Ryan McKinnis

Somewhere @richarddeitsch smiles

Reid Wiseman told his two teenage daughters where to find his will before he got on this rocket. He’s raised them alone since their mom died of cancer six years ago. Right now, he is 252,757 miles from home, farther from Earth than any human being has ever been. Wiseman grew up outside Baltimore. Got rejected from the Naval Academy, went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute instead, studied computer engineering. Became a Navy fighter pilot, flew F-14 Tomcats (the jet from Top Gun) on combat missions over Iraq and Afghanistan. Two Middle East deployments by his mid-twenties. He saw a Space Shuttle launch in person in 2001 and couldn’t let go of it. Applied to NASA while at sea on the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. They picked him. Nine people out of 3,500 applicants. His astronaut class, nicknamed “The Chumps,” included Jeremy Hansen, the Canadian who’s floating next to him right now. Wiseman’s first trip to space was 165 days on the Space Station in 2014. Two spacewalks. Thirteen hours outside the hull in nothing but a suit. He climbed all the way up to Chief of the Astronaut Office, the person who decides which astronauts fly and which ones sit. Then he gave it up in 2022 to put himself back on the flight list. His wife Carroll was a nurse in a newborn intensive care unit. She got cancer. Fought it five years. Died in May 2020 at 46. His mother died from Alzheimer’s just weeks before that. Wiseman raised both daughters by himself after that. NASA’s own bio says he considers being a single parent his hardest challenge and the best part of his life. Even while she was dying, Carroll told Reid not to step back from his career. She made him keep going. His brother is a Navy SEAL. His father is 83 and battling cancer too. The old man told reporters he wanted to stay alive long enough to see his son launch. Before liftoff, Wiseman’s daughters snuck homemade cookies into his flight bag. He posted a photo with them in front of the rocket and wrote “I’m boarding that rocket a very proud father.” The previous distance record from Earth belonged to the Apollo 13 crew. 248,655 miles, set in April 1970, and it was an accident. An oxygen tank blew up and the emergency route home happened to swing them farther out than anyone before. Wiseman broke that record by 4,100 miles, and his distance is on purpose. Today he flies within 4,600 miles of the Moon, photographs stretches of the far side that were too dark or at the wrong angle for any of the 24 Apollo astronauts to see, and watches a solar eclipse that nobody on Earth can see, only the four people inside that capsule. Then he turns around and spends four days flying home to his girls.

Once upon a time they'd just slap an NCAA logo on the floor a few times, put a cloth over the scorers table and it was actually awesome. I knew what region's games were going on by the court and it really gave you as a fan a sense of place for those games. Now we've gone to totally sterile "March Madness" courts and even worse now - gigantic LED screens to compliment the other 3,000 LED screens you find in some sterile convention city arena so they can shove more advertisements up your ass and shave a little more of your attention span away.

Scott Van Pelt pays tribute to Mike Tirico on SportsCenter in his One Big Thing. "What he did on Sunday I believe moves him to a place occupied by one person in our business - him."

Knife to the flight attendant’s throat, she’s crying and screaming for her mama when a random (or not so random) passenger says, “my turn,” trades spots, strips the blade, and drops the punk with police. Bravest move on in an airport this year. What a hero.

Immediately after USA Hockey won gold, they used the platform to honor Johnny Gaudreau. A beautiful tribute to a fallen brother. His kind spirit is always with them. They carry him every day. Our ESPN piece on the life and legacy of Johnny Hockey, from one year ago.

"This impossible dream....COMES TRUE!!!" 1980: The most-recent Olympic Gold Medal for the U.S. Men's Hockey Team Prior to today. 🇺🇸🥇

This interview by Mike Tirico with the Hughes brothers and Hellebuyck with Larkin popping in might be the greatest in Olympic history go debate a brick wall. The fellas are hammered and they fuckin deserve it. Get trashed for us fellas

Watch the Greatest Moment in Sports History still Gives Me Chills! The 1980 Olympic Hockey Championship! The Russians were thought to be Unbeatable! Incredible American 🇺🇸 Team 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Watching the #WinterOlympics #figureskating always reminds me of this 😂😂

Anti-doping chiefs have said they will look into extraordinary claims that Olympic ski jumpers have injected acid into their penises to enhance performance Full story by @Lawton_Times ⬇️ thetimes.com/sport/winter-o…

1986: Super Bowl Week- For the first time at CBS Sports, they did away with the Pots & Pans Summerall intro for this instrumental which would become the music for their college football broadcasts, but it got it's start in Super Bowl XXI between #NYGiants & Broncos

Michael Keaton wrapped up his Kent State commencement speech by saying “I’m Batman.” And that is exactly why Michael Keaton rules.

CHAOS ERUPTS IN ROCHESTER as Rylan Hartley LIGHTS UP Steph Charbonneau in the open floor

Old Al Michaels watches young Al Michaels preparing to call the hockey game between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1980 Olympics. 🇺🇸 ============== MIRACLE: THE BOYS OF '80, on Netflix. Must-see.

I read where Coach Holtz is in hospice care. Let me tell you about my experience with him. He would come on Morning Drive at Golf Channel on Fridays in the fall. I did a couple of segments with him. One on golf. One on football. He was incredibly nice to the entire staff. Brilliant commentator. One Friday he asked what I was doing on a particular Tuesday in early March. I told him I could be available for anything. He said to invite 2 folks from Golf Channel that do the “real work” ,not another lazy announcer like me, to come up and play Augusta National. I asked a couple of buddies, a young producer and a statistician. Both great guys. Shockingly, until they had our names at the gate and let us in, they thought I was playing a cruel joke. 😂. Coach hosted us for dinner and overnight in a cabin. We played the par 3 and the big course. He spent time with my buddies finding out about them and mentoring them. He entertained and educated. He was gracious and kind. He told us it was his honor to host us and that we couldn’t pay for anything except what we purchased in the pro shop. It was a day and half I will remember my entire life. There is no telling how many times he has done similar for others. I learned so much from being around him. My best wishes and prayers to Coach and his family as he lives out the last chapters of his storied life. God Bless!

This SNL skit of Michael Irvin is incredible 😂😂😂