projected to be the starting quarterback in Westwood. There were rumors of interest from Texas Tech, one of the biggest spenders in the portal this offseason, but a source familiar with the Red Raiders’ decision-making said they have no interest and will move forward with quarterback Behren Morton, who threw for 27 touchdowns last season.
Some at Tennessee believe that Iamaleava’s decision is not his own, but that he’s following his father’s lead in pursuing the most financially lucrative landing spot with less regard for the fit on the football field or the timing of his exit. Iamaleava will have to learn a new offense and gain the trust of a coaching staff and roster with just a month of practice in preseason camp, a rarity within the sport.
Kevin Pearson, who coached Iamaleava in high school, described Landers as a close and trusted friend to Nic Iamaleava. Landers is well known in high school and college football circles, especially on the West Coast, and has helped numerous high school football players, including Nico, manage their college recruitment. Landers was not directly involved in any of the recent contract talks between Iamaleava and Tennessee’s collective, a person involved in those discussions said.
A source close to the family noted the similarities to Nic’s handling of younger son Madden’s senior season of high school last year. Madden Iamaleava, also a quarterback, transferred from Warren High School to Long Beach Poly three games into the season, along with receiver Jace Brown. His father told the Press Telegram it was to improve the tandem’s chemistry and receive different coaching. Madden never played a game there after being ruled ineligible.
Madden and Brown, then UCLA commits, flipped to Arkansas on signing day and enrolled in January, with his dad acknowledging to 247Sports, “We never even visited Arkansas.”
Iamaleava’s father and Landers have not responded to repeated interview requests from The Athletic.
“At the end of the day, just in a leadership position, you have standards of who you’ve got inside the building and outside of it,” Heupel said. “At the same time, every individual’s a little bit different, so in leadership, just have learned to try to keep a cool head and also understand the dynamics of all situations, family, everything.”
Subtle signs that all was not well had emerged since the end of the season. In December, Iamaleava’s father sent an eyebrow-raising series of tweets as rumors persisted that Iamaleava was testing the transfer market and eyeing an exit from Knoxville.
“Need all the help we can get!” he wrote alongside a parade of crying laughing emojis. Since the deadline for Iamaleava to enter the portal had passed, it was easy to laugh off the lighthearted posts. Then Nic Iamaleava, who had been a fixture at practices through his son’s first two seasons, was absent this spring from practice and the team facility.
“I know they (the Iamaleavas) are very loyal,” said Pearson. “Money is important to everybody, but I don’t think their only reason for doing this is to earn another million and a half dollars. I don’t think (the Iamaleavas) just threw this at (Tennessee).”
Iamaleava’s quiet, aloof nature caused some within the program to question if he could be the kind of vocal leader that marks many of the most successful quarterbacks. He was well-liked within the locker room and facility but didn’t immediately have the kind of command of the team that made his teammates sit up and listen when he spoke. Much of it didn’t come naturally to him as a first-year starter last season.
“People who know him in Knoxville will say he’s one of the nicest, most respectful young kids they ever met,” said Pearson.
Friday’s practice was a light walkthrough ahead of Saturday’s game.
“Man, I loved walking out to practice on Friday and gazing around and seeing if anybody was freaking out or gossiping in the corner. Nobody skipped a beat,” Kitselman said. “I love seeing that. It’s plug-and-play. I knew something needed to be said.”
Kitselman, the offense’s most vocal leader and a fifth-year senior, talked to some teammates and members of the program’s leadership council Friday after practice to gauge their feelings about Iamaleava’s absence and ensure they were on the same page.
Friday evening, after practice concluded, Iamaleava informed Halzle he was planning on filing his paperwork to enter the transfer portal. Saturday morning, Heupel met with the team and informed the players of his decision to move on from Iamaleava, who still had not contacted Heupel. Word quickly spread, leaking to the media before the meeting had concluded.
Less than two hours later, when Tennessee’s buses pulled up to a waiting tunnel of fans for the pre-spring game Vol Walk outside Neyland Stadium, there were no signs of the morning’s news. When Heupel was the first face to emerge from the buses, he was greeted with a raucous cheer as soon as his white sneakers touched the pavement.
“Let’s go!” he yelled as fans applauded the team’s entrance.
Word of Iamaleava’s exit didn’t reach every corner of Tennessee in time. Matthew and Chrissy Grant, 49 and 46, made the 90-minute drive to Knoxville from their hometown of Chattanooga, where Matthew works as a truck driver. They sat near the top of the lowest section of Z13, wearing matching gray Iamaleava jerseys. They didn’t hear the news until they were already on their way to campus. They don’t attend regular-season games and elected to pay the $10 entry fee to see the spring game. A few fans told them they should find some tape and cover up the name.
“I’m upset, but it is what it is,” Chrissy Grant said. “Honestly, I felt he was a little greedy, and I was not expecting that. Because he was awesome last season.”
Tennessee will continue on without Iamaleava, and likely will look to the upcoming transfer window for depth at quarterback. (Photo: Caitie McMekin / News Sentinel / USA Today via Imagn Images)
When Tennessee began the scrimmage portion of the spring game, the crowd came to life after MacIntyre — a Tennessee native — was introduced as quarterback. He capped the first drive with a long touchdown pass to fellow freshman Radarious Jackson.
Like many spring games, Tennessee’s sideline was full of VFLs, former stars in the football program. Naturally, Iamaleava was the topic of the day in nearly every conversation, but few wanted to wade into it publicly. Six players from the 2024 Playoff team declined to comment on Iamaleava’s exit. So did Al Wilson, a program legend whose image hangs on the back of the Neyland Stadium scoreboard overlooking the Tennessee River. He captained the Tennessee defense that won the program’s last national title in 1998.
Hendon Hooker, who took Tennessee to No. 1 in the CFP poll in 2022 and threw for 58 touchdowns and five interceptions as a two-year starter under Heupel, said he and Iamaleava talk often but he hadn’t heard from him since his exit.
“I was just as shocked as everyone else,” Hooker said.
The shockwaves of an SEC starting quarterback leaving the program amid a contract dispute rippled throughout the sport.
SMU coach Rhett Lashlee, who coached his team to the Playoff last fall, told reporters on Friday that if a player held out, he’d be off the roster: “We’re not doing that. You’re either on the team or you’re not.”
Said Miami coach Mario Cristobal: “They can be the best player in the world. If they wanna play hold out, they might as well play get out.”
LSU coach Brian Kelly said he suspects Iamaleava will be just the first holdout in college football, with “a lot” of disputes like it in the future. “This is the natural course when there weren’t many guidelines out there.”
Beyond the lack of No. 8 under center, Tennessee’s spring game played out like so many before it. Around 30,000 fans showed up on a picturesque day.
“The guys who want to be here are the guys who want to be here,” junior linebacker Arion Carter said. “Situations like this, this is a test and testimony of who we are as people and a team. As long as we rally around these young guys and get them better and continue to rise, we’ll be just fine. ”
Heupel stepped to the lectern after his team’s on-field exhibition with two pages of notes, some words marked through with a pink highlighter. A photo of Iamaleava on the wall of the room where Heupel holds postgame news conferences had been taken down. Using notes was a rarity for the usually demure national champion quarterback-turned-coach whose postgame news conferences rarely make headlines. He’d rehearsed his carefully-worded statement.
Heupel thanked Iamaleava by name for all he’d done while wearing the Power T and then said: “There’s no one that’s bigger than the Power T, and that includes me.”
— Stewart Mandel and Bruce Feldman contributed reporting.
(Top photo of the Volunteers’ spring game: Bryan Lynn / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
At the top of a hill in a sprawling Santa Clarita industrial park in the shadow of Magic Mountain’s roller coasters, a significant chapter in the history of motorsports was written.
But the story isn’t finished yet.
From the outside, the building is nothing special. Behind its walls, however, Honda Racing Corporation has designed, tested and built the engines that have won 14 of the last 21 IndyCar championships and all five IndyCar races this season. In Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, a race Honda has won 15 times since 2004, four of the top six starters will have Honda engines, including two-time winner Takuma Sato, who qualified second.
It’s a level of dominance unmatched in IndyCar history — in a series Honda probably helped save.
A technician works on an engine at Honda Racing Corporation. All of Honda’s engines for North American racing series are built in Santa Clarita.
(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)
Amid the open-wheel civil war between Championship Auto Racing Teams and the Indy Racing League, Honda was prepared to walk away. Robert Clarke, who started Honda Performance Development (before it was renamed HRC in 2024) and made it a cutting-edge research and development facility, convinced American Honda president Koichi Amemiya to supply engines to IRL teams in 2003 after Honda left CART in 2002.
“It just was not Honda’s image of what a race car should be. That’s why Honda initially didn’t want to be involved,” Clarke said. “In my discussion with the president it was ‘OK, we developed all these skills and know-how. Are we just going to give that up and just walk away?’ That’s crazy.
”We invested literally billions of dollars. And we’ve seen the success.”
Chevrolet and Toyota eventually did quit, leaving Honda as the only IndyCar engine manufacturer for six seasons. Amemiya then doubled down, funding Honda’s move to its 123,000-square-foot home while expanding its workforce to 250 from an original staff of fewer than 10.
Honda hasn’t looked in the rearview mirror since.
Clarke, 75, left Honda in 2008 though he’s still something of an executive emeritus, one who wears the brand on his sleeve and often refers to the company with the collective pronoun “we.”
Robert Clarke, left, speaks to IndyCar driver Dario Franchitti at Mid-Ohio Race Course in July 2007.
(Jay LaPrete / Associated Press)
He was 10 when his father took him to his first race to watch a friend run in an amateur open-wheel event. When young Robert was invited into the garage and allowed to work on the car “I was hooked,” he said. “My bedroom walls were covered with pictures of Formula One cars and all kinds of racing.”
He took the long road to Honda racing, though, studying architecture and art/industrial design in college, then teaching for five years at Notre Dame. His first job at Honda was in the motorcycle accessory and product planning departments but when the company announced it was going to enter open-wheel racing, Clarke volunteered and he was soon tasked with building the program from the ground up.
That was in 1993. By the time Clarke left Honda 15 years later, the company’s place as a major force in IndyCar racing was secure and Honda’s two-story hilltop headquarters became his legacy.
The focus of work in the building now is mainly on supporting Honda teams in IndyCar and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. As such, it has become a one-stop shop for racing teams, housing comprehensive engine research and development operations; prototype and production parts manufacturing; engine preparation and rebuilding; a material analysis facilities; more than a half-dozen engine dynamometer test cells; a machine shop; electronics lab; parts center; multiple conference rooms; and administrative offices.
A view of the machine shop at the at the Honda Racing Corporation in Santa Clarita.
(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)
Next year it will provide support for Honda’s effort to supply Formula One engines to Aston Martin.
Mostly the building is a maze of quiet office space where engineers sketch out their designs on computer screens, well-lit assembly bays where mechanics assemble the prototypes, and the noisy high-tech dyno rooms where those prototypes are tested. Every stage of a racing engine, from conception and construction to being shipped to the track, is managed at the facility.
“We develop the technology quickly,” said David Salters, the British-born engineer who heads HRC. “We try them. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t work and you try again. The point of having a racing facility inside your company is you can be agile. You can try stuff. You can train the people.
“The people are the most important thing of all this.”
The whole process is more NASA than NASCAR in that there’s not a speck of grease or oil on the bright, white vinyl flooring and everybody’s hands are clean.
David Salters, president of Honda Racing Corporation.
(Michael L. Levitt / LAT Images via American Honda Motor Co.)
“This is a world-class facility. It needs to be clinical and professional in the processes and systems we have here,” said Salters, who was head of engine development for the Ferrari F1 team and held a similar position at Mercedes-Benz before joining Honda a decade ago.
“It’s like an operating theater. We’re basically dealing with engines or electrical systems, which are like jewelry. They cannot tolerate dirt or anything like that. Everything has to be spotless and clean and well-organized. This is aerospace.”
And when the engines don’t work, they’re brought back to HRC and the engineering process is repeated in reverse in search of flaws. As for why they’re doing all that in a sleepy bedroom community better known for its paved bike paths and rustic hiking trails than for its motorsports history, that’s easy: Location, location, location.
Clarke originally expected to recruit engineers from Indianapolis and Charlotte, N.C., the heartland of American racing, while Honda insisted on keeping its operations near its corporate offices in Torrance. Clarke feared dropping people from the Midwest and South into L.A.’s traffic-clogged sprawl would be such a culture shock, he’d lose his best engineers.
So he chose Santa Clarita, which was isolated enough to not feel like L.A., but close enough to Torrance to be accessible. And the building came with an “Only in L.A.” feature: It shares a driveway with the studio where the popular TV series “NCIS” is filmed.
“Every so often a helicopter will land in the car park and we’re all told we can’t go outside in case we get swept away,” Salters said with a chuckle. “There was some ‘Star Trek’ thing where they decided our foyer could be useful. So for a few weeks we had a movie set in our foyer; we rented it out.
“You’ve got to look at business opportunities.”
Adi Susilo, chief engineer of powertrain at Honda Racing Corporation, looks over large monitors before the start of the 12 Hours of Sebring in March.
(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)
It’s early on a chilly Saturday in March and HRC’s headquarters is mostly empty save for one corner on the building’s second floor where nearly a dozen people, some wearing headphones, have gathered behind computer screens facing six giant TV monitors.
A continent away, in central Florida, more than 50 cars are lined up for the 12 hours of Sebring. Each driver with a Honda engine has an engineer monitoring their car’s performance.
Before the pandemic, engineers would travel and work with race teams on site. But for the last four years the engineers have been working mostly at HRC, monitoring in-car telemetry that provides real-time information about everything from engine status and tire pressure to suspension behavior.
“Data is king,” said Adi Susilo, one of the HRC engineers. “Humans make mistakes. Data rarely does.”
F1 teams have monitored telemetry remotely for years, but it didn’t become common in IndyCar racing until 2023. Now it’s a vital part of every major racing series, including NASCAR.
Powertrain chief engineer Adi Susilo looks at a full-size mock up of an IMSA prototype at Honda Racing Corporation.
(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)
Engineers work out of what looks like a college classroom, only quieter. When the sound of a disembodied voice does cackle out of a headphone, it sounds like NASA Mission Control, the tone flat and unemotional, the conversation short and to the point.
“It’s better for solving problems,” said Susilo about working away from the track. “If there’s a problem, you just walk downstairs and talk to the guy who built the engine.”
That won’t be the case Sunday. For the Indy 500, Susilo said it’s all hands on deck, so most of Honda’s race-day engineers are in Indianapolis where the telemetry will be broadcast to their work stations in trailers at the track.
“A few of the IndyCar races are run that way,” he said, “but the 500 is almost always run that way just because everyone’s out here for the event. We’re also testing a new, hopefully more robust, telemetry streaming as it’s much harder to make sure we get 15 car’s worth of data.”
At first, the idea of having engineers looming electronically over the timing stand was a hard sell. Trusting someone with clean fingernails watching the race on monitors thousands of miles away wasn’t easy for some crew chiefs.
“What happens for people like me is that you have to erase the old-school way of thinking,” said Mike Hull, a former mechanic and driver who is now the managing director for Chip Ganassi Racing and chief strategist for driver Scott Dixon, a six-time IndyCar champion. “You’re electronically shoulder to shoulder with them.
“If you don’t listen to what somebody has to say, it stifles free thinking. Free thinking sends you down a path that you may not have originally been on, but makes you stronger at what you’re doing.”
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1. Race engines being assembled at Honda Racing Corporation. 2. A technician in the HRC machine shop works on an engine. 3. Engineers monitor data during the 12 Hours of Sebring in March. 4. A engineer monitors telemetry remotely from HRC headquarters. (Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)
Dixon, the 2008 Indy 500 champion who will start Sunday’s race in the second row, agrees. Which is he why he’s made several trips to HRC to personally thank the engineers who design his engines and those who help direct his races.
“You always feel like there’s a big group behind you,” he said. “You just don’t get to see all them in one place but you know the machine is there, working pretty hard.”
One drawback, Dixon said, is you have to be careful what you say on the radio during races because you never know who’s listening.
“Twenty people at home, just on the team side, will be listening just on that one car,” he said. “So the communication is very wide open. You definitely have to watch your Ps and Qs.”
Two years later race teams have grown so comfortable with people looking over their shoulders, the engineers have become as much a part of the team as the cars. So when a nearby wildfire forced the evacuation of the building, Honda rented rooms at a nearby hotel, set up their TVs, computer monitors and a coffee machine in a conference room and worked from there.
“We’re pretty blind without it. The race teams are pretty competitive,” Susilo said. “They feel that instinct still does work. But it’s more data-driven.”
Honda powertain engineer Jake Marthaler monitors data during the 12 Hours of Sebring in March.
(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)
Given the investment, the pressure can be intense.
“Every two weeks we want to have the latest development. We want to have made progress,” Salters said. “Every two weeks you have a deadline and the deadline does not move. It’s not like they’re going to say ‘OK, we’ll just delay the race a week.’ The flag drops, you’ve got to be ready.
“It’s sort of an engineering sport isn’t it? It’s like a true sport; the best team will win.”
If the IndyCar-Honda marriage has mostly been good for both sides, it has recently hit a rocky patch.
Honda’s supply contract with IndyCar ends next year and the company hasn’t hid its distaste over the cheating scandals that have recently tarnished the series. Last week Team Penske drivers Josef Newgarden, the two-time defending Indy 500 champion, and Will Power were forced to the back of the field for the start of Sunday’s race after illegally modified parts were found on their cars. Team Penske, which uses Chevrolet engines, was also caught cheating at the beginning of the 2024 season.
On Wednesday, the team fired three of its top racing executives. IndyCar, which is owned by Roger Penske (also the owner of Team Penske) said it is exploring the creation of an independent governing body absent of Penske employees.
Scott Dixon drives into the first turn during practice for the Indianapolis 500 on Friday.
(Michael Conroy / Associated Press)
That may not be enough to restore trust in the series. Honda, which supplies engines to 13 full-season IndyCar entries and three Indy 500-only cars, has declined to comment on the rules violations, but confirmed its continued participation in the series beyond 2026 may depend on Penske’s ability to separate himself from policing the series he owns and also competes in.
Honda said in a written statement Thursday that it has many concerns, among them “the relatively high overall cost to participate as an engine supplier” and “the potential (perceived or real) conflict of interest which may exist” with Penske’s ownership of the racing series, three of the cars competing in the series and his “significant stake” in Ilmor Engineering, which designs and manufactures engines for Chevrolet, Honda’s biggest competitor.
“Honda continues to have ongoing negotiations with IndyCar’s management and technical teams regarding our future as an engine supplier for the series,” said Chuck Chayefsky, manager of Honda & Acura Motorsports.
Whatever road Honda takes with IndyCar, it’s unlikely to change most of the day-to-day work at HRC, which is heavily involved with IMSA and will soon be working on F1 power-unit development.
So while the cars may change, the racing will never stop.
The car Ryan Hunter-Reay drove to victory for Andretti Autosport in the 2014 Indianapolis 500 sits on display at Honda Racing Corporation in Santa Clarita.
(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)
“Thirty years ago our sole purpose in life was to look after racing in North America for Honda and Acura,” Salters said before last week’s events in Indianapolis. “Last year we changed that. We’re now part of a global racing organization. That’s another opportunity for associates here.”
“The automotive world, it’s pivoting,” he continued. “We are trying some new stuff. We’ll see how it goes.”
One chapter has been written. But the story isn’t finished.
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One of Bill Belichick’s stops among his book tour was on an episode of “The Pivot” podcast with Ryan Clark and Channing Crowder.
Belichick’s first interview promoting the book garnered tons of media attention, when Jordon Hudson was caught on camera butting into the conversation when Belichick was asked how they met.
Belichick has credited Hudson, 24, for being the business brainiac to his brand, but he has remained mum on getting any further than that in public interviews.
Jordon Hudson the girlfriend of Bill Belichick in attendance at Loudermilk Center for Excellence on Dec. 12, 2024. (Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images)
But that business side of Hudson was all in on Belichick’s “Pivot” interview, according to Crowder.
“He’s all in if you talk football, but if you start talking personal stuff, he starts doing the mumble and the one-word answers, and his old lady is different. She lurks,” Crowder said on his separate radio show. “It’s weird to know him as Coach Belichick running the entire organization as GM, head coach, talent coordinator, all that stuff, and then to see this tiny little 95-pound girl pretty much telling him what to do.”
Crowder added, but did not elaborate on, that Hudson “choreographed the open,” which included Belichick’s accomplishments as both a coach and author.
“She was there. She kind of coordinates and brand manages. She has her paws on the situation. It’s different . . . it was weird to be around Belichick and Jordon. I don’t see Belichick in that light. But he just smiles and nods,” Crowder continued.
Ryan Clark, Channing Crowder, and Jordon Hudson (Getty Images/IMAGN)
AIRBNB OWNERS SHARE SHOCK OF FINDING SHIRTLESS BILL BELICHICK ON THEIR DOORBELL CAMERA: ‘CREEPY OLD GUY’
Hudson was not at Belichick’s interview with “Good Morning America” last week.
According to reports, Hudson interrupted the CBS interview several times and even stormed off at one point, delaying the interview by around 30 minutes.
Belichick released a statement saying he was “surprised” about getting the questions about his relationship and that when Hudson had stepped in, she had been doing her job. He went on to accuse CBS of creating a “false narrative” with so-called “selectively edited clips.”
CBS responded, disagreeing with Belichick’s version of events.
North Carolina Tar Heels football head coach Bill Belichick and his girlfriend Jordon Hudson look on during the first half of the game between the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Duke Blue Devils at Dean E. Smith Center on March 8, 2025, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
In the interview with The Pivot, Belichick cleared the air on Hudson’s reported involvement with “Hard Knocks,” ultimately saying that the show was not a match with UNC. He also reiterated that Hudson is not involved with UNC football, a statement that the school itself made following reports that Hudson was barred from the facility.
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It’s the greatest gift to baseball players who attend schools in the City Section. Every season since 1969, except for two years during the pandemic of 2020 and 2021, the championship game has been played at Dodger Stadium.
The championships return to Dodger Stadium on Saturday. Marine League rivals Banning and Carson will face off at 10 a.m. for the Division I title, followed by El Camino Real taking on Venice at 1 p.m. for the Open Division championship. There’s free parking and tickets cost $15 for adults and $12 for students. Gates open at 9 a.m.
Three of the four semifinal games were decided on walk-off hits, showing the parity this season.
In the Open Division, El Camino Real has its top two pitchers ready to go. Devin Gonor will get the start and Luke Howe has four innings left to throw if needed. Venice has its ace, Noel Moreno (12-1) available.
As usual, handling the environment and dimensions of Dodger Stadium will be key, from catchers preventing balls in the dirt from going to the backstop to outfielders making catches in the sun.
Banning has beaten Carson two of three times this season. Carson is coming off a dramatic win in the semifinals over Taft in which Xavier Allen hit a walk-off, two-run home run in the 11th inning.
Canon King of Venice is coming off a five-for-five performance against Birmingham. El Camino Real has won nine City titles.
All the teams involved will be invited to play in the Southern California regionals that begin in two weeks.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
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