Author: Jerry Leger

The same two logos have been staring back at you from every pool deck in every country for the majority of the past 20 years. One side has a speedo. TYR, however. For a long time, it seemed permanent that they split the swimming world in the same way that Coke and Pepsi used to split supermarket aisles. Then, gradually, something began to change. Not very loudly. Not in the news. There were only a few strange straps fastened behind the heads of swimmers competing in mid-tier events, and there was a growing murmur among coaches that the new equipment…

This evening, Churchill Downs will host the 152nd Kentucky Derby. Somewhere in Charlotte or Asheville, a fan wearing a borrowed seersucker jacket will pour a mint julep, settle down on the couch, and realize once more that he cannot lawfully wager two dollars on the horse he likes. It has now been over two years since that little absurdity. In March 2024, sports betting was made legal in North Carolina. The idea was that horse racing would follow suit. It didn’t. These mechanics are peculiar and somewhat embarrassing for the state. In theory, pari-mutuel horse race betting was made possible…

The recent events in Miami have a subtle historic quality. The Formula 1 Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix attracted 2.6 million viewers on Apple TV on Sunday, more than any other live F1 broadcast in American history. The moment feels more significant than a ratings line because of the surrounding context, even though the number itself is astounding. For a five-year exclusive agreement, Apple paid about $750 million, almost three times what ESPN was paying when it left. If you’re hedging, you don’t spend that amount. Apple’s senior vice president of services, Eddy Cue, referred to this weekend as a “relaunch,”…

The Bloomberg Terminal has always been an oddity. The orange-and-black screen, the cluttered windows, and the keyboard with its strange biometric button all give the impression that it was created in 1994 and has never been updated. They are arranged like aquariums on any trading floor in Manhattan or Canary Wharf, sometimes four to a desk, glowing in the early light before the markets open. No other piece of software in the world may have been able to maintain this level of devotion for as long. The machine is now receiving artificial intelligence from Bloomberg, and the people who use…

In high school athletics, there’s a specific type of week when the gym smells different. Earlier, the bleachers fill up. Parents quit using their phones. Even before the scoreboard indicates it, you can sense a change. Anyone familiar with Wisconsin prep basketball for a sufficient amount of time could sense the development of what transpired in Appleton over the past few days. When the numbers first appeared, Appleton North did something that, to be honest, sounded like a typo. In the same season, three players—Will Sweeney, Grant Hardy, and Nathan Ramos—all scored 1,000 points. Not more than a couple of…

A quarterback room is rarely as deep as anyone says it is in April. Coaches will tell you that three of their players are capable of winning games. Boosters will give a nod. Then a season begins, someone’s shoulder gives out in the second week, and all of a sudden the depth chart looks like a freshman roster from a west Texas high school. Because the man at the top of the chart was unharmed, Lubbock is currently experiencing that movie, only worse. He was apprehended. Brendan Sorsby — Key InformationDetailsFull NameBrendan SorsbyPositionQuarterbackCurrent TeamTexas Tech Red Raiders (on indefinite leave)Previous…

When you truly notice them for the first time, you can’t help but notice them. On a school enrollment portal, a tiny padlock floats next to a child’s silhouette. On the back of a juice box, a cartoon toddler is encircled by a shield. On a daycare worker’s lanyard, a heart was printed around two figures—one tall and one small. Nowadays, these icons are all over the place, and the majority of parents ignore them. That is worth considering on its own. Good icons are more like road signs than illustrations, according to Susan Kare, who created the first Macintosh…

A man who argues the same point for forty years and won’t give up, even when everyone in the room stops paying attention, has a subtle stubbornness about him. That man was Sir Ken Robinson. He didn’t yell. He didn’t strike a pose. He gently, almost apologetically, told audiences that the way we educate children is flawed while standing on stages in a dark suit with his hands folded. And for some reason, everyone believed him. He was the fifth of seven children born into a working-class family in Liverpool, close to Goodison Park. When Ken was nine years old,…

The thought of Sir Alex Ferguson, of all people, being subdued by a bunch of teenagers from Trafford and Wythenshawe is subtly humorous. Grown men who had captained their nations left his office looking shaken for the majority of his career. Knowing that a single incorrect word could end a press conference early, reporters carefully considered their questions. Nevertheless, a few schoolchildren with notebooks and nervousness were able to persuade him to drop his guard somewhere in the Old Trafford hallways. Radiowaves, a youth internet radio station that had been discreetly carrying out this kind of work for years, organized…

The way the National Network of Special Schools continues to schedule Liverpool seems a little obstinate. The same Delta Marriott on Queen Square, year after year. It was the same early-morning group of business managers balancing coffees that were obviously the second of the day while wheeling overnight cases through the lobby. Perhaps this consistency is the key. The conference circuit treatment that mainstream secondary heads receive is typically not extended to special school finance officers. They therefore appear when something is made especially for them. And they continue to appear. DetailInformationEvent NameNational Network of Special Schools (NNoSS) Annual Conference…