The Winners

Like many parents, I spent countless memorable moments along the sidelines cheering on my kids as they played organized sports, pursuing their childhood dreams of glory.

Just as in millions of other homes, ours was stuffed with trophies, certificates, photos and newspaper articles commemorating their exploits.

But when it came time to go on to college, all of my kids put away their athletic gear in favor of books and laptops.

In America, that is the norm. Fewer than 2 percent of all high school athletes go on to compete in major college varsity sports, and less than 2 percent of that 2 percent go on to become professional athletes.

So although many share the dream of one day playing their favorite game as a pro on TV, only an infinitesimal fraction will ever actually do that.

That is why Monday's Supreme Court ruling lifting the severe limits placed by the NCAA on how colleges can compensate student athletes is so important. The vast majority of athletically gifted kids need financial help as they find their way into other careers when their sports fantasies melt away.

Including in some cases mental health support.

Many of them suffer injuries and academic setbacks in order to maintain the demanding schedules required by athletic programs. So the new rules allowing some compensation for academic and graduation achievements are not only appropriate but long overdue.

While teaching at Cal and Stanford, I had many gifted athletes as students and I loved every last one of them. They were often those who showed the most initiative and drive to succeed no matter what barriers they had to overcome.

More than once I received a midnight email or phone call from a player on the road asking whether I would extend her deadline for a paper because she had just finished a game and was up late writing. 

("BTW, professor, we won!" they would sometimes add.) They knew that I cared about that.

And I never once refused such an extension.

In one of my undergraduate classes at Stanford, the students chose as their class project to collectively investigate a series of campus sexual assaults on female athletes that had been occurring with some regularity along the campus's woodsy bike and jogging paths.

An unidentified man had been jumping out of the bushes to grope female students as they passed his hiding spots.

The students told me they were going to lay traps by having some of the women walk along the paths, while others, including the men, would trail nearby hoping to catch the suspect red-handed.

To be honest, I was a little bit worried approving this project, in case someone got hurt in the process and also because I wondered whether the suspect would react violently  if my students actually caught him.

"Don't worry, professor," one of them assured me, nodding toward a classmate standing quietly nearby. She was Stanford's women's shot-put specialist. "Once we nab him, she'll throw him all the way to Burlingame."

I wouldn't have bet against her ability to do just that. 

As it turned out, the class never did catch the guy, but the campus police did and he ended up jail. And I've never forgotten the way those students -- athletes and non-athletes alike -- came together to work as one united team on that project.

Everyone had played a role.

Oh, one more thing. They all got A's.

***

The news:

* Supreme Court Rejects NCAA Limits on Athlete Benefits --The high court ruled that strict limits on compensating college athletes violate U.S. antitrust law, a decision that could have broad ramifications for the future of college sports. (WSJ)

* New York Faces Lasting Economic Toll Even as Pandemic Passes -- The city’s prosperity is heavily dependent on patterns of work and travel that may be irreversibly altered. (NYT)

* Recovering U.S. economy is drastically changed and it’s not going back -- A new economic era has arrived, and it features greater worker power, higher housing costs and very different ways of doing business. Policymakers are also contending with inflation and how Americans will react to high rates. (WP)

* COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have dipped below 300 a day for the first time since the early days of the disaster in March 2020, while the drive to put shots in arms approached another encouraging milestone Monday: 150 million Americans fully vaccinated. (AP)

* Climate on agenda as Biden prepares to meet with top financial regulators (Reuters)

* Liz Cheney’s Unlikely Journey From G.O.P. Royalty to Republican Outcast -- Dick Cheney always saw doomsday threats from America’s enemies. His daughter is in a lonely battle against what both see as a danger to American democracy: Donald J. Trump. (NYT)

* Unmasking the far right: An extremist paid a price when his identity was exposed online after a violent clash in Washington (WP)

* IKEA, Rockefeller foundations to pledge $1 billion in clean energy push (Reuters)

* Soviets Once Denied a Deadly Anthrax Lab Leak. U.S. Scientists Backed the Story. -- The accident and a subsequent cover-up have renewed relevance as scientists search for the origins of Covid-19. (NYT)

* Scientists battle over the ultimate origin story: Where did the coronavirus come from? (WP)

* Taliban Enter Key Cities in Afghanistan’s North After Swift Offensive -- The setbacks come at a harrowing moment for Afghanistan, just as American and international troops are set to leave the country in coming weeks. (NYT)

* Iran’s sole nuclear power plant undergoes emergency shutdown (AP)

* Top diplomats reported major progress at talks in Vienna between Iran and global powers to try to restore a landmark 2015 agreement to contain Iranian nuclear development that was abandoned by the Trump administration. After the first official meeting since Iran's hard-line judiciary chief won last week's presidential election, the negotiators said it's now up to participating governments to make political decisions. [AP]

* In the Wake of India’s Covid Crisis, a ‘Black Fungus’ Epidemic Follows -- The deadly disease has sickened former coronavirus patients across the country. Doctors believe that hospitals desperate to keep Covid patients alive made choices that left them vulnerable. (NYT)

* Vaccine hesitancy puts India’s gains against virus at risk (AP)

* Can Biden save the Democrats from themselves? (WP)

* A wildfire raging since Thursday in Los Padres National Forest near Big Sur has consumed  2,000 acres and is zero percent contained. The blaze, in parched conditions and rugged terrain, has forced evacuations. [HuffPost]

* Scorching Hot in Phoenix: What it’s Like to Work in 115 Degrees -- Phoenix is facing a double heat and housing crisis that is falling hardest on people who have to suffer the sun. (NYT)

* The Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing to require public companies to disclose more information about how they respond to threats linked to climate change—and businesses are gearing up for a fight. (WSJ)

* The Fox News personality who has made media bashing a pillar of his us-vs.-them rage machine is actually a secret source for reporters in the very organizations he attacks. Tucker Carlson's willingness to dish on topics ranging from Donald Trump to internal Fox News politics is an "open secret," writes New York Times media columnist Ben Smith. [HuffPost]

* George Gascón, the district attorney of Los Angeles, was propelled into office by grass-roots activists after the police killing of George Floyd. He’s now facing an intense backlash, including an effort to recall him, for enacting long-sought policies. (NYT)

* New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard is first openly transgender athlete selected to compete at the Olympics (WP)

* ‘Jacket Required’ No More? How the Pandemic Changed Dress Codes (WSJ)

* How Do They Say Economic Recovery? ‘I Quit.’ -- With new opportunities and a different perspective as the pandemic eases, workers are choosing to leave their jobs in record numbers. (NYT)

* A man with Alzheimer’s forgot he was married to his wife. He proposed, and they wed again. (WP)

* Man In Kitchen Can’t Remember What He Got Married, Bought House, Had 3 Kids, And Came In Here For (The Onion)

***

"Glory Days" (excerpt)

Bruce Springsteen

[Verse 1]
I had a friend was a big baseball player
Back in high school
He could throw that speedball by you
Make you look like a fool boy
Saw him the other night at this roadside bar
I was walking in, he was walking out
We went back inside sat down had a few drinks
But all he kept talking about was

[Chorus]
Glory days, well they'll pass you by
Glory days, in the wink of a young girl's eye
Glory days, glory days

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