NASCAR Veteran, Chiefs Kicker Are This Week's Sports Hero, Zero

by Julian Spivey

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​Hero

​NASCAR driver and 2012 champion Brad Keselowski won a thrilling race at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, S.C. on Sunday, May 12 to snap what was the second-longest winless streak in the sport among active drivers at 110 races.
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Keselowski was running in third place late in the race about a second behind his Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing teammate Chris Buescher and 23XL driver Tyler Reddick battling for the lead. When Reddick made an ill-fated dive bomb on Buescher to take the lead and the two made contact both drivers found themselves with cut tires and out of contention. Keselowski assumed the lead and never looked back. It was his first win with the team he now co-owns since taking over before the 2022 season.

The win, which clinches a spot in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs for Keselowski, was the 36th Cup Series win of his career placing him 24th all-time in NASCAR history.

Keselowski’s winless streak-snapping win and first as a co-owner of his team wasn’t just one of his career highlights for the 40-year-old driver but also his family. Keselowski has made a tradition of riding with an American flag in his car during his victory celebrations and on Monday of this week his oldest daughter Scarlett, 8, took the flag to her school so her classmates could say the daily Pledge of Allegiance facing it. 

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​Zero

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Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker makes a career off of his foot. Well, last weekend while serving as a commencement speaker to the graduates of Benedictine College, a Catholic school in Atchison, Kan. the three-time Super Bowl champion firmly put that foot in his mouth with a series of truly dumbass comments on a myriad of topics including politics, religion, gay pride and women in the workforce. Among the comments drawing the most outrage was Butker urging women to forgo careers so that they could support their husbands in the household. It should be noted that Butker’s mother, Elizabeth Keller Butker, has worked in Emory University’s Department of Radiation Oncology in Atlanta, Ga. since 1988. She specializes in brachytherapy and Gamma Knife medical physics care. All of that means she’s probably too smart to have raised a dumbass kid who’s publicly calling out women in the workforce but alas here we are anyway.
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Butker and his wife, Isabelle, whom he praised for being a homemaker (calling it one of the most important titles of all while his mother is out there trying to cure cancer patients) are free to live any life they choose, as are we all. But telling a group of graduates that they should forget about whatever they just studied essentially to do a woman’s duty is the exact opposite of what you want to hear from a commencement speaker.

Why are so many schools, both big and small, so concerned with celebrity commencement speakers anyway? For the most part, if a celebrity didn’t graduate from the school they’re giving the speech at (Butker went to Georgia Tech) they shouldn’t be doing it.

As of Thursday, neither Benedictine College nor Kansas City Chiefs had given statements on Butker’s comments. His speech is still on the college’s YouTube page so it seems they condone it.