I don’t need to tell you who the all-star is in this picture. Come see Seimone Augustus at The Advocate’s 37th Star of Stars awards Monday night at L’Auberge. Tickets are on sale at starofstars.net. Yes, I’ll be there too LHSAA ⁦@AdvocateSports⁩

Emmanuel Crawford was three years old when his parents sold him. They lived in Ghana and they were poor enough that they could not feed him. So he was sold into the fishing trade on Lake Volta, which is where a lot of Ghana's trafficked children end up. Here is what a three year old does out there. He sits in a leaky wooden canoe and bails water out of it by hand, all day, so the boat does not sink. And when the nets get caught, he goes in after them. Lake Volta is man made. They dammed a river and flooded a forest to build it, and the trees are still down there, standing dead under the water. The nets snag on the branches, and somebody small has to dive down into water you cannot see through and pull them loose. Children drown doing that. Regularly. Crawford did it for two years. He was five when a man working with a rescue organization came across his canoe out on the lake. Crawford has described it simply. "He felt a tug on his heart from the Lord, that this kid doesn't need to be here." He was taken to a home in Tema, Ghana, run by a nonprofit called Touch A Life that gets children out of the trade. And that is where a couple from Grove, Oklahoma found him. Audrey and Stan Crawford. "When I first met my mom, I jumped onto her, I just climbed her, and we were best friends from the very beginning." The adoption took months. Then Audrey got on a plane and brought a six year old home to a town of about 6,000 people in northeast Oklahoma, where he became the youngest of six kids. He remembers the first day. "I had my first hamburger that day and fries. It was heaven on Earth." Then he grew up and started playing football. As a senior at Grove High School he carried the ball 230 times for 2,304 yards. That is 10 yards every single time he touched it. He scored 36 rushing touchdowns, caught 19 passes for 546 more yards and seven more scores, and Grove went 13-1. He finished his career with 6,777 rushing yards. That is the most anyone has ever run for in Oklahoma Class 5A history. Plus 93 rushing touchdowns. They named him the 2022-23 Gatorade Oklahoma Football Player of the Year. And then he went to Arkansas as a preferred walk-on. No scholarship. The best football player in the state, walking on. He got there partly because Sam Pittman, who was the Arkansas head coach at the time, went to Grove High School himself. Crawford's high school coach texted him about the kid. "The only campus that I felt a real connection was Arkansas. On the car ride home, I was like, 'I know where I want to be.'" He redshirted in 2023 and has been stuck behind a crowded backfield ever since. Pittman got fired after last season. Crawford is still on the roster in Fayetteville. Number 21. Still waiting on his carries. He has waited for worse.

Closing out the @WNBA regular season with three-straight Player of the Week awards 🏆 DOMINANT stuff from @Reese10Angel

My man….it was only a blink ago! Appreciate you sharing! #4everLSU

Her support system 🫶 Nneka Ogwumike celebrates her last game with her family! 2026 Postseason Push | @DKSports | #WNBASeason30

New: In June 2024, I took this photo of Destrehan's Jhase Thomas. He was camping at LSU, which earned him an offer. 2 years + 3 months later, Thomas might move into LSU's starting 11 on defense. With an opening at STAR, my take on Thomas (and more): ➡️ on3.com/teams/lsu-tigers/new…

Rummel-Chalmette turns into a rout that lets the winner rest one of its key starters nola.com/sports/high_schools…

A game within the game? Coaching ties part of 5-5A matchup for Dutchtown-Walker geauxpreps.com/articles/fami…

31 in a row for Karr….

Record breaking night for the Eagles: Largest margin of victory for OCS ever in the series. Most points scored by OCS ever in the series. They have to be the favorites to win Select Division IV.

This St. Augustine senior ‘has accepted the challenge’ of becoming a leader on defense nola.com/sports/high_schools…

Flau’jae’s IG Post

Bob Pettit, LSU basketball legend and NBA Hall of Famer, dies at 93 wafb.com/2026/09/24/bob-pett… #LSU @LSUBasketball

FLAU’JAE’S BIG ROOK SZN 626 PTS ( Franchise record) 202 REB 123 AST 58 STL 29 BLK

Thank you Seattle 🤣💚 my home

Flau’jae Johnson’s rookie campaign is officially in the books 👏 She passed Breanna Stewart for the most points by a rookie in franchise history (626) and became the first Storm rookie to reach both 500 points and 50 made threes in a season ☁️ Just the beginning for Seattle's young star ⭐️

The homage to Spoon for the last game of the season vs NY 🥹 she ateee 🩵

Fernando Mendoza signed a rookie contract in July worth $57.27 million. Fully guaranteed. He is 22 years old. This week he announced what he is doing with his rookie season. He is starting a series called Finance with Fernando to teach people his age how to handle money. His words in the trailer. "My true passion is fiscal responsibility." He is not bluffing. He graduated from the Haas School of Business at Berkeley, and he is finishing a master's in business administration in December. Here is how he got to the point where a 22 year old can say that. All four of his grandparents left Cuba for Miami in 1960. He grew up in Miami and played at Christopher Columbus High School. In two seasons as the starting quarterback he threw for 1,396 yards and 16 touchdowns. Total. Nobody was building a recruiting class around that. He committed to Yale. Then another recruit's decision opened a door at California, and he went to Berkeley instead. He redshirted in 2022. He started eight games in 2023 and eleven in 2024. Then he hit the portal and went to Indiana, a program that had gone 9-27 in the three years before Curt Cignetti showed up. What happened next does not really happen. Indiana went 16-0. Mendoza threw 41 touchdown passes, a school record. They won at Oregon. They beat No. 1 Ohio State for the Big Ten title. Rose Bowl against Alabama, he went 14 of 16 for 192 yards and three touchdowns in a 38-3 win. Peach Bowl against Oregon, five touchdowns. Then the national championship game, against Miami. The school in his own hometown. Indiana won 27-21. He was the offensive MVP. First Heisman Trophy in Indiana history. First national championship in Indiana history. Then the Raiders took him first overall. He wears number 15 for Tom Flores, who gave him his blessing to use it. And right now he is sitting behind Kirk Cousins. So instead of waiting around, he is finishing the MBA and starting a personal finance series for people who have never had money and are about to. One more thing worth knowing about him. His mother Elsa lives with multiple sclerosis. He and his brother worked with restaurants to put items on the menu that raise money for MS research. Turn on any sports broadcast in America right now and count the sportsbook ads. The number one pick in the draft started a show about not losing your money.

Stat leaders, standings through Week 3 for St. Tammany Parish football teams nola.com/sports/high_schools…

Spot on. It’s a relationship business. Information + Relationships Love my career, love the industry. A lot of our technology has changed but the fundamental value of quality sports information and PR has not. Relationships MATTER — with coaches, athletes, media.

flau’s last game day of rookie year 😭💚