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Trump is celebrating the Super Bowl champ Eagles, but star QB Jalen Hurts is skipping the ceremony

Trump is celebrating the Super Bowl champ Eagles, but star QB Jalen Hurts is skipping the ceremony

Yahoo28-04-2025
Honoree Jalen Hurts attends the Time100 Gala, celebrating the 100 most influential people in the world, at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center on Thursday, April 24, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
President Donald Trump arrives on Marine One at the White House, Sunday, April 27, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Donald Trump arrives on Marine One at the White House, Sunday, April 27, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Honoree Jalen Hurts attends the Time100 Gala, celebrating the 100 most influential people in the world, at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center on Thursday, April 24, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
President Donald Trump arrives on Marine One at the White House, Sunday, April 27, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is hosting the 2025 Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles at the White House on Monday, but several players, including quarterback Jalen Hurts, are skipping the celebration.
Hurts and other players cited scheduling conflicts as the reasons for their absences, according to a White House official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
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In his first term, Trump invited and then canceled a celebration for the Eagles in 2018 after the franchise's first Super Bowl title. He instead threw his own brief 'Celebration of America' after it became clear most players weren't going to show up.
Asked by a reporter on the red carpet of the Time magazine gala last week whether he would take part in the White House visit, Hurts responded with an awkward 'um' and long silence before walking away.
Eagles star running back Saquon Barkley visited Trump over the weekend at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, and caught a ride with the president to Washington on Air Force One and then to the White House on Marine One.
Trump told reporters on Sunday that he thought Barkley was a 'nice guy.'
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Barkley, meanwhile, pushed back on social media criticism for spending time with Trump. He noted that he has golfed with former President Barack Obama, a Democrat.
'Maybe I just respect the office, not a hard concept to understand,' Barkley posted on X.
Barkley ran away with the Offensive Player of the Year award this past season after rushing for 2,005 yards, eighth-best in NFL history. It was his first season with the Eagles.
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Trump can't save Olympic sports through executive order, but he can by funding them
Trump can't save Olympic sports through executive order, but he can by funding them

Yahoo

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Trump can't save Olympic sports through executive order, but he can by funding them

There is probably little good that can come from President Trump's executive order on college sports given that it's legally questionable, vaguely written in terms of enforcement and an unpredictable stick of dynamite thrown into the middle of legislative movement on the current SCORE Act making its way through the House of Representatives. But rather than trying to limit by presidential edict how and what college athletes get paid, there is something Trump could do that would address one of the major concerns for his administration. Much of the executive order focuses on protecting opportunities for Olympic sport athletes. With athletic budgets getting squeezed by up to $20.5 million going directly to athletes thanks to the House vs. NCAA settlement, there's widespread fear that non-revenue programs across the country will be on the chopping block. And given the NCAA's role as the de facto development system for much of America's success at the Olympics every four years, a significantly smaller allotment of scholarships could mean both fewer educational opportunities for young people and an erosion of America's standing on the medal table. So here's a suggestion for the Trump Administration: Want to leave a legacy for Olympic sports? Use government money to fund them. Dan Wolken: Attempts to curb payments to college athletes keep failing. There's only one way forward. In nearly every country around the world except the United States of America, federal dollars are funding Olympic sports programs. But here, it's the responsibility of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and college athletic departments. The former is funded by corporate sponsorships and private donations. The latter is funded by college football. That system, imperfect as it may be, has worked for a long time. If it doesn't work anymore because the economics of college sports have changed, then we need to tweak the system. And if international domination of swimming, track and field and gymnastics is a priority for America, then what's the problem with taxpayers having a little skin in the game? It's not as if public dollars paying for sports is a new concept in this country. You can find the evidence by driving past nearly any pro stadium or arena if you live in a major city. Surely there are some smart people who can figure out how to build a federally funded joint partnership between the USOPC, various National Governing Bodies and the NCAA that coordinates and supports elite athlete development in a handful of Olympic sports that matter most, allowing schools to focus on providing opportunities and educating those who need athletic scholarships to attend college. Admittedly, this idea is a little radical, potentially impractical and rife with unintended consequences. But one way it could work, at least in theory, is that a certain percentage of the top American recruits in the key Olympic pipeline sports would go into a recruiting pool. When they choose a school, this government-funded organization would pay for the four-year scholarship, attach an NIL payment for the athlete to represent the organization and provide a grant to the school as reimbursement for the development cost. To make it more equitable, schools would be limited to a certain number of recruits every year from that elite pool of athletes. The rest of the roster would be filled with either foreign athletes or non-elite American recruits that they must pay for themselves. One obvious criticism of this plan is that smaller schools would get squeezed out even further, given that they're more likely to have a budget crisis than a Texas or an Ohio State and less likely to recruit elite athletes. This might require the NCAA to rethink how it stratifies schools into three divisions and instead move toward a two-tiered model where you either meet certain scholarship and funding standards to be in the Olympic development division or compete in the non-Olympic division, which would functionally be more like intramural or club sports. And maybe none of this is workable. But the point is, it's time to come up with some creative, bold solutions rather than just whining about how schools can't afford to pay for their non-revenue sports anymore. For many, many years, the USOPC has gotten a free ride on the back of the NCAA system, which has only been possible because universities illegally colluded not to share revenues with the athletes that played a significant role in generating them. But the good news is, all the systems are in place to keep Team USA's supremacy intact. 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President Trump's executive order on college sports: Here's what it actually means
President Trump's executive order on college sports: Here's what it actually means

Yahoo

time25 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

President Trump's executive order on college sports: Here's what it actually means

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Thursday morning in the nation's capital, NCAA president Charlie Baker spoke to a few dozen members and guests of the National Press Club — an operation located in Washington's downtown, just a short walk to the White House. Just hours later, the association's years-long fight for federal intervention in college sports received, perhaps, a boost from the man living just a few blocks away. President Donald Trump released his long-awaited executive order related to college athletics, announcing in a five-page order titled 'SAVING COLLEGE SPORTS' that he is directing members of his cabinet to create policy around several aspects of the industry that protect the NCAA and conferences from enforcing and creating rules to govern it. But what exactly does Trump's executive order mean? What will it change, if anything, about college sports' athlete compensation and transfer environment? The short answer, at least for now, is not very much. 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This is geared to protect Olympic and women's sports that are at risk of elimination as schools direct more funding away from those and to the sports that generate the revenue like football and men's basketball. Those with $125 million or budgets (most of the power league schools) must provide more scholarship opportunities than they did last year, for instance. Those with budgets of $50 million must provide at least the same, as seen in a screen shot of the section here. Prohibit third-party, 'pay-for-play': You might call this the prohibition of booster collective pay to athletes, which, in a way, codifies the House settlement terms that prohibit collective pay to athletes if they are not deemed to be for legitimate endorsement or commercial opportunities. This issue is at the heart of negotiations among attorneys that is expected to result in a resolution soon that permits collectives to operate in a more open capacity than first thought. The executive order reinforces that provision in the House settlement. How does Trump plan to enforce these parameters? Well, that remains a bit murky, but he suggests in the order that members of his cabinet, as well as the Federal Trade Commission, have 30 days to create a plan on the enforcement of such, including potentially withholding federal funding for violators, opening up Title IX investigations, etc. Athlete employment: Trump directs the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to 'clarify the status of college athletes' — an obvious gesture toward the ongoing debate over courts potentially deeming college athletes as employees. As stated in the order preamble, Trump is against college athletes becoming employees and is clearly, with this directive, ordering cabinet members and the NLRB — he appoints the board — to rule that college athletes are students. Ironically enough, while many college leaders fight against employment, some of them believe collective bargaining is the only solution for the industry. Limited liability protection: This is another issue the NCAA and conferences have spent millions of dollars and six years lobbying for. They want to be protected from legal challenges so they can enforce their rules over things such as transfers, roster limits, booster pay — many of which have been deemed illegal by courts. Trump clearly disagrees with these court rulings, as he notes in the preamble. The order directs the attorney general and the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission to create policies to protect the 'long-term availability of college athletic scholarship and opportunities' when such is 'unreasonably challenged under antitrust' law. The attorney general and the FTC have 60 days to create such a plan, the order says. What are the immediate impacts of the executive order? The answer here is potentially … nothing. 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The SCORE Act, bipartisan but pro-Republican and NCAA-friendly legislation that many Democrats are against, received the necessary votes to advance out of committees and is eligible for debate on the House floor when members return in September from their traditional summer break. In many ways, the Score Act grants the NCAA and conferences similar protections as Trump's order. Above anything, Trump's executive order may get Congress to more urgently and swiftly push the bill across the goal line. However, if it does advance out of the House, the SCORE Act faces stiff pushback in a divided U.S. Senate, where at least seven Democrats are needed to overcome the filibuster and reach the 60-vote margin for any bill passage. The Senate, though, has been working toward the introduction of its own legislation, led by Sen. Ted Cruz, who, much like Trump, has made college sports regulation a priority. 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Rangers hope to flip World Series title script, and finish this regular season how they started '23
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  • Yahoo

Rangers hope to flip World Series title script, and finish this regular season how they started '23

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