Reporter for the New York Times since 2004. I write about a wide range of topics, but my specialty is telling stories about America through the lens of sports.
A waitress asked me if I was a journalist and said in a whisper while wiping away tears, “We need your help.” Here’s what I found in Madison, Indiana, a pretty little town that’s going through hell.
Here’s the final
@nytimes
sports section written and produced by the NYT’s sports department, which our company has closed. I started working in the section 19-1/2 years ago, and this moment is breaking my heart.
Sully, former President George H.W. Bush’s service dog, will accompany Bush’s casket to DC and then will be reassigned to work with a wounded service member. Good dog. ❤️
Redskins Cheerleaders describe an overseas trip where they felt "pimped out" by their team. It's not the only time the Redskins crossed the line, the women said.
No one should discount how difficult it is for these gymnasts to testify yet again about Nassar and how the FBI enabled his abuse by mishandling the case. Jessica Howard, a former national team member on the rhythmic team, just left the room in tears. Today adds to their trauma.
Off to the mountains after a tasty and interesting breakfast of kimchi dumplings, yogurt and miso soup. One of the best parts of the Olympics: the journos sitting around me are speaking German, Portuguese, Chinese and Russian.
Serena Williams is gracious before receiving the runner-up's silver plate at the
#usopen
. She congratulates Naomi Osaka and reminds the crowd that Osaka played well and that this is Osaka's first Grand Slam win. Serena tells the crowd, "No more booing!
Notre Dame wins the national title over Mississippi State after making the biggest comeback in women’s tournament history. The last few games have been so close that they likely took a few years off my life, but it was worth it. The basketball has been absolutely classic.
Bianca Smith was just a toddler when she began learning the language of baseball from her mother. Now she will be the first Black woman to coach pro baseball and will have her own
@Topps
baseball card.
The U.S. Olympic Committee just announced that it has taken the first steps to decertify USA Gymnastics as a national governing body. In a letter to the gymnastics community, USOC CEO Sarah Hirshland said: "You deserve better." Story to follow:
@nytimes
Serena Williams used her powerful voice to raise the issue of inequities in tennis. And yes, change is needed. But her timing was terrible.
#usopen
#serena
#Osaka
In the weeks before she killed herself, the Olympic cyclist and Stanford graduate student Kelly Catlin could feel her mind slipping. What pushed her, a brilliant mind and athlete with so much promise, to think life wasn't worth living?
#MentalHealth
Two former Washington Redskins cheerleaders couldn’t bear to remain silent anymore after speaking anonymously to the
@nytimes
and detailing a troubling team trip to Costa Rica. Now they are standing up. Now you will know their names.
A look at 18 revelations from the
@nytimes
investigation into President Trump's tax returns. Among them: Mr. Trump paid no federal income taxes in 11 of 18 years that The Times examined. In 2017, after he became president, his tax bill was only $750.
Under intense scrutiny because of U.S.A. Gymnastics' mismanagement of the Larry Nassar sexual assault case, several board members, including the chairman, have resigned.
My 7 y.o. daughter ran into the kitchen this morning waving the paper, saying, “Look, Mama, the national team took up the whole front page!” I’d like her to get used to this. Great coverage of the
#uswnt
World Cup victory in today’s
@nytimes
. It’s worth picking up a hard copy.
Steve Penny, former chief executive and president of U.S.A. Gymnastics, has been indicted on felony charges of evidence tampering in Walker County, Texas. He allegedly removed documents related to Larry Nassar's activities at the Karolyi ranch, the national team training center.
Every single college coach and university administrator needs to read this story and spend time looking at the photo of Jamain Stephens' mom, whose heart is shattered because Jamain, her only child, died this month after contracting Covid-19. He was 20.
Sell-out crowd here at Audi Field for the
@WashSpirit
versus
@orlpride
match. Alex Morgan, Rose Lavelle AND Mallory Pugh are out with injuries, but Marta just scored and watching her play up close is priceless. There are 20,000 seats here and every one is filled.
@NWSL
In a few hours,
@Simone_Biles
will make her debut at the Tokyo Games. Since the last Olympics, she has harnessed the newfound power of an independent Black woman who knows her worth and answers to no one.
It was a traumatic day for the gymnasts who bravely testified to a Senate committee about the F.B.I.'s gross mishandling of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse case. There was trepidation. There were tears. But their voices resonated.
I'm watching the Lance Armstrong documentary on
@ESPN
and it's going to be hard for me not to fact-check it along the way. I get the feeling that there are going to be a lot of Lance's "facts" to straighten out. Just a hunch.
Why would athletes in curling take performance-enhancing drugs? The great
@ScottCacciola
will tell you that the sport is not your grandpa’s curling anymore. Today’s Olympic curlers are ripped: “His torso has more ridges than a fjord.”
For the longest time, Bubba Wallace, the only black driver in NASCAR, only cared about racing his car. But just recently he pushed NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag, and it did. Now he's an activist for racial justice. Even his mother can't believe it.
Found inside the USA Gymnastics headquarters: Documents from the Karolyi ranch that Texas prosecutors have long been searching for in their Larry Nassar investigation. The discovery led to the U.S. Olympic Committee moving to decertify the federation.
New favorite skater ever: Ivett Toth, who is skating to AC/DC's Back in Black and Thunderstruck. I feel like I'm at an NFL game. (Or working out in the gym.) She's wearing what looks like leather biker gear. The old judges are nearly fainting. You be yourself, girl!
Players on the Afghanistan women's soccer team risked their lives to escape the Taliban. Now they are safe in Australia, but FIFA has crushed their soccer dreams. They can't play as a national team anymore. 1/2
@its_fati_ma
@khalida_popal
@malala
Want to know more about Sunisa Lee, the new Olympic all-around champion before I file my story in a little while? I followed her for months throughout 2020 and put together this series of Q&As with her.
Grant Wahl was the nicest guy you’d ever meet, and I’m absolutely crushed that he is gone now. This was his last story. He made a difference in this world.
NEW: World Cup Daily, Day 25. They just don't care. Qatari World Cup organizers don't even hide their apathy over migrant worker deaths, including the most recent one.
Sweden's Charlotte Kalla wins the women's skiathlon to capture the first gold medal of the Pyeongchang Olympics. The podium is -- now brace yourself for this because it's a shock in the sport of cross-country skiing -- Sweden, Norway & Finland.
If Bubba Wallace couldn't win this race, the next best thing was for Ryan Blaney to win. They are best friends. Ryan told me last week that he couldn't be prouder of Bubba speaking out against the Confederate flag and pushing for racial equality and justice. Bubba was 14th.
Laurie Hernandez, an Olympic champion gymnast, felt validated when her former coach was barred for 8 years for emotionally abusing athletes. In her first interview about the abuse, Hernandez said, "It was all so twisted that I thought it couldn't be real."
My 8-year-old daughter and I took a late-night walk to the Supreme Court, where 2,000+ people already had gathered to mourn the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Many lit candles, left flowers and cried. One sign on the steps said, “The fight continues. Equal rights for all! RBG❤️”
Hired mainly for their looks, some NFL cheerleaders don’t actually cheer or dance. Their job is to mingle. “It’s a really big secret, and now you know about it.”
It’s time to bulldoze U.S.A. Gymnastics and rebuild it without the people who couldn’t see, or didn’t want to see, a monster that hurt so many children.
As expected, Japan's Yuzuru Hanyu wins the men's figure skating gold. Shomo Uno, also of Japan, was second. Spain's Javier Fernandez, third. Nathan Chen was the top American, moving to 5th from 17th. All U.S. men were in the top 10. (!!!) Vincent Zhou was 6th. Adam Rippon, 10th.
Would you turn down hundreds of thousands of dollars if it meant keeping your family safe from the coronavirus? Meet several NFL players who did. They've opted out of the upcoming season because their family's health meant more than the money.
Russian bobsledder who wore an “I Don’t Do Doping” T-shirt failed a drug test at the Olympics. She’s the second Russian athlete to test positive in Pyeongchang.
After years of saying nothing interesting as a racer and avoiding any questions about the longtime doping culture in the sport— except for defending Lance Armstrong as clean — Chris Horner is now an
@NBCSN
announcer at the Tour de France. I can barely watch him without cringing.
For decades, gymnasts have been belittled by their coaches for the sake of winning. They've been screamed at, body shamed, physically punished, threatened and told they were worthless. Now a group of gymnasts worldwide is fighting back.
#GymnastAlliance
Today's
@nytimes
features one of the strongest and bravest people I've met in my 25 years of reporting. She is the subject of my magazine-length story -- the story of one of the world's 27 million+ refugees. A teenager who thought she was about to die after barely having lived.
Serena Williams has one heck of a bedtime story to tell her baby daughter tonight. “Once upon a time, in a land not far, far away, there was a superhero first-time mom who made it to the
#Wimbledon
final...” (Come to think of it, I’m going to tell my daughter that story, too.)
In a town riddled with drug abuse and a suicide rate triple the national average, a high school football coach can be a kid’s last, best hope. Here’s what it’s like to coach in Madison, Indiana — a community on fire.
A top coach was suspended for emotionally abusing her gymnasts. Now some gymnasts see this as a turning point to change the sport’s culture. It’s time to speak out about abusive coaches and tyrannical training methods that were long considered normal.
I spent a year reporting the story of how the goalkeeper of the Afghanistan women’s national soccer team escaped the Taliban and started a new life. Now it’s time for you to meet Fati, an extraordinary example of strength and resilience.
Hey, parents caught bribing college officials to get your kids into top schools -- here's a student-athlete who actually puts in the work. She shares a bedroom with her family and travels hours on public transit every day to reach her goals.
Julie Ertz, the U.S. soccer star, was ready to quit her sport after giving birth to her son last year, wondering if she could be a great athlete and a great mom, too. She wasn't the first player, and will not be the last, to stand at that crossroad.
Grateful that player moms were so candid with me for this story:
@sydneyleroux
recalled a coach saying "she had a bad year" when she was pregnant and didn't play.
@J_Mac1422
said another coach called her son a distraction. Yet, they've endured.
#FWWC2023
Gymnastics fan or not, you absolutely need to check out this multimedia interactive featuring the amazing Olympic gymnast Sunisa Lee. You’ve never seen anything like it.
@sunisalee_
and my
@nytimes
colleagues are geniuses!
#Tokyo2020
Naomi Osaka played an amazing match in the US Open final. And yes, she did outplay Serena Williams. I feel sorry for her that the crowd is not roaring and on its feet to congratulate her. It's her first (but definitely not last) Grand Slam win.
#UsOpen
I just got goosebumps when I heard the first note of Betsy Andreu's voice. We probably talked about Lance 5,000 times over the years. She was an early whistleblower who wouldn't back down because she knew he was a fraud. She pushed on, no matter how much he tried to crush her.
Before applauding the USOC for moving to strip USA Gymnastics of its power as a governing body, consider how long it took for the organization to take real action to save a drowning sport. I wrote this column calling for decertification 10
MONTHS AGO:
If you need something informative to read while you wait for the
@Redskins
news to drop, here's a primer on how poorly Dan Snyder and the team have treated their cheerleaders.
Think the coronavirus can’t hurt you because you are young and strong? Rowers on the U.S. national team say, think again. More than a third of the team was sidelined by it.
Tomorrow, the great Charean Williams will become the first female sportswriter to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. So proud of her and proud to say she was my first reporting mentor, at
@orlandosentinel
. Congrats, my friend!
@NFLCharean
John Hendershot, a soigneur on the Motorola team, told me that by 1993, Lance Armstrong was using EPO and other substances like growth hormone, amphetamines, blood thinners and testosterone. So Lance is off with his timing here.
#30For30
Vincent Zhou is 17, but said he doesn’t feel like a teen. He doesn’t hang out at Starbucks or “spend time vaping with my friends.” He’s an old soul and deep thinker. Keep an eye on him. He won’t medal in figure skating here, but look for him in Beijing 2022.
Sunisa Lee, of St. Paul, Minn., wins the all-around for the United States! The first woman not named Simone Biles to win the all-around at the Olympics or a world championships since 2013. What a big moment for Lee, who is 18 and just graduated from a public high school.
Without the IndyStar and its intrepid reporters, Larry Nassar likely would still be living among us, molesting women and children. Let’s raise a glass!
My 8-year-old daughter and I took a late-night walk to the Supreme Court, where 2,000+ people already had gathered to mourn Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Many lit candles, left flowers and cried. One sign on the steps said, “The fight continues. Equal rights for all! RBG ❤️”