The highly anticipated National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) college basketball campaign resumed on Nov. 1. With a six-month-long off-season, NCAA fans are eager to return to the craziness that defines Division I (D1) college basketball in the United States. With the public rise of star players in the Women’s National[Read More…]
Tag: NCAA
Know Your Athlete: Ann Stephanie Fortin
Dominating once again, the Martlets Soccer program has had a valiant start to their season, conceding zero goals in five of their opening nine games. This remarkable defensive effort can be largely credited to their new arrival, Ann Stephanie Fortin, the team’s starting goalkeeper. On Sept. 21, Fortin made eight[Read More…]
The odds stacked against athletes: The darker side of sports betting
The past decade has seen sports betting morph from a shadowy practice into a multibillion-dollar industry embedded in the heart of professional sports. With states across the U.S. legalizing gambling and Canada following suit in 2021, betting odds now flash across live broadcasts, podcasts casually reference parlays, and ESPN even[Read More…]
Anti-trans sentiment strips swimmer Lia Thomas of her Division I titles
On March 17, 2022, University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) swimmer Lia Thomas hit the water in one of her last collegiate races, making a splash in 2SLGBTQ+ sporting history. She became the first transgender woman athlete to win a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I championship, in the 500-yard freestyle.[Read More…]
Public subsidies for sports facilities are a misuse of public funds
In recent decades, city and state governments across North America have earmarked huge amounts of public funds for sports infrastructure projects. As part of the legislative session that ended on Mar. 1, Utah’s state lawmakers passed bills approving $900 million in funding for a baseball stadium and $500 million for[Read More…]
It’s high time for change: Athletics organizations must relax marijuana testing rules
On Feb. 25, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) announced that it would be relaxing the rules surrounding positive marijuana tests for its athletes. Effective immediately and extending retroactively to drug tests conducted as early as fall 2021, the threshold levels for tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component of marijuana, are[Read More…]
Female athletes deserve equal treatment
At the start of the NCAA March Madness tournaments on March 18, Stanford sport performance coach Ali Kerschner released photos comparing the training facilities for the men’s and women’s tournaments. Fans and athletes alike called out the NCAA for the vast differences between the men’s and women’s training facilities and[Read More…]
Proposed restrictions in U.S. sports legislation are openly transphobic
The beginning of 2021 has marked social progress for queer rights in the United States: Democrats have taken steps to pass the Equality Act, a bill that would include sexual orientation and gender identity in civil rights protections, and U.S. President Joe Biden signed two executive orders to combat anti-2SLGBTQIA+[Read More…]
Supporting student athletes through COVID-19
Sporting events around the world have been halted due to the spread of COVID-19. Among North America’s major leagues, the NBA was the first to suspend its season on March 12 when Utah Jazz centre Rudy Gobert tested positive for the virus. Since then, nearly every professional sports league has[Read More…]
Higher wages lead to change in NWSL draft classes
The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) held its annual college draft on Jan. 16 in Chicago, and for the second year in a row, an underclassman was selected first overall. This year’s first pick was 19-year-old Sophia Smith, who, along with being the first teenager drafted into the NWSL, is[Read More…]