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Welcome to Iga's Bakery: How the world No 1 bagels her opponents

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Welcome to Iga's Bakery: How the world No 1 bagels her opponents

This article is part of the launch of extended tennis coverage on The Athletic, which will go beyond the baseline to bring you the biggest stories on and off the court. To follow the tennis vertical, click here.


Getting ‘bagelled’ in tennis is a humiliation.

To not win a single game suggests a mismatch, that one of the players is either out of their depth or having a terrible day on court.

Bagels — as sets that end 6-0 are known, because the zero looks like one — are seen as such an embarrassment largely because they are so rare. Twelve per cent of WTA Tour matches in 2023 included a bagel, according to data from Opta.

In just five years on tour however, world No 1 Iga Swiatek has shattered this orthodoxy.

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During 2023, Swiatek won a bagel set in 29 per cent of her matches. That’s almost one in three. Her total of 23 bagels for the year was 15 higher than the players with the second-most on the women’s tour — Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula, both with eight. Excluding matches Swiatek played in, the average for the WTA Tour last year was a bagel set in just 11.4 per cent of matches, according to Opta.

For Swiatek’s WTA career as a whole, an average of 40.6 per cent of her matches have included either a 6-0 set or a 6-1.


Swiatek is ruthless in running over opponents (Dan Istitene/Getty Images)

That’s a bagel or breadstick in close to half of her tour matches — you can see why the term “Iga’s Bakery” has entered tennis parlance.

Heading into the looming French Open, where Swiatek is a three-time champion and winner of the past two tournaments, she shows no signs of slowing down. In 2024, Swiatek has won the most bagel sets (eight) of anyone on the WTA Tour, ahead of Gauff (seven) and Aryna Sabalenka (five).

In her last two events — winning the title in Madrid and also in Rome — Swiatek has dished out three bagel sets. And as The Athletic showed last month, her number of bagels per week while world No 1 stacks up against the greats — bettered only by 18-time Grand Slam champion Chris Evert.

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But how does she do it? Using data from Hawk-Eye and speaking to the players who have to face her each week, including world No 3 Gauff, world No 4 and Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina, and Grand Slam winners including Victoria Azarenka and Marketa Vondrousova, here are the staple ingredients at Iga’s Bakery.

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Iga Swiatek’s 100 weeks as world No 1: The streak, the slams, the bagels


To regularly win bagel sets, you have to be solid in all areas, particularly in returning well enough that every game is about who is the better tennis player, rather than the better server.

Swiatek is a master of this, and that’s why she is so good at running away with sets.

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“She doesn’t have any holes in her game,” says world No 11 Daria Kasatkina, who has lost in straight sets the last five times she’s played Swiatek. These include a 6-3, 6-0 defeat in Doha, Qatar two years ago.

“In tennis in general, that’s very important. She returns very well, and though sometimes she can have some troubles on serve, generally she’s very stable in all aspects. She can switch from defence to attack very quickly. So for me, this is one of her weapons. And mentally, she is very strong.”


Swiatek has 21 titles at 22, including four Grand Slams (Michael Owens/Getty Images)

Vondrousova, the world No 6 and reigning Wimbledon champion, has played Swiatek three times and is yet to win a set, suffering a bagel and two breadsticks. “If she’s on fire, there’s not much you can do. She doesn’t have a worse side to try and hit,” Vondrousova says.

Having accumulated over 100 weeks as world No 1, Swiatek’s base level is clearly outstanding — even in sets she doesn’t win to love or one. But is there anything she does especially differently when running away with it?


Using Hawk-Eye data, The Athletic has sorted Swiatek’s sets played into bagels and those that were 6-2 or closer.

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In her bagel sets, Swiatek produces more unreturned serves: 31 per cent compared to 27 per cent. Her service games get quicker by 17 seconds on average as a result; her return games, meanwhile, speed up by 16 seconds.

This supports what the eye-test says. Watching Swiatek put another bagel in the oven, it feels that things are spiralling quickly out of control for her opponent. This is demonstrated by the average length of return games, which are three minutes and 18 seconds if it’s game one of a bagel set; four minutes and 48 seconds if it’s the third game; and three minutes and three seconds if it’s the sixth.

By this point, whoever Swiatek is playing is seemingly thinking, ‘Please, make it stop’, and is almost happy to get off the court. By the sixth game of a bagel set, Swiatek hits her returns four miles per hour faster on average than in game one — reflecting a higher level of aggression as she motors towards the finishing line.

Overall, Swiatek returns far better in sets she wins 6-0 than in the ones that are 6-2 or closer. She returns 88 per cent of first serves and 92 per cent of second serves in the former, compared to 79 per cent and 84 per cent in the latter.


Swiatek is a master of playing with a lead (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

As well as getting more balls in play, she returns more aggressively in bagel sets. Her first-serve return hit point is closer to the baseline (12.2m from the net compared to 12.4m) and her first-serve return net clearance is lower (87cm compared to 92cm).

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These are small numbers in isolation, but put together they add up to Swiatek strangling her opponents’ game.

“I felt like her depth was so good from the first ball,” world No 16 Madison Keys, who in the past few weeks has lost 6-1, 6-3 to Switaek in both Madrid and Rome, says of that first meeting. “She makes you feel like you can never get your foot on the gas. And then, all of a sudden, you’re the one backing up off the baseline, and that’s not a scenario you want to find yourself in. You don’t want to be behind the baseline trying to run.

“She puts you in a tricky position because you feel like you have to go for something you don’t want to and then you’re threading the needle between going for something that could be dumb but also feeling like it’s kind of the only thing you can do.”

Players don’t just struggle to stay with her — she takes matches away from them.

When Swiatek is rolling, she gets more clinical.

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Facing Swiatek on a roll can be a disorienting experience (Julian Finney/Getty Images)

Break-point conversion rises to 67.9 per cent in bagel sets from 54.7 in closer ones, and she wins 31.5 per cent of converted break points with a winner, compared to 26.1 per cent. In general, Swiatek’s winners as a proportion of her points won go up in bagel sets (from 26.1 per cent to 28.9), as do points won from forced errors (17.2 per cent up to 18.5 per cent).

As Keys explained, a lot of those forced errors come from players feeling like they have to go for more than they are really comfortable with.


What is striking about all these data points is that Swiatek’s groundstrokes don’t change all that much.

Her average forehand speed is the same (75mph), as is her average backhand speed (70mph). The spin rate is a bit higher during bagel sets on both the forehand (2476rpm compared to 2416) and on the backhand side (1965rpm compared to 1901), but not by much. Her average net clearance is similar on both wings as well.

This suggests that the sequences where Swiatek rolls through games are as much about momentum and flow as they are technique. The dominance becomes self-fulfilling once she wins a few games, and she and her opponent both feel like they know what’s coming next, so the starts and ends of points become more inevitable; what happens in between is less important.

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Additionally, Swiatek is not a player who eases into tournaments — she often racks up thumping wins early on, which although they are theoretically against weaker opponents, still send out a message to her rivals and make her even more ominous as she moves through a draw.


Swiatek’s remodelled serve has made her even more of a threat (Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)

One of Swiatek’s predecessors as world No 1, Naomi Osaka, who lost 6-4, 6-0 when the pair last met two years ago, says it’s “incredible” how Swiatek can keep delivering point after point, week after week: “It’s something that I honestly can’t fathom from back when I was No 1 for like five seconds.”

“It’s her ability to play one point at a time that puts a lot of pressure on her opponents,” says two-time Australian Open champion Azarenka, who has lost 6-4, 6-0 and 6-4, 6-1 to Swiatek in their two most recent meetings. “Not many people can figure it out.”

Keys, who has beaten Swiatek previously but has also suffered a 6-1, 6-0 defeat on top of those recent losses, agrees: “Her intensity is basically unmatched by anyone else. She’s on you every single point.”

Sofia Kenin, the 2020 Australian Open champion who was beaten 6-4, 6-1 by Swiatek in that year’s French Open final, describes her as “super intense”. During that run at Roland Garros four years ago, Swiatek won a breadstick set in six of her seven matches.

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Swiatek’s win over Kenin was her first Grand Slam title (Martin Bureau/AFP via Getty Images)

This psychological torture doesn’t stop when they get off the court.

Swiatek’s opponents — and would-be opponents as draws unfold — find themselves in a vicious cycle: the more bagel sets she wins, the more they fear them, and the more likely they become.

Players are actively having to try to block out this reputation she has when preparing to face her.

“I think if you start thinking, ‘Ah, maybe I’m gonna get a 6-0 from Iga’, then you’ll probably end up getting one,” three-time Grand Slam finalist Ons Jabeur, who lost the pair’s most recent meeting 6-1, 6-2, told The Athletic this week. “Getting that kind of karma.

“Not thinking like that is the most important thing. She’s such an amazing player, but you should always think about yourself and not get into that mindset.”

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Swiatek’s relentlessness creates an aura that her opponents sometimes struggle to handle (Sarah Stier/Getty Images)

This is easier said than done.

Her opponents have a hard enough time managing their mental state before accounting for the fact that Swiatek is a master of diagnosing it from the other end of the court, feeding off it, and taking their mind as much as their body. She is an elite problem solver, having been a gifted mathematician at school; once she has figured a player out, there is very little they can do.

Gauff, who has lost 10 of her 11 meetings with Swiatek (including 6-1, 6-3 in the French Open final two years ago) and has been bagelled by her three times, agrees: “When you’re playing her, you shouldn’t worry about the results in the previous matches, because every day is a new match and a new opportunity. I think if you play her thinking about her results, then you probably (already) lost the match.

“I just approach every match as a clean slate. I think it’s even more important when you’re playing against somebody who has done well in the past, just because you don’t want that to affect how you play.”

How hard is that to do?

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“For me, not that hard,” Gauff says, “just because I feel like in the past, with the way my career has gone, I played a lot of big names early. I think I just got used to separating the name from, I guess, the match. So for me, it’s not that difficult. Obviously, playing Iga herself is difficult. But I guess that aspect doesn’t affect me when I’m playing her.”

Rybakina, who has a 4-2 winning record against Swiatek, says it’s about being focused for every single point: “You have to constantly be saying to yourself what you have to do.”

To try to crack the code though, we turn to Jelena Ostapenko — the all-or-nothing Latvian who has an astonishing 4-0 winning record against Swiatek. How does she not only avoid getting bagelled by Swiatek, but actually find a way to beat her every time?

“That’s my top secret,” Ostapenko replies, with a grin. “I’m not going to say anything.”

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OK, but how hard is it to live with her when she gets going? “That’s my secret,” she repeats.

Time to put the bagel slicer away.

And even if Ostapenko did reveal her secrets, knowing what to do to stop Swiatek is one thing; pulling it off under pressure is quite another.

As tennis turns to Paris for this year’s French Open, Iga’s Bakery arrives in the viennoiserie capital of the world very much open for business.

(Top photos: Patrick Smith; Clive Brunskill/Getty Images; design: John Bradford)

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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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