Kylie Kelce and Catherine, Princess of Wales have a lot in common. Both women played field hockey, are mothers to young children, and are in the public eye alongside their husbands. However, when it comes to royal formalities and etiquette, that may be where the similarities end.
In the most recent episode of her podcast, Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce, the Narberth native addressed a flub she made in a past episode when she invited the Princess of Wales, who’s also known as Kate Middleton, onto the show.
“Princess Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, if you ever wanted to come on and chitchat about some field hockey and maybe kids. I don’t know. We got a couple things in common,” Kelce said in the Sept. 24 episode.
Unbeknownst to her, Kate Middleton’s formal title is Catherine, Princess of Wales.
Listeners were sure to point out her mistake, with Kelce apologizing in the “rage bait” section of the episode. One commenter wrote that Kelce would need to “clean up her act” in terms of language if the Princess of Wales were to join her for a conversation. And Kelce did not dispute it.
“First of all, you’re correct. … Agreed,” she said.
Despite this, Kelce acknowledged that she knows when to tone it down.
“Would I curse at her face? No,” she said. “Here’s the thing. I love curse words. I love it so, so much. I love curse words. You guys know that. But at the end of the day, I am respectful of the situations that I am put in, at least being respectful to the people I am speaking to.”
She went on to apologize to Catherine, saying that she always wishes to respect people’s chosen names.
As for a future collaboration? The offer still stands.
“I would love to speak to the Princess of Wales, OK?” Kelce said. “Because of many reasons. She is an incredible woman. She has children. She played field hockey. She battled cancer. There are so many things that I would love to speak to her about.”
Black and red mats stretched out underneath dozens of students pivoting across the floor on the balls of their feet as they found the rhythm to strike the bag in front of them. On one side of the room, several flags hung on the wall, representing each nationality of students. Across from that, 33-year-old Christina Massie trained beside 69-year-old Don Spector.
Every Monday, students walk into Fight Club Philadelphia on Girard Avenue, take off their sneakers, and prepare to participate in the gym’s fight fitness classes — hitting a bag for 20 minutes, followed by weightlifting for another 20 minutes with a five-minute cooldown.
“We truly transcend sports,” said 57-year-old Michael Sulit. “I’ve had Croatian fighters train next to Russian fighters. As sick as the world is, there’s no barriers, no borders. We have 69-year-old men training with 24-year-old women. There’s no boundaries.”
Video: The father-daughter duo is steering away from a ‘traditional’ martial arts gym
The martial arts gym with a focus on striking has made it its mission to create a more inclusive community in combat sports and welcomes students of all levels. And father-daughter duo Michael and Shea Sulit are leading the charge.
“It’s such a tight-knit community, and that’s something me and my dad really take pride in because the gym is somewhere that can be intimidating for a lot of people, and that’s the last thing we want our space to feel like,” said Shea, 31. “Fighting is something that’s intimidating, and some gyms can really put a lot of pressure on you to fit into the mold. But we like to take the everyday person and give them somewhere where they feel strong and empowered.”
Fighting has been in Michael’s blood since his childhood in the Philippines. Martial arts was part of students’ daily schedules at Central Philippine University, an American-based school.
“We didn’t have football or basketball or baseball,” Michael said. “We had martial arts. So, when I was a kid in school, gym for us wasn’t like dodgeball or duck, duck, goose. It’s martial arts. And if you’re good at it, your gym teacher calls your dad and goes, ‘Yeah, this kid’s going to need fight camp.’”
Michael went to a fight academy at age 7. Six months later, he was taking fights that adults would gamble on. At 10 years old, he moved to Philadelphia, where his love for combat sports grew with the rise of the UFC.
Michael was working in corporate sales for a food distributor for 20 years — but it wasn’t enough. That’s when he came up with the idea for Fight Club Philadelphia.
“It was a passion project,” Michael said. “It was crazy; it was full-on insanity. Everyone in my whole family said, ‘You’re freaking insane; you’re nuts.’”
The gym opened in March 2018 on Market Street. Nearly two years later, Shea joined the business, coaching a number of classes at the gym.
”Some days are good. Some days are bad,” Michael said. “But at the end of the day, it’s a blessing. She tells me when I’m wrong; she tells me when I’m out of line. And I’m blessed. I see her every day. Who can say that, you know?”
Michael Sulit (right) and his daughter, Shea, run Fight Club Philadelphia together.
‘Everybody should be able to protect themselves’
Michael followed the violence in the city closely as he raised two daughters, Shea and Arden, who attended Temple. A year before he opened his gym, a Temple student, Jenna Burleigh, was murdered after meeting a man at a bar.
Seeing something like this happen so close to home made Michael realize he wanted to find a way to help the community.
“Being a girl dad played a big part in this,” Michael said. “I think that everybody should be able to protect themselves and be empowered, especially women.”
Unlike most MMA gyms, Fight Club Philadelphia has a majority female members, and several compete regionally.
“Learning self-defense as a woman in general was extremely important for me, and then also living in an urban setting furthered that,” Shea said. “So it’s something I really wanted to take seriously, but then I just fell in love with it and turned it more into a passion.
“It’s an incredibly male-dominated field — most sports are. Men are supposed to be masculine, women are not. We’re not supposed to be seen in that light, and I really just wanted to change that. I wanted to give women the opportunity to step into that space and be ‘masculine’ if they want to.”
Fight Club Philadelphia has a majority female clientele.
‘It’s not a traditional gym’
Fight Club Philadelphia offers a range of classes for beginners and experts, including Thai Pads, Next Level Team, and its most popular class, Fight Fitness.
“People come here to get fit and learn how to fight and lift and get in shape,” Michael said. “It’s not a gym; it’s a family. It’s a third space, and you can really make some good relationships.”
Diana Mousetis, a 36-year-old Philadelphia native, has been a member of the gym since 2018. After watching a fight on TV at the bar, she decided to give it a shot and has never left.
“It’s a wonderful community here. It’s what keeps me coming back,” Mousetis said. “Knowing how to defend yourself is really important, especially as a woman. It’s definitely come in handy for me, unfortunately. … When you have nothing else on hand, you’ve got your two fists, and you’ve got feet, knees, and elbows, too. So learn how to use them.”
Kira Coviello grabbed her accordion, strapped on her 18-pound backpack foot drum that was slightly leaning off the edge of the kitchen counter, slowly — and carefully — grabbed the straps hanging from the drum and placed them under the heel of her clogs. Then, the 42-year-old grabbed her kazoo and placed it around her neck.
“Look at me, an independent woman,” Coviello said as her husband, Noah Sullum, and her dog, Winnie, watched.
In a sparkly green Eagles jacket, a striped green dress, and a pair of green polka dot socks, the Doylestown native began to play the Eagles fight song with all of the instruments: her left foot controlling the tambourine, her right foot controlling the foot drum, her right hand controlling the snare drum with a baton twirling at the same time, and her left hand controlling the accordion.
This has become part of Coviello’s gameday tradition as she includes herself in one of her husband’s favorite pastimes: football Sundays.
“I’m a supporter of sports teams,” Coviello said. “I like all the hype around it. I really like the Eagles’ fight song. I like how happy it makes everyone around here. I don’t pretend to understand sports that well. I’m what you might call artsy-fartsy. My husband and I are very different people in every way. He likes the Eagles, and I have found a new way to involve myself with his enjoyment of watching the games. It seems like a new way to connect.”
Coviello, the one-woman band, has been posting consistently on her Instagram page, honest2betsy, for the last three years, growing her platform to about 440,000 followers.
When asked how she would describe her account to someone new, she responded: “nostalgic humor.”
“So, Betsy, the character I created, is kind of a repressed housewife who keeps discovering music, and, unfortunately for her, a lot of that music winds up being very raunchy, or it’s satire, and she doesn’t realize that it’s satire,” Coviello said. “It’s kind of like a silent movie with music. So I do a lot of acting with my face and creating little scenes. So that’s how the page started and blew up. And now it’s turned into a bunch of other silly, whimsical things that happen.”
Kira Coviello demonstrates her one-woman band for Eagles games.William Thomas Cain / For The Inquirer
She created the character in 2023 after leaving her job at a theatre school. What started as a few video clips getting sent into the group chat with her friends turned into an online persona.
“I actually thought I was going to use it to maybe sell some of the things I was crocheting,” Coviello said. “Like, I was crocheting at one point a giant uterus to support Planned Parenthood. So I thought maybe I’ll do this housewife thing, and I’ll sell some of my crochet products. I haven’t crocheted since I started doing these videos now because the ADHD took me in a different direction.”
Coviello has acted at the Walnut Street Theater. She also plays multiple instruments, including the violin, cello, accordion, a Swedish instrument called the nyckelharpa — and, most recently, the backpack foot drum — which she purchased from Farmer Foot Drum in August.
Video: Meet the one-woman band performing the Eagles fight song on game days
With her musical and theater background, she has created a new series titled “Helping my husband watch the Eagles games.”
“[The foot drum] is a new toy,” Coviello said. “I just got it very recently and haven’t perfected playing yet, but I think that adds to the comedy of it.”
But Sullum and their three kids, Eloise, 15, Esme, 13, and Tallulah, 11, have gotten used to Coviello’s antics.
“She doesn’t do much to shock me anymore,” Sullum said. “I think I’ve seen it all. Our dog is used to the noise, used to the instruments, used to the singing. There’s got to be 15-20 instruments in the house at least it would seem. So, yeah. It’s noisy.”
Inside the house, there’s a room for all the instruments. Stringed instruments hang on the wall, including guitars and banjos, a piano sits toward the center of the room, and instruments like a washboard and a nyckelharpa stand out.
Kira Coviello started her online persona in 2009.William Thomas Cain / For The Inquirer
Coviello has been teaching herself how to play the foot drum through instructional videos. And as an Eagles fan, it was only fitting for her to learn how to play the Eagles fight song.
“I think that just comes with living in the Philadelphia area for over 20 years,” Coviello said. “It’s just in all of us. And I play instruments by ear, so that just comes out in my blood now.”
Since posting the “Helping my husband watch the Eagles games” series, both videos have accumulated over 14,000 likes, and Eagles receiver/return specialist Britain Covey commented, “I think we need you at the next team meeting [to be honest].”
“As long as they keep winning, I have to do that, because I’ve fallen into the trap of superstitions,” Coviello said. “So now if they win, it’s thanks to me playing my foot drums and helping my husband. And if they lose, perhaps then I’ll have to stop or take a break, or find a new way to help him watch the game. Just add another instrument.”
And with the Eagles suffering their first loss of the season to the Chicago Bears, Coviello is thinking of new ways to add more whimsy — perhaps tap dancing?
“I never know what I’m going to get,” Sullum said. “But, I think she has an upward trajectory for sure.”
When asked where she should perform next, he said “[Eagles] halftime show, where else?”
But in the meantime, Coviello will continue to play at her upcoming honest2betsy live shows at The Birdhouse in Lambertville (Dec. 11), Soul Joel’s in Pottstown (Dec. 18), and Cary’s Music Room in New Hope (Jan. 9).
As the men’s World Cup summer fades away, the time has come to kick off the countdown to next year’s women’s World Cup in Brazil.
The U.S. women’s team’s series with Spain — a clash between the reigning Olympic champions and reigning World Cup champions — will serve as the starting gun. So it’s fitting that U.S. manager Emma Hayes has summoned a squad packed with stars for the two-game set, Oct. 10 in Washington and Oct. 13 at Subaru Park.
The defense also has its headliner in Naomi Girma, who makes the squad despite injuries hampering the start to her season at English club Chelsea. But Hayes admitted Tuesday that the centerback’s latest knock, suffered in practice just a few hours before the announcement, could rule her out.
“I’m not entirely sure if Naomi will be on the roster, but I’m sure we will will report something if that is the case,” Hayes said in a news conference.
Naomi Girma (right) hasn’t played for her club, England’s Chelsea, since Sept. 2.Gari Garaialde
While those players will sell the most tickets, the one who might generate the most fan buzz is forward Ashley Sanchez. She has been steamrolling the NWSL this year with the North Carolina Courage and has 20 goals and four assists in 26 games.
But she hasn’t been with the national team since January 2025 and hasn’t played for her country since October 2024.
The 27-year-old has tied the league’s single-season scoring record with four games to go. She could break it Friday night by scoring on the goalkeeper who might be the U.S.’s new starter, the Seattle Reign’s Claudia Dickey.
“I think Ashley’s had an extraordinary season, not just in terms of the number of goals she’s scored, but I think consistency in her performance,” Hayes said. “At her stage of her career, I’m sure she doesn’t want to waste the opportunities that are in front of her. The experience she has — this is a player that was always tipped for great things as a youth national team player, and so I’m happy to see her fulfilling her potential.”
Hayes doesn’t have everyone available she’d like to have. Three major players are dealing with long-term injuries: veteran centerback Emily Sonnett, young creative midfielder Olivia Moultrie, and do-it-all attacking star Catarina Macario.
While Hayes hopes they’ll be back next year, the door has opened for some young prospects. Winger Pietra Tordin has turned heads with seven goals and nine assists for the Portland Thorns, while striker Trinity Byars has 10 goals and two assists for the San Diego Wave.
As for available players who didn’t make the cut for this squad, the biggest absence is Gotham FC playmaker Jaedyn Shaw. It’s easy to forget she’s only 21, as she has 37 senior national team caps. Shaw has been in superb form in the NWSL lately: four goals and one assist in her last five games, with nine goals and five assists on the season.
Angel City striker Ally Sentnor is another notable absence. She has seven goals and four assists for the club this year, and seven goals in 23 career U.S. games.
“I want to prioritize the development of players, and I don’t want less experienced players always sitting on the bench and playing few minutes,” Hayes said, adding that the duo are “still central to our plans.”
Hayes said she spoke with both of them and “they understand the importance of their development” and “this has been part of their prescribed journey.”
Both games are close to sold out, with only scattered seats open on Ticketmaster. As of Tuesday afternoon, the starting price for the Tuesday game in Chester is $76 and leaps to $168 for the Saturday matchup at Washington’s Audi Field.
The big crowds will come to cheer on the U.S., but they’ll also be keen to see Spain’s stars. La Roja’s squad includes two-time world player of the year Alexia Putellas, a further all-world playmaker in Mariona Caldentey, and one of the planet’s top young players in Salma Paralluelo,
U.S. midfielder Lily Yohannes (left) faced Spain’s Mariona Caldentey last spring when Yohannes’ OL Lyonnes met Arsenal in the women’s Chamipions League semifinals.Laurent Cipriani
It notably does not include former Gotham FC striker Esther González, who likely would have gotten a frosty reception over here. She left Gotham in late July via a mutual contract termination for what she said were personal reasons but within a month joined Saudi Arabian club Al Qadisah.
That drew backlash on this side of the Atlantic, and not just from Gotham fans who felt scorned. Several eyebrows were raised around the league, and even some observers in Europe were surprised.
Three-time reigning world player of the year Aitana Bonmatí also isn’t on this squad, as she’s recovering from a broken leg suffered last season.
But the rest of the squad is more than than deep enough to give the U.S. one of the biggest tests it can get from any team in the world.
“I’ve said it many times: We want the hard path,” Hayes said. “We want these games, this preparation. We welcome it; we invite it. It brings the best out of us.”
Emma Hayes giving instructions at a U.S. practice when the team was in Chester for a game last October.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
USWNT roster vs. Spain
Goalkeepers (3): Claudia Dickey (Seattle Reign), Jordan Silkowitz (Bay FC), Phallon Tullis-Joyce (Manchester United, England)
Defenders (8): Tierna Davidson (Gotham FC), Emily Fox (Arsenal, England), Naomi Girma (Chelsea, England), Avery Patterson (Houston Dash), Lilly Reale (Boston Legacy), Tara Rudd (Washington Spirit), Gisele Thompson (Angel City FC), Kennedy Wesley (San Diego Wave)
Midfielders (7): Sam Coffey (Manchester City, England), Lindsey Heaps (Denver Summit), Claire Hutton (Bay FC), Rose Lavelle (Gotham FC), Evelyn Shores (Angel City FC), Mallory Swanson (Chicago Stars), Lily Yohannes (OL Lyonnes, France)
Forwards (8): Trinity Byars (San Diego Wave), Michelle Cooper (Kansas City Current), Trinity Rodman (Washington Spirit), Emma Sears (Racing Louisville), Ashley Sanchez (North Carolina Courage), Pietra Tordin (Portland Thorns), Alyssa Thompson (Chelsea), Sophia Wilson (Portland Thorns)
USWNT schedule
Saturday, Oct. 10: vs. Spain at Audi Field, Washington, 2:30 p.m. (TBS, Telemundo 62, Universo, HBO Max, Peacock)
Tuesday, Oct. 13: vs. Spain at Subaru Park, Chester, 7 p.m. (TNT, Universo, HBO Max, Peacock)
⭐ La preparación de la #FIFAWWC, empieza con 𝗘𝗟𝗟𝗔𝗦.
Mary Kate Morrissey spent most of her life trying to excel at one thing: musical theater.
However, while growing up in Downingtown, Morrissey was surrounded by athletics. Her mom, Mary Beth, played basketball at Mount St. Mary’s University, and her sister, Tara, played Division II lacrosse at West Chester. Her dad, John, wanted his children to play golf, so he signed them up for golf camp one summer and gave them tiny sets with panda head covers.
Morrissey, though, wasn’t interested. She remembers sitting on top of a hill at a golf camp, hearing a production of West Side Story being performed down the street.
“I was livid,” Morrissey said. “I couldn’t believe that I had to be outside when I could be inside doing musical theater. So that was the end of that, and I swore off all things sports until I graduated college.”
Instead, she immersed herself in all things arts.
Mary Kate Morrissey worked her way to being a standby for Elphaba on the national tour of “Wicked” from 2015 to 2017. Joan Marcus Photography
“Anytime you go full throttle into one thing, there’s not a whole lot of time for anything else and so I really focused on theater, singing, band, just straight arts,” she said.
That focus eventually led her to Broadway. Morrissey worked her way to being a standby for Elphaba on the national tour of Wicked from 2015 to 2017. She said she went from having about $300 to her name to becoming the principal Elphaba on tour.
She later became the Broadway standby from 2023-24, before taking over as the principal Elphaba on Broadway from 2024-25. The role was a dream she had chased since she saw her first Broadway show, The Lion King, at 10 years old and stood in Times Square telling herself she would be there one day.
Elphaba’s story of being a misfit resonated with Morrissey, who described herself growing up as the “weird art geek.”
“I felt like I was her,” she said. “I had really bad skin and so all this stuff about her not wanting to be seen in her own skin, and I was like, that’s me. I always wanted to play the part, but I never actually thought I would.”
Morrissey had hoped for a faster path to Broadway, but now believes her debut came at the exact right time.
Morrissey became the principal Elphaba during the same year Wicked the movie starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, was released. The popularity surrounding the film brought new audiences to the Gershwin Theatre in New York.
Mary Kate Morrisse took over as the principal Elphaba on Broadway from 2024-25. Joan Marcus Photography
“Everybody expected me, myself included, to be the very best of the best,” Morrissey said. “I felt so much pressure because there were so many first-time Wicked viewers coming to Broadway because they had seen the movie or because they wanted to see it before the movie came out. I felt this massive responsibility to just be as dialed into my performing as possible that I really needed somewhere where I could just go be bad at something and try to learn something new.”
And that’s how golf reentered her life.
Morrissey, now 37, has combined her passion for musical theater with her newfound love of golf to show audiences that sometimes it’s good to be a beginner and try something entirely new.
“If you’re always working on that thing that you’re best at,” she said, “it’s really good to flex the muscle of ‘I’m also not good at this other thing’ for our egos and to stay humble and to truly build character.”
Growing up in Philly
Storytelling and singing was always a part of Morrissey’s life.
Her father’s side of the family immigrated to South Philadelphia from Ireland. John’s father sang locally in Philadelphia speakeasies, corner bars in Southwest Philadelphia, and on the Irish radio.
Whenever the Morrissey family had parties, the night would end with a “sing-song.”
Mary Kate Morrissey with her mom after seeing “The Lion King” on Broadway.Courtesy of Mary Kate Morrissey
“You’d say, ‘Mary Kate, give us a song,’ and she would be 5 years old and she would belt out some Irish song about the Irish famines and she’d sing it and sit down,” her mother said. “There was never any fear of performance for any one of our children.
“She came out of the womb singing and has never stopped.”
Mary Beth loved “Godspell,” written by Stephen Schwartz, who also wrote the music for Wicked, and Morrissey remembers listening to the cassette tape in the car. John also used to take her and her siblings to plays and musicals at the Academy of Music and Walnut Street Theatre.
When Morrissey returned to Philadelphia in 2019 to perform as Janis Sarkisian in “Mean Girls” at the Academy of Music, she brought both of her grandmothers backstage.
“The academy is this crazy, big, beautiful, old theater, so just to bring them on stage, they were over the moon,” she said. “It was one of the coolest things to come back to Philly and do that.”
Mary Kate Morrissey with her grandmothers at the Academy of Music.Courtesy of Mary Kate Morrissey
The parallels in golf and theater
Morrissey’s return to golf started with her mom after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mary Beth retired from Liberty Property Trust in 2020 and began playing golf. She loved it, she said, and Mary Kate enjoyed watching her mom become immersed in a new sport.
“It was fun to see her being plugged into a community where it’s all surrounded by this hobby where you get to walk and be competitive and have a cocktail after,” she said.
So during her run as Elphaba on Broadway, Morrissey decided she wanted to try it herself.
She convinced a nearby golf simulator, Golf v.2, in Brooklyn to give her free lessons, if she posted about it on Instagram. Once a week, she would take a lesson in silence.
She performed Wicked at night and had to protect her voice during the day, so her golf coach had to figure out how to teach her without speaking.
“I almost learned it like it was a dance move or choreography,” Morrissey said.
The more she played, the more similarities she saw between golf and theater that are often overlooked.
“I feel like both are storytelling venues,” she said. “With golf, each golfer is the hero of their story, each course is the setting, the sand traps are the villain, how are they going to overcome their obstacles, everything is a beginning, middle, and an end. They’re faced with conflict. It’s the same thing with theater.”
Both golf and theater require calm under pressure, while demanding preparation, repetition, and the ability to find something new in something familiar, she said.
“Broadway actors do the same show every single day, and they find something new in it every single day,” she said. “In golf, you could play the same course every single day and find something new in it.”
‘Broadway to Birdie’
Morrissey and her friend were at the beach when they started talking about the lack of golf media they wanted to watch, especially for women and beginners.
“We were like, ‘Let’s think of five big ideas that we can make happen in the next year,’ and ’Broadway to Birdie’ started,” Morrissey said.
In November 2025, she started “Broadway to Birdie” on YouTube, bringing together Broadway performers who aren’t golfers to show you don’t need to be an expert to enjoy the sport.
The series has featured Broadway veterans, including McKenzie Kurtz, who played Glinda in Wicked, Anna in Frozen, and Heather Chandler in Heathers, as well as Brian d’Arcy James, who was the original Shrek in Shrek the musical and King George in Hamilton.
The performers play a friendly best-ball match and whoever loses each hole has to sing from the losing green to the next tee box.
“What I’m hoping it does,” Morrissey said, “is show other women and people who are not used to seeing themselves on the course in the media, that someone they admire, like a Sam Pauly or Shoshana Bean, can be out there hacking away and just having fun and practicing the beginner’s mindset.”
She believes that golf can teach the same lessons that theater has taught her throughout her career.
“Golf is really very character-building because it forces you to remain cool, calm, and collected,” she said. “It’s fun to put that kind of exercise on people who build characters for a living and have to sustain that kind of pressure.”
Morrissey has learned many lessons by blending golf and musical theater. She shared that message as a speaker during Women’s Day at Travelers Championship in 2025 and 2026 and the 2026 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship Leadership Summit.
“Golf and theater have become sort of parallel for me, and it’s a story that I really love sharing and love talking about,” she said. “Golf, I think that for so long it’s felt like a closed door and very insider, like a boys’ club, but it feels to me like that’s changing and sometimes you have to open the door for yourself. I think that theatergoers can find the story and the theater in the tournaments and in the players.”
At the 2026 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, she created a multimedia performance built around past champions Corey Pavin and Retief Goosen. She used clips from their winning championship final rounds and performed a Broadway medley that she sang over the video in front of Pavin and Goosen.
“She has found a nexus where golf and Broadway intersect, and I don’t think anybody has really been able to bring golf and their music or talent together,” her father said. “Mary Kate has found this very special lane, and the joy she is bringing to these other people and bringing into the game as a result of it is just unbelievable.
“The golf community has accepted her and have supported her, as you can see from the way her Instagram account is growing.”
Changing and growing the game
Every September, Morrissey’s family runs a golf fundraiser at Seaview Golf Club for the Holy Redeemer’s Jersey Shore Food Pantry, which is a charity Nancy, John’s mother’s sister, started with the Sisters of the Holy Redeemer over 30 years ago.
The tournament, called the Redeemer Health Golf Klassic, raises money for the food pantry that serves thousands of individuals each year.
“It all goes back to my aunt and it’s part of her mission,” John said. “We feel like we’re perpetuating her mission of hope to the people of the Jersey Shore who need it.”
The same idea of bringing people together through golf is at the heart of Morrissey’s approach. She hopes her journey with golf can show people that it is never too late to pick up the game.
Mary Kate Morrissey has taken up golf and wants to get more people involved in the sport.Andrew Hertherington / The Photo Caddie
“You don’t have to be a natural athlete, that doesn’t have to be your story,” she said. “I’m an actor, I’m a singer, I’m an artist, but it really helps with balance and confidence. You have to get past the hard beginning part, but it’s good for us to feel like we are bad at something.”
Morrissey believes “Broadway to Birdie” will inspire more women to start playing golf.
“Get out there and try it,” she said. “I’m really just trying to integrate the audiences and making golf more accessible — and making Broadway more accessible, too.”
At the end of Gracie Sullivan’s freshman year at Drexel, the women’s soccer coaching staff approached her with a message: the starting goalkeeper position for next season was “up for grabs.”
Sammy Widnick was transferring and Zara Wickert was graduating, leaving an opening at goalie.
“That just pushed me because I felt like I knew I could do it,” Sullivan said. “It was just whether I wanted to do it or not.”
Sullivan did not see the field during her freshman season, but that is common for a first-year student adjusting to the collegiate level.
She used the season to learn from the goalkeepers ahead of her and spent the offseason working for her opportunity.
“You can always say, ‘Do you want this?’ And they’ll say, ‘Yes.’ But then in training, you need to see the want and desire to develop,” said Mike Paznokas, Drexel’s assistant women’s soccer coach. “It was awesome because in the one-on-one sessions we did, you got to see that. You saw [Sullivan] asking questions, you saw her working her butt off in those sessions to make sure that she’s getting better and understanding the concepts we went over.”
Sullivan is now the starting goalie for the Dragons and had a career-best 10 saves against La Salle on Aug. 28, which is the most saves by an individual Drexel keeper since 2017. Entering Thursday’s match against Hampton, Sullivan has 42 saves so far this season.
The sophomore’s accomplishment has come as no surprise to Paznokas.
“She is very level-headed and when she’s in the game and her brain’s turned off, she can perform amazing things as a goalkeeper,” Paznokas said. “So, not a shock to me she was able to achieve this in the slightest.”
The relationship she built with the other goalies fueled her desire to get better even though she wasn’t seeing playing time as a freshman.
“I really did look up to [Widnick], the starter goalie who was in front of me,” Sullivan said. “I really think she taught me and I just looked up to her during the sessions. There’s always a feeling of tension between goalies and last year there was three of us and there was no tension at all. Without them, I don’t think my freshman year would have been as enjoyable not playing as it was. But we were just so supportive of each other.”
During spring training, Sullivan had extensive one-on-one training with Paznokas, he said, where she improved her feet in possession, long distance distribution, and communication skills.
Soccer runs deep in the Sullivan family. Her grandfather and father played soccer at Holy Family and her second cousins, Cavan and Quinn, play for the Union. Cavan, 16, earned an invitation to the U.S. men’s national team last week.
“I would say that all of the Sullivans, no matter first or second cousins, we’re all very close,” she said. “It’s really exciting to see the different places soccer takes our family.”
Gracie Sullivan started playing soccer at 7 years old for Coppa at the Philadelphia Soccer Club. During her freshman year at Nazareth Academy, she started playing for FC Bucks, now HEX FC.
She originally started as a midfielder in youth soccer. But when she played in the Beach Blast soccer tournament at the Jersey Shore, it sparked her love at goalkeeper.
“I was crazy as a kid, so when we would play Beach Blast, I would be like no I want to play the whole game because I love diving around in the sand,” she said. “So ever since I was 10, I stuck to goalie.”
Gracie Sullivan (right) walks out to the field with teammate Riley Lukach (12).Drexel Athletics
This is Shannon Grogan’s first season at the helm for the 4-4-1 Dragons. Sullivan believes the culture shift has driven Drexel’s success.
“This year with the new coaching staff, [Grogan] just brought so much energy and really believes in us, which I think shines down on us and then we believe in ourselves,” Sullivan said. “The team culture has just been so much different and I think on and off the field we have been such close friends and I can really see that on the field and that’s helping us win games honestly.”
Playing goalkeeper comes with a unique pressure, Sullivan said. One little mistake can alter the outcome of the game.
“The hardest part of being a goalie is that we have to be turned on at all times because if we make one mistake that could lose us the game,” she said. “It’s different if a forward were to make a mistake because the ball wouldn’t go in the back of the net. So it’s really important that we have to be our best at all times because if we’re not, then we sometimes could cost our team the game. It just sinks in more to you than it does to anybody else because you feel like you let your team down.”
Though, the Dragons don’t dwell on individual mistakes, she added.
“We all take accountability whether you’re on the bench or you’re playing,” Sullivan said. “We can’t point fingers because that’s not how you’re going to win a game.”
Villanova women’s soccer didn’t allow a goal through its first six games of the season.
The team’s streak of holding opponents scoreless finally ended last Thursday, in the 73rd minute against Delaware. However, instead of wilting, Villanova was unfazed, scoring moments after to grind out a 2-1 win.
“There was not a sense of doubt at all in a single moment [Thursday],” graduate goalkeeper Hannah Dickinson said of the Delaware match. “I think that even when we got scored on, you could feel the energy within the stadium and within our team that we know we’re going to win.”
The Wildcats closed nonconference play with an undefeated 5-0-3 record. While the defense’s scoreless streak was impressive, head coach Samar Azem says the team’s response to being scored on spoke volumes.
“If you play with trying to avoid something, it’s going to be the elephant in the room the whole time,” Azem said.
That punch-counterpunch mindset is what the fifth-year head coach has tried to instill at Villanova.
“It was almost the monkey on our back, you don’t want to give up a goal,” Azem said. “It happened. So what? Move on, let’s keep going forward. That’s our mindset. If we score, so what, move on [and] if they score, so what, move on. And the team does that phenomenally well.”
Goalkeeper Hannah Dickinson transferred to Villanova during the 2024 season.Villanova Athletics
As it enters Saturday’s home game against St. John’s, Villanova has set another milestone by becoming the first team in 19 years to surrender two or fewer goals across its first eight games.
When Azem took over the program in December 2021, Villanova had allowed 1.7 goals per game across in its previous five seasons. Since 2022, that number has been cut dramatically to 1.02.
So far this season, the Wildcats have outscored opponents 26-2 and have climbed the national rankings defensively. The Wildcats are tied for fourth in the nation in goals-against average (.250).
“One of the first things we wanted to do was reset our standard for defending,” Azem said. “Each year, it’s gotten better and better, and to see how good it is so early on in the season is a testament to the work the players have put in.”
Dickinson, a captain who was a Big East All-Conference second-team selection in 2024 and 2025, has been key to the success on defense.
This year, the Seattle native is seeing the roots that were built when she transferred to Villanova from USC in 2024 coming to fruition.
“I got here three years ago and we’ve just been continuing to build the foundation,” said Dickinson, who has made 10 saves this season. “We were incredibly close last year to breaking that surface a bit and I think this year we’ve only shown a tiny bit of what we can do, it’s the start of the season so it’s really exciting.”
Azem says the graduate goalkeeper has grown as a leader and is one of the best she’s ever come across throughout her coaching career.
“She’s one of the best aerial [keepers], one of the best at organizing the back line, and then she’s just a fantastic shot-stopper,” Azem said. “When she’s called upon, you’re going to have to be excellent to beat her and that’s why a lot of teams find that it’s difficult to do, but the defense also makes that predictable for her.”
Defender Meredith Palmer and midfielder Amalia Cardo during a game.Villanova Athletics
Junior Meredith Palmer and Bucknell transfer Meghan White have anchored the backline in front of Dickinson. The group is holding opposing teams to seven shot attempts per game, a massive improvement on last season’s mark of 13.9.
Offensively, sophomore Avrie Nelsen, last year’s conference rookie of the year, has tallied five goals in eight games so far this season to equal her total in 18 games from 2025.
Azem credited the alumni and donors who made it possible for this year’s team to come back to campus two weeks early to train. She believes the extra time helped build the foundation.
And with Big East play approaching, Villanova’s defense will remain a key part of its success.
“It’s kind of this identity shift, you go from being the underdog to just perform, show up, compete, and perform,” Azem said.
In her first two seasons with Villanova, Jasmine Bascoe has established herself as one of the best women’s basketball players in the Big 5. Now, she’s establishing a role with Canada’s national team.
In August, Bascoe was named to Canada’s 12-player roster for a FIBA women’s basketball Olympic prequalifying tournament later that month in Guadalajara, Mexico.
While the tournament marked Bascoe’s senior team debut with Canada, she previously represented her home nation at the FIBA U19 Women’s Basketball World Cup in 2025. At 20 years old, the junior guard was now playing for the country’s top women’s team.
Canada went 5-0 in the tournament, capped by an 83-53 win over Mexico in the final on Aug. 23. With the tournament win, Canada secured the only available spot in the FIBA women’s Olympic qualifying tournament in March 2028.
Bascoe led Canada in assists with 5.4 per game, and was second in points with 10.8 per game.
At training camp for the tournament, Bascoe, who was coming off an injury, said she learned from watching those around her before she could get involved herself. By the time the tournament began in August, she was getting used to playing alongside Olympians like Yvonne Ejim, Sami Hill, Shaina Pellington, and Syla Swords.
She said the veterans’ constant communication allowed the team’s younger players, like Bascoe, to learn more.
“They weren’t on us right away to be perfect, which obviously gives us a lot more confidence as well,” Bascoe said. “They were everything we needed them to be. They were leaders, but then at the same time, they were great friends. Like they honestly were some of my closest friends this whole summer, which was just amazing, and just getting to hear stories from them and their other pro experiences and their NCAA experiences, I mean, what more could you ask for?”
Villanova women’s basketball junior guard Jasmine Bascoe (right) is back with the Wildcats after a summer representing her home nation.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
The fifth Olympian on the team was Kayla Alexander, who represented Canada in Tokyo in 2020 and in Paris in 2024. At 35, she currently plays for the WNBA’s Toronto Tempo and holds Canada’s all-time career rebound record. She’s also from the same hometown as Bascoe: Milton, Ontario.
After the tournament, Bascoe told Alexander just how much fun she had playing with someone she said is “an amazing person” and “a great leader.”
“I’ve always looked up to her as a person, but it’s so great,” Bascoe said. “She keeps everyone so level-headed and always on the same page. And she’s a great lifeline between us and the coaches. And so it just made the whole summer very smooth.”
In her sophomore season at Villanova, Bascoe led the Big East in assists (4.9) and scoring (18.9), finishing ahead of UConn’s Azzi Fudd, who was the No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA draft this year, and Sarah Strong. She also was named the Big 5 Player of the Year.
Bascoe said the pace and physicality of a tournament involving professionals further improved her game, and it’s something she hopes to implement during her junior year with the Wildcats. As an upperclassman now, Bascoe said sheer speed is no longer going to work for her, and she wants to start incorporating physicality into her style of play.
“I just think it was a summer full of learning for me,” she said. “Playing at that level is not easy. It’s physical, it’s fast, and it just prepares you so good for everything else, like NCAA, everything. So it was amazing, and I was just fortunate to be able to get some games under my belt with the senior team and end on a good note. … It was a very fulfilling summer, and now I’m ready to bring everything back here to Villanova.”
There’s a generalization that rich white guys think it’s OK to laugh at violence against women. Most rich white guys say that’s not true.
You know what would be a great way for rich white guys to dispute that generalization?
Stop laughing at violence against women.
I know it feels these days like we’re at crisis level on several fronts, whether it’s the economy, politics, the climate, or, for lack of a better term, social justice issues. More than anything else, though, it feels like we’re experiencing an overload of casual toxic masculinity.
Two weeks after Good Good Golf ruined its brand by partnering with Callaway in a commercial in which a Good Good executive tackled and berated a woman who was preparing to touch his driver, the biggest Texas home win in 76 years, over No. 1 Ohio State, became a sidelight to the antics of the millionaire principals who made it possible.
𝗧𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗜𝗡𝗚: Texas QB Arch Manning is facing immense criticism after laughing about the viral AI video of HC Steve Sarkisian hitting female ESPN reporter Holly Rowe.
Fans are calling this "unacceptable behavior" from the team's star quarterback.
First, coach Steve Sarkisian, working under a roughly $76 million contract partially funded by TV rights, refused to participate in halftime and postgame TV interviews, to which he is contractually obligated. Sark tried to justify his actions by citing technical glitches. Please. These sorts of glitches are commonplace on the sidelines of a raucous stadium, and Sarkisian knows it. He was just being a jerk.
He simply ditched Laura Rutledge after waiting all of 10 seconds at halftime. He was just getting warmed up.
After the game, as ESPN threw to respected sideline veteran Holly Rowe — a cancer victim who has worked the sidelines through debilitating treatments — Sarkisian ignored Rowe’s question, screamed, “That’s called Texas fight! That’s called Texas fight!” offered the Longhorns’ catchphrase, “hook ’em,” and ran off like an over-caffeinated teenage boy.
“If hindsight’s twenty-twenty, if I could do it all over again, I would have exuded [he meant practiced] more patience in that moment and sat through and waited for the interview with Holly,” he said.
He offered explanations that only painted him as even less professional, justifying his impetuousness by saying, basically, he didn‘t want to wait before halftime, and that, postgame, he couldn’t wait to celebrate with his team.
Predictably, he failed to actually apologize, and worse, he failed to address the massive, vicious fallout that targeted Rowe all week on forums such as talk radio and social media. Sarkisian did manage to blame his quarterback’s reaction entirely on his quarterback and to paint himself and the precious program as blameless.
Even more predictably, Sarkisian didn’t bother to address the incidents at all until Thursday. They should have been addressed no later than Monday night, as things further deteriorated.
By the time quarterback Arch Manning took to the podium Monday, an AI-generated internet meme that depicted Sarkisian slapping Rowe during their interaction had gone viral. Asked about the original video, Manning, a junior who has made an estimated $10 million in NIL money, said he considered the violent, fake one more entertaining.
“I’ve seen a few AI edits and stuff, but that’s about it,” he said. “I saw an AI edit of Sark’s interview. Y’all seen that one? That’s a good one.”
Which one?
“Of him slapping Holly Rowe. It’s hilarious!”
Again: Manning was asked about the original video, but instead blithely touted the AI imagery of a woman being beaten by his coach.
Disgusting.
Manning — who has sponsorship deals with Red Bull energy drink, Vuori clothing, and Warby Parker glasses — issued an apology Tuesday on Instagram to the millions he offended, for the shrapnel of online hate directed at Rowe following his misogyny, and promised he would be “more thoughtful” in the future.
There was nothing remotely funny or entertaining about the Good Good ad.
There is nothing remotely funny, much less “hilarious,” about the AI violence in the Sarkisian video, which Manning noted: “There is nothing funny about it.”
Really?
Seems like it was plenty funny when he was in front of a gaggle of adoring sportswriters, some of whom, astonishingly, laughed along with Manning … but not so funny when your sponsors are threatening to fire you.
One of the reporters in the room posted the video of Manning’s response with the revealing caption, “ … his answer is gold.”
“I saw the AI Edit of (Sark) slapping Holly Rowe.”
I asked Arch Manning if he’d seen any edits on TikTok or Twitter after the game, and his answer is gold. pic.twitter.com/70FnNCVEHb
The reporter has since apologized, but his initial processing of the situation is troubling, to say the least. He was not alone.
Everywhere you looked there were people, mainly men, downplaying what the faces of the Texas program did. The same demographic downplayed the Good Good ad.
In his statement Thursday, Sarkisian said, “Nowhere do we condone domestic violence or violence against women.”
What he doesn’t realize, or what he conveniently ignores, is that there’s a big difference between expressly condoning it, which nobody does, and implicitly, tangentially seeding it by disrespecting and bullying female sideline reporters. There’s also a difference between expressly condoning it and expressing casual indifference by waiting more than half a week to address it while the real life victims endured merciless condemnation for doing nothing more than their jobs and being treated horribly by the coach and quarterback of the No. 1 team in the country.
Texas quarterback Arch Manning — who has sponsorship deals with Red Bull energy drink, Vuori clothing, and Warby Parker glasses — issued an apology Tuesday for his comments about an AI video of coach Steve Sarkisian and ESPN sideline reporter Holly Rowe.Eric Gay
LIV … victims?
Nobody feels sorry for the professional golfers and their caddies who began accepting tens of millions of dollars in Saudi sportswash in the middle of 2022, when LIV Golf embarked on its obvious goal of tearing down the PGA Tour that had provided those golfers and caddies the means to the millions they’d already made. They were painted as traitors, often on these pages, and were accurately portrayed.
Many now find themselves uncertain of their futures as LIV slogs through bankruptcy proceedings that will, at best, spawn a toothless replication of itself in 2027. So, yeah, screw those guys.
However …
Should we feel sorry for the folks who worked in LIV’s administration?
Should we feel sympathy for vendors and contractors who are owed millions but will get paid little, if anything, for their efforts?
After all, for moralists (like me), just like the golfers, these folks chose to work for a nation whose government was linked with terrorism against America, kidnapped and murdered a journalist residing in America, and practices a brutal and repressive theocracy. In recent weeks, as we commemorated the 9/11 attacks 25 years ago, it became even more difficult to empathize with even the commoner folk who chased inflated, oil-drenched paychecks.
Aren’t the administrators, vendors, and contractors just as guilty as the golfers for feeding at such a rancid trough?
Shouldn’t they have been just as leery of the Saudis, who are internationally notorious for welching on payments?
LIV laid off more than 300 employees last month. Nobody likes to see folks out of work. I know some of the people who got laid off.
LIV Golf, which features the likes of Bryson DeChambeau, is going through bankruptcy proceedings.Chris Trotman
My dad was a union bricklayer, but he also had a small contracting business on the side, so I also know what it’s like to not get paid cash for hard work done.
We had to accept two sheep once, 10 chickens another time, and, probably the best consolation prize, a balky, World War II Willys Jeep.
I hope the 300 laid-off employees find work elsewhere (actually, I couldn’t care less if former CBS and NBC analyst David Feherty and former Premier League announcer Arlo White, as feckless a pair as ever held a microphone, ever work again).
And I hope the contractors at least get a Jeep, because sheep are pretty useless, and those damned chickens, man, they were the worst.
Villanova women’s basketball is entering the 2026-27 season with high expectations, and it all begins in Rome against Notre Dame on Nov. 1.
The Wildcats nonconference schedule, which was announced last month, includes strong opponents such as Princeton, LSU, and West Virginia. The schedule is now complete as the Big East announced the upcoming season’s conference slate on Thursday. Last season, Villanova finished 16-4 in the conference and 25-8 overall. The Wildcats will open their conference season at the Finneran Pavilion against DePaul on Dec. 3.
Notably, Villanova’s conference schedule begins before its nonconference portion ends. Following its Big East opener against DePaul, Villanova will play in the Big 5 Classic on Dec. 6. The Wildcats will then return to conference play with a road game against Marquette on Dec. 10 before ending their nonconference schedule at home against West Virginia on Dec. 12.
Villanova will play five conference games in December, with the most notable being a home date against UConn, who made a Final Four appearance last season, on Dec. 23. The matchup is consistently the biggest home game the Wildcats have each season, as they will look to defeat the Huskies for the first time at home since the 2003-04 season.
Villanova will also play two road games in December against Marquette and Providence (Dec. 20). It will end 2026 hosting Georgetown on Dec. 30.
To open the New Year, Villanova will play two consecutive road games. First, the Wildcats will travel to Queens to take on St. John’s (Jan. 2), before heading to Omaha, Nebraska for a contest against Creighton on Jan. 7.
The Wildcats will play six more games in January, starting with Xavier (Jan. 10) and Butler (Jan. 13) at home. Then they’ll travel to Georgetown (Jan. 20), host Providence (Jan. 23) and St. John’s (Jan. 28), and finish at Xavier (Jan. 31).
February will bring a six-game gauntlet for Villanova in the span of 18 days, including a trip to Storrs, Conn., to play UConn for the second time on Feb. 10.
Villanova will close out its regular season on the road against Seton Hall on Feb. 27.
The Big East Tournament will take place from March 5-8 at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn.
Tipoff times and television information will be announced at a later date. The full 2026-27 Villanova women’s basketball schedule is below:
Oct. 18 vs. FDU (Exh.)
Nov. 1 vs. Notre Dame (Rome)
Nov. 10 at Princeton
Nov. 12 vs. Merrimack
Nov. 15 at Fairfield
Nov. 18 vs. Towson
Nov. 24 vs. La Salle
Nov. 27 vs. LSU (Fort Myers Tip-Off in Fla.)
Nov. 28 vs. Kansas State (Fort Myers Tip-Off in Fla.)
