Where Have You Gone, Jackie Robinson? No JuJu; Flagg Day; Good Get for Stanford

The Trump-Musk-Putin administration's campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs reached absurd levels last week, when the Department of Defense removed an article highlighting the military career of Jackie Robinson from its website.

Earlier, the DOD had removed an article about the famous photo of US soldiers raising the American flag at Iwo Jima because two of the soldiers were Native Americans.

The scrubbing of these articles came amid a purge of any government web content spotlighting historical contributions by minority groups or women.

Trump and his minions apparently believe that any appointments of black, brown and women soldiers must be DEI hires, and that their achievements should not be publicly celebrated by the United States government. Indeed, the hyperlink of the downed article and photo both said "dei" in the URL.

And if that wasn't enough to make your blood boil, here's the statement from DOD spokesperson John Ulyot when contacted by ESPN:

"As Secretary (Pete) Hegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department. Discriminatory Equity Ideology is a form of Woke cultural Marxism that has no place in our military. It Divides the force, Erodes unit cohesion and Interferes with the services' core warfighting mission."

Note the clever capitalization of DEI.

So the military career of one of the greatest sports icons in American history, the man who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball, is "Woke cultural Marxism."

And the famous wartime photograph at Iwo Jima "erodes unit cohesion" because it includes two Native American soldiers.

There aren't words that can adequately express how Disgusting, Embarrassing, and Idiotic this is.

Unfortunately, it's par for the course for Trump, Musk, Hegseth and the rest of the current racist regime.

After much public shaming from ESPN and other media, the Robinson article and the Iwo Jima photo were put back up.

But a few days later, Trump signed a new executive order, titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History," that directs Vice President JD Vance to eliminate anything "improper" from the Smithsonian Institution that includes "anti-American ideology."

You know, things like slavery, the internment of Japanese Americans, and any evidence of transgender people.

When will this madness end?

No JuJu: USC's phenomenal All-American and possible NCAA Player of the Year JuJu Watkins blew out her knee in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Her injury was a devastating blow to USC, and a major loss for the tournament. 

But the quality of play has remained outstanding, and the Trojans were able to beat Kansas State over the weekend behind the play of freshmen guards Kennedy Smith and Avery Howell. Tonight they play UConn with a chance to advance to the Final Four.

With Watkins, the Trojans were my pick to win the championship. With her sidelined, I'm going with UConn. Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd and freshman Sarah Strong will bring coach Geno Auriemma his 12th national title.

Sarah's Genes: Strong was the No. 1 recruit in the nation last year. She has an interesting background. Her dad, Danny Strong, played basketball at NC State. Her mom, Allison Feaster, was a great player at Harvard, leading the nation in scoring her senior year. Sarah was born in Spain and spent the first 10 years of her life there while her mom was playing for several professional teams.

Women Rising: The cost of a 30-second spot in the NCAA women's basketball championship game has skyrocketed over the last three years. Consider these numbers:

2023 - $65,830

2024 - $188,870

2025 - $438,692

Thank you Caitlin Clark (for taking the sport to new levels). And this year, we have a number of great players, like Watkins, Bueckers, Hailey Van Lith (TCU), Lauren Betts (UCLA), Madison Booker (Texas) and basically the whole South Carolina team.

Flagg Day: On the men's side, all of the No. 1 regional seeds have advanced to the Final Four.

Duke's Blue Devils, led by the incomparable freshman Cooper Flagg, should win the title, although all four of the teams have a realistic shot.

Good Get for Stanford: After Stanford General Manager Andrew Luck and president Jonathan Levin did the right thing by dismissing head football coach Troy Taylor (as recommended in this space last week), the next question became, who should they hire as the new coach?

Luck answered that question beautifully this morning with the appointment of longtime NFL coach Frank Reich as the Cardinal's interim head coach for the 2025 season.

Reich, an NFL quarterback for 14 years and coach for 18, is known as one of the top offensive minds in the game of football. He coached Luck as the head coach of the Indianpolis Colts and also served as head coach at Carolina. He played in four Super Bowls and coached in two.

Bravo, Andrew.