The culture wars have come to the Olympics because it seems a large sect of American conservatives want to express their displeasure with any and everything that doesn’t sit right with their specific brand of Christianity that you won’t often find in the actual Bible.
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The kind that lets them vote for a man for President of the United States that would surely make Jesus weep.

The latest problem for this set of right-wingers – you know, the crazy Marjorie Taylor Greene type - was a particular moment in the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony on Friday (July 26), which they took to be a mockery of The Last Supper, the mural painted by Leonardo da Vinci representing the scene of the last supper between Jesus and the Twelve Apostles, as told in the Gospel of John.

The opening image of the Opening Ceremony skit briefly resembles the painting but was intended to be a fashion show-type depiction of an ancient Greek Bacchanal with the Greek God of fertility, Dionysus, later known as the god of wine and pleasure.

As these culture warriors so often do, those looking to be offended saw what they wanted – yet another sign of the world gone woke. They took to their social media feeds and bitched and moaned about how the Paris Olympics made a mockery of Christianity with drag queens and nearly naked Smurf men instead of depicting cultures of the Greek – you know, the guys who created the Olympic games – and France, you know the guys hosting these games.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson tweeted: “Last night’s mockery of the Last Supper was shocking and insulting to Christian people around the world who watched the open ceremony of the Olympic Games. The war on our faith and traditional values knows no bounds today.”

Well, Mr. Johnson, you’re shocking and insulting to basic human decency and world history. Maybe you should do more research next time before looking like an idiot in front of the world — or were you just virtue signaling to your constituents (something you guys often claim others do)?

I’m so tired of the so-called “culture wars” attempting to ruin everything. The only people battling this “war” are these folks on the right offended by everything. The rest of us are just trying to be who we are, live our lives, and have fun here and there. Try worrying about your life, traditions, and religion, and leave everyone else alone.

And for those talking about how they’re boycotting the Olympics because they “mocked their God,” I say: Good. We didn’t want you buzzkills hanging around anyhow.”  

At the time of this writing, we’re about 14 hours away from the 2024 Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony, and I’m sure the International Olympic Committee (IOC) can’t wait for the festivities and events to begin. There has been nothing but negative coverage for these games in the days leading up to the world’s biggest sporting event.

There has been everything from cheating scandals and racist policies to animal abuse and sex criminals in the headlines over the last few days.

Let’s run down some of these controversies and scandals.

Perhaps the worst controversy facing the Olympics before the start of the games has been the revelation that the Netherlands included convicted child rapist Steven van de Velde on its beach volleyball roster. van de Velde was convicted in 2016 of raping a 12-year-old British girl whom he knew was underage. The Dutch volleyballer served four years in prison, which seems like an absurdly short amount of time for the rape of a child, and now represents his country, which apparently doesn’t care about the black eye it’s receiving over the public backlash in front of the world.

The Netherlands allowing van de Velde to compete in the Olympics and the I.O.C.’s lack of action to prevent such a thing sends a horrible message to humankind that disgusting, disturbing, and illegal behavior matters little as long as your athletic talent might win a medal for your home country.

van de Velde isn’t being allowed to stay in the Olympic athlete’s village during the games, probably because he’s a pedophilic sex offender and there are likely underage athletes at the games and has been advised not to speak with the media during the games. Hopefully, the fans in attendance will boo the ever-loving hell out of him during every beach volleyball event he’s in, and his Olympics will be short and torturous.

Thanks to the Canadian women's soccer team, the Games hadn’t even begun before they had been embroiled in a cheating scandal. News came out a few days ago that the Canadian team had used drones to spy on the New Zealand squad’s closed practice sessions, as the two were to meet in the opening match of the Games. Initially, assistant coach Jasmine Mander and Canada soccer analyst Joseph Lombardi were sent home from the Games for their role in the cheating scandal. But on Thursday (July 25), the Canadian Olympic Committee removed the team’s head coach, Bev Priestman, from the Games and suspended her.

Canada’s TSN reported on Thursday that the Canadian men’s and women’s teams have relied on drones to spy on competing teams' practices for years, including during the 2020 Tokyo Games, in which the women’s team won the gold medal.

Integrity and fair competition are supposed to be among the most significant beliefs of the Olympic games. For that reason, the fact that the Canadian women’s team (the men’s team didn’t qualify for the event) hasn’t been disqualified from the Games is disappointing. Cheating of any kind has no place in the Olympics. Suspending the head coach isn’t enough for the Canadian women’s soccer team.  

Great Britain equestrian star Charlotte Dujardin, who has been described as the dominant dressage rider of her era by the U.K.’s Telegraph, pulled out of the Games less than a week before they began after video footage of her abusing a horse four years ago surfaced on the internet. According to USA Today, the video showed Dujardin aggressively whipping a horse’s hind legs 24 times during a coach session with another rider atop the horse. Dujardin, a three-time Olympic gold medalist in dressage, apologized for her actions and said she was “ashamed” and “what happened was completely out of character and does not reflect how I train my horses or coach my pupils,” which is always something that you have to wonder about as it’s only admitted after one is caught.

I’m sure most equestrian athletes are training their horses appropriately. Still, it makes one wonder if the only Olympic sport featuring animals should be watched more closely by animal rights leaders.

Paris and France must be excited about the world’s eyes being upon it for the next two weeks, but the situation has opened the eyes of the world to one of France’s most restrictive and, frankly, racist laws. France enforces a strict principle of laïcité, loosely translated as secularism, which relies on the division between private and public life regarding religion. Under this law, French state employees (of which athletes participating for their country fall) and school pupils are banned from wearing religious symbols and clothing in public.

Laïcité might have some good in its intentions, essentially treating all folks as equals, but some religions, including Islam, require followers to wear garments such as hijabs or head scarves. France, home to Europe’s most significant Muslim minority according to Yahoo, includes French Muslim sprinter Sounkamba Sylla, who traditionally wears a hijab, among its Olympic athletes. Sylla would not have been able to walk in her home country’s Olympic Opening Ceremony on Friday due to her hijab. On Thursday, an agreement was made between Sylla and the French Olympic Committee that would allow her to wear a cap covering her hair during the ceremony. However, the fact remains the country has a law that effectively discriminates against particular religions.

I can’t wait for the Olympic Games to start on Friday because these Games need some good and positive moments because the week leading up to the world’s biggest sporting event has been one giant nightmare of, frankly, the worst humanity has to offer. 

​I know that seeing something positive about a politician in an election year, particularly one as fraught as this one, might be eye-roll-inducing, but Iowa State Representative J.D. Scholten is our sports hero of the week for coming in in a pinch to pitch for his local independent league professional ballclub, the Sioux City Explorers, who were in desperate need of a pitcher.

On Saturday (July 6), the 44-year-old Scholten, who represents District 1 in the Iowa House of Representatives, received a call from Explorers manager Steve Montgomery just 90 minutes before the first pitch of that evening’s game with the plea to help, as the team’s bullpen had been forced to cover 13 innings the two nights before. Its scheduled pitcher for Saturday had become ill.

Scholten had been a star pitcher in Sioux City as a high schooler before going to college at the University of Nebraska, where he led the Cornhuskers in earned run average his senior year. Following college, Scholten bounced around in independent pro baseball leagues in seven countries, including some time on the mound for the Explorers. In 2022, Scholten became the District 1 representative for Iowa. He’s running for re-election this year.

Helping out the local ball club in a pinch should be a good way to help win that re-election. Not only did Scholten pitch on Saturday, but he was terrific, pitching 6.2 innings on less than two hours notice and leading his team to an 11-2 victory against the Milwaukee Milkmen.

It’s the kind of thing Hollywood movies are made of … maybe we’ll see it on the big screen someday? 

In the half year we’ve been doing this sports hero and zero piece for The Word on Pop Culture we have featured some really bad folks as the sports zero of the week – racists, misogynists, dimwits, etc.   
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I’ve said some harsh things about these sports zeroes, all justified in my mind. But sometimes you have to point the finger at yourself.

Sure, what I did isn’t as bad as the Kansas City Chiefs kicker acting like all women belong at home in the kitchen, or Aaron Rodgers babbling on about whatever dumbass conspiracy theory of the week he has, or boxer Ryan Garcia last week offending virtually anybody and everybody … but I think it still puts me firmly in a sports zero of the week category of the fantasy sports competitor who isn’t paying enough attention to his fictional squad and it costs him dearly.

So, what did I, Julian Spivey, do to deserve being this week’s sports zero? I failed to realize the Pittsburgh Pirates had a noon game on Thursday (July 11) and that the team’s phenom ace, Paul Skenes, sat on my fantasy team’s bench while having one of his and baseball’s most fantastic pitching performances this season. Skenes went seven innings without allowing a hit in Thursday’s game against the Milwaukee Brewers while striking out 11 Brewers. It was one of the most incredible pitching performances in Major League Baseball history by a rookie, and it was wasted on my fantasy squad, Hammerin’ Hank. If I lose this week’s matchup because of my fantasy faux-pas, I’ll have no one to blame but myself.

Oh, by the way, as long as we’re giving out sports zeroes, can we also talk about removing a pitcher with a no-hitter after seven innings and 99 pitches because they’re on a pitch count? Baseball has gotten weak when it comes to babying its pitchers, leading to one of the game’s most exciting and rarest moments, the no-hitter, being impacted. It should be illegal to remove a pitcher with a no-hitter. 

by Eric Fulton & Julian Spivey

The 32nd annual ESPY Awards will be held on Thursday, July 11, 2014 from the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles. The telecast can be seen on ABC at 7 p.m. (CST) with re-runs on the ESPN networks. The ESPYs are a fan-voted award for the best in sports. 

Here are the winners we would like to see honored this year ... 

Best Team:
Nominees: Boston Celtics, Oklahoma Sooners Softball, UCONN Huskies Men’s Basketball, Las Vegas Aces, Michigan Wolverines Football, Kansas City Chiefs, South Carolina Gamecocks Women’s Basketball, Florida Panthers, Texas Rangers  

Our Winner: Boston Celtics
You can pick the best team in sports a few different ways, and each way is a valid option. There is the most surprising team to win a title, which I believe would be the Texas Rangers in baseball. There’s the team amid a dynasty, which would be the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs. And then there’s the best overall and most dominant team of their given sport, and, in my opinion, this year, that was the NBA champion Boston Celtics. The Celtics title felt like it was a few years in the making, and they thoroughly dominated the NBA this season, finishing 14 games better than the next-best team in the Eastern Conference and seven games better than the next-best team in the league. Their path through the NBA postseason seemed like a cakewalk as dominant as the team was. JS

Best Athlete: Men’s Sports
Nominees: Patrick Mahomes, Shohei Ohtani, Scottie Scheffler, Connor McDavid

Our Winner: Shohei Ohtani
Patrick Mahomes won his third Super Bowl in the last half-decade, Scottie Scheffler is on the biggest golf heater since the heyday of Tiger Woods and Connor McDavid does hockey well, I suppose, but there’s only one guy on this list who does everything in his sport and does it well, and that’s Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Sure, he’s not pitching this season due to surgery, but he was one of the best last season for the Los Angeles Angels, made the biggest free agent splashes in the history of pro sports signing with the Dodgers, and continues to be one of the most feared hitters in the game. JS  

Best Athlete: Women’s Sports
Nominees: Caitlin Clark, Coco Gauff, Nelly Korda, A’ja Wilson

Our Winner: Caitlin Clark
All of these women have had fantastic years. Still, there’s only one who has transformed an entire sport from more of a niche thing to one of the most talked about sports in the country, and that was what Caitlin Clark did for not only women’s college basketball but also the WNBA now that she’s playing professional. The all-time leading scorer in college basketball history was drafted by the Indiana Fever and is now in the midst of one of the greatest rookie seasons in the history of that league. This is a no-brainer. JS

Best Recording-Breaking Performance:
Nominees: Christian McCaffrey scores a touchdown in 17-straight games, Caitlin Clark crowned NCAA All-Time Scoring Leader, Tara Vanderveer is winningest coach in NCAA basketball history, Max Verstappen wins a record 10th consecutive race

Our Winner: Caitlin Clark
All of these were wonderful record-breaking achievements but for Caitlin Clark to not only become the all-time leading scorer in women’s college basketball history but also the all-time leading scorer in NCAA history, whether women or men, all the while transforming women’s basketball into one of the most watched and talked about sports in the country makes her record-breaking performance an easy selection. JS

Best Championship Performance
Nominees: Blake Corum & Will Johnson, Kayla Martello, Midge Purce, Jaylen Brown

Our Winner: Jaylen Brown
Brown won the Larry Bird (Eastern Conference Finals) MVP and the Bill Russell (NBA Finals) MVP to help lead the Boston Celtics to their first NBA title since 2008. The Celtics had an incredible run to the championship, led by Brown, going 16-3 in the NBA postseason. EF

Best Breakthrough Athlete
Nominees: Haleigh Bryant, C.J. Stroud, Juju Watkins, Victor Wembanyama

Our Winner: Victor Wembanyana
Victor Wembanyana was drafted first overall by the San Antonio Spurs in the 2023 NBA Draft and immediately impacted the court. “Wemby” averaged 21 points and 11 rebounds per game in his first NBA season. He led the NBA in blocks per game with 3.6 and was named to the All-Rookie Team, All-Defensive Team and won Rookie of the Year in 2024. EF

Best Comeback Athlete
Nominees: Simone Biles, Paige Bueckers, Joe Flacco, Zion Williamson

Our Winner: Simone Biles
This one feels like it’s still in the making because I’m expecting Simone Biles to have a huge 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris after mostly pulling out of the 2020 Tokyo Games (in 2021) to focus on mental health issues. Biles is back on top of the game, racking up championships at the U.S. and World Gymnastics Championships. I’m frankly shocked she wasn’t nominated for Best Female Athlete by the ESPYs, but hopefully, this honor will do. JS

Best NFL Player:
Nominees: Myles Garrett, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, Christian McCaffrey

Our Winner: Patrick Mahomes
This might be our most controversial choice because it’s Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, who was named NFL MVP for the second time in his career and can do it all on the field, throwing and running the ball. Still, ultimately, we have to go with the face of the game, the guy consistently winning championships, and that’s Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes would surely trade the MVP for winning another Super Bowl ring. JS

Best MLB Player:
Nominees: Ronald Acuna Jr., Gerrit Cole, Shohei Ohtani, Corey Seager

Our Winner: Shohei Ohtani
I want to go with Atlanta Braves superstar outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr. here because his 2023 season saw him as the first player in Major League Baseball history to hit 40 homers and steal 75 bases. Still, his torn ACL has him out for most of the 2024 season, which hurts his case. Also, hurting his case is there’s nobody in baseball right now bigger than L.A. Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani, who gives baseball probably its first household name since Derek Jeter retired. JS

Best NBA Player:
Nominees: Luka Doncic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokic, Jayson Tatum

Our Winner: Nikola Jokic
Jayson Tatum led the Boston Celtics to their first NBA title in over a decade but he’s also basically part of a two-headed monster leading that team. I have to go with Nikola Jokic, who won his third career NBA MVP this season after leading the Denver Nuggets to the first title in franchise history the year prior. Jokic is a unicorn of a player who can do it all on the court despite seemingly having less athleticism than most players in the league and is a walking triple-double. JS

Best College Athlete: Men’s Sports
Nominees: Jayden Daniels, Zach Edey, Ousmane Sylla, Pat Kavanagh

Our Winner: Jayden Daniels
LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels won the 2023 Heisman Trophy, leading the Tigers to nine wins. Daniels totaled 4,946 yards in both running and passing in 2023, with 50 touchdowns (40 passing and 10 rushing). The Washington Commanders drafted him second in the 2024 NFL Draft. EF

Best College Athlete: Women's Sports
Nominees: Haleigh Bryant, Caitlin Clark, Sarah Franklin, Izzy Scane

Our Winner: Catlin Clark
Caitlin Clark has been the face and the name of women's basketball in the last couple of years. She broke the NCAA Women's Basketball's all-time scoring record and is now making a huge impact in the WNBA. EF

Best WNBA Player
Nominees: Napheesa Collier, Breanna Stewart, Alyssa Thomas, A’ja Wilson

Our Winner: A'ja Wilson
A’ja Wilson has led the Las Vegas Aces to back-to-back WNBA championships. The 2022 WNBA MVP won the WNBA Finals MVP in 2023 and will represent the USA in the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Paris. EF

Best NHL Player
Nominees: Nikita Kucherov, Nathan MacKinnon, Auston Matthews, Connor McDavid

Our Winner: Connor McDavid
Connor McDavid had another great season, leading the Edmonton Oilers to the Stanley Cup Final. McDavid had 132 points in the regular season, 100 were assists. During the Oilers' Playoff Run, McDavid scored 42 points, 34 of which were assists. McDavid was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy despite the Oilers losing the Stanley Cup Final. (Only the sixth player in history on the losing end of the Stanley Cup Final to win the Conn Smythe Trophy). EF 

Best Tennis Player
Nominees: Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic, Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek

Our Winner: Iga Swiatek
Iga Swiatek has been the world's No. 1 women's tennis player since 2022 and has held that position for 110 weeks. Swiatek made it to at least the fourth round in all four major tournaments in 2023. She just won her fourth French Open title in the last five years. EF

Best Golfer
Nominees: Nelly Korda, Xander Schauffele, Scottie Scheffler, Lilia Vu

Our Winner: Scottie Scheffler
Nelly Korda had quite the run earlier this year in the LPGA with a record-tying five consecutive tournament wins. Still, nobody has been hotter in the golfing world than PGA Tour star Scottie Scheffler, who has won six tournaments just halfway through the year, including his second Masters title in the last three years. No one has had a run like the one Scheffler has been on this year since the heyday of Tiger Woods. JS  

Best Soccer Player
Nominees: Aitana Bonmati, Naomi Girma, Vinicius Junior, Kylian Mbappe

Our Winner: Kylian Mbappe
Kylian Mbappe became captain of the French National Soccer Team in March 2023. He spent the last seven years playing for Paris Saint-German, scoring 175 goals in 205 appearances. He will play for Real Madrid later in 2024. EF

Best UFC Fighter
Nominees: Islam Makhachev, Sean O’Malley, Alex Pereira, Zhang Weili

Our Winner: Islam Makhachev
Islam Makhachev is the current UFC lightweight champion and is 26-1 in his UFC career. His last and only loss came in 2015. Since that loss, Makhachev has won 14 straight UFC fights, including the lightweight championship he has held since 2022. EF

Best Driver
Nominees: Ryan Blaney, Matt Hagan, Alex Palou, Max Verstappen

Our Winner: Max Verstappen
Formula 1 is the least competitive of all the motorsports series in this category (NASCAR, NHRA and IndyCar being the other three). However, Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing has been on such a heater over the last few years (likely the best in F1 history) that picking another driver would be fool-hearted. Verstappen is expected to win every F1 race these days and often does. JS   

American middle-distance runner Nikki Hiltz qualified for the Paris Olympics on Sunday, June 30, after winning the women’s 1,500-meter at the U.S. Track & Field Olympic team trials in Eugene, Ore.
 
Qualifying for the Olympics must’ve been a kickass way to wrap up Pride Month. 

Hiltz, who came out as transgender and nonbinary in 2021, will become one of the first American gender nonconforming athletes in Olympic history. 
 
At the Tokyo Summer Games in 2021, Skateboarder Alana Smith, who identifies as nonbinary, held up their skateboard at one moment with their preferred pronouns “they/them” scribbled on it. Smith didn’t medal, but they said they accomplished their goal of being “happy and a visual representation for humans like me.” 
 
Hiltz will attempt to become the first trans medalist at the Olympics, which will begin later this month. 

​Boxer Ryan Garcia, who was recently suspended for a year by the New York Athletic Commission for testing positive for a banned substance, proved himself to be a real P.O.S. human when he went on social media using racist slurs and mocked the 2020 death of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of a police officer in Minnesota. Garcia also disparaged Mexicans, Muslims, Christians and others on X (formerly Twitter). 
 
On Thursday, Garcia was expelled by the World Boxing Council for his derogatory language and actions. 
 
WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman announced the penalty on X. 
 
We reject any form of discrimination," Sulaiman wrote. "I fear for Ryan (sic) well being as he has declined multiple attempts for our help with mental health and substance abuse."
 
The 25-year old boxer from California said he was “trolling” in a non-apology apology following his expulsion from WBC.
 
Garcia was also arrested and charged with a felony last month after a Beverly Hills hotel accused him of an estimated $15,000 worth of damage to the hotel.