Like so many other millions of people around the planet, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin is a Taylor Swift fan. A couple years ago, he described Swift’s All Too Well (10-minute version) as “Absolute 🔥”, and that pretty much confirmed his status as a fan of hers.
Friday during a press conference alongside Penn State coach James Franklin ahead of Saturday’s Peach Bowl matchup between Ole Miss and the Nittany Lions, For The Win’s Meghan L. Hall wanted to dig a little deeper into Kiffin’s status as a Swiftie.
She asked Kiffin what his favorite Taylor Swift song is and if he’d sing it for the group. While the Ole Miss coach declined to show off his vocals — “Lane, we all think you should though,” Franklin chimed in — Kiffin did offer a thoughtful answer about what he thinks makes her a great musician.
The @CFAPeachBowl is off to a great start. So many good nuggets divulged during media sessions.
But, I had to ask @OleMissFB HC Lane Kiffin (@lane_kiffin) a TOTALLY SERIOUS question.
“I don’t know. She’s got a lot of great songs. I just think she’s really amazing that she can connect to so many people. And I kind of think a lot of times movies, songs nowadays, it’s like how fast can people pump them out and make money.
“And I feel like she takes a lot of time, and there’s a lot of meaning in them, and they can relate to a lot of people. So I don’t know that I can pick just one.”
Surely he’s not alone in not being able to pick one individual favorite Taylor Swift song.
And Penn State coach James Franklin has thoughts. Not about any of the Nittany Lions’ rivals but about a very serious rivalry when it comes to convenience stores and gas stations, particularly in Pennsylvania and some Mid-Atlantic states. Specifically, Wawa or Sheetz?
During Franklin’s joint press conference Friday with Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin ahead of Saturday’s Peach Bowl matchup, For The Win’s Meghan L. Hall asked Franklin to weigh in on the convenience store rivalry, and he delivered a very thoughtful answer — though firmly holding onto his Wawa roots.
Franklin, while sitting next to Kiffiin, responded to Hall:
“Hmmm. You’re putting me in a tough spot. For everybody in here that maybe doesn’t cover Penn State closely, we’re in central Pennsylvania, so right in the middle of the Eagles and the Steelers. And I grew up just outside of Philadelphia, so I’m a Wawa guy. But now I live in central Pennsylvania, and it’s Sheetz.
“Lane’s looking at me like I’m crazy. He probably doesn’t know what Wawa or Sheetz is. But I think I’ve got to stay with Wawa. I’ve got to stay with my roots and kind of where I grew up. But I have really learned to appreciate Sheetz being in central Pennsylvania.
“And I’m willing to negotiate if Sheetz or Wawa would like to work with our players moving forward with some NIL opportunities. I’m willing to negotiate.”
And then Kiffin chimed in with his hilarious two cents:
“And if they don’t respond to his negotiations the way he wants, he’s not going to coach the game tomorrow. That’s what we deal with now.”
There you have it. Franklin is a Wawa guy for life, but he appreciates what Sheetz has to offer.
For The Win chatted with 2023 NASCAR champ Ryan Blaney about his title victory, the celebrations and a tattoo deal among friends.
Ryan Blaney didn’t need to win NASCAR’s season finale on Sunday at Phoenix Raceway to win his first Cup Series championship. And he didn’t. He just needed to finish before his other three title contenders, which he did, becoming a first-time NASCAR champ and delivering back-to-back titles to Team Penske.
But Blaney went home with the championship trophy and his first title in his eight full-time Cup seasons. He finished the season with three wins, including two checkered flags in the playoffs that helped propel him to the Championship 4 contenders.
For The Win spoke with Blaney on Wednesday about his emotional championship moment, the celebrations and the possibility of Josef Newgarden, his Team Penske teammate on the IndyCar side, getting a tattoo of the champ’s face.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
“It’ll take a high-commitment level to win the race and win the championship,” William Byron told FTW about his NASCAR title run.
William Byron’s relatively short but impressive career in the NASCAR Cup Series has been leading up to this moment. The 25-year-old driver is about to close his sixth — and, by far, most successful — season racing at the sport’s highest level Sunday at Phoenix Raceway, where he’ll be one of four drivers racing for the Cup championship.
Byron’s career-high six wins on the season so far and largely consistent speed throughout the first 35 races of the season helped propel him to his first Championship 4 round. For NASCAR’s crown, the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver compete against Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney and Christopher Bell.
Of those six wins in 2023, one was at Phoenix in March, which could help give him a slight edge this weekend on the one-mile desert track.
“It helps just with confidence and knowing what the car needs to feel like and having to have a good memory of all those things in the spring,” Byron told For The Win. “So the track temperature and everything is different this time around. So I think it’ll be a little bit different, but I feel like we can adapt.”
For The Win spoke with Byron on Wednesday after he arrived in Phoenix about qualifying for his first championship race, his competitors and embracing an underdog mentality.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
The NASCAR driver described his in-car conditions as “hell in a bottle.”
NASCAR is an endurance sport, and racing on Martinsville Speedway’s 0.526-mile short track is never easy. But NASCAR’s Xfinity 500 last Sunday was extra grueling for William Byron, who afterward described the inside of his car feeling like “hell in a bottle.”
Physically drained after the 500-lap, 263-mile race, Byron has the biometric stats to prove it, too. He told For The Win his heart rate spiked to 189 beats per minute at the end of the race, during which he burned through a whopping 3,100 calories.
“It was just a really tough situation being in the back of the pack and not having a lot of fresh air,” Byron told For The Win on Wednesday, noting it was brutal but not all bad.
We absolutely grinded today. It wasn’t pretty, but that’s what this team’s made of. Let’s go chase a Championship in PHX!! pic.twitter.com/jWlAjOsqOp
“And then combine that with some helmet issues that we had going on with the fan — it was tough, for sure,” he continued. “But I enjoyed it. You know, I enjoyed the challenge of it, looking back on it. I definitely will kind of cherish that race and all that we went through. And I feel like some of that might help us this weekend, just being just being tougher and having gone through a lot.”
Many NASCAR drivers track their biometrics during races to track their health and endurance, along with their cross-training. A few years ago, one driver lost almost 10 pounds during a race.
Byron said he previously used the WHOOP app but switched to his Apple Watch because he likes to cross-train with swimming and the watch tracks his laps.
The No. 24 driver — who enters Sunday’s title race with six wins on the season, including the Phoenix checkered flag in March — knew the Martinsville race was a rough outing. But even he was stunned to see his heart rate higher than he said it’s ever been.
“It was it was pretty high. I mean, definitely uncomfortable high for me, I’m usually around 175 is kind of my [in-race] max. So it was about 14 beats higher, so pretty intense. …
“In race, I’m usually like 175 [beats per minute], maybe 180 on certain tracks. But I’ve never seen it as high as I was on Sunday. So crazy.”
NFL legends past and present discuss just how cold “cold” is on the football field.
In the NFL, there are two types of cold weather. Regular cold and Vaseline cold.
Regular cold is the moment most reasonable humans opt for coats and warm hats. On Sundays, those 30-degree days fail to register more than a shrug as wind-nipped bare arms glow Kool-Aid red by the fourth quarter.
Vaseline cold is different. Vaseline cold forces some of the toughest athletes in the world to consider sleeves and gloves and, yep, a thick coating of petroleum jelly to ensure they still look tough, even as the temperature whisks the breath from their lungs and freezes snot and spittle where it lands.
But just how cold does it have to be to send veterans who’ve spent their whole lives between the hashmarks in November and December — and, with any luck, January — scrambling to their lockers for extra gear? What does that wind chill have to hit before they go full Michael Irvin?
MAN WHEN WE PLAYED IN THAT COLD WEATHER WE WAS COLD.
Different players react to the cold in different ways. Fortunately, I got the chance to conduct an informal survey when For The Win was making the rounds at Radio Row in the run-up to Super Bowl 57. Over the course of several interviews with NFL veterans past and present, I was able to separate “cold” from “Vaseline cold.” Sort of.
So how cold does it need to be for stars to start bundling up? Well, sometimes the limit does not exist.
Oregon quarterback Bo Nix is designing custom cleats for a good cause.
Oregon quarterback Bo Nix is “Bo-dacious.” That’s how fans view the Heisman hopeful and undercover sneakerhead who prefers his shoe game to be just like those billboards: all white, crisp, and clean.
Nix is in his second season with the Oregon Ducks after transferring from Auburn, where he was the 2019 SEC Freshman of the Year. Under his leadership, the Ducks are now a Pac-12 team rising to the top of the college football polls. On Saturday, they look to continue their fantastic start and dominance against Colorado, the most hyped team in college football right now.
Nix has also been cooking up things off the field. He’s been in the lab with 7-Eleven and The Shoe Surgeon, creating custom cleats that will be auctioned off to fans. All proceeds will benefit Children’s Miracle Network member hospital PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, Oregon.
“When this opportunity was presented, my eyes lit up,” Nix told For The Win. “I was very excited and thrilled to use something as simple as a pair of cleats for something so special.”
Ahead of No. 10 Oregon’s Week 4 matchup against No. 19 Colorado (3:30 p.m. ET on ABC), For The Win spoke with Nix about the Cleat Crew program, what has Oregon playing at such a high level and why he wants Matthew McConaughey to play him in a movie.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Jeremy Sochan spoke about Victor Wemanyama, Gregg Popovich, Poland and plenty more.
San Antonio Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan wasn’t expecting much when he arrived at a fan event in Poland last month.
The No. 9 overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, Sochan earned All-Rookie Second Team honors last season. He made the trip as part of the 2023 Basketball Without Borders (BWB) European camp held at the WKK Sport Center in Wrocław, Poland.
He was born in Oklahoma but has deep ties to Poland dating back to his grandfather, who was the president of the Warsaw Regional Basketball Association. Sochan has played for the Polish youth national team and is recruiting Warriors rookie Brandin Podziemski to join him on the senior national team, per HoopsHype.
The forward, who recently spoke with For The Win, said he expected to see maybe a couple hundred people. But what he saw instead was an instant reflection of the way that the game has grown overseas even over the course of just the past few years.
“Over 2,000 people showed out. It was crazy,” Sochan said. “It was more than just basketball. It’s a culture change just showing positivity and energy. I think people are receiving it well and they love it.”
While this was a wonderful moment for Sochan, it only represents a small portion of how he has spent his summer. Spurs assistant coach Mitch Johnson recently praised the work ethic Sochan has shown so far this offseason.
Here is more from our conversation with the 20-year-old Spurs forward about teammate Victor Wembanyama, playing for Gregg Popovich and offseason improvements.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
In the first 24 hours alone after Messi confirmed his move to MLS, Inter Miami’s Instagram following jumped from one million to more than 5 million. Today, not even two months later, it’s at 11.9 million.
Soccer was already a successful and growing sport in the U.S. But thanks to the world’s greatest player, that interest is at an all-time high. The obvious surface-level effect of that interest is the potential boon for the business of American soccer, as ticket sales and ad revenue likely see an increase. But another benefit of that interest will be how it amplifies the awareness of causes off the field.
“Soccer is an unbelievable platform to really create change,” Apple TV analyst and former MLS player Taylor Twellman told FTW in an interview about the “Celebrating Impact” partnership between The Players’ Tribune and Audi.
“I just think it’s a lot easier [to have an impact] than it was 10, 15, 20 years ago when I was playing, just because soccer is way more at the forefront of the minds of sports fans, but more so the youth. Lionel Messi has [480] million followers on Instagram. Those aren’t all soccer fans. Those aren’t all soccer players. Soccer now transcends around the world, transcends sports.”
Two players using that platform of soccer to impact change in their communities are Real Salt Lake goalie Zac MacMath and Austin FC goalie Brad Stuver, both of whom were highlighted as part of the “Celebrating Impact” series and participated in a roundtable discussion about their community work ahead last week’s MLS All-Star Game at Audi Field.
MLS All-Star panel discussion featuring Brad Stuver, Zac MacMath, Steve Brinbaum, and Kaylyn Kyle, hosted by The Players’ Tribune, at Audi Field in Washington, D.C. on July 17, 2023. (Sam Robles for The Players’ Tribune)
“I feel that I’ve been given this platform for a reason,” said Stuver, who ESPN announced as a finalist for the Muhammad Ali Sports Humanitarian Award for a second year in a row. “Just because I play soccer, it gives me the unique opportunity to reach more people that everyday people don’t get the chance to. So for me, I want to be able to use that platform for as long as I can.”
For him, that includes supporting his community through the Laundry Project, a non-profit initiative that focuses on bringing clean clothes to those in underserved areas.
— The Players' Tribune (@PlayersTribune) June 5, 2023
The ever-increasing reach of MLS and its players presents an opportunity to spread the message of giving back and brings awareness to causes like the ones Stuver and MacMath champion that might otherwise go unnoticed by a larger audience.
“I’m not the biggest social media influencer,” MacMath said. “I don’t do a lot of posts and stuff like this. So I think this platform has probably been the biggest for me to get my message out to really try to help in the community and continue to show that there are a lot of people that need help.”
.@ZacMacMath believes in being a part of something bigger than himself.
The @realsaltlake goalkeeper is using his platform to spread awareness for @SpecialOlympics, as well as creating a positive community to help grow the game of soccer.
— The Players' Tribune (@PlayersTribune) July 11, 2023
Andres Cardenas, CMO of Minute Media, the parent company of The Players’ Tribune, said one thing that stood out to him from the roundtable was how the message of community work goes all the way down to the youth level of soccer.
“Now that you have the academy structure within MLS, these guys are veterans,” Cardenas said. “So, it’s not only mentoring them on the pitch, but the different things they can do off the pitch and really inspiring the new generation from a young age on how important it is to be involved and give back to the communities locally.”
With Messi coming over, the reach of those messages can go even further and last longer as more youth aspire to follow in the footsteps of their favorite MLS players. The attention he commands increases the platform of the MLS as a whole, allowing for the league’s athletes to have an impact that goes beyond even the U.S.
“Soccer’s always been the number one sport in the world, I get that. But that doesn’t mean it can’t continue to grow,” Twellman said.
“I think the greater growth is obviously in the Unites States, because this is still an untapped market in so many different ways. But I don’t think I’m going to be crazy to say soccer can still grow around the world, because there are still people around the world that aren’t soccer fans, but they’re still on Instagram following Messi. And for the last 48 hours, all they’ve been seeing is Inter Miami stuff.”
