The Kadyn Proctor Saga, or How a 19-Year-Old Lineman Became a Geopolitical Football By Dave’s Locker International Desk (Still Recovering from Jet Lag) In the grand geopolitical chessboard, it’s heart-warming to know that a 6-foot-7, 360-pound teenager from Des Moines can still move more markets, ministries, and message-board moderators than a medium-sized central bank. Enter…
Lincoln Riley, the man who swapped Oklahoma’s endless horizon for Los Angeles smog like a pilgrim chasing cheaper botox, has become an unlikely barometer for the planet’s collective neuroses. From Abu Dhabi boardrooms to São Paulo sports bars, his career pivot is less about football and more about the universal human urge to trade integrity…
Jayden Maiava: The Kid From Vegas Who Just Became Everyone’s Problem By Dave’s International Desk Las Vegas—where hope goes to die in sequins—has coughed up another glittering anomaly: Jayden Maiava, a 19-year-old quarterback whose right arm appears to have been forged in one of those discreet back-alley foundries that also supply Cirque du Soleil with…
Jeremiyah Love: The Global Phenomenon of a Name That Refuses to Behave By the time Jeremiyah Love’s latest highlight reel hit 3.2 million views on a cracked smartphone in Lagos, the joke was already stale in São Paulo. “Another American running back with a name that sounds like a failed boy band,” muttered a Brazilian…
The Curious Case of Jaxon Dart: How a Quarterback’s Transfer Portal Odyssey Became a Global Metaphor for Our Times By L. Marlowe, International Desk, Dave’s Locker Somewhere between the Sea of Japan and the Gulf of Mexico, the name Jaxon Dart ping-pongs across encrypted group chats, offshore betting sites, and late-night sports bars that smell…
Tyler Booker and the Beautiful, Brutal Business of Globalized College Football By Our Man in the Cheap Seats, Somewhere Over the Atlantic Somewhere between a Nike sweatshop in Vietnam and a cryptocurrency exchange in Singapore sits Tyler Booker—6-foot-5, 335 pounds, and suddenly the most geopolitically interesting freshman in American sports. On paper he’s just an…
The Curious Case of Luther Burden III: How a 19-Year-Old from East St. Louis Accidentally Became a Geopolitical Pawn By the time Luther Burden III stiff-armed his way into the end zone against Kansas State last November, grain futures in Kyiv ticked upward 0.3 percent. Not because the sophomore wide receiver has any known sway…
Miami, Florida — While the rest of the planet frets over melting ice caps and which septuagenarian will next inherit the nuclear codes, the city’s tropical Versailles has decided the most pressing geopolitical story is a 6-foot-2, 245-pound freshman named Rueben Bain. Yes, the Hurricanes’ latest defensive end has been decreed a “generational talent,” a…
Sam Leavitt, Quarterback-in-Transit, and the Quiet Collapse of Borders By our man in the departure lounge, nursing a flat espresso and a passport full of regrets Geneva—Ask any seasoned observer of geopolitics what keeps them awake at night and you’ll get the usual litany: supply-chain chokepoints, microchip embargoes, TikTok. Yet the name currently ricocheting between…
**The Global Aftershocks of a Local Shooting Star** *How one teenager’s hoop dreams became a Rorschach test for the world’s favorite addictions: talent, hype, and premature nostalgia* Omar Cooper Jr. is 17, has a 43-inch vertical, and—if you believe the breathless trans-Atlantic highlight reels—already owes the world economy roughly the GDP of Malta in future…
Max Johnson, the 22-year-old quarterback whose surname sounds like a budget airline and whose career arc resembles a particularly turbulent red-eye, has just been traded—again. This time from the sweltering humidity of Baton Rouge to the slightly less oppressive humidity of College Station, a lateral move that only the NCAA could classify as progress. For…
Quinn Ewers, Quarterback, Accidental Geopolitical Pawn By the time the sun rises in Austin, it has already set on some other nation’s patience. In that daily rotation of hope and disappointment, a 20-year-old Texan with a haircut that cost more than the GDP of Tuvalu has become the latest proof that the world’s most powerful…
