Author: Jerry Leger

The practice fields at a campus in Bradenton, Florida, which is roughly 40 minutes south of Tampa, are well-kept and resemble those of a Division I program rather than a high school. Early in the morning, the weight room is humming. Filming sessions go off without a hitch. And if you pay close attention, you might be witnessing a potential first-round pick make a handoff in front of several dozen scouts who have discreetly driven down from wherever scouts make drives on any given afternoon. If IMG Academy was ever a secret, it is no longer. However, the numbers associated…

In May, a certain quiet dread descends upon high school hallways. The weight of backpacks increases. Flashcards pile up on lunch tables. Every year, students begin to ask the same question between second period and the bus ride home: how difficult is this for everyone else? The closest thing to an honest response is the College Board’s yearly AP exam score distribution data. The most recent officially available distributions, from 2025, present a picture that is truly inconsistent across subjects. Additionally, students and parents are already looking through last year’s results in an attempt to get a sense of what’s…

About thirty miles southwest of Houston’s downtown, in Sugar Land, there is a bronze cougar outside the Albert and Mamie George Building. It’s not ostentatious. The campus surrounding it isn’t either; it has wide walkways, practical buildings, and an attitude that prioritizes completing tasks over impressing guests. In a way, that subtle characteristic sums up the University of Houston System as a whole quite nicely. The UH System, which was formally established in 1977, currently consists of three universities that serve over 73,000 students in the greater Houston area. The University of Houston, its flagship institution, is Texas’s third-largest university.…

When discussing Antonio Brown’s football career, most people miss one important detail. There was a young man from Liberty City who couldn’t even get a college to take him seriously before the seven Pro Bowl selections, the touchdown celebrations that dominated highlight reels for ten years, and the headlines that ultimately engulfed him. That portion of the narrative is frequently omitted. Most likely, it shouldn’t. Growing up in Miami, Brown attended West Little River’s Norland Senior High School. From the beginning, he was explosive, lining up as a wide receiver, running back, quarterback, and punt returner. At the 2005 Miami-Dade…

There’s a point at which you start to question whether college athletics are truly profitable, somewhere between a school discontinuing its wrestling program to balance the books and a starting quarterback declining the NFL Draft because his NIL contract pays more. Not broken. Broken. It appears that Washington has reached that point. The Protect College Sports Act of 2026 was introduced last week by Senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell, a Republican from Texas and a Democrat from Washington who have very few points of agreement. Before a single word of the bill was read aloud, Eric Schmitt of Missouri…

Every time you visit a vocational college, there’s a moment when you either get it or you don’t. When you smell paint, sawdust, or something warm from a kitchen as you stroll down a hallway, you realize that these students aren’t merely attending lectures. In reality, they are producing things. That moment comes swiftly at North Hertfordshire College. NHC, which has campuses in Stevenage and Hitchin and an administrative footprint that extends to Letchworth Garden City, has been quietly creating something noteworthy. Currently serving about 10,500 students, the college was established in 1991 through the merger of three older institutions:…

In Netflix’s Cheer, there’s a particularly memorable moment. As his coach looks on, athlete T.T. Barker, who is already recovering from a back injury, hoists a flyer overhead. He’s grimacing. grunting. Then he sobs as he falls onto the mat. His coach had something to say about dedication. The point was made. The question of whether it was the correct one is quite different. Even though that scene is uncomfortable, it captures something that the sports industry has been subtly avoiding for decades. The organizations that oversee American athletics have yet to decide whether any of the cheerleaders’ athletic feats,…

You’ll notice the change if you drive twenty minutes from practically any affluent American suburb. School buildings age. There is no mowing of the playing fields. If there are any computer labs, they appear to have been updated at some point during the George W. Bush administration. There was no sign explaining why. No one was required to. The values of the properties said it all. It’s not exactly a secret how America finances its public schools, but it functions with the calm assurance of a system that has never really had to defend itself. The fundamentals are almost embarrassingly…

Last spring, Sam Noel slept very little the night before his SAT. The senior at Massachusetts’ Melrose High School was nervous not only about the test itself but also about getting there. Every test center in his city and at his own high school was already booked when he looked for one online. The nearest available seat was forty-five minutes away by car. Just one test. One morning. Even before he had sharpened a single pencil, the challenges were mounting. Even though it sounds modest and unglamorous, that experience accurately depicts the current state of college admissions in the United…

Every sport has a point in its history when momentum ceases to feel accidental. When the NCAA Committee on Access, Opportunity, and Impact voted to recommend national championship status for all three divisions on a Tuesday in late spring, women’s flag football may have quietly reached that milestone. Not confetti. No stadium audience. Just a committee vote that could completely change what competitive sports look like for a generation of young women, depending on how the upcoming year plays out. The deadline is strict but purposeful. A full vote is set for January 2027, and each NCAA division is required…