Over a year ago, former UFC champion Eddie Alvarez stepped inside the bare knuckle ring and competed against Jeremy Stephens at KnuckleMania V in front of Philly fans at what was then called the Wells Fargo Center. Although the Kensington native lost in the main event, he considered the night a big steppingstone for the city of Philadelphia.
“The biggest thing about Philadelphia and combat sports is that no big promoter or big name would come here,” Alvarez said. “It was disappointing because the culture of Philadelphia is fighting. It’s not baseball. It’s not hockey. It’s fighting. So, the fact that we didn’t have a large promotion to bring our local talent and showcase it was sad to me. Bare Knuckle was one of the first promotions to take that shot and take that risk, and it was barely a risk at all.”
Conor McGregor (left) applauds as Philadelphia fighter Eddie Alvarez steps on the scale during the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship weigh-ins for Knucklemania V at Xfinity Live! on Jan. 24, 2025.
Before Knucklemania V, the last time a major MMA promotion made its way to Philly was in 2019 for Fight Night at the Wells Fargo Center, headlined by Edson Barboza and Justin Gaethje. The card featured no hometown talent.
Now, BKFC is making its return on Saturday with KnuckleMania VI after last year’s edition was such a success — setting a modern-day combat sports record with 17,762 people in attendance. And with its return brings plenty of local talent.
“Last year’s event was just an unbelievable moment for us,” said BKFC CEO David Feldman. “For all the hard work that we put in, we were able to break the combat sports attendance record in Philadelphia last year. Now, there’s only one way to go, and we have to do that again this year. … We’re hoping to eclipse 18,000. It’s great numbers to do in the city of Philadelphia, the fight capital of the world.”
Alvarez seconds that notion. The former fighter, who now owns and manages his own gym, Underground Kings, in Newtown, hosted KnuckleMania’s VI media open workouts two weeks ahead of fight day.
BKFC fighter, Patrick Brady takes part in a training session at the Eddie Alvarez’s Underground Kings Gym in Newtown on Wednesday.
“I feel like me, Dave Feldman, and the crew of Bare Knuckle, we’re the guys to bring Bare Knuckle and introduce it to Philadelphia,” Alvarez said. “This sport to me is the greatest show on earth, and it was my pleasure to introduce it to the Philadelphia fans.
“I see the future of BKFC in Philadelphia as them coming here quarterly. I don’t think once a year is enough. I think it should be every quarter. We can fill up an arena here. That’s not too much to ask. I think the fans’ demand has proven that. Philadelphia fans want and need fighting.”
On April 7, Alvarez will get his wish: more bare-knuckle fighting in Philadelphia. They’ll be launching a new series called Bare Knuckle Fight Club, hosting 12 shows a year at the 2300 Arena.
Former UFC champ Eddie Alvarez poses inside his Underground Kings gym on Wednesday. Alvarez aided the exposure of the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championships in Philly.
“It’s going to be gritty,” Feldman said. “It’s going to be brutal like bare knuckle is. It’s just going to have a different look and feel to it. And I think it’s going to get people very excited. We’re only allowing like 400 people to come to it. So, it’s going to be very elite, and it’s going to be amazing.”
Feldman is also planning on opening a bare knuckle training facility in South Philly.
“I just want to put Philadelphia on the map as a fighting city and I think this will really solidify that,” Feldman said. “I’ve been to 18 different countries now. I’ve been in almost every state and Philly is the realest place I’ve ever been to in the world. Philadelphia’s real people. They will tell you if they like you and they’ll tell you if they don’t like you. If you can succeed in Philly, you can succeed anywhere in the world.”
Super Bowl LX will monopolize our attention Sunday as only the Big Game can. But once the buzzer sounds on Patriots-Seahawks, mitts will be poppin’ across Florida and Arizona.
With Phillies pitchers and catchers set for workouts beginning Wednesday in Clearwater, Fla., LX baseball notes:
I. Before the continuation of the “Is Bryce Harper still elite?” debate, another note from last season: Only one of the Phillies’ 43 biggest hits, based on Win Probability Added, belonged to Harper. He had four of their 13 biggest hits from 2019-24.
II. So, whatever you thought of Dave Dombrowski’s assessment that Harper “didn’t have an elite season like he has had in the past,” can we agree that 2025 was un-Bryce-like?
III. It’s probably giving Dombrowski too much credit to suggest he was being calculated. But the last time anyone publicly poked Harper, he homered twice in Game 3 of the 2023 division series and stared a hole through Braves shortstop “Attaboy” Orlando Arcia. A chip on Harper’s shoulder wouldn’t be the worst thing for the Phillies.
IV. Fact: Harper faced a lower rate of strikes (43%) than any hitter in baseball last season.
V. Another fact: Harper swung at 35.6% of pitches out of the strike zone, 129th among 144 qualified hitters and far above his career mark (29.3%), according to Statcast.
VI. It’s about Harper’s swing decisions, then, as much as lineup protection. “If he gets that [chase] number down to 32, just drop it 3%, now he’s swinging at better pitches, he’s going to do more damage,” hitting coach Kevin Long told The Inquirer’s Phillies Extra podcast. “The onus falls on me to make sure he’s swinging at the right pitches and him to make sure he’s not expanding. No matter what, he has to control his at-bats.”
Kyle Schwarber batted in front of Bryce Harper for most of last season, when he hit 56 homers and was runner-up for NL MVP.
VII. Still, don’t be surprised if Rob Thomson puts Kyle Schwarber behind Harper in the batting order. It was the other way around for most of last season.
VIII. A month before the Mets signed Bo Bichette — out from under the Phillies’ nose, by the way — they pushed hard for Schwarber, league sources said. The Phillies re-signed Schwarber to a five-year, $150 million contract, the biggest deal ever for a full-time designated hitter.
IX. Speaking of Bichette, set a calendar reminder for June 18-21, the Mets’ first visit to South Philly.
X. The Mets lost 18½ games in the NL East standings in 108 days, missed the playoffs, then overhauled the roster … and fans bemoaned not bringing back Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil, and Edwin Díaz. The Phillies won another division title, had a bad week in October, then ran back the core of the roster … and fans bemoaned keeping the band together. Strange days.
XI. BetMGM set the Phillies’ over/under win total at 90.5. Same as the Mets’.
XII. July will be a big month for business at the corner of 11th & Pattison: Futures Game (July 12), Home Run Derby (July 13), All-Star Game (July 14), Mets (July 16-19), Dodgers (July 20-22), and Yankees (July 24-26).
XIII. Schwarber has 340 homers. If he hits 32 per year — and a work stoppage doesn’t wipe out part of the 2027 season — he would reach 500 homers before his new Phillies contract runs out in 2030.
XIV. Harper has 363 homers and would need to hit 23 per year to reach 500 before the expiration of his 13-year contract in 2031.
XV. Players who hit their 500th homer with the Phillies: Mike Schmidt, on April 18, 1987.
Zack Wheeler is recovering from thoracic outlet decompression surgery in September.
XVI. After being diagnosed with a blood clot in his upper right arm, Zack Wheeler had venous thoracic outlet decompression surgery in September. The recovery for a pitcher typically takes up to eight months, Thomson said, which would put Wheeler on a May timetable.
XVII. Bet on Wheeler to beat that projection. He began throwing from a mound this week, a source close to the 35-year-old righty said. The Phillies won’t push Wheeler, but he’s motivated to make as many starts as possible in what he has said will be his second-to-last season.
XVIII. Not every pitcher recovers at the same rate, but Diamondbacks starter Merrill Kelly had vTOS surgery in September 2020 and started Arizona’s second game of the 2021 season.
XIX. If Wheeler isn’t ready, top prospect Andrew Painter almost certainly will occupy a spot in the season-opening rotation. Painter, who turns 23 on April 10, could be the Phillies’ youngest starter since Ranger Suárez on Aug. 16, 2018 (22 years, 355 days).
XX.Justin Crawfordturned 22 on Jan. 13. If he makes the team out of camp, as expected, he will be the youngest position player on a Phillies opening-day roster since Freddy Galvis in 2012 and the youngest outfielder since Greg Luzinski and Mike Anderson in 1973.
XXI. Crawford’s ground-ball rate in triple A last season (59.4%) would’ve easily led the majors, topping Christian Yelich’s 56.7% mark.
XXII. But Crawford also would’ve ranked fifth with 67 bolts, defined by Statcast as sprints of at least 30 feet per second. (Trea Turner led the majors with 117 bolts.)
XXIII. Is it really so bad, then, that Crawford tends to hit a lot of balls on the ground? “Hopefully it doesn’t matter,” Lehigh Valley hitting coach Adam Lind said. “His approach works right now. He’s super fast. His swing works to where he can hit the ball all over the yard. Whenever a defender has to take one step away from first base, that usually means he’ll be safe.”
XXIV. Quiz: Crawford could be the Phillies’ eighth different opening-day center fielder in nine years. Name the others. (Answer below.)
XXV. Upon stepping down as Twins president last week, Derek Falvey cited ownership’s “different plan” for the team’s direction. If Minnesota enters a full rebuild, All-Star center fielder Byron Buxton would be widely coveted, including by the Phillies. Buxton, 32, has three years and $45 million left on his contract, plus no-trade rights.
XXVI. The Phillies’ projected luxury-tax payroll is $316.3 million, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, trailing the Dodgers ($402.5M), Mets ($376.6M), and Yankees ($335.5M). For a second consecutive year, the Phillies will pay a 110% tax on every dollar spent above $304 million, the highest of four thresholds.
XXVII. In 2025, the Phillies paid $56,062,903 in luxury taxes on a $314,329,912 payroll, the Associated Press reported. Their tax bill has risen from $2,882,657 in 2022, $6,977,345 in 2023, and $14,351,954 in 2024.
XXVIII. Owners will gather Wednesday in Palm Beach, Fla., for their quarterly meetings. Many owners are pushing for a salary cap in the next collective bargaining agreement. The players’ union has historically opposed a cap. It would take eight of 30 owners to block a salary-cap proposal. The existing CBA expires Dec. 1, with a lockout likely to follow.
XXVIX. Last month, commissioner Rob Manfred told a New York radio station that MLB has discussed schedule changes, including an in-season tournament similar to the NBA Cup. The players would need to agree to any new formats.
XXX. The Phillies will send 11 players from their 40-man roster to the World Baseball Classic: Schwarber, Harper, and Brad Keller (U.S.); Cristopher Sánchez and Johan Rojas (Dominican Republic); José Alvarado (Venezuela); Taijuan Walker (Mexico); Aaron Nola (Italy); Garrett Stubbs and Max Lazar (Israel); Edmundo Sosa (Panama). Preliminary round games begin March 5, with the final set for March 17 in Miami.
XXXI.Jesús Luzardo was invited to pitch for Venezuela and Team USA but declined. “It’s very important for my family, for me, to represent Venezuela,” Luzardo told Phillies Extra. “But just in terms of intelligent decision-making, after a long last year and looking forward to a long this year, I thought the correct decision would be to take a slow spring training and make sure everything’s along the right line to be prepared for the year.” Luzardo is eligible for free agency after this season.
XXXII. Left-handed pitcher A: 3.59 ERA, 544 strikeouts, 1.287 WHIP, 117 ERA-plus in 588⅓ innings since 2022.
XXXIII. Left-handed pitcher B: 3.83 ERA, 602 strikeouts, 1.186 WHIP, 116 ERA-plus in 529⅓ innings since 2022.
XXXIV. Suárez (Lefty A) signed a five-year, $130 million contract with the Red Sox last month that will cover his ages 30-34 seasons.
XXXV. Luzardo (Lefty B) will pitch at age-28 this season.
XXXVI. Quiz answer: Brandon Marsh (2025), Rojas (2024), Marsh (2023), Matt Vierling (2022), Adam Haseley (2021), Roman Quinn (2020), Odúbel Herrera (2019), and Aaron Altherr (2018).
Jesús Luzardo posted a 3.92 ERA in a career-high 183⅔ innings in his first season with the Phillies in 2025.
XXXVII. Sánchez threw the most changeups (1,084) in baseball last season. Among 72 pitchers who threw at least 300, he ranked ninth in opponents’ batting average (.170) and slugging (.243) against his changeup.
XXXVIII. Changeup artist Cole Hamels on why Sánchez’s is so dominant: “One thing I’ve noticed is you cannot recognize the spin. It’s the same [as the two-seamer]. So, it’s a coin flip: Am I going to try to hit 97 [mph] with sink, or am I going to hit 87 with drop-off-the-table [action]? And he’s not scared to throw it in any type of count, with anybody on.”
XXXIX. By finishing second in the Cy Young voting last year, Sánchez’s club options for 2029 and 2030 increased by $1 million apiece to $15 million and $16 million.
XL. The automated ball-strike system is coming to MLB after being tested last year in spring training and the minors. Each team is allowed two challenges per game. Thomson prefers that challenges be initiated by the catcher or batters, with specific hitters getting a green light to challenge.
XLI. Opinions about ABS are varied. “There’s a human element pitchers like with umpires,” reliever Tanner Banks said last month. “Maybe you steal [a strike] because the catcher does a great job. But at the end of the day, you want consistency. The umpires I’ve talked to are for it if it helps make the right call.”
XLII. Imagine if the Phillies could’ve challenged umpire Mark Wegner’s missed strike call on Sánchez’s 2-2 pitch to Alex Call with one out in the seventh inning of Game 4 of last year’s NL division series. Call walked on the next pitch and scored the tying run. Sánchez said Wegner admitted that he got it wrong.
XLIII. A catcher’s game-calling is among the last skills that are largely immeasurable through analytics, which explains why it took so long for the Phillies and J.T. Realmuto to reach an agreement in free agency. At 35, amid three years of declining offense, Realmuto’s value is tied to his intangible impact on the pitching staff.
XLIV. Since 2023, opponents had a .682 OPS and Phillies pitchers had a 3.75 ERA with Realmuto behind the plate. The major-league averages were .722 and 4.18.
XLV. “In my opinion, catchers are undervalued as far as contracts and dollars go,” said Realmuto, who eventually accepted a three-year, $45 million offer. “I truly believe it’s one of, if not the most important position on the field, and I just enjoy fighting for that.”
XLVI. Quiz: Realmuto started a career-high 132 games behind the plate last season. In the last 80 years, how many catchers started that many games at age 34 or older? (Answer below.)
XLVII. Player A: .260/.306/.426, 121 doubles, 82 homers, 100 OPS-plus in 2,477 plate appearances.
XLVIII. Player B: .237/.296/.441, 118 doubles, 110 homers, 107 OPS-plus in 2,473 plate appearances.
LIX.Nick Castellanos (Player A) in four seasons with the Phillies (ages 30-33).
L.Adolis García (Player B) in the last four seasons with the Rangers (ages 29-32).
LI. Castellanos ranked last among all outfielders in defensive runs saved (minus-41) since 2022; Garcia was tied for ninth (plus-23).
LII.Bryson Stott lowered his hands, moved them closer to his body, and batted .294 with an .855 OPS after the All-Star break last season. It’s one reason Phillies officials are confident in running back almost the same lineup.
LIII. Here’s another: Marsh batted .303 with an .836 OPS after May 1.
LIV. If depth is a factor, and it usually is, the open seats in the bullpen could go to Rule 5 pick Zach McCambley and Zach Pop, who is out of minor league options. But Thomson is talking up Kyle Backhus, a lefty with a low arm slot who was acquired in a trade with Arizona.
LV. Righty-hitting outfielder Bryan De La Cruz will be in camp as a nonroster invitee after signing a minor-league contract in November. De La Cruz, 29, has major-league experience, mostly with the Marlins. He was MVP of the Dominican Winter League, batting .301 with eight homers and an .888 OPS in 46 games.
Chase Utley is getting closer to being elected to the Hall of Fame.
LVI. Lefty reliever Génesis Cabrera also will be in camp as a nonroster invitee. Once a promising reliever with the Cardinals, Cabrera hit Harper in the face with a 97 mph fastball in 2021. The Phillies will be his sixth team since 2024.
LVII. It’s clear that Chase Utley will eventually get elected to the Hall of Fame after reaching 59.1%, 68 votes shy of the requisite three-quarter majority, in his third year on the ballot. But will it take one more voting cycle or two for him to get to the 75% mark?
LVIII. The electorate changes each year, depending on how many writers join the process upon reaching 10 years of membership in the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. But consider Carlos Beltrán’s path to election: 57.1% in 2024, 70.3% in 2025, and finally 84.2% this year. So, pencil in Utley for the Class of 2028 … and maybe book a hotel in Cooperstown for 2027 just in case.
LIX. Quiz answer: Six. Realmuto (2025), Yadier Molina (2017), Jason Kendall (2008), Tony Peña (1991), Elston Howard (1964), and Bob Boone (1982-86).
When Taylor Wray made the move from coaching St. Joseph’s men’s lacrosse team to Penn’s squad this past summer, he got to bring in a whole new staff.
Longtime Hawks assistant Scott Meehan had the option to follow, but he decided to throw his name in the candidate pool to be the next Hawks head coach.
“Jill Bodensteiner our [athletic director] basically called me up after she heard from Coach Wray that he was going to be taking the UPenn job,” Meehan said. “I was very fortunate because I was definitely preparing for an interview process. Other candidates are coming in, and [I] have to put my best foot forward in the interview process. But fortunately, [I] didn’t have to go through that.”
A few hours after Wray’s announced departure, Meehan was promoted to take over on Hawk Hill. He spent the next 30 minutes talking about the role with Charles Giunta, a former St. Joe’s player Meehan brought on as associate head coach.
Now, with the season opener set for Saturday at Syracuse (noon, ACC Network Extra), Meehan is feeling more “comfortable” in his role and hopes to cultivate a winning culture.
“Our goals are generally pretty simple,” Meehan said. “We want to qualify for the Atlantic 10 tournament every year — that gives us a shot to win an A-10 championship. With an A-10 championship, you get a berth to the NCAA Tournament. … One wants to be able to play late into May. You want to have a chance at it all.”
Meehan played attack, at Washington and Lee University in Virginia. As a senior in 2012, he led the team in points (53), assists (23), and was second on the team in goals (30).
When his playing career ended, Meehan says he wanted to combine his love for lacrosse with teaching.
“I think education has always kind of been in my blood,” said Meehan, whose parents are retired teachers. “It just kind of felt right to get into coaching. The game of lacrosse, and team sports in general, has done a lot for me over my lifespan, and I learned a lot in the classroom with sports, and [I] definitely wasn’t ready to be done with athletics.”
He landed at Franklin & Marshall College for three years and oversaw the Diplomats’ offense and picking the brain of head coach Todd Cavallaro, who became a mentor.
After three other coaching stops, Meehan arrived on Hawk Hill in 2019 as an offensive coordinator.
During his first year, Meehan met Giunta, who was the team’s graduate assistant. They lived together for a few months in Manayunk and became close friends.
Giunta left for Fairfield after the 2019 season. He spent six seasons there, until he got that call from Meehan.
“As soon as I got that phone call, it took me a couple of days to really think it over, but it was an easy decision to come back and to join him,” Giunta said. “He’s an awesome friend of mine. I think he’s a great coach.”
Meehan also added Jack Tortolani to his staff as an assistant. Tortolani played five years at Denver, where he made the Final Four in 2024. He initially was hired before Wray left, but Meehan made it one of his first orders of business to officially bring Tortolani aboard.
Jared McMahon, who played at Mount St. Mary’s and spent last year on Michigan’s staff, rounded out Meehan’s staff.
St. Joe’s is two years removed from an NCAA Tournament appearance, after winning the A-10 tournament championship in 2024. Last season, the Hawks finished 9-6 and were eliminated in the first round of the conference tournament by High Point.
“He was here before; he’s not coming in and implementing entirely new systems,” said senior defenseman Liam Quinn, “and trying to reinvent the wheel and create a new team culture. I think Coach Meehan knows exactly what makes our program go and what separates us from other people.”
Sandra Schultz Newman, 87, of Gladwyne, Montgomery County, the first woman elected to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the first female assistant district attorney in Montgomery County, the first woman named to the board of directors of the old Royal Bank of Pennsylvania, longtime private practice attorney, role model, mentor, and colorful “Philadelphia icon,” died Monday, Feb. 2. Her family did not disclose the cause of her death.
Reared in South Philadelphia and Wynnefield, and a graduate of Drexel, Temple, and Villanova Universities, Justice Newman, a Republican, was elected to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania in November 1993 and to the state Supreme Court in 1995. She won a second 10-year term on the Supreme Court in 2005 but, having to step down in just two years due to a mandatory retirement age, left at the end of 2006.
“I love the court. I love my colleagues. The collegiality was great, and I’m going to miss that,” Justice Newman told The Inquirer. “But I just felt like I wanted to move on.”
During her 10-year tenure, Justice Newman was chair of the Supreme Court’s Judicial Council Committee on Judicial Safety and Preparedness and the court’s liaison to Common Pleas Court and Municipal Court in Philadelphia. She ruled on hundreds of issues and wrote opinions about all kinds of landmark cases, from environmental protections to school funding to clergy privilege to the Gary Heidnik and John E. du Pont murder cases.
She had worked in criminal and family law and handled many divorce and custody cases as a private attorney in the 1980s, and was praised later by court observers for her attention to Philadelphia Family Court matters. Lynn Marks, of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, told the Daily News in 2005: “She’s been a wonderful justice, and she’s made herself accessible to the public interest community.”
In 2025, her colleagues on the Supreme Court named their Philadelphia courtroom after her. “She was a remarkable jurist, public servant, and trailblazer for women, whose work and impact will leave a legacy beyond the bench,” Supreme Court Chief Justice Debra Todd said in a tribute.
News outlets across the state covered Justice Newman’s election to the Supreme Court as she campaigned in 1995, and she easily collected more votes in the Nov. 7 election than any of the other three candidates, all men. She told the Daily Item in Sunbury, Pa., in September ’95: “I don’t think anyone should be elected solely on their gender. But I don’t think anybody should not be elected because of it, either.”
Justice Newman touted her collegiality and feminine life experience during the 1995 campaign and told The Inquirer she wanted to be a “role model for everyone in Pennsylvania.” She told the Press Enterprise in Bloomsburg, Pa.: “I think I can bring a sensitivity and understanding on many issues, such as criminal issues like rape. I have a deep sense for the need of a safe society.”
Justice Newman speaks in 2025 during the ceremony in which the Supreme Court named its Philadelphia courtroom after her.
After her election, Inquirer staff writer Robert Zausnersaid: “Wealthy yet down-to-earth, Newman talked often during the campaign about her grandchildren and insisted that people ‘call me Sandy’ once she was outside her courtroom.”
Former Gov. Tom Ridge called Justice Newman a “pioneering legal giant” and said she “inspired generations of legal professionals across the Commonwealth.” Ezra Wohlgelernter, chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, noted her “pathbreaking career” and “valuable service to our city and to the Commonwealth” in a tribute.
Either “the first” or “the only” in many of her professional pursuits, Justice Newman was called a “Philadelphia icon,” “a force of nature,” and a “beautiful and radiant star” in online tributes. She flirted with running for political office several times and was colorfully profiled in Philadelphia Magazine in 1988. In that story, writer Lisa DePaulo called her “part woman/part tigress.”
She famously endorsed a controversial cosmetic product on TV in 2006 and attended many galas and charity auctions, and her name appeared in the society and opinion pages nearly as often as the news section. In a 1983 feature, Inquirer writer Mary Walton described Justice Newman as “beautiful … with tousled auburn hair and a slender figure that she liked to cloak in expensive designer clothes.”
Justice Newman was the only woman on the state Supreme Court in 2002.
A friend said online she was “irrepressible in an Auntie Mame sort of way.” Another said: “The world has become a little quieter.”
Justice Newman served as the first female assistant district attorney in Montgomery County from 1972 to 1974 and was an in-demand, high-profile partner at Astor, Weiss & Newman from 1974 to 1993. She returned to private practice in 2006 and handled mostly alternative dispute resolution cases until recently.
She told the Press Enterprise in 1995 that colleagues in the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office had adorned her desk with a green plant on her first day in 1972. “It was marijuana from the evidence room,” she said.
She wrote papers and book chapters about trial practice, death penalty statutes, and the electoral system in Pennsylvania. She spoke about all kinds of legal topics at seminars, conferences, and other events.
This photo of Justice Newman, her husband, Julius, and grandson Shane was taken for The Inquirer after she won on Election Day in 1995.
She cofounded what is now the Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law in 2006, was a trustee for Drexel’s College of Medicine, and received dozens of service and achievement awards from Drexel, Villanova, the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations, the Women’s Bar Association of Western Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Association for Justice, and other groups.
She was the president of boards, chair of many committees, and active with the National Association of Women Justices, the Juvenile Law Center, the American Law Institute, and other organizations. She taught law classes at the Delaware Law School of Widener University in 1984 and ’85, and at Villanova from 1986 to 1993.
She earned a bachelor’s degree at Drexel in 1959 and a master’s degree in hearing science at Temple in 1969. In 1972, she was one of a handful of women to get a law degree at what is now Villanova’s Charles Widger School of Law. Later, she received four honorary doctorate degrees and was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvaniaby then-Gov. Ridge in 1996.
Outside the courtroom, Justice Newman volunteered for charities and legal associations. She was part of a group that tried unsuccessfully to buy the Eagles from then-owner Leonard Tose in 1983, and she was criticized in the early 2000s for her financial involvement in a bungled long-running effort to fund a new Family Court Building in Philadelphia.
Justice Newman chats with philanthropists and business leaders Raymond G. Perelman (middle) and Joseph Neubauer at the gala opening of the new Barnes Museum in 2018.
“Justice Newman filled every room she entered with her strength, energy, and exuberance for life and for the law,” Supreme Court Justice P. Kevin Brobson said in a tribute. “She lived with intention and spent her entire career focused on creating and expanding opportunities for future generations of legal professionals, especially women.”
Sandra Schultz was born Nov. 4, 1938. She graduated from Overbook High School and married cosmetic surgeon Julius Newman in 1959. They had sons Jonathan and David, and lived in Wynnefield, Penn Valley, and Gladwyne.
Her husband and son David died earlier. She married fellow lawyer Martin Weinberg in 2007, and their union was annulled 11 months later.
Justice Schultz was a longtime fashionista. She reveled in shopping trips to New York, and DePaulo reported in 1988 that her closet in Gladwyne was 800 square feet. She was also funny, generous, and kind, friends said.
Justice Newman dances with her grandson on Election Day in 1995. This photo appeared in the Daily News.
She funded several college scholarships, collected art, owned racehorses, cooked memorable matzo balls, enjoyed giving gifts, and tried to have dinner every night with her family. Sometimes, DePaulo reported, in the 1970s, she took her young sons to her law school classes at Villanova.
“Despite how busy she was, her family was always her priority,” said her brother, Mark. “She was also a true bipartisan who fought for equal rights and preserving our democratic institutions.”
In 2003, she was asked by Richard G. Freeman, editor in chief of the Philadelphia Lawyer, to describe her judicial decision-making process. She said: “There are beliefs that you have to put aside. One of the wonderful things about being on our court is that you can make new law where your beliefs fit into the law.”
In addition to her son Jonathan and brother, Justice Newman is survived by four grandchildren and other relatives. A grandson died earlier.
This photo of Justice Newman appeared in The Inquirer in 1983.
Services are private.
Donations in her name may be made to the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, 733 Third Ave., Suite 510, New York, N.Y. 10017.
Correction: One of the communities that Justice Schultz grew up in has been corrected.
Joel Embiid with teammates Tyrese Maxey and Paul George.
One factor complicating any deal at the trade deadline was Daryl Morey and the front office considered the team’s core – Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Paul George, and rookie VJ Edgecombe – “as close to untouchable players as you might have in this league.”
“We really think it’s a very good core,” Morey told reporters Friday. “Obviously we need to prove that on the court, and I think we think lately we have been proving it to a higher level.”
Morey said at the trade deadline, the Sixers were focused on finding a player who could fill in for Paul, who is serving a 25-day suspension for violating the league’s drug policy. But Morey didn’t see any available players that could contribute more than Dominick Barlow has during Paul’s absence.
Sixers were willing to go into the luxury tax, Morey says
The Sixers moved under the luxury tax by trading away Jared McCain and Eric Gordon, but Daryl Morey said that wasn’t the primary reason behind the moves.
Speaking to reporters Friday, Morey said the team would’ve been willing to go above the luxury tax threshold – “We’ve done it several times” – but didn’t see a deal or player that justified the numbers.
“For sure, if we had found a trade and were going to end up higher, we’d have ended up above it,” Morey said.
Despite that, Morey said he understands the perception among fans and even Joel Embiid the team just wanted to save money.
“I hope to defeat it by finding a deal that I can go to ownership and say, ‘We think this move is the right move to do for that and create the apron issues that it would create,’” Morey said. “But I haven’t been able to recommend that move yet.”
Morey defends trading Jared McCain without another deal in place
Daryl Morey was pressed on why the Sixers traded Jared McCain without having another deal in place, rather than waiting until the offseason.
“I am quite confident we were selling high,” Morey told reporters Friday. “Obviously, time will tell.”
Morey said the Sixers weren’t considering trading away McCain until teams approached with “aggressive offers,” and that the draft picks will help the team down the road.
“We thought this return was above the future value for our franchise,” Morey said. “The only higher point would have been during his run last season. But otherwise, we feel like we did time this well.”
“The bottom line is Jared’s a great future bet, and we wish him luck,” Morey added. “We feel like this return sets us up better in the future.”
Sixers tried to improve the roster but ‘nothing materialized,’ Morey says
Speaking to reporters Friday, Daryl Morey, the Sixers’ president of basketball operations, said he understands why fans might be disappointed the team didn’t add any players at the trade deadline.
“I understand the reaction of the fans, but I feel like that comes from folks being excited about this team,” Morey said. “That’s why we had this reaction. And they should be excited.”
Morey said the front office tried to make additions to improve the team using some of the draft picks landed in the Jared McCain trade, but “nothing materialized.”
“I do want folks to know that this team, we think, can make a deep playoff run, as one of the top teams in the East,” Morey said.
Timberwolves re-signing Mike Conley Jr. after trading him: ESPN
Free agent guard Mike Conley Jr. plans to return to the Minnesota Timberwolves, sources tell ESPN. The sides are working on timing of him re-signing. Conley was traded twice this week – to Chicago, then to Charlotte – before being released and allowed to rejoin the Wolves. pic.twitter.com/ht6HVIIqm4
Joel Embiid defends the rim against Deandre Ayton during the Sixers’ loss to the Lakers Thursday.
With three games left before the All-Star break, the Sixers are in sixth place in the Eastern Conference, solidly in the playoff picture after missing the postseason last season.
Thursday night’s loss to the Los Angeles Lakers certainly didn’t help, breaking a five-game winning streak. They’ll face the second-place New York Knicks on Wednesday, who added former New Orleans Pelicans guard Jose Alvarado to their roster at the NBA trade deadline.
Eastern Conference standings
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Upcoming Sixers schedule
Sixers at Suns: Saturday, 9 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia, 97.5 The Fanatic)
Sixers at Trailblazers: Monday, 10 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia, 97.5 The Fanatic)
Knicks at Sixers: Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. (ESPN, 97.5 The Fanatic)
Daryl Morey will speak to reporters Friday following the NBA trade deadline.
Daryl Morey, the Sixers’ president of basketball operations, will speak to reporters Friday afternoon after the team made no additions at the NBA trade deadline, not even to fill in during Paul George’s 25-game suspension.
Morey is scheduled to speak at noon at the Sixers’ training facility in Camden, N.J.
On Thursday, the Sixers traded Eric Gordon to the Memphis Grizzlies in a salary dump. Wednesday they parted ways with Jared McCain, the 2024 No. 16 overall pick. In exchange, team landed a bunch of second-round picks and the Houston Rockets’ 2026 first-round pick.
They did manage to dodge the luxury tax by shedding McCain and Gordon’s salaries.
Joel Embiid carefully comments on Sixers trade deadline moves
Joel Embiid during Thursday night’s loss to the Lakers.
LOS ANGELES — When asked to assess the 76ers’ approach and execution at the trade deadline, Joel Embiid kept his words politically correct.
But his multiple pauses to look to his right at a team public relations staffer observing his postgame media session — not out of nervousness, but as if this was the way he could make his desired point — spoke volumes.
“The only thing I’ll say, I believe in myself,” Embiid said late Thursday, after the Sixers dealt guards Jared McCain and Eric Gordon and did not add any players. “I believe in Tyrese [Maxey]. I believe in everybody in this locker room. But the main thing is I believe in myself.
“So no matter what, we’re going to go out there and compete and still try to win it.”
Those comments came exactly one week after Embiid said publicly that he hoped the Sixers (29-22) would not make moves purely to duck the luxury tax and would instead try to bolster a roster that, after Thursday’s 119-115 loss at the Los Angeles Lakers, sat in sixth place in a crowded Eastern Conference.
“Hopefully, we keep the same team,” Embiid said then. “ … We’ve got a good group of guys in this locker room and the vibes are great. … Hopefully, we think about improving, because we have a chance.”
When those previous comments were referenced to Embiid following Thursday’s game, the standout center coyly quipped, “I don’t remember what I said.”
Sixers fans will have to wait and see after a uninspiring trade deadline.
The shaping of the 76ers took a step backward this week … perhaps just momentarily.
The team moved on from Jared McCain, a fan favorite and 2025 Rookie of the Year front-runner, and seldom-used veteran guard Eric Gordon before Thursday’s 3 p.m. trade deadline. In return, the Sixers acquired a first-round pick, three second-rounders, and a second-round pick swap.
Shedding those players’ salaries gives the Sixers just over $7.6 million in cap space under the first apron. That means they can sign players on the buyout market in addition to using up to $8 million in a trade exception to acquire a player.
After the deadline, the Sixers signed forward Patrick Baldwin to a 10-day contract and center Charles Bassey to his second 10-day stint, giving the Sixers 14 standard contracts. And 48 minutes before Thursday’s game against the Los Angeles Lakers, the team announced it converted starting power forward Dominick Barlow’s two-way contract to a standard deal.
That enabled Barlow remain active for the remainder of the season.
But for now, they’re not in a good situation.
The buyout market could be key for the Sixers if they don’t sign Baldwin and Bassey for the remainder of the season.
Since then, the Sixers traded away players who were well-liked in the locker room for what on the surface appear to be moves to help them get below the luxury tax threshold.
But it’s still too early to fully judge the moves that were made.
McCain was exceptional in his rookie season before suffering a season-ending knee injury in December 2024. But he struggled with consistency this season, leaving him out of the rotation. Gordon played in only six games, with his last appearance coming Dec. 23 against the Brooklyn Nets.
So these moves were made on the margins and will only be crystalized once we see how they affect the roster this season and what they do with their draft picks in the future.
But in the interim, the Sixers got a little worse over two days while several contenders in the East improved.
Jared McCain, the Sixers’ 2024 first-round pick, was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday.
Sixers president Daryl Morey is scheduled to meet with the media on Friday, so we’ll have to wait to hear the official defense of the team’s decision to trade 2024 first-round pick Jared McCain to the Thunder for what is most likely to be a low-value first round draft (plus the obligatory smattering of second round picks). We don’t have to wait to judge the optics of the thing.
The optics are poor, and will remain true even if the thing ends up making more sense than we can immediately glean.
The Sixers didn’t trade McCain for a player who is more likely to help them contend for championship, be it this year or beyond. They didn’t trade him for a pick that they then flipped for a player who can help them capitalize on their momentum this season. Everywhere else, teams got better, and many of them did so in ways beyond this season. The Timberwolves can re-sign Ayo Dosunmu. The Pacers can pair Ivica Zubac with Tyrese Haliburton next season. The Sixers can hope that a late first round pick is worth something in June.
A good way to judge the optics of a move is to attempt to write an executive summary of it in as favorable a way as possible. That’s an extraordinarily difficult task, in this case.
The Sixers just traded away a guy who they drafted at No. 16 barely a year-and-a-half ago and who would probably be drafted higher in a redo. In exchange, they received a pick that currently projects as the No. 24 pick in the 2026 draft, three picks later than where the Sixers grabbed Tyrese Maxey six years ago. It is a range of the draft that rarely yields starters, let alone stars. It is a range where the odds say you are more likely to draft a player who never cracks a first-division rotation than one who becomes a meaningful starter.
Just look at the track record. Of the 42 players drafted with the last seven picks of the first round since 2020, only 17 have started more than 17 NBA games. Just eyeballing it, you’d be hard-pressed to identify 10 of those 42 who’ve turned out to be better than the median potential outcome of even this year’s version of McCain. Jaden McDaniels and Desmond Bane are stars. They are followed by Payton Pritchard, Immanuel Quickley, Quentin Grimes and Santi Aldama. Beyond that: Peyton Watson and Cam Thomas, and then Bones Hyland, Day’Ron Sharpe, Nikola Jovic and Kyshawn George. You get the picture.
With the Philly region still covered in snow, it shouldn’t take much imagination to get in the mood for the Winter Olympics, which officially begin Friday across Italy.
NBC will televise the opening ceremony live from San Siro Stadium (slated to be demolished after the Games) in Milan starting Friday at 2 p.m. Philadelphia time. It will also be streamed live via Peacock, NBC’s subscription streaming platform, and on NBCOlympics.com for free with TV provider authentication.
With Mike Tirico in Santa Clara, Calif., to call Super Bowl LX on Sunday, NBC’s broadcast will be hosted by Mary Carillo and Terry Gannon, who will be joined by three‑time Olympic gold medalist Shaun White.
Other venues will also be on display Friday night, with the Parade of Athletes featuring athletes marching from three other locations across Italy: Livigno, Predazzo, and Cortina d’Ampezzo (which has its own Olympic cauldron, a first for the Games). Team USA’s flag bearers will be 2022 speed skating gold medalist Erin Jackson and bobsledder Frank Del Duca.
Greece, where the Olympics originated, will lead the parade. From there it will go alphabetically until the end. The United States, which is hosting the 2034 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, will enter third from last (country No. 90, if you’re counting at home), followed by 2030 Winter Olympics host France and this year’s host country, Italy.
The U.S. has the largest group of athletes — 235, including three alternates. Canada is second with 211 athletes, followed by Italy with 195. All told, more than 2,900 athletes are expected to compete in the 2026 Games.
There are also plenty of veterans on Team USA, including four-time Olympian Lindsey Vonn, who will attempt to ski on a ruptured ACL. Other U.S. athletes back to compete in their fifth Olympics are bobsledders Kaillie Humphries and Elana Meyers Taylor, snowboarders Nick Baumgartner and Faye Thelen, figure skater Evan Bates, and hockey player Hilary Knight.
As far as local athletes, there’s South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito, a 18-year-old figure skater looking for gold after winning the silver medal in the 2024 World Figure Skating Championships. Curling team member Taylor Anderson-Heide is a Philly native, speedskater Andrew Heo grew up in Warrington, and Summer Britcher — the all-time singles leader in U.S. luge history — was raised in Glen Rock, Pa., in York County.
There’s also hockey star Sarah Nurse, who plays for Team Canada but also happens to be the niece of former Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb.
Ahead of the opening ceremony, some sports have already gotten underway. Curling began Wednesday, while the U.S. women’s hockey team began its quest for gold Thursday with a 5-1 win over Czechia.
Friday’s Olympic TV schedule
As a general rule, our schedules include all live broadcasts on TV, but not tape-delayed broadcasts on cable channels. We’ll let you know what’s on NBC’s broadcasts, whether they’re live or not.
NBC
Noon: Team figure skating — rhythm dance
12:30 p.m.: Team figure skating — pairs short
1 p.m.: Team figure skating — women’s short
2 p.m.: Opening ceremony
8 p.m.: Prime-time replay of opening ceremony
USA Network
7:35 a.m.: Team figure skating — women’s short
8:55 a.m.: Curling mixed doubles — Czechia vs. United States
How to watch the Olympics on TV and stream online
NBC’s TV coverage will have live events from noon to 5 p.m. Philadelphia time on weekdays and starting in the mornings on the weekends. There’s a six-hour time difference from Italy and here. The traditional prime time coverage will have highlights of the day and storytelling features.
As far as the TV channels, the Olympics are airing on NBC, USA, CNBC, and NBCSN. Spanish coverage can be found on Telemundo and Universo.
NBCSN is carrying the Gold Zone whip-around show that was so popular during the Summer Olympics in 2024, with hosts including Scott Hanson of NFL RedZone. It used to be just on Peacock, NBC’s online streaming service, but now is on TV, too.
Every event is available to stream live on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app. You’ll have to log in with your pay-TV provider, whether cable, satellite, or streaming platforms including YouTube TV, FuboTV, and Sling TV.
On Peacock, the events are on the platform’s premium subscription tier, which starts at $10.99 per month or $109.99 per year.
Public narratives of American democracy often emphasize founding documents, elections, and constitutional milestones while obscuring the long and contested process through which democratic practice was learned, refined, and sustained, particularly by people denied formal power.
The portrayal of Black civic life in early America is often reduced to suffering, resistance, or individual achievement, but these things conceal a deeper truth.
In 1840, Philadelphia’s Black community numbered nearly 20,000 people. This population was concentrated in the center of the city, including Society Hill, Queen Village, and Washington Square in the south, 41st and Ludlow in West Philadelphia, and Northern Liberties in the north. With this intensive concentration of people, institutions, and ideas, Black Philadelphia was a metropolitan center in its own right.
A thriving community
By 1845, the community sustained more than 17 Black churches, along with 21 public and private schools, two fraternal lodges, more than 80 mutual aid and literary societies, labor organizations, over 600 Black-owned businesses, and a printing press.
Formal democratic structures grew from these institutions. Churches functioned as civic laboratories, and mutual aid societies were exemplars of rules-based organizations.
Philadelphia was where Black life cohered into a national political identity. People who had defined themselves as African, Caribbean, Indigenous, enslaved, or free identified themselves collectively as African American.
By 1814, the Black Philadelphians were organized. They defended the city at Gray’s Ferry during the War of 1812. In 1817, they met at Mother Bethel, the country’s first African Methodist Episcopal Church, to decide if they would consider emigration to Haiti or Africa. “No!” was the resounding answer.
Black organizations in Philadelphia served as national models. Conventions at Mother Bethel spawned the Colored Conventions Movement beginning in 1830, which extended concepts of civic and human rights across the United States. Constitutional scholar James W. Fox Jr. argues that these conventions articulated a national constitutionalism rooted in the Declaration of Independence, asserting that human rights were inherent and not contingent on state or local laws, a concept far ahead of its time that anticipated the post-Civil War ideas of citizenship and rights.
A melting pot
Black Philadelphia was its own melting pot, too. People arrived from the Caribbean, including Haiti, bringing revolutionary ideas. These ideas moved outward from Philadelphia nationwide and across the Atlantic through transnational anti-slavery networks. Anti-slavery Black activists Olaudah Equiano and James Somerset moved between London and Philadelphia in the 1760s. A song written by the Philadelphia-based pastor Shadrach Bassett was discovered in the papers of Nat Turner, the enslaved man who led an uprising in the Carolinas in 1831.
The understanding that there are civic rights within a democracy was a foundational concept for Black Philadelphians. In fact, we see an early use of the term “civil rights” in the records of the Social, Civil, and Statistical Association in 1863, nearly a 100 years before the 20th-century civil rights movement.
A Nov. 12, 1862, entry from the Social, Civil, and Statistical Association, showing the use of the words “civil rights.” C.S. Statistical Association of Philadelphia, Civil and Social Committee of Superintendence, Constitution, By-Laws, Roll, Minutes [Ams .54, Part 2]
Other examples: In 1842, after mobs destroyed the newly built Beneficial Hall, Stephen Smith sued the city for not protecting the structure. Smith won his case, setting a very public example of Black Philadelphians’ assertion of rights through the rule of law.
In 1861, after the Rev. Richard Robinson was forced to ride outside a trolley during a storm and died when it crashed, Black leaders organized legal aid to support his widow and challenge transit segregation.
In 1867, Caroline LeCount refused to surrender her seat on a streetcar. After being forcibly removed, she obtained a certified copy of the law, returned with a magistrate, and confronted the conductor. He was arrested on the spot.
Asserting their rights
All of this civic activism occurred before Black Philadelphians were enfranchised citizens.
Black Philadelphians boldly asserted their own democratic rights across the 18th and 19th centuries, all within the context of America’s denial of human rights with enslavement and disenfranchisement.
Yet, even as Black Philadelphians engineered this civic infrastructure, the city refused to acknowledge their achievements. Major historical texts on Philadelphia erased Black institutions entirely. Henry Simpson’s Lives of Eminent Philadelphians Now Deceased, written in 1859, doesn’t even mention Absalom Jones, James Forten, or Richard Allen, or the major religious denomination born here in Philadelphia, the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Society Hill, founded in 1794 and rebuilt in 1809, has long been the locus of Philadelphia’s Black community, writes Michiko Quinones.
No Black churches or institutions appear in Moses King’s exhaustive civic visual history, Philadelphia and Notable Philadelphians, from 1902, a purportedly definitive account meant to define the city’s civic identity.
Arguably, there is a deeper reverence in American public memory for a woman who sewed a flag than for an entire population that defined democracy and held the nation accountable to its own written ideals. That imbalance reveals not just a lack of attention to history, but a refusal to honor people who forced democracy to become real.
The question facing Philadelphia now is whether it will recognize early Black civic engineering as foundational to its identity, or continue to exist with parallel histories, thriving yet separate. There could be no better time to ask than the 250th anniversary of our country’s founding.
Michiko Quinones is the lead public historian and cofounder of the 1838 Black Metropolis Collective.
There are two remarkable scenes of family reconciliation in this past fall’s Bruce Springsteen biopic, Deliver Me from Nowhere. After years of alienation from his alcoholic, physically abusive father, Dutch, a slowly maturing Bruce begins to recognize that his father has struggled with lifelong mental illness. By this stage of his later years, Dutch has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is becoming increasingly confused as he ages.
In the first reconciliation scene, Bruce searches for his father in bars and restaurants all over Los Angeles at the request of his mother after Dutch disappears for several days. Bruce finally finds him sitting at the bar of a Chinese restaurant. Rather than upbraiding him, Bruce sits down next to his father and asks, gently like an old friend, if he would like to go out for breakfast before heading home.
In the second scene, a disoriented Dutch asks Bruce to sit on his lap — as if his son is 3 years old, not 32. Bruce obliges but feels awkward, telling Dutch that he never asked him to sit on his lap before. “I didn’t?” Dutch asks, appearing shocked and regretful that he hadn’t sought loving contact with Bruce when he was a child.
These scenes come at the end of a narrative arc illuminating the surprising turnabout that can be achieved through family caregiving for an older adult: A harshly punitive parent can turn into a softer, “toothless tiger” as they become frail. An angry adult child can develop greater empathy for the vulnerability of that hated parent while witnessing their decline. The parent-child relationship is transformed through the giving and receiving of care. Reconciliation is possible, the scenes suggest, by letting go of the past and extending kindness and understanding to a now diminished and needy parent.
Some viewers may regard this plot line as unrealistic, corny, and overly Hollywood. Our current cultural moment seems to favor alienation and complete estrangement, not reconciling. In our clinical psychology practices, we have also worked with adult children and parents who have decided to cease talking with one another after years of conflict, frustration, and continued emotional pain. These are not bad therapeutic outcomes. They represent hard, courageous work on the part of clients who now refuse to be hurt any longer. We respect their decisions.
But as clinicians specializing in supporting family caregivers, especially those caring for aging parents, we have also seen ways that alienation can be surmounted and improved relationships formed. It requires adult children to risk getting hurt all over again by deciding to care for an aging parent who previously tormented them. Taking this chance in the hopes of forging something better doesn’t work out well in every case, but it does produce emotionally powerful results for some.
We saw this happen with one of our patients, Gloria, who at age 43 never expected to find such healing. She had always felt belittled by her mean, narcissistic mother from whom she kept a healthy geographic and emotional distance to protect herself throughout her adult life. But then her aging mother developed diabetic complications, including sensory neuropathy in her feet, and suffered a series of harmful falls. After weighing the pros and cons, Gloria decided to become her mom’s caregiver.
This could have gone disastrously. Gloria might have allowed herself to hope that she’d finally win her mother’s approval by being there in her hour of need — only to be rejected by her mother yet again. Like Bruce Springsteen in the biopic, Gloria avoided reliving this destructive family dynamic by being her own person, refusing to allow her hurtful parent to loom over her life. The twist here is that she managed this while immersing herself in her mom’s day-to-day care.
To motivate her caregiving, Gloria drew on her moral convictions, not some old yearning for her mother’s love. Helping others had always provided her with a deep sense of meaning. It underpinned her successful career as a hospital floor nurse and, later, an administrative leader in her health system. She could tend to her mother’s needs because that was consistent with her values and core identity, not simply because her “patient” now would be the woman who gave birth to and raised her.
Secondly, Gloria made a point of approaching the present as the present, not the past. Certainly, she still craved some measure of justice for the years of mistreatment that she endured as a child. An apology on her mother’s part would be a nice start. But the caregiving was not about winning justice; the current mission was limiting her mother’s falls to help her live out her final years with less suffering. Gloria had the skills and professionalism to achieve this goal.
Perhaps most importantly, she decided to just accept her mother for the very flawed person she had always been. It no longer made sense to Gloria to wish her mother was kinder or to believe she had the power to make her happy. Mom was a sour person who inflicted her sourness on others, especially her only daughter, a personality that did not grow sweeter with her diabetic complications later in life.
True to form, Gloria’s mother initially found a dozen ways to criticize Gloria for how she provided care. But Gloria now shrugged off her barbs, keeping her focus on helping a vulnerable older adult. To her great surprise, her mother responded by changing her behavior, too. It was akin to what happens when you steadfastly ignore the taunts of a schoolyard bully. Once her daughter stopped reacting emotionally, Mom began to respect her more. During the last two years of the mother’s life, the dynamic between them slowly shifted from mean mom/hurt child to appreciative mom/competent adult child. For the first time in her life, Gloria didn’t feel that her mother resented her. While not exactly love, it was pretty good.
Just like there are not many Bruce Springsteens in the world, there aren’t that many Glorias so able to separate their past from present circumstances that they can turn caregiving into a transformative experience of reconciliation. But there is always that possibility. If you are like Gloria or Bruce and decide to provide some care, we have several suggestions to keep in mind:
Maintaining rage against a parent takes energy; it can be a relief to let it go.
Choosing to be a parent’s caregiver shouldn’t be undertaken with the intent of proving or winning anything; it should be about living your values.
You are not offering forgiveness — especially if, as is likely, your parent never expresses remorse. You are gaining pride in who you are, regardless of how your parent was or is.
Barry J. Jacobs, Psy.D. and Julia L. Mayer, Psy.D. are clinical psychologists based in Media and the co-authors of the 2025 book, “The AARP Caregiver Answer Book.”
This week’s column covers housing debates in Harrisburg, admissions policies at the school district, and more bad zoning overlays.
Go big or go home
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker is no longer the only person with an ambitious housing plan. Gov. Josh Shapiro joined her this week, pledging in his budget address to create a billion-dollar state fund to encourage housing production in local communities. The guv is echoing a bipartisan consensus that there simply aren’t enough homes to meet the demand. There’s just one problem: Many housing experts say Shapiro’s ideas won’t move the needle on production.
That’s because his plan is based entirely on carrots, avoiding the creation of the kind of statewide building standards that have been most effective elsewhere.
While factors like interest rates and the cost of construction impact housing starts, local zoning rules are also a key constraint on homebuilding. Many municipalities maintain strict rules that make it impossible to build anything other than McMansions. In the few towns that do allow for new construction, the mismatch between supply and demand means developers can charge outlandish prices. The new Coulter Place in Ardmore starts at around $3,000 a month for a one-bedroom unit.
In states like California, the debate over housing has been going on for over a decade. State leaders there also sought to use an incremental approach and avoid attracting the ire of interest groups that are committed to the current system of regulating housing. The result has been the legislature routinely needing to revise the plan. Instead of starting with a half-measure, Pennsylvania should get things right the first time.
State Rep. Tarik Khan has proposed what he calls the “Golden Girls Law,” named after the famed ‘80s sitcom. Many municipalities restrict unrelated women from living together, which would have made scofflaws out of Blanche, Rose, Dorothy, and her mother if the show were set in Pennsylvania. Khan’s bill would end those bans.
State Rep. Greg Scott wants to eliminate parking minimums, and State Rep. John Inglis III has introduced bills that would require municipalities to allow for more duplexes and triplexes. Shapiro should put his weight behind these efforts, as well.
Students outside Masterman High School in 2022.
Polarizing magnets
During the pandemic, the Philadelphia School District was faced with a conundrum: how to decide who got spots at the city’s well-regarded magnet schools, given the state’s cancellation of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, or PSSA, standardized tests.
The schools — and standardized tests — have often been criticized for having cultural and socioeconomic biases. The demographics at Masterman and Central (where I attended) do not match those of the district overall, while standardized test scores tend to reflect the socioeconomic status of the students taking them. To many, this is enough evidence to scrap the magnet system, the tests, or both.
The district’s solution was to take over admissions, which had traditionally been handled by the schools themselves, and subject applicants to a lottery process. To address equity concerns, some zip codes were given priority access to the schools. Students at predominantly Black George Washington Carver Middle School, who had been promised a spot at the partner high school if they maintained good grades, saw those pledges revoked. The district also created a computer-graded writing test, although that was quickly phased out. Some parents saw the revamp as a blatant attempt to discriminate against Asian students. A bipartisan federal appeals court ruled this week that these families have a case.
With the state once again administering PSSAs, and with the new lottery system not having a substantial impact on demographics at the schools, it is worth questioning whether the new process represents any improvement at all.
Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr. in chambers as City Council meets in December.
Day of Jay
This column’s favorite City Council member, the 5th District’s Jeffery “Jay” Young Jr., decided not to advance his controversial bill to ban housing construction on or near the former Hahnemann University Hospital campus after serious pushback from local community groups and the Planning Commission. Unfortunately, the attention given to the Hahnemann bill may have helped two of his other bad ideas evade scrutiny.
Young got two bills through the Rules Committee. One bill is aimed at preventing blight by restricting demolitions of vacant property. Ironically, most development experts say the bill will likely increase blight by incentivizing owners to create hazards to justify demolition or providing more space for squatters to operate.
Young also introduced a bill creating an 11 p.m. curfew for some businesses within his district, which he said is aimed at stopping nuisance businesses that are selling drug paraphernalia and, per Young, sometimes the drugs themselves.
By that logic, selling drugs at 10:59 p.m. will still be allowed.
A week ago, Joel Embiid decided to spend a little bit of the organizational capital he reaccrued in recent months. In response to a question about the Sixers’ approach to the upcoming NBA trade deadline, Embiid pointedly expressed his hope that the team would be looking to add talent rather than cut costs.
“Obviously, we’ve been ducking the tax past couple of years, so hopefully, we’ll keep the same team,” Embiid said. “I love all the guys that are here. I think we got a shot.
I don’t know what they’re going to do, but I hope we get a chance to just go out and compete because we’ve got a good group of guys in this locker room. The vibes are great. Like I said, in the past we’ve been, I guess, ducking the tax, so hopefully, we think about improving because I think we have a chance.”
Embiid was surprisingly — some might say ungraciously — candid in noting the Sixers’ recent prioritization of shedding salary at the trade deadline to avoid paying the NBA’s luxury tax (and, thereby, to receive a share of the pooled taxpayer dollars). But he also was prescient, and unfortunately so.
Sixers president Daryl Morey is scheduled to meet with the media on Friday, so we’ll have to wait to hear the official defense of the team’s decision to trade 2024 first-round pick Jared McCain to the Oklahoma City Thunder for what most likely will be a low-value first-rounder (plus the obligatory smattering of second-round picks). We don’t have to wait to judge the optics of the thing.
The optics are poor, and that will remain true even if the thing ends up making more sense than we can immediately glean. The Sixers didn’t trade McCain for a player who is more likely to help them contend for a championship, be it this year or beyond. They didn’t trade him for a pick that they then flipped for a player who can help them capitalize on their momentum this season. Everywhere else, teams got better, and many of them did so in ways beyond this season. The Minnesota Timberwolves can re-sign Ayo Dosunmu. The Indiana Pacers can pair Ivica Zubac with Tyrese Haliburton next season. The Sixers can hope a late first-round pick is worth something in June.
Jared McCain (right) only played in 60 games with the Sixers after being selected in the first round of the 2024 draft.
A good way to judge the optics of a move is to attempt to write an executive summary of it in as favorable a way as possible. That’s an extraordinarily difficult task in this case. The Sixers just traded away a guy who they drafted at No. 16 barely a year and a half ago and who probably would be drafted higher in a redo. In exchange, they received a pick that currently projects as the No. 23 pick in the 2026 draft, two picks later than where the Sixers grabbed Tyrese Maxey almost six years ago. It is a range of the draft that rarely yields starters, let alone stars. It is a range where the odds say you are more likely to draft a player who never cracks a first-division rotation than one who becomes a meaningful starter.
Just look at the track record. Of the 42 players drafted with the last seven picks of the first round since 2020, only 17 have started more than 17 NBA games. Just eyeballing it, you’d be hard-pressed to identify 10 of those 42 who’ve turned out to be better than the median potential outcome of even this year’s version of McCain. Jaden McDaniels and Desmond Bane are stars. They are followed by Payton Pritchard, Immanuel Quickley, Quentin Grimes, and Santi Aldama. Beyond that: Peyton Watson and Cam Thomas, and then Bones Hyland, Day’Ron Sharpe, Nikola Jović, and Kyshawn George. You get the picture.
Risk vs. certainty is the name of the game. The Sixers traded McCain for a first-round pick that will be uncertain, even on draft day. Let alone five months before. Whatever negative certainty they felt about McCain’s mid-to-long-term trajectory, it can’t possibly be greater than the negative uncertainty of a draft-day replacement. Which is why, optically speaking, the move looks like one that was inordinately influenced by the cost-cutting benefits.
The Sixers surely will point to optionality as a variable. On draft day, they will have another opportunity to flip the McCain first-rounder for an established NBA player or include the pick in a package. If that influenced the move, then the bet they are making is that the pick will be more in a draft-day trade than McCain would have been himself. There’s a decent chance that is true, given how far McCain has fallen on the depth chart and how little opportunity he could have to reestablish value.
It just rings a little bit hollow to anybody who has bought into the commendable shift we’ve seen from the Sixers in their roster-building strategy over the last year. And it rings especially hollow when you consider that the team that traded for McCain is one of the best and brightest roster-builders in the modern NBA. As somebody said the other day, when Sam Presti wants one of your guys, it’s a good reason to think a few more thoughts about whether you should want to get rid of him.
Barely a year and a half has passed since the Sixers made McCain the No. 16 pick in the 2024 draft. In that year and a half, we’ve seen McCain:
Play 23 games in which he looked like one of the top five players in the class, forcing his way into the starting lineup and then averaging 19.1 points while shooting 39.7% from three-point range in the 16 games before he suffered a season-ending knee injury.
Play 25 games where he looked like a player working his way back from a broken thumb that he suffered while working his way back from knee surgery.
Play 11 games in a 15-game stretch in which he logged just 132 minutes.
In the Sixers’ defense, they’ve seen much more of McCain than the television cameras capture. Nobody can have a more informed opinion on where he projects within the context of their roster. But it wasn’t long ago that McCain looked like a player who could eventually transcend questions of fit. His ceiling never was close to VJ Edgecombe’s, and his probable reality was always short of Maxey’s. Again, though. The Thunder have a lot of guards. They are built on a two-way mentality. It makes you wonder.
What it comes down to is that the Sixers better be right in their evaluation of McCain. Whatever the marching orders from ownership regarding the luxury tax, there is a level of player even Scrooge McDuck wouldn’t deem an appropriate cost-savings measure. McCain isn’t that player now. The Sixers could be accurate in their judgment of the odds that he ever becomes one. The question is whether they are accurate in their judgment of their risk of being wrong.
