🇺🇸 12th Man Quarterback 👍

Darrell Royal, former Texas HC, on when he visited Longhorn practices during Mack Brown’s tenure as the Horns’ HC: “The coaches are nice enough to explain to me what they're doing and what they're trying to accomplish. I see a lot of time-saving drills that have been instituted since my coaching days. And I just wondered, why didn't we think of having the drill in this manner so we could get in more repetitions? That's what practice is for, to repeat over and over situations that you're going to see in an actual game. And the more repetitions you get, the better off the drill. I never liked coaches to stop and coach players after every move they made. It takes time away from them repeating it over and over and over till it gets so they don't have to think in those situations: they just react, and react to something that they learned in a drill.”

A MIT professor gave a 1-hour lecture in 2019 that has 18 million views. He died 5 months after recording it. It was his final gift to the world. Patrick Winston taught at MIT for 50 years. The smartest engineers on earth sat in his classroom. And he spent his last lecture teaching them the one skill their degrees never covered. How to speak. 15 lessons that will change how you communicate forever: Never open with a joke. Your audience is not ready to laugh yet. Open with a promise of what they will know by the end. Your ideas are like your children. You are too close to them. What is obvious to you is invisible to everyone else. Explain the obvious. The 5-minute rule: the first 5 minutes of any talk determine whether people will listen for the next 55. Spend more time on your opening than anything else. Repeat your most important idea 3 times in 3 different ways. Once is never enough. Build a fence around your idea. Tell people what it is NOT before you tell them what it IS. Verbal punctuation. Pause. Let the idea land before moving to the next one. Ask questions nobody will answer. Then wait 7 seconds. The silence is not awkward. It is processing. Never read your slides. Your audience can read. They cannot listen and read simultaneously. Use the board not the slides. Writing forces you to slow down. Slowing down forces clarity. Inspire before you inform. Nobody learns from someone they are not inspired by. End with a contribution not a summary. Tell them what you gave them. Not what you said. Never say thank you at the end. It is weak. End with something that lands. Stories make ideas stick. Data makes ideas understood. You need both. In that order. The quality of your communication determines the quality of your ideas in the eyes of the world. Not the ideas themselves. Practice is not preparation. Practice IS the skill. Patrick Winston understood something most people spend their entire careers missing. Your ideas are only as powerful as your ability to transfer them into someone else's mind. You can be the smartest person in the room and be completely invisible. Or you can master communication and make average ideas feel like breakthroughs. He chose to spend his last lecture teaching this. Watch it tonight. Bookmark this first. Follow @cyrilXBT for more lessons from the people who built the future.

BREAKING: The United Arab Emirates has announced it will withdraw from OPEC after more than 50 years, with the move set to take effect May 1. The decision would allow the UAE to boost oil production without OPEC quota limits — a major shift that could impact global oil prices. The move is also being viewed by some as a potential win for President Trump, who has repeatedly accused OPEC of inflating prices and “ripping off the rest of the world.”

Has put more people to sleep than Ambien, NyQuil, and Xanax combined.

🚨 Reminder from Micky: More Fake News! 🚨 A new wave of AI-generated fake stories using my name is circulating. Remember, if it’s not from my verified accounts or MickyDolenz.com, it's false. Do NOT click, comment, or share these posts; doing so helps scammers. Thanks!

A Blue Jays fan caught an Aaron Judge home run ball, and gave it to a young Yankees fan wearing a Judge shirt 🥹 What a guy 👏

“Are the habits you have for today on par with the dreams you have for tomorrow?” - Sean McVay

“The difference between humans and animals is that animals never allow a fool to lead the pack.” — Winston Churchill

With deep sorrow, we say farewell to one of the final sentinels of the Tuskegee Airmen. George E. Hardy, who once danced across the skies of Europe in his Mustang has taken his final flight at the age of 100. Leaving behind a legacy forged in courage, resilience, and unwavering dignity. It began in a quiet room in Philadelphia. A 16-year-old boy hunched over his homework as the radio crackled with the news of Pearl Harbor. In that instant, the world fractured, and George’s childhood evaporated. He didn't wait for history to call; he went to meet it. Denied entry because of the color of his skin, he didn't retreat. He leaned into the wind. He joined the U.S. Army Air Forces, arriving at Tuskegee not just to learn the mechanics of flight, but to dismantle the mechanics of prejudice. By 19, George was a "Red Tail," a guardian of the clouds. While the world below was segregated, the flak in the European theater was indifferent. He flew 21 combat missions over Nazi-occupied territory, a teenager in a cockpit proving that valor has no pedigree. Most men would have seen enough of war. George was not most men. - World War II: 21 combat missions in the P-51 Mustang. - Korea: 45 combat missions, braving the dawn of the jet age. - Vietnam: 70 combat missions, a veteran hand guiding a new generation. For nearly thirty years, he wore the uniform of a country that didn't always love him back, yet he protected it with a devotion that shames the very idea of hate. When he finally climbed out of the cockpit, he didn't stop serving. As a Lieutenant Colonel, he helped architect the military’s first global communication systems. He spent his sunset years ensuring that those who followed him would never be out of reach, never be truly alone in the dark. "He rose above the clouds so we could finally see the light." Today, we don't just salute a pilot. We salute a man who endured the sting of Jim Crow to earn the silver wings of a hero. He was the quiet defiance in the face of "no," the steady hand in the cockpit, and the humble heart in the room. The "Red Tails" are thinning now, their formation heading into the eternal sunset. But as George E. Hardy crosses the ultimate horizon, he leaves behind a legacy etched not in ink, but in the very air we breathe. Rest well, Colonel. The watch is ours. The sky is yours.

NEW: Lions WR Jameson Williams has filed a lawsuit against the NCAA, Big Ten & SEC, @californiapost reports👀 The former Bama/OSU receiver is suing the three entities over allegations they used his name, image and likeness without proper compensation. on3.com/news/jameson-w…

The Jerk (1979) has a gas station scene so perfectly timed it completely derails the movie in the best way. Pure Steve Martin insanity that still hits just as hard decades later.

On this day 70 years ago, Rocky Marciano retired with a perfect 49–0 record 🏆 He remains the only heavyweight champion in history to retire undefeated.

John Daly is having a birthday. We’ve been friends for almost 40 years. He has a big heart and has raised millions for the Make-A-Wish foundation and the Boys And Girls Clubs Of America. I love the guy. Please, help me wish him a very happy 60th birthday. Have a great day, pal! #JohnDaly #HappyBirthdayJohn #MakeAWish #BoysAndGirlsClubs #CharityGolf

NFL legend Terry Bradshaw was STUNNED to hear the price of his most expensive trading card... 😭

Heart over stars 😤 These zero-star recruits paved their own road to the NFL 🔥🏈

He won the Civil War, broke the Klan, went bankrupt at 62, got terminal throat cancer, and wrote one of the greatest books in American literature in the final year of his life. He finished it 5 days before he died. Ulysses S. Grant was born 204 years ago today. His name wasn't even Ulysses S. Grant. He was born Hiram Ulysses Grant in Point Pleasant, Ohio on April 27, 1822. The congressman who nominated him to West Point wrote down the wrong name. Grant kept it. The "S." stands for nothing. He hated his father's tannery and loved horses. Graduated 21st of 39 at West Point. Fought in the Mexican-American War, then came home convinced it was an unjust war designed to expand slavery. He later said he believed the Civil War was divine punishment for it. He married Julia Dent in 1848, into a slave-owning Missouri family. His abolitionist father refused to attend the wedding. In 1859, broke and desperate, Grant freed the one enslaved man he'd briefly owned instead of selling him. He could have gotten a year's wages. In the Civil War he became what no other Union general was: relentless. Vicksburg (July 4, 1863) split the Confederacy in half. Lincoln then gave him every Union army. His Appomattox surrender terms: officers kept sidearms, men kept horses for spring planting, no one prosecuted. As president (1869 to 1877) he did something no president would do again until LBJ: used federal troops to crush the Ku Klux Klan. He suspended habeas corpus in 9 South Carolina counties, prosecuted Klansmen before predominantly Black juries, and broke the first Klan. His presidency was also rocked by scandal: Black Friday 1869. Crédit Mobilier. The Whiskey Ring. Belknap. Grant himself never took a dime. He was just disastrously loyal to corrupt friends. The pattern damaged his reputation for a century. After the White House, he toured the world for 2 years. Dined with Queen Victoria. Met the emperor of Japan. Then in 1884, a Wall Street partner named Ferdinand Ward ran what we'd now call a Ponzi scheme. Grant was wiped out. 62 years old. Penniless. Weeks later he was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer. Mark Twain offered to publish his memoirs. Grant wrote in agony, sometimes 50 pages a day, racing the disease to leave Julia an inheritance. He finished the manuscript July 18, 1885. He died July 23. The book made Julia $450,000, about $14M today. It's now considered one of the finest memoirs in the English language. For decades historians ranked Grant a failure. Since 2000 he's jumped 13 spots in the C-SPAN survey, the biggest rise of any president. Happy birthday, General 🇺🇸

Rude of the Ravens to invite Diego Pavia to their mini-camp instead of their regular-size camp.

Thank you for a sellout crowd at @grovecollectnil Meet The Rebels! Special day celebrating our fans, student athletes, our corporate brand sponsors, and the @OleMissSports community. Let’s finish off the weekend @coachmalloy12 and @OleMissMGolf

Bruce Willis wasn't built like Stallone. He didn't move like Schwarzenegger. He couldn't bench press a car or deliver one-liners while flexing superhuman muscles. He bled. He limped. He crawled through broken glass barefoot and made pain look like courage. Bruce Willis wasn't supposed to be an action hero. He became the blueprint for what a hero could actually be. In 1988, 20th Century Fox cast him in Die Hard. Hollywood executives were skeptical. Willis was the funny detective from Moonlighting, not an invincible warrior. Test audiences doubted him. Industry insiders questioned the choice. This was the era of perfect heroes. Willis looked like the guy who might fix your sink. Then came Christmas Eve at Nakatomi Plaza. McClane wasn’t a hero. He was terrified. Alone. Injured. Fighting terrorists in a skyscraper. “Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs,” he mutters, pulling glass from his feet. Half comedy. Half cry for help. That vulnerability changed action films forever. The muscle-bound invincibility gave way to something raw. More human. Willis made audiences believe a normal man could survive the impossible. Not because he was superhuman, but because he refused to quit. Every wound mattered. Every fear was real. Born Walter Bruce Willis in 1955 on a German military base, he grew up in New Jersey. A severe stutter made speech a battlefield. Then he discovered acting. Onstage, he could finally speak. Before Hollywood, he worked odd jobs—bartender, security guard, private investigator. His charisma caught a casting director’s eye. Moonlighting made him famous. But Willis wanted more than safety. He saw himself in McClane—the underestimated man proving he belonged. He gambled again in Pulp Fiction, 12 Monkeys, The Sixth Sense—roles that demanded vulnerability over bravado. Each comeback showed that courage is quiet, patient, human. Off-screen, he was the same: tough, generous, humble. He remembered names, bought rounds, treated everyone with respect. In 2022, he retired due to aphasia. Later, it was clarified as frontotemporal dementia. Hollywood fell silent. Bruce Willis humanized heroism. Bleeding. Broken. Determined. John McClane crawled through Nakatomi Plaza barefoot. Impossible odds. But he survived. Because courage isn’t being unbreakable. It’s being broken—and walking through the fire anyway.

It don’t matter how old you are, just like this 94 year old army veteran, if you have a ball, a glove and a wall, you will have one hell of a time.