Support First Things by turning your adblocker off or by making a  donation. Thanks!

How Nebraska Became the Volleyball State

On August 3, more than 92,000 people filled Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska, to view a women’s college volleyball match between the Nebraska Cornhuskers and the Omaha Mavericks. It was the largest crowd ever assembled for a women’s sporting event—in any sport, at any level, anywhere . . . . Continue Reading »

Sweet Land of Michigan

When my wife and I moved away from the Midwest some fifteen years ago, we began an age of perpetual homesickness. I’d tear up at the sight of Notre Dame’s stadium on Saturday football broadcasts, recalling our years in South Bend where I did my graduate studies, only just ended. I watched every . . . . Continue Reading »

Hoops Humility

“What makes this team special?” a reporter asked University of Virginia basketball coach Tony Bennett after his Cavaliers beat Syracuse to sew up the Atlantic Coast Conference championship. It was a typical sports-journalistic question, but Bennett’s answer wasn’t typical. “Humility,” Bennett instantly replied, then looked down and waited for the next question.

Loving and Staying in Goma

Goma airport, the gateway to one of the largest and most strategic cities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s unstable and mineral-rich east, is the city’s only connection to distant Kinshasa, the DRC’s capital and a place unreachable from Goma by road. Consequently, it’s also one of . . . . Continue Reading »

Hank Gathers and Cultural Christianity

When the Loyola Marymount basketball team, riding the crest of an emotional high after the death of star player Hank Gathers, was making its spirited run in the NCAA basketball tournament last spring, CBS did a short feature on Gathers before one of the team’s games. At one point. Brent Musberger . . . . Continue Reading »

Filter Tag Articles