The Athletic

We are now accepting applications for our fall 2025 Leon H. Carter newsroom internship! The intern will be embedded on our colleges desk for 12 weeks, where they will be exposed to every facet of the newsroom and help shape our most informative coverage in the college sports landscape. The application deadline is April 18, 2025.

The New York Yankees’ bats were the highlight of the team’s franchise-record nine-home run day against the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday. The lumber bat that several players used is the result of two years of research and experimentation with Aaron Leanhardt, a former Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist-turned-coach. The bats — with their torpedo-like shape — are custom-made to player preferences and are designed to have the sweet spot adjusted to a player’s swing rather than adjusting the swing to the sweet spot. A Major League Baseball (MLB) spokesman told The Athletic that the bats don’t break any rules. “I think that’s one of the cool things about sports is it’s very competitive,” Leanhardt told The Athletic’s Brendan Kuty. “Guys are willing to push the envelope. It’s just an opportunity to take my background to an area and find ways to innovate.”

After the Washington Capitals lost 4-2 to the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night, Alex Ovechkin called his Capitals teammates back on the ice to shake hands with retiring Wild goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.

We are pleased to announce that four interns will join The Athletic for this summer’s cycle of the Leon H. Carter Newsroom Internship program. The program, which began last fall, is designed to attract and develop the next set of superstars in sports journalism. Our newsroom is happy to welcome Umme Alishah, Mia Goldstein, Cerys Jones and Dhani Joseph, who will spend 12 weeks with us across both the United States and United Kingdom to support a wide array of our journalistic efforts.   Umme is a recent graduate of Rutgers University, where she majored in journalism and media studies with a minor in creative writing. She will work with our audience team to strategically expand the reach of our stories. Mia is a sophomore studying art and design at the University of Michigan. She also creates graphics for Michigan Athletics. She’ll join the creative development team and will play a role in how we make visual journalism come to life for sports fans. Cerys grew up near Manchester, England, and moved three years ago to study journalism at the University of Sheffield. Cerys will work with our UK editorial team as it expands its focus on soccer and many more sports. Dhani is a senior broadcast and digital journalism major at Syracuse University. He will support the MLB team – be on the lookout for his byline. We’re excited to see all these exceptionally talented interns achieve in the months ahead!

Brigham Young University’s leading scorer, Richie Saunders, is the great-grandson of Francis Nephi Grigg, the inventor of the tater tot. Now Saunders has signed a sponsorship agreement with Ore-Ida, the potato-based frozen food company his great-grandfather founded. The family connection first got attention a few weeks ago, when it was mentioned during an ESPN broadcast. Saunders told The Athletic that tater tots have now been sold out in Utah County (home of BYU’s Provo campus) this week. “I was actually mad it took as long as it did for me to find out about the connection with the tots,”  BYU coach Kevin Young said. “I’m a huge tot guy.” BYU will face off against The University of Alabama as part of the Sweet 16, marking the college’s longest run in the tournament in almost 15 years. To celebrate, Ore-Ida is giving away free tater tots nationwide during the game. Links to redeem the tots will be in Ore-Ida’s social media channel bios. 

Houston Astros manager Joe Espada secretly invited Cam Smith's family to deliver the news that he had made his first Opening Day roster. The 22-year-old is moving to Major League Baseball (MLB) after playing in only 32 minor league games, making him one of the fastest players to ever reach the majors. ( 🎥 Houston Astros)

Saint Francis University plans to reclassify from Division I to Division III, the school announced Tuesday, just one week after its men's basketball team was knocked out of the NCAA tournament by Alabama State University. The Red Flash lost 70-68. The school will continue competing in the Northeast Conference through the summer of 2026, when it will then transition into the DIII Presidents' Athletic Conference for the 2026-27 school year. "The Board and I have been concerned about the student-athlete experience for many years," university president Father Malachi Van Tassell said in a statement. "The geography of our conference is huge. Our students travel either to Chicago or to Boston or to points in between. That's a lot of time not spent on campus, developing friendships or in the classroom. This change allows our students to be present on campus and lets their friends attend more of their home and away games. This decision is about creating and maintaining community and allowing our student-athletes to thrive in the classroom and their chosen sport."

University of Connecticut women's basketball center Jana El Alfy is fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and with the help of her teammates, she's been able to keep her energy high while competing in the NCAA tournament. El Alfy told CT Insider recently that she has always observed Ramadan, but this is the first time she’s had to manage the demands of the holiday along with the demands of March Madness. So to support, her teammate, star guard Paige Bueckers, has been getting up before dawn most days to cook breakfast ahead of El Alfy’s daily fast. Bueckers will often eat the morning meal with El Alfy, which usually happens before or around 5 a.m. Teammates Caroline Ducharme and Allie Ziebell have also come to the early breakfasts to support throughout Ramadan as well. (via Maggie Vanoni/CT Insider)

Minnesota Timberwolves coach Chris Finch told his team that he was giving Joe Ingles his first start of the season, even though this was a “must-win game.” As the players looked around at each other, he told them why. He explained how Ingles’ 8-year-old son, Jacob, has autism, and how he had never been able to sit through the sensory overload of an NBA game from start to finish. He told them that on Sunday, for the first time ever, Jacob was able to watch the entire game, an incredible breakthrough for him and the family that has fought so hard for him. When Finch got word of Jacob’s milestone, he became determined to make sure that the boy got to see his dad on the court this time. Not only did Finch plan to play Ingles against the Pelicans, he told his team that he planned to put him in the starting lineup. The entire team started clapping and cheering, a response so emphatic that the cement block walls that separate the locker room from the arena hallway couldn't contain the noise. “I would want coach to do the same for me,” forward Jaden McDaniels said to The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski, “if I was in that position.” Sometimes, it's about more than just basketball.

No. 1 seed University of Houston defeated No. 8 seed Gonzaga University to advance to their sixth consecutive NCAA Sweet 16 on Saturday night. But in his post-game press conference, Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson wanted to put the spotlight on Gonzaga for a moment. “Let’s stop and congratulate Mark Few and Gonzaga for what they’ve accomplished,” he said. “They’ve been such a shining light for basketball programs and basketball coaches for a long, long time. There’s nobody I respect more than Mark Few and there’s not a basketball program I respect more than Gonzaga.” Following the game, Sampson went over and hugged Gonzaga's players, and consoled Gonzaga guard Khalif Battle, who was emotional after the loss. When asked about that moment they shared together later in a press conference, Sampson took the opportunity to praise Battle. “When Battle chose to go to play for Mark and his staff, that showed some maturity, because it’s not easy to go somewhere where you’re going to get coached the right way,” Sampson said. “He’ll benefit from this. Those tears at the end of the game showed me how much he cared, and how much this mattered to him.” #MarchMadness