ILE – Washington Redskins’s John Riggins (44) heads for the end zone for the team’s second touchdown in the NFC Championship NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys in Washington, Jan. 22, 1983. (AP Photo/File)
The images are still vivid. Still alive. Still fresh.
Even now, 42 years later. Actually make that especially now, with Jayden Daniels and the rest of the Washington Commanders authoring the most unexpected of seasons, rekindling the long forgotten passion of a notoriously put-upon fan base with every “wait, they’re going for it?” fourth-down gamble, every last-second win, every just-right touch from new owner Josh Harris.
FILE – Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke, left, running back John Riggins, and head coach Joe Gibbs, right, share the game ball in the locker room following the team’s win over the Miami Dolphins the NFL football Super Bowl XVII game in Pasadena, Calif., Jan. 30, 1983. (AP Photo/File)
When the Commanders walk into Philadelphia on Sunday in the NFC championship game, it will be their first trip to the final step before the Super Bowl in more than three decades.
They aren’t favored to win. Maybe there’s some symmetry in that.
They weren’t favored to win on that glorious gray January day in 1983 either when my father scored a pair of tickets for $20 bucks apiece (or about $900 less than standing room spots at Lincoln Financial Field are going for on the secondary market) and opted to take his sports-mad third-grader to see if Washington could fell Tom Landry and the rest of the Dallas Cowboys for a spot in the Super Bowl.
This recent photo shows a pair of ticket stubs from the 1982 NFC Championship football game between the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys, which then 8-year-old AP national writer Will Graves attended with his father. (AP Photo/Will Graves)
It is the corest of core memories.
The giant snowflakes that greeted us as we walked into RFK Stadium. The relentless chants of “We Want Dallas” that rang out for three-plus hours. The sound of 55,000 people in full throat singing a fight song that turned out to be more problematic than we realized back then, the plea to “fight for old D.C.” never louder than after Darryl Grant’s late pick-6 sealed a trip to play for the Lombardi Trophy.
I was 8. I was hooked. And I was hardly the only one.
It would be an overstatement to call Washington football religion back then. But only a little one.
Joe Gibbs. John Riggins. Joe Theismann. Art Monk. Doug Williams. Dexter Manley. Charles Mann. Darrell Green. The Fun Bunch. The Hogs. In a city that serves as the symbolic seat of democracy for the free world, they were royalty.
There was a closeness during the run of five NFC title games, four Super Bowl appearances and three championships that framed my childhood I still hold dear.
The spaghetti dinners at halftime of a 4 p.m. game, my grandmother ladling her homemade sauce out of her signature green pot. The volume on the TV (unless it was Pat Summerall and John Madden) turned down so we could listen to Frank Herzog, Sonny Jurgensen and Sam Huff’s call on the radio.
My father complaining about the refs or the secondary. My mother hyperventilating during big downs (note: a tradition that carries on to this day). The outcome of a given Sunday setting the tone for the collective mood of an entire region for the ensuing week.
I was a kid. I just assumed this is how it was always going to be because this is how it had always been, at least to me.
The business of football got in the way.
In the late ’90s the team bailed on RFK for a lifeless concrete slab 10 miles to the east in Maryland. Daniel Snyder, who grew up a fan like just about everyone else and became a millionaire many times over by the time he was in his early 30s, like just about no one else, bought the team in 1999. Misery soon followed.
My mother, bless her, hung in there. I did not. I grew up. I moved on. I became a sports writer, a career choice born on that January day long ago, one that has allowed me to perpetually chase that high I felt when the stadium shook and my “heroes” triumphed, the one I was sitting next to in particular.
My father died in the spring of 2010. We were not as close as I would have liked during his final years. That’s on both of us. We talked somewhat infrequently and almost never about football, the one thing that had always bonded us despite our many differences.
A few days after he passed, my sister and I went to his house. My grandparents told us we should take what we want.
I grabbed a necklace with a cross on it. And that was going to be it until I opened a small drawer to find the two tickets from the ‘82 title game.
I had largely kept it together during the final days of his life, even as we stood at his bedside and watched him draw his last breaths at the (now) impossibly young age of 59.
I stood there for a long while and held them. And thought about that day. And all those happy Sundays that came after, when Washington won and the fight song blared and all seemed right with the world, if only for a few fleeting minutes.
The cross has long since disappeared. The tickets, however, are still around. I made it a point to pull them out of an old trunk this week. I thought about what Dad would think about this team. This run. He’d like Daniels (how can you not?) and he’d worry about the defense (me too Pop).
And on Sunday, I will sit with his 15-year-old grandson — the one he met just once — and watch. Afterward I’ll call my mom for a debrief. And no matter how it goes I’ll be grateful.
Not simply because the team is no longer an embarrassment. But because it has reconnected me — reconnected an entire generation really — to the joy and sense of community we feared might never return.
Tampa earns the No. 1 spot in the USA Lacrosse Magazine’s initial rankings. After earning the program’s highest final ranking in 2024 following a National Championship title, the team garners its highest-ever preseason ranking in any poll at No. 1 surpassing the previous mark at No. 4.
Tampa is the No. 1 team in the USA Lacrosse Division II Women’s Preseason Top 20, USA Lacrosse Magazine announced Tuesday.
When Tampa put the final touches on its 13-8 win over Adelphi in the 2024 NCAA championship game, the Spartans became the fourth straight first-time champion in Division II. And they were certainly deserving.
The defending national champs are the popular choice among Division II coaches as the preseason No. 1, with returning talent throughout the lineup. Peyton Howell and Sophi Wrisk return to lead the offense, with Lexi Waters and Delaney Stahrr back as the defensive anchors.
While it’s still to be seen how the changes for 2025 ‑ an expanded NCAA tournament field of 24 teams and automatic berths for conference champions ‑ will impact the parity, what is known is that Tampa begins the new season right where it left off last year, sitting at the top of the national rankings.
Led by midfielders Maggie Schipfer and Megan Bunker, No. 2 Regis has a strong group returning from last year’s final-four team. A sixth straight RMAC title and another deep NCAA run won’t be surprising in 2025.
No. 3 Florida Southern battled Tampa three times last year, with those games decided by a combined four goals. The margin between these two Sunshine State Conference foes is usually razor-thin, and that’s likely to be the case again this spring.
No. 4 Pace, which was undefeated until the NCAA regional final in 2024, must replace national player of the year Angelina Porcello in the midfield as well as first-team All-America defender Alexandra Quinn, but the Setters welcome back All-America goalie Sami Tanguay.
Rounding out the top five, West Chester has some key losses from last year’s regional final squad, most notably midfielder Hannah Stanislawczyk, the program’s all-time scoring leader. The return of midfielder Keri Barnett, who missed all of 2024 due to an injury, should help.
Preseason rankings are compiled by USA Lacrosse Magazine staff and contributors with consultation from college coaches.
TAMPA, Fla. – The National Championship University of Tampa Baseball team is the pre-season #1 ranked team in the nation and is set to host a top-15 matchup to open up the season. The top-ranked Spartans celebrate the start of the 2025 season as we honor the 2024 national championship team and raise the championship flag, celebrating their ninth national championship in program history.
The Spartans are back on the diamond this Friday at 6 pm. Tampa is seeking its 10th national championship and 24th regular season SSC championship. The Spartans are pre-season ranked #1 in the nation and #1 in the SSC. This is Tampa’s 10th pre-season ranked at #1, 27th consecutive preseason ranked inside the Top 15, 21st pre-season ranked inside the Top 5, and 12th consecutive pre-season ranked inside the Top 3. The Spartans have 15 returning national champions, including All-American and National Pitcher of the Year Skylar Gonzalez, 17 transfers, including University of Miami transfer J.D. Urso, son of National Coach of the Year Joe Urso, and four true freshmen. Tampa will take the field for the first time Friday since winning their 9th national championship in program history over Angelo State in a historic 2024 season. Before hosting a three-game series with #13 Georgia College, the Spartans will honor the 2024 national championship team and raise the championship flag on Friday, Jan. 31st.
Georgia College
The Bobcats finished their 2024 campaign with a 37-22 record and 2nd in the Peach Belt Conference before losing to No. 9 Catawba in the Southeast Super Regionals. Georgia College is preseason ranked #13 in the nation and look to play spoiler to start the season with a three-game set against the #1 Tampa Spartans.
Live stats for all games this week can be found at Tampastats.com.
Live broadcasts for all games this week can be found at TampaSpartans.tv.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida State coach Mike Norvell saw enough in two games against quarterback Thomas Castellanos that he knew what to expect from the Boston College transfer.
At least on the field.
“I’ve had to defend him here the last couple years, and I think he added a bunch of these gray hairs,” Norvell joked. “He’s an absolute talent and a wonderful young man. I think he’s one of the more dynamic players in all of college football.”
Castellanos, who accounted for five touchdowns the last two years against FSU, signed with the Seminoles in mid-December and held his first news conference Tuesday.
“I would say 2023 and 2024 helped me prove that I can play quarterback and play quarterback here,” Castellanos said. “God does everything for a reason. I can’t complain. That’s the path he chose for me. And now I’m here. It all worked out the way I wanted it to work out. I’m super excited to be here now.”
Castellanos and the Seminoles seem to be a perfect pairing — both looking for fresh starts after disappointing seasons.
Castellanos abruptly left Boston College in mid-November after losing his starting job to Grayson James.
“I would just say unfortunately things didn’t happen the way I wanted them to happen,” Castellanos said. “Unfortunately, a lot of the things that were out there are not true. But that’s past me now.
“I’m here now. I’m a part of something special.”
The Seminoles, meanwhile, finished 2-10 last season — their worst record in 50 years — and have undergone significant changes on both sides of the ball. Norvell replaced both coordinators, four more assistants and hit the transfer portal hard signing 16 tranfers in hopes of improving his roster.
Castellanos could be the most important one. He grew up about three hours northeast of Tallahassee in Waycross, Georgia, and called Florida State his “dream school.” And the move included a reunion with former UCF coach Gus Malzahn.
Castellanos played sparingly for Malzahn in 2022 in Orlando, throwing 16 passes in five games before jumping to Boston College for a chance to start. In two up-and-down seasons with the Eagles, he showed flashes — first as a runner and then as a passer.
In 2023, Castellanos had nearly as many interceptions (14) as touchdown passes (15) while running for 1,113 yards. A year later, with Bill O’Brien as his head coach, Castellanos developed into a pocket passer and ran for just 194 yards while improving his completion percentage by four percentage points. He accounted for 18 touchdowns and just five interceptions in eight games.
Three of those TDs came in a victory against the Seminoles last September.
Castellanos is viewed as an ideal fit for Malzahn’s offense. And despite spending just one year at UCF, Castellanos has fond memories of working with Malzahn.
“A great leader, great coach,” Castellanos said. “We had a great bond when I was there. I’m excited to be back with him. … It’s an offense that is going to be explosive, going to be high tempo.”
Castellanos also insisted he had no doubts about joining — and potentially leading — FSU’s rebuild.
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“I know what kind of excitement this fan base and this community brings just by even playing here or watching,” Castellanos said. “This is an exciting place that loves football and really cares about their guys and their players.
“I just wanted to be a part of that. I just wanted to come back, down south, closer to home and be a part of something special.”
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