It’s well-known by now that the Union have a big reputation for player development, perhaps the best of any American soccer club at the moment.
So it shouldn’t be too surprising that a lot of people in that world would like to know how they’ve done it.
At the United Soccer Coaches convention earlier this month in Philadelphia, a presentation by Jon Scheer, the Union’s head of academy and professional development, drew a healthy crowd that hoped to learn the club’s secret sauce.
Scheer didn’t give up all the recipes, but he was happy to take the attendees into the kitchen.
Union director of academy and professional development Jon Scheer speaking at the United Soccer Coaches Convention in Philadelphia earlier this month.
He claimed that the Union “invests more in our academy than any MLS club in the country.” That hasn’t been independently confirmed for a few years, but there’s no question that the Union spend a lot.
Along with youth teams in many age groups, there’s a full-time high school, YSC Academy, across the parking lot from the training facilities in Chester. Those facilities were expanded significantly last year, to much acclaim.
“The value of the young players being able to see the stadium every day, but also being able to look through the fence at the grass on Field One where the first team trains — they can feel it every single day,” Scheer said.
The Union’s training fields in Chester. The grass one on the left is where the first team trains.
There’s high tech all over the campus, from the “Striker Lab” that tracks a player’s kicking technique to a medical scanner called SonicBone that measures a person’s biological age.
“If they’re two years advanced [compared] to their peers and having success only because of their physique, that gives us information,” Scheer said. “Potential for our academy is more important than performance level.”
Scheer echoed a longtime Union talking point when he spoke of “looking for marginal gains that will allow us to have sustainable success in MLS.”
“We think that if we invest in data, we’re not going to have to try to outcompete and outspend the LAFCs, the Torontos, the Atlanta Uniteds of the world,” he said.
Those words did not prompt the kinds of boos from this crowd that they would have from the River End stands. But Scheer, who has become the public face of the front office with sporting director Ernst Tanner on administrative leave, isn’t ignorant of that, either. He’s a West Windsor, N.J., native who played and coached at the University of Delaware, and scouted for U.S. Soccer before joining the Union’s staff eight years ago.
Jon Scheer spoke for more than an hour about the inner workings of the Union’s academy.
Trophies count most for measuring the club, of course, but below that is another way to measure success. The Union now aren’t just viewed as the top American club for developing U.S. national team talent; they can put numbers behind it.
Last year, a total of 57 Union players and prospects were called up to U.S. youth national teams. That is easily the best of any MLS club, with the Los Angeles Galaxy second at 52 and the Chicago Fire third at 40. It’s also a long way past the league’s former standard-bearers, FC Dallas (32) and the New York Red Bulls (24).
“We want to use that as a recruitment tool for the next wave of kids to say if you come here, we’ll be able to push you on to a higher level — whether that be for the national team or beyond,” Scheer said.
“Ultimately, if we have a bunch of kids in youth national teams and nobody in the senior national team, then that’s good, but our goal is to get them into the senior squad,” he said.
Medford native Brenden Aaronson (11) is the best example of a Union product who has made it big on the world stage. Aaronson plays for Leeds United in the English Premier League and the U.S. national team.
‘Everybody has a plan’
It’s also, of course, a goal to have them play for the Union. And yes, it’s another goal to sell players on to European clubs, ideally for big sums.
“If our goal was just for our academy teams to win [youth tournament] championships, that would shape how we would build our rosters week after week,” Scheer said. “But [we’re] knowing that we need to, for our strategy, develop players, place them in the first team, showcase them to the world, transition them on to bigger clubs, and then use those resources to reinvest.
“Not just in the academy, also into player scouting and recruitment for the first team.”
Scheer went deep on how the high school works. He talked about the philosophy of the place, the teachers, and how they educate kids on a combination of soccer and serious academics. Some of the graduates who haven’t turned pro have gone on to major colleges, including Ivy League ones.
He showed a slide with the students’ typical daily schedule, with blocks of training and blocks of classes. He also detailed the residency aspect, for which the Union bought a house in South Jersey not far from the Commodore Barry Bridge. Twelve players and two adults who oversee them now live there.
“About 80% of our academy is from the Greater Philadelphia region,” Scheer said. “We never see it becoming 50-50.”
Union forward prospect Sal Olivas is an example of a player who came to the team’s youth academy from afar — in his case El Paso, Texas.
Later in the presentation, he posted a detailed slide showing an example of an Individual Development Plan. The player on the slide happened to be 16-year-old striker Malik Jakupovic, the team’s second-most-hyped prospect right now after Cavan Sullivan.
“Yes, our top talents have a little bit more of an advanced plan, and a little bit more focus — of course, because that’s our goal, to push players into the first team,” Scheer said. “But everybody has a plan, and this is something we’re trying to improve.”
He talked about Sullivan, too, after an audience member asked.
“At the end of the day, Cavan has to do well here in order to play, in order to maximize his opportunity to try to play in the Premier League for Manchester City, and that’s what we all want,” Scheer said, a rare instance of the Union directly mentioning the future move.
“There’s things that we do, that we talk about, that they’ve taken; and there’s things that they do that selfishly we can take and maybe apply to our environment.”
Cavan Sullivan (left) in action for the Union last year.
And for as much as the Union “want to develop him individually really, really well,” Scheer also made a clear point about the present.
“Cavan’s got to focus on every day,” he said, “and be a good teammate, and be competitive, and play in a great way, to be playing in MLS.”
Some of the coaches in the room surely wanted insight on the Union’s tactics and playing style. Scheer gave it to them, with slide headlines like Active vs. Reactive, Forward First, and Synchronized Sprinting.
Another slide listed six key qualities for a prospect, aligned in a circle: Comfort On The Ball, Psychosocial Characteristics, Game Understanding & Decision Making, Ball Recovery, and Physical Qualities.
Then, over in the corner, there was another: Special Weapon. Scheer stopped there for a moment.
Jon Scheer’s slide detailing much-touted Union striker prospect Malik Jakupovic.
“We value a special skill set [with] talent that might be innate — something that differentiates a player from their peers,” he said. “We think that might give them a better chance to get them through the door of MLS.”
And if that one skill comes with deficiencies elsewhere?
“We’d rather invest time in that player, because that one characteristic is so unique, to then see how they develop in the other areas,” Scheer said. “And we approach our scouting overseas for our first team in the same way as well.”
‘There’s no magic pill’
Those words might have turned on a light in some Union fans’ heads, because they seemed to match the fates of Jack McGlynn and David Vazquez. Both are wonderfully skilled players, but their tenures in Chester were cut short for not ultimately fitting what the first team’s manager wanted.
The Union sold Jack McGlynn to Houston afer deciding he wasn’t going to be a long-term fit in their playing style.
“It doesn’t mean that special weapon is just going to guarantee playing time,” Scheer said. “But a lot of times we’ll interact with the first team manager, they’ll see the player, they’ll provide opinion on the player for years to come, and then they’ll work with the player.”
He added that the coaching staff and front office are doing their best “to try and maximize and make sure we’re aligned on the player pool. If things aren’t working, “it’s about just evaluating each individual and trying to make the best decision.”
At every level of the Union, there’s a balance to strike between the system and the individual. It’s Scheer’s job to find it every day.
“You don’t want the individual to feel like they’re always dispensable, and it’s only the game model that’s valuable,” he said. “You also want players that have personality and that can make mistakes. If we’re going to play forward first, you have to be brave in order to be able to do that.”
Malik Jakupovic has been training with the Union’s first team during this preseason.
The same goes for coaches.
“If we’re screaming at our kids every session and game, or we’re always being deliberate and explicit in terms of the information we give them, that is going to stifle creativity and decision-making, that will affect development,” Scheer said.
“So how we go about teaching, how we go about running our sessions, how we can carry ourselves on the sideline, how we educate ourselves in the ages and stages of development, that’s really, really important.”
He concluded his point on a philosophical note, one that might make sense well beyond soccer.
“There’s no magic pill,” he said. “There’s no magic answer.”
Joel Embiid and Paul George, once again, showed why their presence is vital to the 76ers’ success.
Jared McCain appears to have regained his shooting touch.
And in his third season as the Milwaukee Bucks coach, Doc Rivers still thinks back fondly on his time leading the Sixers.
These things stood out in Tuesday’s 139-122 victory over the Bucks at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
The Embiid and George impact
If we learned anything over the past two days, it’s that the Sixers (25-21) are a better team when Embiid and George are in the lineup.
Without them Monday, the Sixers suffered an embarrassing 130-93 road loss to the Eastern Conference’s 11th-place Charlotte Hornets. It was a game where they trailed by as many as 50 points.
With Embiid and George back Tuesday, the Sixers led wire-to-wire in a blowout victory over the 12th-place Bucks (18-27). The duo combined to score 61 points.
George finished with a game-high 32 points while making nine three-pointers, tying Tyrese Maxey (Oct. 28, 2022), Danny Green (Jan. 9, 2021), and Dana Barros (Jan. 27, 1995) for the franchise record.
“I got a little thirsty late in the game, trying to get to 10,” George said. “Kyle [Lowry] was in my ear the whole fourth quarter to get a couple more. But you know, those things happen when everything aligns. I thought we played great offensively as a unit. And, you know, the ball just found me in those moments and knocked shots down.”
So did Embiid, who finished with 29 points, nine rebounds, and five assists. Embiid dominated from the start, scoring 18 of his points while playing the entire first quarter.
He did that in a variety of ways: jumpers, tip-ins, and even a reverse layup. But his highlight came on a second-quarter alley-oop dunk off a pass from Maxey.
“I don’t know if that was a wise decision, but it felt good,” said Embiid, who has been dealing with knee injuries. “That was the first one in probably four, five years …”
He said it wasn’t a wise decision because he doesn’t usually go for dunks and alley-oops.
“But it’s fun,” Embiid said. “Everybody gets happy, so that makes me happy.”
Tyrese Maxey (right) looks on after sending an alley-oop to Joel Embiid, who dunked in the second quarter of Tuesday’s win over the Milwaukee Bucks.
“I was telling a very, very, very Hall of Fame player that I coached, ‘Joel is the most talented player that I ever coached,’ “ Rivers said before the game. “He was like, ‘What?’ I was like, ‘He is.’ The things that you guys see and then the things you actually don’t see in practice, sometimes, that he can do, it’s incredible. It really is.
“Unfortunately for me, I never had him healthy once in the playoffs. He wasn’t healthy last year. He wasn’t healthy the year before. That’s five years straight, I think. If he ever gets to the playoffs healthy, especially if they added some big pieces here, they are going to be a dangerous team. But it’s always going to come down to that.”
After intermission, Embiid was content with setting teammates up for quality shots. He passed out of double-teams. And when Embiid didn’t have the ball, he instructed teammates where passes should go.
George made 11 of 21 from the field, including 16 in the third quarter while making 4 of 6 threes.
“I think coach [Nick Nurse] called my number early, and just go off from there,” George said of taking over the third quarter.
Tyrese Maxey (left) and Joel Embiid share a laugh in Tuesday’s win over the Bucks at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
But what enabled him to have his best shooting performance of the season? Was this a matchup that he liked?
“I just know Doc,” said George, who played for Rivers during the 2019-20 season with the Los Angeles Clippers. “I know his coverages. I know his play calling. I know what he’s looking at, what he’s looking for, how he’s going to guard me.
“… These days just feel like some of my best days, as far as my body responds and, you know. But if anything, it’s how today felt.”
The duo’s presence also opened up the floor for Maxey, who was voted an All-Star starter. The point guard finished with 22 points one night after finishing with a season-low six points on 3-for-12 shooting.
The Sixers shot 52.5 %, including 22 of 42 three-pointers, after shooting just 38.9% while hitting 9 of 31 three-pointers against the Hornets (19-28).
Milwaukee played without two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo. And this was just the Sixers’ fourth victory in 10 games. But the way George and Embiid are now playing after getting healthy, George thinks the Sixers can contend for the Eastern Conference title.
“I think we’re right there with the New York Knicks, with the Clevelands,” he said. “I think we are right in the mix. When things are clicking, and we’re playing the right way, and we’re firing on all cylinders, we still have the one unguardable player [in Embiid], and that’s the trump card.
“So yeah, absolutely, we got a chance.”
Sixers guard Jared McCain finished with 17 points, shooting 5 of 6 from three in the win over the Bucks.
Sharpshooting McCain
Based on his last two performances, McCain’s slump is definitely over. And judging by the applause he received Tuesday night, Sixers fans appear to be back on board with the former Duke standout.
McCain, who shot just 31.3% from the field in a recent 10-game stretch, had 17 points while shooting 6-for-8 — including making 5 of 6 three-pointers — to go with three assists. This came after he made 4 of 8 threes while scoring 16 points against the Hornets on Monday.
Before that game, McCain racked up a did-not-play coach’s decision in four of the Sixers’ last five games. In the one game he played, he only played the last 47 seconds in a comfortable victory over the Indiana Pacers on Jan. 19.
With Quentin Grimes sidelined with a sprained right ankle, McCain was the first player off the bench against the Bucks, and he took full advantage.
The Sixers fired Rivers on May 16, 2023, two days after he received a lot of the blame for their 112-88 Game 7 loss to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals at TD Garden. It marked the third consecutive season that Rivers’ squad has suffered a second-round postseason exit.
The Sixers lost in seven games to the Atlanta Hawks in 2021 before losing in six games to the Miami Heat the following season.
The 2022-23 team looked like it had a chance to compete for an NBA title. Yet the Sixers looked like a team that quit in the second half during their Game 7 loss to Boston.
Tyrese Maxey leaps toward Joel Embiid after Maxey sent an alley-oop to Embiid, who dunked the ball in the second quarter.
Those factors, along with an inability to get out of the second round, were the reasons the Sixers fired Brett Brown as coach in August 2020.
Under Rivers, the Sixers clinched the 2021 Eastern Conference regular-season title. Their 54-28 record in 2022-23 was their best mark since going 56-26 in 2000-01. And Embiid’s game improved each year under Rivers, leading to his becoming the 2023 MVP.
But the Sixers hired Rivers to get them at least beyond the second round. And that never happened.
“I love my time here,” he said before Tuesday’s game. “I say it all the time, I took a job where the year before they lost in the first round as the eighth seed. And the first year, we won the East in the regular season. We were one game away twice from getting in the Eastern finals, which was never my goal. My goal was to get to the finals. I get the history that the team hasn’t gone [since 2001], but your goal has to be higher than that.
“I was only here for three years. But the three years, I think my winning record was as good as any coach that has been here. So I loved it.”
Rivers compiled a 154-82 record over his three seasons in Philly. The 64-year-old talked about the “unbelievable relationships” he developed while coaching the Sixers. He said he probably gained 15 pounds while living in Philly because of the restaurants he frequented.
“I don’t know if you guys know there’s a lot of restaurants here,” Rivers said. “And then Philly Cricket [Club], I’m still a member. I come back in the summer, and I play it. If I had not ever coached here, I would not still be doing those things.
“So it’s nice when you get friendships and stuff like that.”
As Jared McCain’s transition three-pointer splashed through the net, VJ Edgecombe yelled “Yeah, ‘Mac!’” in his face.
And on the opposite end of the floor, the 76ers’ bench was going nuts for the second-year guard.
“That’s all you want as a player,” McCain said. “Making shots, you want your team to be excited for you. When I looked over at the bench and they were all jumping up and down, it was a fun time.”
They were celebrating one of the four three-pointers that McCain buried during Tuesday’s fourth quarter as part of a 17-point night on 5-of-6 shooting from beyond the arc. It was the scoring punch the Sixers needed in a 139-122 bounce-back home victory over the Milwaukee Bucks, with sixth man Quentin Grimes out with a sprained ankle.
More importantly, it was a long-awaited breakout performance for McCain, who has struggled to rediscover his offensive rhythm since returning from knee and thumb surgeries.
“What I’m most grateful for,” McCain said, “is just being able to stay mentally ready and know it’s going to come.”
McCain entered Tuesday averaging 6.4 points on 36.1% shooting from the floor in 32 games. It felt far removed from last season, when the former first-round draft pick averaged 15.3 points — and connected on 38.3% of his 5.8 three-point attempts — in his first 23 NBA games, making him an early Rookie of the Year front-runner before a torn meniscus and thumb ligament sidelined him for nearly 11 months.
Yet Tuesday’s welcomed upswing also could be viewed as a continuation of perhaps the only silver lining of the Sixers’ dreadful 130-93 loss Monday afternoon in Charlotte, N.C. With the starters removed in the fourth quarter, McCain, who played one season at nearby Duke, scored 12 of his 16 points on 4-of-6 shooting from deep.
There was no such thing as garbage time, McCain insisted. The cliche that simply seeing the ball drop through the net builds confidence is accurate, he added. And when Grimes was ruled out of Tuesday’s matchup about an hour before tipoff, McCain knew he would get rotation minutes.
Those came even quicker when Edgecombe picked up two early fouls. McCain got his first two buckets — stepping into a three-pointer from the left wing, then driving to the bucket for a crafty layup — while playing in the two-man game with star center Joel Embiid. Nurse also appreciated McCain’s “really good decisions” with the ball in his hands, with three assists in 24 minutes, 10 seconds and using attacks to ignite the “chain-reaction ball movement” as the Sixers shot 52.5% from the floor.
Then came McCain’s fourth-quarter shooting flurry.
He opened the period by taking a dribble handoff from Paul George for a pull-up from the right wing to give the Sixers a 109-95 advantage. Then he spotted up for another less than three minutes later, pushing the Sixers’ lead to 16 points. And 20 seconds after taking the feed from Edgecombe for that fastbreak launch, McCain received a pass off an offensive rebound by Justin Edwards for the corner shot.
“Maybe I’m starting to predict the future,” All-Star teammate Tyrese Maxey said after the game, “I [told McCain], ‘Man you’re going to hit four threes tonight.’ And he hit five.’”
The Sixers hope Jared McCain is reclaiming the form that had him billed as an early Rookie of the Year candidate last season.
Before this week, McCain had been navigating a challenging path back to the court.
He dealt with a clunky knee brace that made him feel unbalanced, along with protection on his shooting hand. Though Nurse said McCain needed to log more minutes to work through rust and mistakes, Edgecombe and Grimes had passed him on the depth chart. McCain was assigned to the G League’s Delaware Blue Coats for a second time less than two weeks ago, going 5-of-18 from the floor and committing six turnovers in his only game at the Noblesville Boom on Jan. 18. He traveled from Indiana back to the Sixers less than 48 hours later, but still had slipped completely out of the rotation.
During that stretch as an observer, McCain said he paid close attention to where he would get shots in the Sixers’ offense and visualized those attempts going in. He also rededicated himself to the practice of staying present. During Tuesday’s morning meditation, he said, he focused on feeling his breath in through his nostrils, then the heat of the exhale on his upper lip.
“That just sets you into the present moment,” McCain said, “and I think that’s what I carried over.”
Nurse, meanwhile, recognized the adversity had initially been “really hard” for McCain to shoulder. Yet the coach noticed a recent flip to more outward positivity “whether he’s playing or not, which is hard to do coming out of the season he had” before the injuries.
“I just keep telling him to have patience and hang in there,” Nurse said. “I say to him, ‘Listen, things will change, I guarantee you. Before too long, something’s going to happen where something’s going to open up for you.”
That opportunity arrived Tuesday. And it culminated in four long-range splashes in the fourth quarter — and a fired-up Sixers bench.
“I knew my time was going to come,” McCain said. “And I knew it’s going to continue to come.”
You’ve probably never heard of Eugène Sue, a French surgeon under Napoleon and later the writer credited with first use of the phrase, “La vengeance se mange très-bien froide.”
Loosely translated, it means, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” It has been uttered by characters as diverse as Vito Corleone in The Godfather novel, to Khan Noonien Singh, a Klingon warlord in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”
Now, in Bill Belichick’s hour of disappointment and shame, Philly can savor revenge.
Despite winning a record six Super Bowls, Belichick — whose era as Patriots coach coincided with two of the most notorious cheating schemes in NFL history — failed to secure the minimum 40 of 50 votes required to enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He will not be a first-ballot inductee, according to an ESPN.com report Tuesday.
This shocked the sports world.
Former defensive lineman J.J. Watt, who never played for Belichick, said on Twitter/X that there is “not a single world whatsoever” in which Belichick shouldn’t be a first-ballot inductee.
I can’t be reading this right.
This has to be some knock-off Hall of Fame or something, it can’t be the actual NFL Hall of Fame.
There is not a single world whatsoever in which Bill Belichick should not be a First-Ballot Hall of Famer. https://t.co/OXhL1Sd4FM
Voters are not required to reveal their votes, but Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Johnson said voters who do not admit to omitting Belichick from their ballot are “cowardly.”
Like so many, they were shocked. Like so many, they were outraged.
They should not have been.
Hall of Fame voters hate cheaters.
Carlos Beltrán, who helped run an illegal sign-stealing scheme for the Houston Astros, had to wait four years to gain entrance to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, and Roger Clemens, Herculean heroes all implicated in PED scandals, might never make it in.
I voted for all of those guys, and I’d have voted for Belichick, too, if I’d had a vote (the panel is a rotating hodgepodge of 50 mostly credible experts). But I understand. I understand why at least 10 voters banned Bill.
Why should Belichick, a proven and penalized two-time cheater, be treated any better than other scofflaw? He might not be Pete Rose, but he ain’t Bill Walsh, either.
Bill Belichick’s wins are a matter of record but some of his off-field tactics apparently gave voters pause.
The voters convened on Jan. 13 to discuss the fates of the Hall of Fame finalists, among them Belichick, whose 302 wins are a record in the Super Bowl era (30 of Don Shula’s 328 wins predate the Super Bowl). Reportedly amid the discussion: Belichick’s role in “Spygate,” an illegal videotaping scheme that Belichick conducted from 2000, the year he was hired as the Patriots’ head coach, through early 2007, when they were caught red-handed while taping the Jets’ sideline during a road game.
This incident came just over a year after the league issued a memorandum reminding teams of the parameters and definitions of illegal recording.
The penalty was a $500,000 fine for Belichick, a $250,000 fine for the Patriots, and the loss of their first-round pick in the 2008 draft.
But there was no way to secure reparations from the teams who had been cheated — possibly among them, the 2004 Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX.
Thanks in part to the efforts of former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, it has since been established that the Patriots recorded opponents’ signs before and after that game.
It was a hot topic. How hot?
Shanin Specter, a Philadelphia attorney and the late senator’s son, told The Inquirer in 2021 that, in 2008, President Donald Trump — then a private citizen — appeared to offer Specter’s father a bribe if he would drop his investigation into Spygate.
The real ones didn’t need an investigation. They knew what was happening as it was happening.
In a story in 2018, former Eagles defensive backs coach Steve Spagnuolo told a Philadelphia radio station that, at Super Bowl XXXIX, Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Johnson accused the Patriots of stealing the Eagles’ signs during the game. The Patriots seemed to know what was coming even when the Eagles employed rarely-used schemes and plays.
How did this specter of cheating arise so many years later?
The ESPN report indicated that Bill Polian, a Hall of Fame member as an NFL executive and a current voter, lobbied against Belichick during that Jan. 13 meeting. He cited the incidence of Belichick’s cheating, and he had skin in the game.
Polian was president and GM of the Colts when the Patriots, in the middle of their Spygate era, knocked them out of the playoffs after the 2003 and 2004 seasons. On Tuesday night, Polian denied to ESPN that he had told voters that Belichick should serve a one-year penance, but, incredibly — as in, not credibly — Polian said he was unable to recall if he’d voted for Belichick.
Polian wasn’t with Indianapolis after 2011, but he remained close to the franchise, so he wasn’t happy when the Colts were victims of Belichick’s other moment of ignominy.
At halftime of the 2014 AFC championship game in New England, NFL officials were alerted by Colts players that the footballs the Patriots were using seemed soft. The balls were examined, deemed to be illegal, and an investigation commenced.
That’s how Belichick and the Patriots were implicated in “Deflategate.” Eventually, they were found to have routinely, intentionally, and illegally deflated footballs they used on game days to make them easier to pass, catch, and hold on to. Furthermore, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was found to have destroyed evidence during the investigation. (Belichick denied knowledge of the matter, and the Wells Report into Deflategate found that Belichick was not involved, but many observers remain unconvinced).
This time the league fined the Patriots $1 million, suspended Brady for the first four games of the 2015 season, and took away the Patriots’ 2016 first-round pick and their 2017 fourth-round pick.
Bill Belichick will not join former Eagle Brian Dawkins in the Pro Football Hall of Fame … at least this year.
Today, most folks look past Belichick’s cheating, especially on Tuesday, when the story broke. They point at his innovation, his preparation, and his ability to maximize the abilities of every player, from Brady to Richard Seymour to Rob “Gronk” Gronkowski.
But just enough folks apparently did not. Just enough folks think Belichick should have to wait a bit before he gets his bust and his jacket.
Just enough folks did not look past Belichick’s sins.
Shula died in 2020, but somewhere, you have to think ol’ Don’s smiling. He despised Belichick’s methodology.
“The ‘Spygate’ thing has diminished what they’ve accomplished. You would hate to have that attached to your accomplishments,“ Shula said in 2007, during the Patriots’ failed attempt to match his 1972 Dolphins’ perfect season.
Seven years later, when asked about Belichick’s feats to that point, Shula replied with the nickname Belichick’s detractors had given him: “Beli-Cheat?”
Since becoming Temple’s women’s basketball coach in 2022, Diane Richardson has introduced her team to WNBA players and had them participate in community events.
From Philly’s Kahleah Copper attending nearly every practice during Richardson’s first two seasons to having the Owls hold a camp for girls, Richardson has been an ongoing advocate for women’s basketball in the city.
With an WNBA franchise set to come to Philadelphia in 2030, she hopes the fandom will continue to grow. In the meantime, Unrivaled will make its first trip out of Miami and play at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Friday — in front of a sold-out crowd.
“To get Unrivaled sold out in a matter of days, that tells you we are ready for the WNBA,” Richardson said. “I think we’ll have sold-out stadiums when the WNBA gets here.”
Richardson has been at the forefront of the push to grow women’s basketball in Philly. Unrivaled is another event to get the city ready — and the support has been encouraging.
General manager Howie Roseman (left) and head coach Nick Sirianni have much to consider that goes beyond the offensive coordinator search.
Jeffrey Lurie, Howie Roseman, and Nick Sirianni are tasked with making a variety of staffing and personnel decisions over the next several months to return the Eagles to Super Bowl contention next season. With the coaching carousel spinning and free agency and the draft looming, here’s where the Birds could start with their decision-making.
And there’s a lot of anxiety surrounding the Eagles, particularly about the fact that they haven’t hired an offensive coordinator yet.
Maybe that’s because the NFL’s passing game isn’t necessarily what it used to be. But that doesn’t mean it can’t evolve with the right strategy, and in the Eagles’ case, the right coordinator, writes Mike Sielski.
What we’re…
🤔 Wondering: This year’s Super Bowl will feature the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks. Are there any local connections?
📺 Watching: A hometown favorite will appear on your television screens during a Budweiser Super Bowl ad: Lincoln the bald eagle.
🏈 Debating: Who were your favorite NFL color analysts this season? Inquirer columnist Marcus Hayes ranks his.
Jared McCain (20) celebrates a three-pointer that was part of his 17-point night in a win against the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday.
The one big takeaway from the Sixers’ 139-122 comeback win against Milwaukee last night is that despite the on-again, off-again nights from Joel Embiid and Paul George, it’s still electric when those two are on the floor — together. The duo accounted for 61 of the team’s total, with George finishing with a game-high 32 points.
It allowed other important pieces not to be relied on as heavily in what was as close to a team performance as we’ve seen from the Sixers this season. Inquirer writer Keith Pompey has more on the pair and what appeared to also be a revival of Jared McCain.
Next up, the Sixers will look to run it back against Sacramento in the second of a three-game homestand at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Thursday (7 p.m., NBCSP).
Flyers’ Christian Dvorak, Travis Konecny and Trevor Zegras gather during stoppage on Jan. 17.
The Flyers have been scuffling of late, having lost eight of their last 10, and a big reason why has been the dropoff from their No. 1 line of Trevor Zegras, Travis Konecny, and Christian Dvorak.
The Flyers need more from the high-scoring trio and Rick Tocchet believes it starts with them playing a more honest 200-foot game.
“I hate to use the word cheating; they’re cheating for offense,” Tocchet said of his top line’s game recently.
“You’ve got to play the right way. You’ll get the same amount of chances in the long run, and that’s the way you’re supposed to play the game anyway.”
Speaking of the Flyers’ struggles, here’s what the players had to say after Monday’s disappointing 4-0 loss.
Sports snapshot
Villanova’s Devin Askew goes for a loose ball during a win over Georgetown at Finneran Pavilion on Jan. 21.
What do Phillies prospect Aidan Miller and the Dodgers have in common when it comes to World Series chances? A whole lot of upside.
The Phillies were always going to enter spring training needing to look inward in order to catch up to the Dodgers. In more ways than one. They are going to need to get some sort of impact from their minor league system.
Aidan Miller is the kind of prospect who can alter a team’s long-term trajectory. It’s the type of production the Dodgers are shelling out billions for, and what the Phillies are aspiring to, writes columnist David Murphy.
Al Luecke, 77, of Fishtown, a regular at J.R’s Saloon for 25 years, playing pool on Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025.
Sure, the Super Bowl is basically just another football game when the Eagles aren’t playing, but it is the perfect excuse to scope out a new dive bar to become a regular before next season. Last month, our colleagues on the food team asked for recommendations for Philly’s best and most unsung dive bars.
After combing through more than 400 responses, the final list includes dives of all stripes, from bars that only air the Mike & Merrill broadcast to ones with juicy roast beef sandwiches, pre- and post-game karaoke, and the occasional sub $5 Citywide.
🧠 Trivia time answer
Which athlete has won the most MVP awards while playing with Philadelphia’s professional teams?
A) Wilt Chamberlain, who won four MVP awards — Michael P. was first with the correct answer.
We compiled today’s newsletter using reporting from Keith Pompey, Colin Schofield, Olivia Reiner, David Murphy, Marcus Hayes, Mike Sielski, Ryan Mack, Jeff Neiburg, Jonathan Tannenwald, Jackie Spiegel, Jenn Ladd, Beatrice Forman, and Ariel Simpson.
By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer’s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.
As always, thanks for reading. Stay warm this week. Kerith will be in your inbox with Thursday’s newsletter. — Bella
The fun part of the baseball offseason is the illusion of control.
Unless you are Dave Dombrowski.
In which case, you’re a sitting duck. Or, even worse, you’re a floating duck, whose legs are tied, except they are tied beneath the surface, and so everybody thinks you’re a dumb little ducky because you don’t know how to swim.
The Phillies president has earned some of the criticism being lobbed his way. As ridiculous as it may seem for the Mets to pay Bo Bichette $42 million in annual average value, is it any more ridiculous than paying Taijuan Walker and Nick Castellanos a combined $38 million in AAV?
The substitution costs are always what get you. Thirty-eight million dollars would have been enough to have Jeff Hoffman and Carlos Estévez in your bullpen last season. It would have been enough to have Edwin Díaz in your bullpen this season. General managing is all about the tradeoffs you make.
The irony is that the Castellanos and Walker contracts are easy ones to stumble into for the same reason that everyone thinks Dombrowski has done a lousy job this offseason. If you happened to be someone who pointed out the overinflated and potentially ill-advised nature of those deals at the time they were signed, you were met with a shrug of the shoulders.
Phillies president David Dombrowski has been the brunt of a few jokes this offseason as the team looks to retool for this upcoming year.
Who cares? It’s not our money.
Well, it’s nobody’s money now.
But let’s get back to our original point. Whatever nickel-and-diming we do in hindsight, it wouldn’t erase the only conclusion we can draw from this offseason. No amount of fiscal prudence would have given the Phillies the means to catch up to, let alone keep pace with, the Dodgers. Over the last three offseasons, they have signed Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and now Kyle Tucker and Díaz to contracts ranging from $22 million to $57 million in average annual value.
John Middleton might be a billionaire, but the Dodgers’ annual payroll is pushing half a billion once you factor in the luxury tax. How many billions? That’s the question you need to answer to compete at this level of spending.
The Phillies know this. Could Middleton and his minority owners rub their pennies together a little harder? Sure. Their attempt to sign Bichette was a sign that they aren’t operating by any hard spending limits. What they lack — what everybody lacks, except for the Dodgers and Mets — is the ability to sign such contracts with the knowledge that they can outspend any mistakes. The Dodgers have plenty of seemingly dead money on their books after last year’s bullpen spending spree. But it doesn’t seem to matter.
Chasing Bo Bichette, who signed with the Mets, was admirable of the Phillies. But what would the cost have been if they landed him?
The ability to sign Bichette for what would have been a reasonable seven-year, $200 million deal is a lot different from the ability to spend that money on whoever happens to be available. That’s how you end up hamstringing yourself by overpaying for players like Walker and Castellanos.
Those contracts only make sense if you can outspend the mistakes. The Phillies aren’t there, nor have they ever pretended to be. It’s plenty fair to criticize Dombrowski and Middleton for offering those deals to begin with. But you can’t fault them for their inability and/or unwillingness to offer another batch of them.
Which brings us to the illusory aspect of the baseball offseason. Regardless of how the last few months would have played out, the Phillies were always going to enter spring training needing to look inward in order to catch up to the Dodgers. In more ways than one. They are going to need to get some sort of impact from their minor league system. And they are going to need to get the intestinal fortitude to create opportunities for it to happen.
The best news of the offseason might have come over the last week, when all of the national outlets released their Top 100 prospects lists. Aidan Miller showed up in the Top 10 of two of those lists: No. 6 on The Athletic’s and No. 10 on ESPN’s.
News? Perhaps not. But confirmation that the national scouting industry agrees with what all of us local yokels have seen with our own two eyes for the last two years. Miller is the kind of prospect who can alter a team’s long-term trajectory while massively boosting its present-day World Series odds.
Many believe Phillies minor league infielder Aidan Miller is the kind of prospect who can alter a team’s long-term trajectory.
Years ago, the Dodgers had one of those prospects in Corey Seager. He broke into the big leagues at 21 on a team managed by Don Mattingly. Mattingly happens to be the new Phillies bench coach and the father of the team’s general manager. The Dodgers went to the NLCS the following season, when Seager was 22, and the World Series the year after, when he was 23. Miller will be 22 in June.
Prospects are largely responsible for writing their own future. Miller needs to start the season the way he ended the last one. If he does, the Phillies need to do their part and find him a spot in the lineup. It could involve difficult conversations, but they will be necessary ones.
Same goes elsewhere. With Andrew Painter. With Gage Wood. With lesser-heralded prospects like Gabriel Rincones and Jean Cabrera. The Phillies need to be willing and flexible to bring guys up and find out what they have.
The Dodgers have set the bar high. The Phillies have no choice but to reach for it.
Sunday is the first day of February, which means March is right around the corner, which means it is officially no longer too early to think about the NCAA Tournament.
Villanova is 20 games through its 31-game schedule, and nine games through its 20-game Big East slate. The Wildcats, who host Providence on campus Friday night, are 15-5 overall and 6-3 in their conference matchups in the first season of the Kevin Willard era.
School administration moved on from Kyle Neptune last March after a third consecutive season ended without an invitation to the NCAA Tournament. Villanova officials believe the school should field a basketball team that perennially is in the at-large bid conversation, and three consecutive seasons without meaningful basketball was not acceptable.
Right now, it’s hard to believe the drought could stretch to four.
Villanova coach Kevin Willard is on pace to get the Wildcats back to the tourney.
The Wildcats aren’t yet a lock, but it’s looking pretty safe for their fans to preemptively look into taking a PTO day or two for the third week of March.
What are the numbers saying? We went to ESPN’s bracket guru himself, Joe Lunardi, for some help.
‘A very long leash’
Saturday’s loss to No. 2 UConn in Hartford, Conn., was an “insurance policy” kind of game, Lunardi said. Villanova declined coverage. The Wildcats let an upset opportunity slip away in an overtime loss, but the result, Lunardi said, was a “wash.” Villanova was a double-digit underdog and lost by eight.
“It didn’t hurt, and it didn’t help,” said Lunardi, who had the Wildcats as a No. 7 seed in his latest bracket projection released Tuesday morning.
The metrics support that notion. Villanova barely budged in the NCAA’s NET rankings, where it was ranked 34th as of Wednesday afternoon, and at KenPom (27).
What has to happen to stay on the right path?
“All they really need to do is win games they’re favored, and they can even afford to lose [a few] of those,” Lunardi said. “If they go 6-5, they’re going to make it.”
That’s some leeway.
“That’s a very long leash given the fact that, frankly, the league is good but not great,” Lunardi said.
Guard Acaden Lewis is among those who could land the Wildcats back in the dance.
As things stand right now, Villanova likely would be favored in at least eight of its final 11 contests. Take care of six or seven of those, and there’s no need for a marquee win over UConn or St. John’s.
While 6-5 the rest of the way probably would be a disappointment, Lunardi projects that a final record of 21-10 gets Villanova “at worst” a No. 10 seed. The Wildcats’ ceiling, meanwhile, is “probably a five,” Lunardi said.
So, don’t count on the NCAA rewarding the Wildcats with a “home” game at Xfinity Mobile Arena to start the tournament.
Asked to put the resumé in perspective, Lunardi said: “I would describe it as a resumé of a regular good Jay Wright team, meaning a mid-single-digit seed, not a Final Four team. Everything has to go right to make the second weekend.”
That’s probably a result any rational person in ’Nova Nation would have signed up for nine months ago.
It also seems pretty accurate. Villanova is 15-5 because it mostly has taken care of business against teams it is supposed to beat. The nonconference schedule started with a loss to nationally ranked BYU, but then came seven consecutive games against teams well outside the KenPom top 100, including three dominant Big 5 wins.
The Wildcats were then blown out by Michigan before traveling to Wisconsin to beat the Badgers in overtime, which was followed up with a road victory over Seton Hall to begin conference play. At the time, those were pretty good wins. Only the Wisconsin game has aged well.
As of Tuesday morning, Seton Hall was Lunardi’s first team outside the field of 68 after a four-game losing streak.
Forward Matt Hodge and guard Tyler Perkins have Villanova in good shape despite a near-miss against UConn on Saturday.
It is a Villanova resumé without a signature win, and it might not need one. Why?
“They don’t have the dreaded bad loss,” Lunardi said.
Last year’s resumé had losses to Columbia, St. Joseph’s, and a down Virginia team. The year before featured losses to St. Joe’s, Penn, and Drexel. This year’s biggest blip currently is against a Creighton team that still is on the NCAA Tournament bubble.
Show me the math
Lunardi says his projections are pretty conservative and include some emphasis on past similar resumés. Right now, Villanova has more than an 80% chance of making the NCAA Tournament, according to Lunardi’s projections.
On the more extreme side, the TourneyCast projections at Bart Torvik’s analytics site have Villanova at 96% to make the dance. Torvik’s numbers are based on thousands of simulations playing out the rest of the season.
“It’s too early to make anybody a lock,” Lunardi said.
But it’s getting closer to that time.
If there was anything to worry about right now for Villanova fans, it should be health. The Wildcats are a key injury or two — even minor ailments — from scrambling a bit. They don’t have a reliable backup center, for example. Their depth has taken a hit elsewhere, too.
But those worries are hypothetical. Then again, all of this is.
What about the rest of the Big 5?
Villanova is the only one of the six Big 5 schools with an at-large path to the men’s NCAA Tournament. The others would need to win their respective conference tournaments. Of the bunch, only Temple (5-2) and St. Joe’s (5-3) entered Wednesday with a winning conference record.
Villanova celebrates after a win over Xavier on Jan. 8.
On the women’s side
Similar story. Villanova (16-5, 9-3) was projected as a No. 10 seed on the right side of the NCAA Tournament bubble with an at-large bid in the latest ESPN women’s bracketology. No other team has an at-large path, and only Drexel (4-3) had a winning conference record entering Wednesday.
There’s a lot of anxiety in the ether these days about the Eagles, particularly about the fact that they haven’t hired an offensive coordinator yet to replace Kevin Patullo.
Just look at some of the candidates who have been scooped up elsewhere or who decided to stay where they were: Mike McDaniel, Brian Daboll, Joe Brady, Mike Kafka, and Charlie Weis Jr.
We can call this group the “Guys We’ve Heard Of” group, and they’re the biggest drivers of this collective worry that the Eagles will end up hiring some nincompoop who can’t call plays or, worse, calls the same kinds of plays Patullo did. I don’t know much about McDaniel other than he digs capri pants and tinted sunglasses. But I recognize his name, which means he must be smart, and the Eagles must be stupid for not hiring him.
Mike McDaniel (left) was a player high on the list of potential replacements for Kevin Patullo as offensive coordinator. Until he accepted the role with the Chargers.
Then there’s the “Guys I’m Googling” group. They’re the up-and-coming coordinators and quarterback coaches who aren’t as well known to the casual NFL follower but who aspire to become branches on the Sean McVay tree or the Kyle Shanahan tree or whatever metaphorical foliage the Eagles happen to prefer. The way the Eagles’ search is shaping up — the time they’re taking, the three still-vacant head coaching jobs around the league — they’re likely to settle on someone from this group.
Hiring such a candidate, one with relatively little experience and no discernible track record, could turn out to be a problem for the Eagles, who might end up with another play-caller who isn’t quite ready for the role. But it would be a boon for the team’s fans and media, who could start second-guessing and complaining about the guy as early as Week 1.
No matter who the Eagles bring on board, they would do well to take a big-picture factor into consideration when they make their choice. In the short term, sure, the new coordinator’s primary concerns will be centered on improving an offense that may or may not have A.J. Brown, may or may not have Lane Johnson, may or may not have a decent tight end or two, and could use a bounce-back season from Jalen Hurts. But in the longer term, they should be mindful that they’ve been part of a strategic shift across the NFL, and they should be prepared in case Roger Goodell and the league’s owners try to shift things back.
Here’s what I mean: During this regular season, the average NFL team passed for 209.7 yards a game. That figure represents the lowest such average since 2006. It has been two decades, in other words, since NFL passing offenses were as anemic (or as conservative, depending on how you want to look at it) as they were this season.
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts was among an NFL passing collective that accounted for an average of just 209.7 yards per game, the lowest since 2006.
Why? You don’t have to be Bill Walsh to figure it out. After years of franchises chasing franchise quarterbacks and brilliant scheme designers and elite wide receivers — and tight ends who could catch and run like wideouts — a funny thing started happening: Certain teams geared up to counteract their opponents’ dynamic passing games and to exploit smaller, faster defenses. That is, certain teams won championships because of their defenses and/or their run games.
The 2023 Kansas City Chiefs had Patrick Mahomes, yes, but they ranked 15th in scoring offense and second in scoring defense. The story of the 2024 Eagles is practically gospel around here: the dominance of Saquon Barkley and the offensive line, a stout defense overseen by Vic Fangio and built from the secondary in, the reality that the team didn’t want to and didn’t have to rely on Hurts’ arm to win.
Now we have the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl LX. Drake Maye had a great second season, and Sam Darnold is a great story. But both the Patriots’ and Seahawks’ defenses finished among the league’s top four in fewest points allowed and among the top eight in fewest yards allowed.
Simply put, the passing game — the aspect of football that leads to high scores, general excitement, and the rise of the sport’s biggest celebrities and product-movers (i.e., star quarterbacks) — ain’t what it used to be. Hell, we were three points away from having a Super Bowl with Darnold and Jarrett Stidham as the starting QBs … not exactly an electrifying matchup of two all-time greats/household names.
Broncos backup quarterback Jarrett Stidham leaves the field after the team’s loss in the AFC championship against the New England Patriots.
For all the moaning that Sunday’s Patriots-Broncos game was boring and unwatchable because of the snow at Empower Stadium, for all the silly calls for holding conference-title games in domes from now on, the weather wasn’t what made it dull. What made it dull was that Maye played as if he was trying not to lose the game (sound familiar, Eagles fans?), and Stidham wasn’t capable of winning it.
The last time the NFL went through a stretch similar to this one was a quarter-century ago, when four consecutive Super Bowls were won by teams primarily defense-oriented: the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, the 2001 and 2003 Patriots, and the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Consider some of the quarterbacks, too, who were reaching those Super Bowls back then: Trent Dilfer, Kerry Collins, Brad Johnson, Rich Gannon, Jake Delhomme, and a rookie named Tom Brady.
Former Patriots coach Bill Belichick might have had Tom Brady for the Super Bowls he racked up, but he also boasted some good defenses as well.
In the aftermath of that ’03 Patriots run — Bill Belichick’s defensive backs manhandled the Indianapolis Colts’ receivers in the AFC title game — the NFL decided to crack down on illegal contact, defensive holding, and pass interference infractions. In 2003, NFL teams averaged 200.4 passing yards. In 2004, that average jumped by more than 10 yards, to 210.5, and it kept rising for years thereafter.
That surge has stopped. The game has slowed down, and it’s a safe bet that the NFL won’t allow it to stay this way for too much longer. The Eagles were among those applying the brakes, but the sport is poised to open up again, and they and their new man at the wheel, whoever he might be, need to be ready.
There were the usual favorites on both sides of the ball — as well as a few new faces — and a grizzled veteran that fans can’t seem to agree on.
Eagles fans want pending free agent linebacker Jaelan Phillips back next season, but they're split over veteran Brandon Graham, who came out of retirement last year.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
The Eagles have long-since been eliminated from Super Bowl contention, after their wild-card round loss to the San Francisco 49ers. But the conversations around what went wrong with the Birds last year are ongoing, as the team continues to search for a new offensive coordinator and prepares for what’s sure to be a busy offseason.
We asked you, our readers, which Eagles you want to see stay or leave the team for next season. Here’s what we found — and how some of those results compared to what beat writer Jeff McLane expects the team to do …
The Eagles’ All-Pro cornerback duo, Quinyon Mitchell (96.4%) and Cooper DeJean (96.1%), graded out the best of any Birds players. But they weren’t alone. Jordan Davis (96.1%) tied DeJean after a breakout year.
The best defense
It’s not just those two. Overall, 19 Eagles earned over 90% stay votes in this year’s poll, despite the early playoff exit — 12 of those players were on defense or special teams, including Zack Baun (95.8%), Jalyx Hunt (95.3%), and more.
On the offensive
There were fewer on offense — seven in total — who received at least 90% stay, including four offensive linemen: Lane Johnson (91.8%), Jordan Mailata (95.9%), Landon Dickerson (93.6%), and Cam Jurgens (91.2%).
Hurts remains popular
Quarterback Jalen Hurts (85.7%), however, was not one of them. That doesn’t mean he’s unpopular — he finished just a few percentage points shy of his Super Bowl MVP season (89.5%), and is not going anywhere.
Brown takes a hit
That’s nothing compared to the dip A.J. Brown (62.3%) saw. The wide receiver came in at 88.8% stay following last year’s Super Bowl run. But after a season wrought with controversy, where Brown looked like he may have taken a step back, fans have soured a bit on Brown.
Tight ends on the move?
Backup tight end Grant Calcaterra (36.8%) fell over 55 points from last season — down from 92.3% stay after 2024 — but fans still love Dallas Goedert (79.4%). However, Jeff McLane thinks both pending free agents will be wearing different colors next year.
Love ’em or hate ’em
Overall, the results on the offensive side paint an interesting picture, with no one player landing in the middle 20%, between 40-60% stay. Fans know what they want.
Special requests
That includes the team’s specialists. An overwhelming majority want punter Braden Mann (94.2%) back next season. The same can’t be said for veteran kicker Jake Elliott (23.2%), who saw the biggest year-over-year drop. McLane thinks the team will agree.
A difference of opinion
Franchise legend Brandon Graham (40.6%) un-retired midway through the 2025 season, and he said after the season that he felt he still had more in the tank. He was one of the most polarizing players in the poll, with a slight majority voting for him to go.
The kids are all right
Howie Roseman also had a good year, according to fans. The Eagles’ rookie class, headlined by Jihaad Campbell (95.6%) and Drew Mukuba (90.3%), graded out well after its first NFL season.
The new guys
The Birds traded for Jaelan Phillips (81.4%) at the trade deadline. While the move didn’t ultimately lead the Eagles to the Super Bowl, the pending free agent quickly became a fan favorite. Running back Tank Bigsby (94.7%) graded even better — and higher than Barkley.
Check out the full results
We’re done breaking it down for you. Let’s put the numbers directly at your fingertips — simply hover over or click on a player on the chart to see not only what percentage of stay votes they received, but also what McLane thinks will happen.
So what does the future hold for these players? The NFL’s new league year begins on March 11 — that’s when teams are permitted to execute trades and begin signing new players. Stay tuned.
Temple coach Diane Richardson is not from Philadelphia. She spent much of her life in the Maryland and Washington region, which included several coaching stints in the area.
When Richardson was hired at Temple in 2022, she got a taste of what the Big 5 — and sports in general — mean to the city. But seeing how Philly responded to the women’s side of the Big 5 intrigued Richardson. It made her want to grow women’s basketball even more.
Richardson has become an advocate for professional women’s basketball and hopes to bring more eyes to the game, with a WNBA franchise set to come to Philadelphia in 2030. In the meantime, Unrivaled will make its first trip out of the Miami area and play at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Friday.
“It really sets the tone for what Philly has to come,” Richardson said. “The WNBA is coming here in a few years and to have Unrivaled come here, the first place that they have come to, it really shows the support that’s here for women’s basketball and how Philly’s grabbing ahold of it. So I’m excited about it. I’m really excited about the representation. I’m excited for the young girls in Philly to be able to see that up close and personal.”
Basketball was not always Richardson’s calling card. She was named one of the top female executives in the country in 1995, but she left her post as founder and chief operating officer of American Security Corporation to pursue a different passion, mentoring young girls through basketball.
Part of Richardson’s inspiration to make that change came from former college basketball coach and current color commentator Carolyn Peck. Richardson crossed paths with Peck during a recruiting visit with a player while Peck was at the University of Florida and Richardson was coaching at Riverdale Baptist School in Upper Marlboro, Md. She was enamored by Peck’s drive to help young athletes.
“I saw the care she had with her student-athletes and how she wanted to project women’s sports,” Richardson said. “I was just amazed and inspired that when you can be in a position like that, you can actually inspire other people. I left corporate America to coach because I saw her example. And I love what I’m doing now.”
Richardson arrived on North Broad before the 2022 season and quickly got to work, not just with her new program, but with women’s basketball overall.
Richardson bought into the Big 5 Classic, and when the format changed before the 2024-25 season, she was all for it. The the tripleheader has been held at Villanova’s Finneran Pavilion the first two seasons. While Richardson believes the first two iterations have been successful, there is more to be done.
“I think we could use some more exposure,” Richardson said. “We’re playing at Villanova and the guys are playing downtown [at Xfinity Mobile Arena]. And I think if we put enough money into it, enough marketing into it, and we can market it locally and get a lot of people there.”
Richardson also has her team engage with the community in women’s basketball events. The Owls held a camp with Skilladelphia, a basketball clinic for young girls, and attended a WNBA watch party with Watch Party PHL to see a game that featured Jonquel Jones, Natasha Cloud, and Kahleah Copper.
Temple attended a WNBA watch party in July at Libertee Grounds.
A key part of Richardson’s involvement over her four years at Temple has been the involvement of Jones and Copper. Jones, who plays for the New York Liberty, is Richardson’s adopted daughter and makes the trip to Philly whenever she can.
She acted as a tour guide when the Owls went to the Bahamas in November. Copper, who plays for the Phoenix Mercury, is from North Philly and has been a great friend of the program. She attended many practices during Richardson’s first two seasons.
New York Liberty star Jonquel Jones (second from left), the adopted daughter of Temple women’s college basketball coach Diane Richardson, was courtside to watch the Owls play the Drexel on Dec. 7.
Having professionals involved with the program has been beneficial for the team. It’s an opportunity to see what basketball can do for them.
“Coach Rich is really great at networking,” said junior guard Kaylah Turner. “We’ll have little meetings here and there to meet this person and that person she wants us to talk to. She knows that every person has one thing that we can take away from, as far as lessons. We meet a lot of different people, and just watching her, she knows everybody.”
Richardson brought her whole team to the Unrivaled announcement event on Oct. 2, when the pro three-on-three league announced it would visit the city on Jan. 30. Unrivaled is the next step to growing women’s basketball in the area.
Richardson hopes a lot comes from Unrivaled, including gaining more women’s basketball fans.
“I hope that the people who talk bad about women’s sports and the WNBA will see that this is true basketball,” Richardson said. “It’s not just some stuff on the corners. It’s not just AAU or church league. This is real professional basketball, and it should be respected as such.”
After Unrivaled, the city will have four years to prepare to welcome its WNBA team. The support that has come from Unrivaled is encouraging, and Richardson believes that with continued marketing, Philly will be more than ready for a pro team.
Temple coach Diane Richardson calls plays against Charlotte on Saturday.
“With the WNBA coming here … we’re going to be exploding,” Richardson said. “To get Unrivaled sold out in a matter of days, that tells you we are ready for the WNBA. I think if we continue to have programs and events like that, it’ll get there, and I think we’ll have sold-out stadiums when the WNBA gets here.”
In her short time in the city, Richardson has been at the forefront of the push to grow women’s basketball here. She hopes others will see the beauty in the sport, too.
“If they are a true sports fan, they will love women’s basketball,” Richardson said. “And it’s not just to say that it’s women’s basketball, but if you love sports, you’ll love women’s basketball, because it’s basketball.”
