Sports
Women golfers rejoice after LPGA bars post-puberty males from female competition: 'No more!'
Multiple women’s golfers came forward to praise and celebrate the LPGA’s rule change on Wednesday that bars post-pubescent males from competing against females in pro competition.
The organization said in a news release that male players who have gone through male puberty are barred from competing in the LPGA Tour, Epson Tour, Ladies European Tour and all other elite LPGA competitions. The new rule will go into effect for the 2025 season.
“Players assigned male at birth and who have gone through male puberty are not eligible to compete in the aforementioned events,” the organization said. “The policies governing the LPGA’s recreational programs and non-elite events utilize different criteria to provide opportunities for participation in the broader LPGA community.”
The International Women’s Forum (IWF) released a press release in which several women golfers spoke in favor of the ruling later on Wednesday. These golfers include Lauren Miller, Hannah Arnold, Dana Fall, and Amy Olson.
Miller said that she and female colleagues in pro golf have said “no more” to the issues of competing against biological males with the statement.
“This announcement from the LPGA and USGA gives me hope for the future of women’s golf,” Miller said. “The movement of female professional golfers was essential and has been heard — we’ve stood up and said, ‘No more’. By acknowledging the distinctions between men and women, golf leadership is uniting with us in their desire to champion women and girls by restoring a space that prioritizes fair competition. Today, women have won.”
Olson, meanwhile, insisted that the biological differences between men and women should be acknowledged in sports.
“This is a positive step forward, recognizing that an individual’s chromosomes affect their physical development in ways that are irreversible,” Olson said.
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Fall said that Wednesday’s announcement indicates that “women do matter” in sports.
“Today’s policy announcement is a huge win for women and girls in sports. The LPGA and USGA, the premiere bodies which dictate the rules of women’s golf, are standing up for fairness and the integrity of our sport. Today, the message sent to women is that we do matter, and they are working to return equal opportunity and protect fair sport for female athletes,” Fall said.
Still, the announcement was not meant with unanimous praise. Liberals and trans rights activists have criticized the new rule.
Transgender golfer Hailey Davidson spoke out against the new rule, as it will likely prevent Davidson from competing in the LPGA moving forward.
“Can’t say I didn’t see this coming. Banned from the Epson and LPGA,” Davidson wrote in an Instagram Stories post. “All the silence and people wanting to stay ‘neutral’ thanks for absolutely nothing. This happened because of all your silence.
“And somehow people are surprised the suicide rate for transgender people is around 50%. Situations just like this are part of the reason.”
A female golfer who competed against Davidson, Olivia Schmidt, made a plea to the LPGA to ban trans athletes like Davidson during an appearance at the Independent Women’s Forum in November.
“The bottom line is we can fight this all we want, but the true change comes from the LPGA. They are the only ones with the power to stop it. It’s up to them to protect us,” she said.
“I want my kids one day to chase their dreams and not have these distractions in their way. I’m just praying that [the policy] gets changed, and I’m praying that we can find a way to kind of find some common ground in that and hopefully for the next generation of golfers.”
Now, the LPGA has fulfilled that wish for all of its female competitors and fans.
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Sports
For Boise State, an original giant killer, winning a CFP game would be signature feat
BOISE, Idaho — Merle and Ruth Baptiste have been Boise State season-ticket holders since 1974, when the Broncos were still competing in Division II. They were there when the program won a Division I-AA national championship in 1980, when it made its first bowl game, the Humanitarian Bowl, in 1999, and when it won its first BCS bowl in 2006.
On Friday night at chilly Albertson’s Stadium, they saw a new first: Boise State qualifying for a chance to play for major college football’s national championship. The Broncos’ 21-7 win over UNLV will earn No. 10 Boise State (12-1) an automatic berth in the first 12-team College Football Playoff.
“It’s about time,” Merle said. “We should have played for a (national) championship long before this, but we were disrespected by the big schools.”
There’s no overstating the significance of this moment, not just for Boise State but for college football. It’s a sport that has forever operated as a country club, offering lifetime membership for a Notre Dame or Alabama, while handing out visitor passes to a Tulane or Western Michigan. Back in the BCS days, the powers-that-be got dragged before Congress and threatened with antitrust scrutiny for so brazenly excluding half of the sport from its party.
GO DEEPER
Boise State, Ashton Jeanty steamroll UNLV to win MWC, close in on CFP bid
A generation later, when the commissioners created the new 12-team Playoff, they finally saved a seat for the little guy. It’s fitting that the first Group of 5 program to take advantage was one of its original giant killers.
“We would have loved if there was a Playoff — we felt like we could have played with anyone,” said Jared Zabransky, quarterback for Boise State’s undefeated 2006 Fiesta Bowl team. “That’s the way it should have been for a long time. I’m just grateful these kids now get the opportunity to do that.”
Those kids, headlined by Heisman hopeful Ashton Jeanty, earned their second straight Mountain West championship Friday, with Jeanty breaking a 75-yard touchdown and notching his sixth 200-yard game of the season (209). Afterward, seemingly all 36,663 fans at sold-out Albertson’s Stadium swarmed onto the blue turf.
“Hope is powerful,” said Boise State athletic director Jeremiah Dickey. “You’ve seen it all year in terms of college football fans — when you provide more opportunity, it really ignites a fire.”
Boise State’s fans were so lit, they tore down the goal post and dumped it in the nearby Boise River. They’d been part of history. Never before had a Group of 5 team walked off its field knowing it was Playoff-bound. Even undefeated Cincinnati in 2021 couldn’t be certain until the committee rendered its final judgment.
“It’s such a big opportunity for all schools,” said Boise State coach Spencer Danielson. “As a competitor, all you want is a shot.”
Zabransky and Ian Johnson didn’t get their shot to play for a national championship despite finishing as the only undefeated team in the country that season. Neither did Kellen Moore and Doug Martin with their own 14-0 squad three years later. Dan Hawkins coached a Boise team in 2004 that went undefeated in the regular season and landed in the Liberty Bowl. Same thing in 2008 for an undefeated Chris Petersen team that finished up in the Poinsettia Bowl.
Danielson and Jeanty are the latest in a long line of coaches and players that drove Boise State’s decades-long evolution from junior college to lower-level NCAA school to FBS to national power. Back in the early 2010s, the Broncos were regularly beating the likes of Georgia, Oklahoma, Oregon and Virginia Tech. They reached three Fiesta Bowls, winning all three. But they never got the call to join a power conference like fellow BCS busters Utah and TCU.
Then the program plateaued for about a decade, still regularly winning 10 or 11 games a year and a few Mountain West championships, but never the kind of breakthrough season nationally like UCF had in 2017 and ’18 or Cincinnati in 2020 and ‘21. Both those, plus Houston, UCF and SMU, got their call-ups, too.
Just 13 months ago, Boise State was 5-5, in danger of suffering its first losing season since 1997, when Dickey made the surprising decision to fire third-year coach Andy Avalos, a former Broncos linebacker whose team had won 10 games a year earlier. Dickey promoted then 35-year-old defensive coordinator Danielson, while fully intending to make an outside hire after the season.
That is, until Danielson’s team won its next three games, reached the Mountain West Championship Game and upset UNLV, earning Danielson the full-time job.
With Jeanty returning following a 1,347-yard season, Boise was picked in the preseason to win its conference, but was hardly considered a front-runner to reach the CFP. The Broncos did not appear in the AP poll for the first time until Sept. 22, a couple of weeks after going to Eugene and taking then seventh-ranked Oregon to the wire. By then Jeanty, who ran for 267 yards and six touchdowns in his team’s opener at Georgia Southern, had begun garnering early Heisman buzz. But surely there was little chance a Group of 5 running back would actually make it to New York.
Three months later, Jeanty just finished with more rushing yards in a regular season — 2,497 — than any player in history not named Barry Sanders. The only question now is whether it was enough to eclipse Colorado two-way sensation Travis Hunter for the trophy.
“He shows week in and week out he’s the best football player in the country,” said Danielson, “and I don’t think it’s even close.”
Jeanty is reason enough for Power 4 Playoff teams to be leery about drawing Boise State as their opponent. Barring a surprise move by the committee Sunday, the Broncos will likely earn a top-four seed and receive a bye to the quarterfinals. They would likely be placed in the Dec. 31 Fiesta Bowl for geographic reasons. Should Clemson upset SMU in the ACC championship, Boise may even move up to the No. 3 seed.
If they’re the No. 4 seed, it could create a fascinating matchup with the No. 5 seed, which will be either the loser of the Big Ten or SEC championship games, or 11-1 Notre Dame.
“Good luck to anyone who … thinks they’re going to win the game (against Boise State),” said UNLV coach Barry Odom. “I think they’re one of the best teams in college football right now, and I think they’ll do a great job representing this conference. They’re built to make a run.”
They’ve done it before. Boise was not nearly as respected a program as it is today when Zabransky handed off to Johnson on that famous Statue of Liberty play to knock off a peak-Bob Stoops Oklahoma team. The top-10 Virginia Tech team the Broncos beat in the 2010 season opener went on to win the ACC that season. The Georgia team they demolished in the 2011 season opener won 10 games and the SEC East.
But winning a College Football Playoff quarterfinal would be Boise State’s signature feat yet — the football equivalent of those early Gonzaga NCAA Tournament teams that helped build that program into a new-age blue blood.
“This team wanted to leave a legacy, where your actions have resounding effects for years to come,” said Danielson. “Standing on that podium, seeing Bronco Nation swarm the field, those are moments that can change everything.”
For Boise State, and for college football.
(Photo of Boise State coach Spencer Danielson: Loren Orr / Getty Images)
Sports
Archie Manning reveals preferred NFL landing spot for grandson, Texas star Arch Manning
Arch Manning went through a closely followed recruiting process before deciding on Texas.
The quarterback comes from a family synonymous with football. His uncles, Peyton and Eli Manning, and his grandfather Archie all spent their college football careers at Southeastern Conference schools before they made the leap to the NFL. Texas joined the SEC this year.
Arch saw limited action during his freshman year at Texas. He played more this season with a stint as a starter in place of an injured Quinn Ewers.
The 19-year-old Manning won’t be eligible to declare for the 2025 NFL Draft. But his grandfather appears to have already given some thought about where the Longhorns star could wind up should he make it to the professional ranks.
While the former New Orleans Saints quarterback would like to see his grandson remain at the college level a couple more years, he prefers to watch Arch in a Dallas Cowboys uniform.
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“Nobody’s ever asked me that. Right off the bat, if somebody asked me, I’d say Cowboys,” Manning said, smiling in a video posted to TikTok Dec. 6.
Archie doesn’t have direct control over what would transpire in a draft class featuring Arch, but he has wielded influence in the past.
Eli Manning was drafted by the Chargers in 2004, but Archie and other members of the Manning family are believed to have cautioned the franchise against picking the quarterback. Eli was drafted by the Chargers and sent to the New York Giants via trade, a move many contended was a result of his family’s wishes.
The Cowboys have not advanced to a conference championship game since the 1995 season, but the franchise arguably remains the league’s most high-profile team.
Manning has thrown for 939 yards this season. He also threw nine touchdowns and two interceptions in his seven appearances for the Longhorns. He has also shown an ability to use his legs, rushing for 95 yards and scoring four touchdowns on the ground in 2024.
Manning had one rushing attempt for five yards in Texas’ 22-19 overtime loss to Georgia in the SEC championship in Atlanta Saturday.
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Sports
Column: MLS Cup final lacks star power but sheds light on shift in league
Major League Soccer was unable to showcase its most prized jewels at its championship game.
Lionel Messi didn’t toy with defenders in the MLS Cup final. He didn’t make any of those passes that no other player could make. He didn’t create any magic.
Messi didn’t do any of that because he wasn’t here. His team, Inter Miami, was eliminated from the postseason four weeks ago.
Standing in for Messi at the league’s flagship event on Saturday were the Galaxy and New York Red Bulls.
Neither team spent as much this season as Inter Miami, which had a league-high $40-million payroll. Neither team had the star power of Inter Miami, especially after Galaxy playmaker Riqui Puig was ruled out of the game with a torn anterior cruciate ligament sustained in the Western Conference final.
What the Galaxy and Red Bulls provided was a more accurate picture of what MLS is today.
The MLS of today is the Galaxy, who reclaimed their title as the kings of the league with a 2-1 victory over the Red Bulls at Dignity Health Sports Park after modernizing their entire operation.
The MLS of today is the Red Bulls, who are uncommonly reliant on American players developed in their own youth academy.
Messi and Inter Miami are part of this ecosystem. They won’t be for long, however. Whenever the 37-year-old Messi retires or moves on, teams such as the Galaxy and Red Bulls will be what remains.
The Galaxy used to be a scaled-down version of what Inter Miami is now, building around world-famous players on the back ends of their careers. The approach became less effective as the level of play in MLS improved, leading them to change how they constructed their roster.
Instead of searching the transfer market for one of Messi’s contemporaries, the Galaxy targeted a couple of youthful wingers in 26-year-old Joseph Paintsil of Ghana and 23-year-old Gabriel Pec of Brazil.
Both players were almost entirely unknown in the United States before this season, but they weren’t brought in to be shiny objects. They were brought in to win games. In the MLS Cup final, Paintsil scored on a ninth-minute through ball from Gaston Brugman and Dejan Joveljic on a 13th-minute solo run from midfield.
Paintsil and Pec will almost certainly have chances to move to Europe. Then again, they could elect to do what Puig did.
If the Galaxy caught up to the MLS’s elite teams by acquiring the likes of Paintsil and Pec, they moved ahead of them by signing Puig to a contract extension this year.
Puig was an unusual MLS signing in that he was a young player who was already at a top European team. The Spaniard was only 22 when the Galaxy acquired him from Barcelona.
The expectation around the game was that Puig would return to Europe as soon as he established himself as a professional. That didn’t happen. Earlier this year, the Galaxy announced they signed Puig to an extension through the 2027 season.
Puig, who finished the regular season with 13 goals and 15 assists, could become the best player in the history of this league. Messi’s stay in MLS will be brief. The two other players who dominated the league to a similar degree, Carlos Vela of LAFC and Sebastian Giovinco of Toronto FC, also had relatively short stays in MLS.
Puig could spend the overwhelming majority of his career here. He has already become a cult hero in these parts, the stadium erupting in heartfelt cries of appreciation when he was shown on the video scoreboard cheering on his team in the closing minutes.
This might not carry much significance to the sports world at large, but it matters to the people who packed Dignity Health Sports Park.
This league has a developed culture of its own, which explains why an estimated 2,000 Red Bulls fans traveled from the New York area to watch this game or why obnoxious scoring-champion-turned-broadcaster Taylor Twellman was booed in the postgame ceremony as if he were NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell at the draft.
Dignity Health Sports Park provided an appropriate setting for the show. The country’s oldest soccer-specific stadium that is still in use, the 27,000-seat venue has aged gracefully over the last 21 years.
The stadium isn’t old enough to feel outdated but is old enough to have acquired character.
This was where Landon Donovan and David Beckham played, where Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored that goal, where Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy made their last World Cup appearances. That history is now a part of the venue, and there’s a certain feeling inside its gates. The game on Saturday will add to that.
That doesn’t mean this wasn’t a lost opportunity. This was.
Messi and his team choked and MLS was deprived of its dream final. What the league presented instead wasn’t for everyone, but it was for someone.
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