Huskers: How a Corn-Fed College Nickname Took Over the Planet By the time the sun sets over the Shanghai skyline, a 19-year-old in a knock-off scarlet hoodie is live-tweeting Nebraska’s spring practice in Mandarin. Meanwhile, in Lagos, a betting syndicate is crunching play-action tendencies from grainy YouTube clips of the 1995 “Scoring Explosion” squad. Somewhere…
When the University of Tennessee at Martin and the University of Texas at El Paso tip off in a basketball game that precisely zero European insomniacs will stay awake for, the world does not exactly hold its breath. Yet, if you squint past the flickering neon of a 10 p.m. EST tip-off and the existential…
The Bryant Bulldogs, pride of Smithfield, Rhode Island—population 22,000, roughly the same number of people currently trying to flee Khartoum by bus—kicked off their 2024 season last weekend. On the surface, this is a quaint FCS tale: a private university founded in 1863, same year the U.S. was busy inventing modern bureaucracy, now fielding 63…
The Bronx Meets the Six: A Proxy War for the Post-American Century By “Our Man in the Cheap Seats” – Foreign Correspondent, Dave’s Locker TORONTO—On paper, last night’s tilt between the New York Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays was merely the 2,047th regular-season meeting of two AL East neighbors who pretend to despise each…
From the banks of the River Seine to the neon canyons of Seoul, the autumn ritual is the same: a hush falls, smartphones glow, and millions of otherwise rational adults rearrange their circadian rhythms around a patch of grass in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The Crimson Tide’s 2024 schedule—released last week like a papal bull—has already ricocheted…
Boston College and Michigan State—two universities whose names conjure images of crisp autumn Saturdays, over-caffeinated freshmen, and the faint smell of burning tuition money—met again on the gridiron last weekend. From a distance, it looked like just another collegiate turf war: helmets clacking, alumni wallets snapping open, marching bands playing fight songs that sound suspiciously…
ITV’s “Win Win” and the Global Glitter of Manufactured Hope By “Lucky” Lachlan Grimble, Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker Somewhere between the collapse of the Turkish lira and the re-election of a man who sells $60 Bibles in the United States, ITV quietly rolled out “Win Win,” a game show that promises contestants a lifetime salary…
The World Watches as Two Southern American Colleges Duke It Out—And Pretends to Care Geneva, Switzerland – While the United Nations Security Council was busy debating the finer points of who gets to veto whom this week, an arguably more urgent geopolitical flashpoint erupted in the American Deep South: Louisiana-Monroe versus Alabama. Yes, the Warhawks…
The North Carolina A&T Aggies versus the UCF Knights is, on paper, a football game so geographically modest that a European could sneeze and miss it. Yet this September collision in Orlando—part of UCF’s annual “Let’s Try to Look P5 While Still in the AAC” showcase—offers a perfect micro-dose of the global malaise we all…
Cal Football, or How a Struggling Pac-12 Side Became a Metaphor for Late-Stage Empire By “Special Correspondent in Mild Exile,” Berkeley-adjacent BERKELEY—While COP28 delegates argued over commas in Dubai and the European Central Bank quietly asked Italy for its next fiscal miracle, 50,000 souls filed into Memorial Stadium last Saturday to watch California Golden Bears…
West Point cadets, Kansas wheat farmers, and a global audience of insomniacs tuning in at 3 a.m. from Singapore to São Paulo—welcome to the latest episode of “America’s Collegiate Gladiator Hour,” where a football game between Army and Kansas State is sold as a clash of civilizations rather than what it really is: two groups…
Mexico: The World’s Favorite Punchline That Keeps Punching Back By Dave’s Foreign-Desk Misanthrope-in-Residence Mexico wakes up every morning to the sound of three alarm clocks: one made in China, one programmed by Wall Street, and one fashioned from the recycled brass of deported dreams. Each ring reminds the country that its sovereignty is a participatory…
