ST. PAUL, Minn. — For years, Luke Kunin watched as his girlfriend, then fiancée, then wife, Sophia, supported his career.

She was a shoulder to lean on when things got tough in Minnesota. Moved to Nashville when he was traded there. Was a constant during the toughest season of his pro career — last year with the San Jose Sharks, when he tore his ACL.

So Kunin can’t wait to walk into Xcel Energy Center — the arena where he began his NHL career as a Minnesota Wild rookie seven years ago — on Saturday with the shoe on the other foot. The 1 p.m. CDT game will be his first time watching Sophia play at the highest level in person, as she’ll take the ice with Minnesota’s Professional Women’s Hockey League team to face Boston in its regular-season finale ahead of next month’s playoffs.

“I’ll get to see what it’s all about,” Luke said. “I’ve watched her games on the internet all year — as much as I can with our schedule — but I think of all the things she’s sacrificed for me over the years so I can live out my dream. I can’t wait to be there to support her and watch her live her dream.”

Luke and Sophia Kunin’s relationship has helped them come through so much to arrive at this point. Meeting as teenagers. Watching each other excel in hockey….

It’s not surprising that corporations are lining up like fans along arena railings to get Caitlin Clark’s autograph. The former Iowa star is a transcendent talent who has proven she is as proficient at breaking viewership records as scoring marks, drawing capacity crowds at home and on the road and even attracting 17,000 spectators to an open practice during Final Four weekend. Her WNBA jersey sold out within hours of her being drafted No. 1 overall by the Indiana Fever, and multiple teams have moved upcoming games to larger venues to accommodate “unprecedented demand” for Fever games.

So, it makes perfect sense that she has been hired to pitch everything from home and auto insurance to performance drinks, from trading cards to supermarket chains, from automobiles to financial investment firms. She’s not only deserving of every opportunity but also has earned every endorsement deal that’s been placed before her, including a $28 million Nike pact that includes her own signature shoe line, as reported by The Athletic.

GO DEEPER

Caitlin Clark’s whirlwind WNBA Draft week just the start for the in-demand rookie

That being said, we should not delude ourselves into believing her appeal as an influencer is based solely on basketball, because it’s not. Arguing otherwise is…

Caitlin Clark was introduced to Indiana as a member of the Fever for the first time Wednesday, as the No. 1 draft pick joined with general manager Lin Dunn and coach Christie Sides to meet with media at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. The reception awaiting Clark dwarfed any crowd that has covered the Fever in recent memory, as will be the case for most of her firsts in the WNBA.

Among the credentialed media in attendance was Gregg Doyel, an award-winning columnist for The Indianapolis Star. When it was his turn to pose a question to Clark, Doyel made a heart gesture with his hands in her direction, which Clark recognized as the signal she gives her family after every game. That gesture has become associated with Clark and was featured in one of her State Farm commercials. When Clark made the association, Doyel responded, “Start doing it to me, and we’ll get along just fine.”

Reporter:

Caitlin Clark: “You like that?”

Reporter: “I like that you’re here.”

Caitlin: “Yeah, I do that at my family after every game.”

Reporter: “Start doing it to me and we’ll get along just fine.”

Caitlin:

(via @IndianaFever / YT)pic.twitter.com/BBjU881K7a

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) April 17, 2024

The reaction to Doyel’s comments was swift and unfavorable. There was near-universal…

BOSTON — Even at the two-hour mark, the leaderboard in the women’s division of Monday’s Boston Marathon resembled a Green Line car pulling out of Park Street during the morning rush.

Twelve women were packed in a tight, jostling pack, and yet there was a oneness to it all, all those elbows, all those knees, moving as if choreographed. You’ll see these kinds of groupings at the starting line. You’ll see them in 5K’s. You just don’t see this many world-class runners sharing an elevator at the two-hour mark of a marathon.

But then there were only two runners. And then, one. That’s when Hellen Obiri of Kenya broke away from the pack, and then she broke away from countrywoman Sharon Lokedi, crossing the finish line in 2:22:37 to win Boston for a second straight time.

GO DEEPER

Boston Marathon: Lemma wins men’s race

What a finish. What a day. For while many of the half-million fans who attended the 128th Boston Marathon on this warm, sun-splashed day were mainly there for the tradition and pageantry of it all — and to cheer on their friends who were competing as cause-driven “charity runners” — this edition of the Hopkinton-to-Copley Square road race had so much more. It had mid-marathon drama. It had an upset. And it had that steel-cage match of a women’s…

When Michael Che introduced Caitlin Clark on his and Colin Jost’s “Saturday Night Live” segment “Weekend Update,” viewers expected a fellow comedian in a long, dark wig to slide into frame.

Instead, the actual owner of the NCAA all-time scoring record of men’s and women’s basketball appeared.

Clark joined Che on the desk — the segment’s set — to talk about the WNBA Draft, which the presumptive No. 1 pick was in New York City for with the draft being Monday night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Clark received a good 20-second ovation from the live crowd that would have continued had she not cut the audience off to get the segment started.

“Hey Michael, thanks for having me,” Clark said.

“I am a fan Caitlin, by the way,” Che said.

“Really Michael, because I heard that little apron joke you did …” Clark said lightheartedly of a joke Che made minutes before, in which Che said before introducing Clark that Iowa will have her No. 22 jersey retired “and replaced with an apron.”

The crowd was quick to “ooh” at Che’s joke, but cheer for Clark, who bantered on and called out Che for having made numerous jokes at the expense of women’s sports in the past. Unlike those jokes, Clark said she wrote some “good” rib-ticklers about women’s…

O.J. Simpson, known for his prowess on the football field with USC and the Buffalo Bills, and later for the criminal and civil trials in the deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, died of cancer Wednesday, Simpson’s family announced via social media Thursday. The 76-year-old was recently diagnosed with cancer.

On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer.

He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren.

During this time of transition, his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace.

-The Simpson Family

— O.J. Simpson (@TheRealOJ32) April 11, 2024

 

Simpson was arrested for the June 1994 killings of Brown Simpson and Goldman. The sensational criminal trial mesmerized America for eight months and ended with Simpson’s acquittal. At a 1997 civil trial, he was found liable for the deaths, in a decision that was so widely anticipated that it was broadcast via split screen just as President Bill Clinton began his State of the Union address.

When Simpson retired after the 1979 season, he ranked second to only Jim Brown on the NFL’s all-time rushing list. Simpson, who played for the Bills and San Francisco 49ers over his 11-year career, won the rushing crown four times…

CLEVELAND — Everyone wanted to talk about the game, which was expected after the South Carolina women’s basketball team held off Iowa for an 87-75 victory and second national championship in three years. But Dawn Staley also wanted to talk about the other game. Actually, that’s not strong enough. She was going to discuss it.

Basketball has played such an important role in her life that she protects it as fiercely as a mother would a newborn. Her love for it is matched only by her respect for it. So even as questioners asked about the Gamecocks becoming just the 10th team in NCAA Division I history to finish a season undefeated, going 38-0, Staley purposely turned the spotlight back to the person who was central in helping to make this a transformative season and inflection point in the game’s evolution.

“I don’t want to not utilize this opportunity to thank Caitlin (Clark) for what she’s done for women’s basketball,” she said of the Iowa guard whose transcendent play helped drive record viewership numbers. “Her shoulders were heavy and getting a lot of eyeballs on our game. And sometimes as a young person, it can be a bit much. But I thought she handled it with class. I hope that every step of the ladder of success that she goes, she’s able to elevate…

The Athletic has live coverage of Iowa vs. South Carolina in the women’s national championship game.

CLEVELAND —After South Carolina beat Iowa Sunday afternoon for the national championship, Dawn Staley’s phone almost certainly was pinging with a congratulatory messages. Including many from the 215 area code.

Mike Flynn, her former grassroots coach from Philadelphia, said earlier this week that he had the perfect message to send his former point guard. He wants Staley to be ready for the ultimate Philly celebration after cutting down the nets in Cleveland.

More specifically: He wants her to get a Mummers costume ready.

“She’s a Philly girl. She hasn’t given it up,” Flynn said. “She’s an icon of the city.”

In the nearly 16 years since Staley took over South Carolina’s women’s basketball team in May 2008 — raising the program from consistent mediocrity to the sport’s gold standard at the moment — Staley has become a lot of things to a lot of people. Leader. Advocate. Winner. Three-time national champion.

Among her favorite titles, though?

Philadelphian.

Born in 1970, Staley was raised in the Raymond Rosen Projects in North Philly — a place that helped shape her as a woman, a player and now arguably the top coach in her profession. She roots hard for the…

The Athletic has live coverage of Iowa vs. South Carolina in the women’s national championship game.

CLEVELAND — There’s just something different this time around.

That’s not to take anything away from last year’s Final Four in Dallas. History will always look back fondly on that entire women’s NCAA Tournament from start to finish — the first-weekend upsets, undefeated South Carolina falling in the national semifinals, and, of course, Caitlin Clark vs. Angel Reese Part I. It was a pivotal moment for women’s basketball, full stop.

But what happened this week in Albany, N.Y., led to the sport’s taking an entirely new leap, a jump that I’m not sure even I could have predicted at this point. It was … just … a normal major sporting event.

LSU vs. Iowa was treated just like any other monster game. In the lead-up, there was a lot of media coverage, as analysts broke down where teams had strengths (LSU in the post, Iowa at the logo) and weaknesses as well as motivation heading into a revenge game for the Hawkeyes. We weren’t told to watch the game simply because we should support women’s sports. We were drawn to the game because it was incredibly compelling.

During and after the game, fans argued about LSU coach Kim Mulkey’s (failed) defensive game plan for…

AUSTIN, Texas — There was a moment on a recent random Wednesday, as the world champion sprinter and Olympic medalist Gabrielle Thomas juggled emails about a meeting she had to run at a volunteer health clinic and readied for a voiceover for a commercial with a blue-chip sponsor and figured out the logistics of an upcoming weight-training session, when she had something of an epiphany.

“I really did not perceive my life being the way it is now,” she said, looking up from her phone as she sipped a coffee at a cafe.

She’s not kidding.

Pretty much everything Thomas has accomplished in track, the two Olympic medals in Tokyo in 2021, the silver medal in the 200 meters and the gold medal in the 4×100-meter relay at the world championships last year in Budapest, is a little bit of a blur.

She has an undergraduate degree in neurobiology from Harvard, where she also studied global health and policy, plus a master’s degree in public health and epidemiology from the University of Texas. The running stuff was supposed to be long over by now. Halfway through college, she didn’t even know professional running was a thing. She thought her heroes, women like Allyson Felix and Sanya Richards-Ross, sort of disappeared for three years between Olympic Games.

Plus, she always had the voice…