Dame

Sherman Oaks Notre Dame confirmed on Wednesday that 6-foot-7 Tyran Stokes, considered the No. 1 high school basketball player from the class of 2026, has withdrawn from school.

Stokes arrived last season from a Northern California prep school and helped the Knights reach the Southern Section Open Division championship game and the Southern California Regional final.

His departure could produce changes in national TV game plans for Notre Dame. The Knights are still expected to be one of the top teams in Southern California with San Diego State commit Zachary White and top junior NaVorro Bowman.

Stokes leaving Notre Dame makes Sierra Canyon the Mission League preseason favorite.

USC had lost four of five, its season already all but lost, when Lincoln Riley made a bold move early last November that would have lasting ripple effects. He benched starting quarterback Miller Moss, in favor of backup Jayden Maiava, whose big arm and mobility gave the Trojans’ offense a different, more dynamic look.

The sudden switch made for a tense two weeks leading up to last season’s meeting with Nebraska. Not everyone in the locker room, you see, was thrilled with Moss’ removal.

But the move paid dividends in the end. Maiava injected life into the offense, USC returned from its bye and won three of its last four to finish the season. More critically, Riley found his quarterback of the future.

“The way that Jayden handled both when he wasn’t the starter, then when he was, I think set the stage for the player he has started to become and what he means to this program and this team right now,” Riley said this week. “He handled it with class both ways, and that makes a huge difference.”

USC starting quarterback Jayden Maiava throws a pass against Notre Dame at Notre Dame Stadium on Oct. 18.

(Justin Casterline / Getty Images)

A season later, USC is once again searching for answers coming out of its second bye, with Nebraska looming in November. Though, none of the questions this time concern the quarterback, who has been one of the best in the Big Ten. Nor are they as easy to solve as plugging in one player.

USC’s defensive front was just steamrolled for over 300 yards by Notre Dame’s run game. The offensive line is still dealing with nagging injuries. And the Trojans own rushing attack left a lot to be desired in their last outing.

Nevertheless, USC is 5-2, still within conceivable reach of the College Football Playoff conversation. The Trojans should be favored in four of their final five games, the lone exception being a trip to Eugene in late November. You don’t have to squint too hard to see a potential path to the Playoff … assuming USC can iron out its issues, first. That’s more encouraging than the circumstances were at this time last year.

“We’re still in a good place,” tight end Walker Lyons said. “We still control our destiny where we’re at right now.”

That’s been the message since USC left South Bend in bitter defeat. But control could slip through their hands in a hurry if Riley can’t right the ship this week on the road at Nebraska. A single loss, especially one outside of Oregon, would all but sink those hopes.

“I think we’ve learned a lot about ourselves with some of these really good matchups we’ve had as of late,” Riley said. “We know what we’ve gotta do. It’s very clear to us. Now we’ve just got to do a great job of it.”

That part hasn’t been so easy for USC as it unraveled down the stretch in each of its last three seasons. The Trojans are 6-11 in October and November since winning seven of eight during that stretch of Riley’s first campaign.

Adding a hostile road environment to that equation this week only makes matters more complicated. The Trojans haven’t won a true road game in October or November outside of Los Angeles since Oct. 28, 2023.

Nor do they seem to have pinned down precisely what’s ailing their defense at the moment. A week after one of USC’s best defensive performances of the season in a win over Michigan, the Trojans suddenly had major errors in execution, leading the Irish to rack up 306 rushing yards, the most allowed by a D’Anton Lynn-led defense. Lynn, the Trojans’ second-year coordinator, called the mistakes “extremely” frustrating.

But like Riley, he’s confident a week away will have done USC’s defense well.

“At the end of the day, when we’re on the same page, we know we can be a good defense,” Lynn said. “But we have to be on the same page and trust that the guy next to us is going to do his job, and we don’t have to overcompensate for anything.”

Notre Dame’s Jadarian Price (24) carries the ball and pulls away from USC’s Bishop Fitzgerald (19) on Oct. 18 in South Bend, Ind.

(Paul Beaty / Associated Press)

That trust comes much easier now for Maiava, after a full year as USC’s starting quarterback. Though, Nebraska and its top-rated pass defense won’t make it easy, per se. The Huskers are giving up a mere 127 yards passing per game through seven games.

It all makes for a test that the Trojans can’t afford to fail, one where its quarterback will be critical.

“Keep your head down, keep fighting,” Maiava said. “Just stay in it no matter what. We had this bye and we got to rest up a little bit which is great. But we need to be that beast every single day.”

Injury update

Left tackle Elijah Paige and center Kilian O’Connor both dressed for practice on Tuesday, but Riley expressed some doubt that USC would have its full starting offensive line available in time for Saturday’s game.

“We’re better,” Riley said, “but we’re not at a point where I’m like, ‘Yeah those guys are ready to go.’ We’re just not to that point yet.”

Welcome back to the Times of Troy newsletter, where after one last rain-soaked showdown in South Bend, we pour one out for one of the great rivalries in the history of college football. After a century of meeting on the football field, USC and Notre Dame are not currently scheduled to meet again. This, by all accounts, is a terrible shame.

Outside of L.A., the college football world has placed the blame for the rivalry’s demise squarely on USC’s shoulders. Notre Dame made sure that was the case when its athletic director, Pete Bevacqua, ran to Sports Illustrated last spring, immediately after USC made an offer to renew the series for one year.

As PR moves go, it was a smart one: By firing the first missive, Bevacqua knew that Notre Dame could shape the narrative around negotiations. And ever since, as Bevacqua hoped, Notre Dame has been cast by much of the national media as valiantly attempting to save the rivalry at any cost, while USC looks like its running scared away from it.

Which is really quite ironic, if you know the recent history of how Notre Dame has handled its rivalries.

Thirteen years ago, minutes before the two schools were set to face off in South Bend, former Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick famously handed then-Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon a letter as notice that Notre Dame intended to cancel the remainder of their rivalry series. It was as passive aggressive as scheduling changes get. Brandon didn’t even read the letter until after the game.

These two teams went way back, before USC even first fielded a football team. The two Midwest rivals first faced off back in 1887, when Michigan literally taught Notre Dame how to play football. (Not kidding.) Not to mention it was actually a Detroit Free Press columnist who first called Notre Dame the “Fighting Irish.” (Imagine the royalties!)

But in 2012, Notre Dame declared without any further conversation that it was backing out of the game. The reason? As part of its move to the Atlantic Coast Conference in every other sport, the Irish football program agreed to play five games against ACC schools every year.

No one at Notre Dame seemed all that concerned about history and tradition then. Swarbrick, at the time, called canceling the series “a necessary precaution,” given the future uncertainty surrounding its schedule.

Sound familiar?

Except, in this case, Notre Dame kept Purdue on its future schedule. And Michigan State. It chose to maintain its series with Navy, which had beaten the Irish just three times in the previous half-century, as well as Stanford. I wonder why.

Months later, then-Michigan coach Brady Hoke told a crowd at a booster luncheon that Notre Dame was “chickening out” of the rivalry. And he was right.

A dozen years later, Notre Dame is floating the same accusations about USC.

Except, in this case, USC has made efforts to maintain the series after moving to a much less flexible and more difficult schedule in the Big Ten. It has tried to keep the game going despite being locked into nine conference games — and with far less incentive to add strong non-conference opponents than there was in 2012. USC even amended its initial offer to extend the rivalry for multiple years, instead of just one, as a compromise.

Look, USC isn’t blameless in all of this. But no one seems to have acknowledged yet that Notre Dame hasn’t exactly helped negotiations along. It doesn’t want to move the game from October or November to September, as USC has asked — not because of tradition, as has been suggested, but purely because it’s much more convenient to Notre Dame to keep USC later in the season, when no other top programs want a team such as Notre Dame smack dab in the middle of its conference slate.

Who cares about the tradition of when the game is played, if the other option is it’s not played at all? If the Irish are so concerned about maintaining the USC rivalry, why didn’t they insist that Clemson — a team it has much less history with — play their newly signed 12-season series in mid-October?

Because Notre Dame is used to dictating the terms of engagement and getting its way. It has the flexibility of being without a conference. And it also knows it has the narrative firmly on its side. So why bother budging when the pitchforks are already pointed toward USC?

I don’t expect that to change any time soon, even as both athletic directors say they’re “optimistic” an agreement can be reached. Not unless USC is ready to capitulate. Until then, the public pressure will remain on the Trojans alone, while Notre Dame points across the bargaining table and cries chicken. Irony, be damned.

Yes … technically.

If USC wins each of its next five games to finish 10-2, you can count on the Trojans being in the 12-team field. But anything less than that, and they’re going to have a tough time making a case.

Let’s say USC only loses on the road to No. 6 Oregon from this point on. That would put the Trojans at 9-3, with just two Big Ten losses — and three overall. That’s a good season! But no team with three losses has ever made it into the Playoff, and while there’s a legitimate argument that this year will be the first, USC presumably wouldn’t have enough marquee wins to move the needle with the committee.

Michigan is currently USC’s only win over a team above .500. Nebraska, Iowa and Northwestern are all 5-2, but only one of the three has a top 25 win this season — the Huskers won their opener against No. 21 Cincinnati. The toughest test left aside from Oregon could very well be UCLA, which has won three in a row after starting 0-4.

Perhaps there’s a world where USC, with one conference loss, could end up in the Big Ten title game. But in addition to beating the Ducks, that would also require moving past either Ohio State or Indiana, neither of which have looked particularly vulnerable of late.

However you try to spin it, getting USC into the Playoff requires serious finesse. By losing to Notre Dame, the Trojans closed off the easiest path to a postseason run.

More than likely, USC’s hopes now hinge on running the table. But nothing I’ve seen recently suggests that’s a likely option. Instead, with each passing week, my 8-4 prediction is feeling just about right.

Jayden Maiava throws a pass under pressure in the second quarter against Notre Dame.

(Justin Casterline / Getty Images)

—Stop asking if Lincoln Riley is going to give up playcalling. It ain’t happening. It wasn’t that long ago that Riley’s playcalling was the main reason for his historic rise through the coaching ranks. That felt like ancient history on Saturday night, as Riley dialed up a failed trick play to star wideout Makai Lemon that ended in a game-altering fumble. Riley admitted after the game that it was “a stupid call,” which is the closest he’s come to accountability in that department. He added later that his two failed fourth-and-short calls weren’t very good either. “I’ve gotta be way better for our guys,” he said after. It’s good that he recognizes his shortcomings in this situation, but how we’ve gotten to this point, with Riley’s playcalling having a clear negative affect, I can’t quite explain. Riley has had impressive moments calling plays this season, which are easy to forget after such a bad performance. But the fact that he seems to be at his worst in the biggest moments is not the best sign for turning things around in the future. All that said, it would presumably take an intervention from one of his bosses to hand off those duties to Luke Huard. The ego hit would simply be too significant for Riley to initiate that change otherwise.

—USC struggled to protect Jayden Maiava, and it paid the price. The Trojans’ front allowed a season-high 17 pressures to Notre Dame, and Maiava completed a meager 31% of his passes and threw both of his interceptions when under pressure Saturday. The good news is that reinforcements are on the way. Starting left tackle Elijah Paige dressed for Saturday’s game, but was only available in case of emergency. Center Kilian O’Connor, meanwhile, was surprisingly listed as questionable against Notre Dame. Both should be good to go when USC takes on Nebraska in two weeks.

—USC has lost 11 straight on the road to top 25 teams, six of which came under Riley. The last win USC had against a ranked opponent on the road came in November … of 2016! And USC’s last chance this season to rectify this terrible streak will likely be in Eugene next month — a game the Trojans are, as of now, unlikely to win. That means we’re staring down the barrel of an entire decade without a win over a ranked team on the road, which is totally unacceptable for a team that sees itself as a blue blood of college football.

—After having zero rim protection a year ago, USC might have one of the best rim protectors in the Big Ten this season. Just take a look at the statline for new 7-foot-5 center Gabe Dynes from USC’s exhibition against Loyola Marymount. Dynes had six blocks, three of which came in his first 10 minutes of the game. Dynes also had nine points, eight rebounds and even three assists, as the USC took care of business in a 60-51 win. The Trojans shot just 33%, but showed that their defense can be a strength by holding Loyola Marymount to just 28% from the field. Dynes will be an important part of that equation and if he can contribute on offense, well … the sky could be the limit for the 7-footer.

Olympic sports spotlight

After losing four of six to start its Big Ten slate, USC’s women’s volleyball team bounced back in a big way over the past weekend, winning two critical matches on the road. The highlight of the weekend was a 3-1 win over No. 9 Wisconsin, USC’s best win yet of this season.

Redshirt freshman outside hitter London Wijay had a career performance in the win over Wisconsin, tying a career-high with 24 kills, while freshman libero Taylor Deckert tallied back-to-back 20-dig performances over the weekend. USC also handled Iowa in four sets, to bring its Big Ten record to 4-4 on the season.

In case you missed it

USC’s College Football Playoff hopes take a big hit in rain-soaked loss to Notre Dame

King and Kaylon Miller always believed they could rise from USC walk-ons to key roles

Depleted USC fined by Big Ten for playing running back listed ‘out’ on injury report

What I’m watching this week

Jason Bateman as Vince, Jude Law as Jake in “Black Rabbit.”

(Courtesy of Netflix)

The last time Jason Bateman got in with the wrong crowd on a Netflix show, one of the best shows of the last decade was born. I didn’t want to place “Ozark”-level expectations on “Black Rabbit,” Bateman’s new show on Netflix with Jude Law, but after watching the first two episodes, I can say with confidence that it’s off to just as strong of a start.

Law stars as a New York restaurateur whose life is upended when his estranged brother, played by Bateman, suddenly comes back into his life and drags him unwillingly into New York’s criminal underworld. The show’s tone is about as tense as it gets — think “The Bear” meets “Uncut Gems” — but if you’re in the mood for a thrill ride, then this show is worth your time.

Until next time …

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected], and follow me on X at @Ryan_Kartje. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — It was an ominous bit of imagery at what could be the bitter end of a century-long series. Dark clouds descending over Touchdown Jesus, and a heavy downpour soaking every soul in Notre Dame Stadium, as if Mother Nature herself was lashing out at the prospect of one of college football’s defining rivalries dying in vain.

Both USC and Notre Dame have suggested they want the rivalry to continue if they can come to an agreement in the coming months. But if this was indeed the end, 99 years since USC and Notre Dame first met on a football field, it would be a particularly crushing finale for the Trojans, who fell 34-24 and now find their hopes of a College Football Playoff bid hanging by a thread.

Saturday seemed well on its way to a different sort of conclusion, when the Irish shanked a 31-yard field goal in the fourth quarter. Three plays later, USC quarterback Jayden Maiava found wideout Makai Lemon downfield for a 42-yard gain.

All the game’s momentum was suddenly in the hands of USC coach Lincoln Riley and his offense. That’s when Riley dialed up a hair-brained trick play that he’d surely regret later.

Sprinting right on an end-around, Lemon took the handoff from Maiava and immediately found himself trapped by the Notre Dame defense. Lemon cocked the ball as if he were going to throw, only to have the ball stripped away.

It was a rare misstep from the Trojans star, but an especially costly one. It took seven plays for Notre Dame to find the end zone after that, as quarterback C.J. Carr punched it in from one yard out to put the game away.

THE son of Dame Deborah James has honoured her “amazing” legacy by following in her fundraising footsteps.

Hugo Bowen ran the Royal Parks Half Marathon at the weekend, smashing his target to raise £3,000 for her Bowelbabe Fund, in true Dame Debs style.

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The 18-year-old told The Sun: “Running was something Mum and I used to do when I was younger, we often did park runs and I think I spurred her on to run a little faster.

“It was amazing, there was so much support along the route, which really helped motivate me to run harder and faster than I would have.

“It meant so much to be able to run in memory of her, and the amazing change she has inspired.”

Reflecting on the advice his running-obsessed mum would’ve given before the race, he added: “She would definitely have told me to make sure I had had a poo.

“And to ‘go smash it’, which I probably did a bit too much at the start, so I was super tired towards the end.”

Hugo was 14 years old when Dame Deborah died at the age of 40 in June 2022, five and a half years after being diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer. 

In the last weeks of her life, the Sun columnist launched her Bowelbabe Fund, aiming to raise £250,000 to help fund research into the disease to help prevent “any future Deborahs”, and give cancer patients the hope of new and better treatments.

So far, the Fund has supported more than 11 different projects, including a state-of-the-art interventional radiology machine at The Royal Marsden hospital where Deborah was treated.

Other scientific studies that have received a contribution from the Fund include one that is investigating personalised medicine for patients with bowel cancer, a cause Dame Debs was very passionate about.

And earlier this year, Deborah’s husband Seb Bowen, parents Heather and Alistair James and brother Ben James were on hand when the new Bowelbabe Lab was unveiled at The Francis Crick Institute, home to a team of scientists using ‘mini bowel tumours’ or organoids to test new and more targeted treatments.

Just days later Heather and Alistair were invited to a reception with King Charles where His Majesty hailed Deborah “an inspiration to us all, in sickness and health”.

The King went on to quote Debs parting message to her followers before she died: “Find a life worth enjoying; take risks; love deeply; have no regrets; and always, always have rebellious hope.”

“I’m honestly so proud of Mum and everything the Fund has done to help others,” Hugo added.

“I remember when she set it up she had a target of £250,000 and now we are at over £18million raised – it is beyond what any of us could’ve imagined.

“It’s such a beautiful legacy for my Mum and the research it is funding will save so many lives.”

Inspired by his mum, Hugo has already added another £4,300 to the Fund’s total, and thanked all those who have supported him so far.

“Everyone has been so supportive, I thought £3,000 would be a really difficult target to hit but we’ve smashed it and I’m so happy and honestly so surprised,” he added.

“I’m really grateful to everyone that has donated.”

Hugo was just the latest in the family to take on a running challenge, with Debs’ brother Ben and sister Sarah taking on the London Marathon this year – Sarah wearing the same poo emoji costume her sister was often seeing running in.

To donate to Hugo’s efforts, visit  https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/hugos-royal-parks-half.

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DAME PATRICIA ROUTLEDGE created a monster, and we loved her for it.

The actress, who has died aged 96, turned Hyacinth Bucket – pronounced “Bouquet” – into one of the most memorable TV characters of all time.

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Decades on from Nineties sitcom Keeping Up Appearances the pearl-wearing snob, with her candlelight suppers and white slimline telephone, is still as embedded in the national psyche as a character from Charles Dickens.

In Patricia’s own words: “She was grotesque.”

But the actress, like viewers, could not help but admire her: “She was always getting it wrong and slipping on the banana skin, and then coming back and flying the flag.”

By the time the sitcom first hit screens, Patricia had been acting for nearly 40 years, in roles from Coronation Street to Broadway musicals, with co-stars from Sidney Poitier to Jerry Lewis.

She was also a favourite of writer Alan Bennett, who wrote his first great TV monologue especially for her in 1982.

Its success led to the landmark series Talking Heads, in which she also starred.

Alan said in 1998: “She has an enormous amount of zest and brio and she puts a lot of air into the language, so it lifts dialogue which might otherwise seem quite banal.”

After leaving Keeping Up Appearances, Patricia had a second smash-hit with Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, and in 1996 was voted the nation’s favourite actress of all time.

But Patricia managed to keep her private life out of the spotlight.

She never married or had children, and for years refused to discuss her relationships except to say: “I do know what it is to have loved and suffered.”

Eventually, she revealed she had had three great love affairs, including one with a married man, which tormented her as a devout Christian.

She also admitted: “I didn’t make a decision not to be married and not to be a mother -– life just turned out like that because my involvement with acting was so total.

“Now I think it’s a pity I didn’t have children. But I’m not sure you can have a career and a family and do both satisfactorily. I always knew, deep down, that everything has a cost.”

But whenever she was asked how to become a success, she had the same answer: “I say, I can give you a tip. It’s called risk. And if you’re prepared to risk everything, then you can do anything.”

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Katherine Patricia Routledge was born on February 17, 1929, in Birkenhead, Wirral, and grew up in a house behind father Isaac’s “high-class gentlemen’s outfitters” shop.

The family was theatre-mad and Patricia acted in school plays but never saw it as her future: “I always intended to be a go-ahead headmistress in a red sports car who had romances all over Europe in the holidays.”

With that in mind, she studied English at the University of Liverpool but spent so much time in the student drama club that older brother Graham urged her to audition for the Liverpool Playhouse.

She said: “He was the one who said, ‘That’s what you ought to do.’”
In 1952, aged 23, she made her professional debut with the company as Hippolyta in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Just two years later she was in the West End, showing off her roof-raising contralto singing voice in musical comedy The Duenna.

By early 1961 she was so well known on stage stage that the makers of Coronation Street, which had begun a couple of months earlier, pounced: “They created a character for me – Sylvia Snape. She had a little cafe.”

Their idea was for the no-nonsense proprietor to become one of the cobbles’ stalwarts, but after just three episodes Patricia quit.

She recalled: “I just knew inside that I needed to have other adventures.”

That included belting out satirical songs on That Was The Week It Was, as well as her big-screen debut in 1967’s To Sir with Love.

She played a teacher who offers support to Sidney Poitier’s character, and years later recalled the actor’s generosity: “I just had one scene alone with him, and he gave it to me.”

Patricia had less happy memories of working with Jerry Lewis in 1968’s Don’t Raise the Bridge, Lower the River: “An absolute nightmare. And I’m afraid I didn’t find him funny at all.”

BROADWAY DEBUT

That year Patricia also took Broadway by storm, with the New York Times critic describing her performance in Darling of the Day as “the most spectacular, most scrumptious, most embraceable musical comedy debut since Beatrice Lillie and Gertrude Lawrence came to the country.”

It landed her a Tony Award, presented by Groucho Marx.

Back at home, Alan Bennett had been a long-time fan and so when he wrote his first ground-breaking TV monologue, he wrote it for her.

Initially, Patricia turned him down: the piece was 47 minutes of just one character speaking directly to the camera.

Patricia recalled: “I said it wouldn’t work – people would switch off in their thousands.”

But Alan told her: “If you don’t do it, nobody will. I’ve written it for you.”

A Woman of No Importance screened on BBC2 in November 1982, with Patricia as Miss Schofield, who bubbled away about office gossip and the goings on at a hospital where, it slowly dawned on viewers, she was dying.

It was a sensation, and won Patricia a British Press Guild award for best actress. She later said of the writer: “He turns cliche into poetry.
“He sees a world in a grain of sand – the sympathy, the humanity.”

Its success led to 1988’s beloved Talking Heads series of six monologues, with Patricia in A Lady of Letters as a lonely busybody who finally finds friendship when she is sent to prison.

She said: “It’s about salvation, about learning to love at a tremendous cost. Oh, it was a joyous thing to do.”

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A second series was made in 1998, with Patricia’s monologue this time about a shop assistant who ends up in the thrall of her chiropodist.

In 2004 she admitted she found that part “very kinky”: “I didn’t really enjoy it. I didn’t understand it, deep down.”

Alan said later: “Patricia has a very strong moral streak and very strong views, and I think if a part doesn’t conform with those she’s very dubious about it.”

In between all this, she showed off her comedy brilliance again in Victoria Wood’s series As Seen on TV, playing an overconfident recurring character called Kitty who came out with lines like: “I’m something of a celebrity having walked the entire length of the Pennine Way in slingbacks, to publicise mental health.”

But when sitcom writer Roy Clarke, already famous for Last of the Summer Wine, presented the BBC with scripts for a new series about a suburban social climber, he did not have a lead actress in mind.

He recalled in 2004: “People do assume I must have written Keeping Up Appearances for Patricia Routledge, but I didn’t.”

It was director and producer Harold Snoad who Roy credited for “that perfect bit of casting”.

Harold said: “I wanted the character of Hyacinth to be a sort of stately galleon. I didn’t want somebody lightweight, either in size or vocal terms.”

Patricia said of the character: “She leapt from the page.”

GLOBAL HIT

The first series began on BBC1 in October 1990; soon 13million people a week were tuning in, including superfan the Queen Mum.

Nobody could have delivered lines like her (“I hope that’s a first-class stamp. I object to having second-class stamps thrust through my letterbox”) but she also brought a bursting energy to the role that was unmatchable.

The late Clive Swift, who played Hyacinth’s long-suffering husband Richard, said in 1998: “I can’t think of an another actress who could have brought the physical clowning to the part, which isn’t there particularly in the script.”

It was a global hit, but in 1995 after five series Patricia announced she would not do any more, despite the BBC’s pleas: “There were other adventures to have.”

They included, at the time, a new relationship.

Speaking to The Sun in 1996 she opened up about her private life for the first time, admitting: “A corner of my heart is taken. I’ve got a sneaking feeling that I might have almost everything in the end.

“He’s someone I’ve known for years and years. He’s in theatrical management but we hadn’t seen each other for a long time and then we met again.

“Life is full of the most wonderful surprises.”

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Patricia moved to Chichester, West Sussex, in 1999 to be closer to this new love, whose identity was never revealed, and lived there for the rest of her life.

She also told The Sun: “I had my heart broken when I was young. It was a grand passion, but it was complicated because he was married and, of course, I felt very guilty.

“I would gladly have lived with him and I wanted his children. But I couldn’t do it because I thought it would kill my parents.”

Her second great passion came in the late Eighties, when she least expected it: “Out of the blue this enchanting person appeared.

“He was a theatre director – a very funny and delightful man. But he had a heart condition, which I didn’t know about for a while.

“One day I went to rehearsal and was told he’d died in the night. This dear man was no more. I was just so hurt, so sore with the pain of loss.”

‘ILLUMINATING LIFE’

Work was always a refuge. In 1996 she was back on screen in Hetty Wainthropp Investigates as pensioner-turned-crime fighter, who was a down-to-earth, proud working-class opposite of Hyacinth.

Patricia later said of that character: “I loved her.”

It was another hit and the actress never forgave the BBC for axing the programme after four series without telling the cast: “No word ever came – how rude.”

Hetty was her last major TV role; afterwards she focused on theatre.
Her final role was in Oscar Wilde’s play An Ideal Husband in 2014 in her adopted hometown of Chichester, where she worshipped at the cathedral each week.

In 2017 she was made a dame for services to the theatre and charity.

On getting the news, she said: “I started to laugh, and then I started to cry. It was extraordinary.”

But Patricia believed her profession was important.

She once said: “It sounds a bit high-faluting, but I think acting is the physicalisation of the imagination.

“If the word becomes flesh, then you are illuminating life for other people.”

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“Is he actually coming?”

A Sherman Oaks Notre Dame football player had heard the rumors of a new student joining the football team on Monday at practice.

Sure enough, 6-foot-8 Tyran Stokes, the No. 1 high school basketball player in the country from the class of 2026, showed up wearing practice jersey No. 67. He’ll need 10 days of practices before he can play in a football game, but coach Evan Yabu was excited to have him.

He’s supposed to play receiver and Yabu observed, “We don’t have anyone 6-8, 245 pounds.”

Notre Dame’s Tyran Stokes celebrates after a slam dunk in the closing seconds of a 68-61 victory at Harvard-Westlake last season.

( Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

Stokes could use a break from basketball after a busy offseason of traveling and games. Notre Dame basketball coach Matt Sargeant is fine with Stokes trying football. He has three other players on the football team.

USC basketball coach Eric Musselman looked like a genius when he went out to the football field to watch Stokes. He had come to Notre Dame to watch basketball practice, then heard about Stokes missing basketball practice.

Basketball player Zach White said of Stokes trying football, “He’ll do great if he puts his mind to it.”

For all the push-ups completed, for all the running drills endured and for all the yelling received during his days playing high school football at Sherman Oaks Notre Dame High in the 1990s, Dan Keeler is getting the last laugh later this month when he takes command of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in Coronado.

“Now I’m going to have to salute him,” former Notre Dame coach Kevin Rooney quipped.

Keeler, who graduated from high school in 1994 and went on to the Naval Academy, is taking command of one of the Navy’s most prominent ships.

The USS Abraham Lincoln arrives San Diego in 2020.

(Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

“It is incredible that he has earned this responsibility,” Rooney said.

Keeler was a defensive back and track athlete for the Knights and is one of five siblings who attended Notre Dame. Track coach Joe McNab, who just won his 11th Southern Section championship, was his defensive backs coach.

“Good kid,” McNab said.

“He’s a guy who fit all the boxes in terms of being a great kid and doing things right,” Rooney said.

Rooney, McNab and former football assistant Jeff Kraemer will make the trip to the San Diego area for the change-of-command ceremony. For some reason, Keeler invited his former high school coaches after all those days of sweat and tears in Sherman Oaks.

“If I had known he was going to be so powerful, I wouldn’t have made him run so much,” Kraemer said.

Keeler isn’t the first Notre Dame graduate to rise in the Navy ranks. Retired Adm. Mike Mullen was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2007 to 2011 and graduated from Notre Dame in 1964. Mullen once came back to his alma mater to address the student body.

Rooney, who retired in 2019 after 40 years as football coach, said his goal was always to “help kids become great people and do things right.”

Coaches know that the best day of all is when a graduate comes back to campus and tells them how they are doing and explains how lessons learned as teenagers really made a difference in their life.

As summer begins and graduates move on with their lives and the class of 2029 arrives, it’s a good reminder to everyone that it’s not wins and losses that matter most in high school. It’s teaching life lessons and preparing students to become adults, good people and good community members.

To see a former Los Angeles-area high school football player take charge of an aircraft carrier is proof that all that running to gain stamina, all that preaching to work together as a team, all those lectures that practice makes perfect … it’s true.

You only need to listen, learn and dedicate yourself to reaching a goal.

A salute to all the coaches and teachers who understand their real job is to create opportunities for their students to succeed through wisdom and inspiration.

Capt. Keeler, Bravo Zulu and Anchors Aweigh. Be safe.

Surprise! The Times of Troy is back by popular demand in your inbox, here to help ease you back into your week after what we hope was a relaxing holiday weekend.

I was honored and humbled to hear your thoughts — most of them very kind — about the newsletter’s debut season. So much so that we’ve decided to bring it back before our scheduled return in July.

We’ve got some new ideas in the works for Season 2. But between now and July, when we turn our full attention to previewing the upcoming Trojans football season, we’ll land in your inbox periodically as the moment calls for it.

Now feels like one of those moments.

One of college football’s most storied rivalries is at a crossroads. A century after it was played for the first time, the historic series between USC and Notre Dame is at serious risk of ending. A lot of fans, former players and college football purists are upset about it. Most of them are pointing fingers at USC — and at Lincoln Riley especially.

I think there’s a little more to the situation than that. But the reason USC’s coach finds himself at the center of that frustration stems from comments he first made last summer during Big Ten media day, comments that explain quite transparently where USC stands right now, almost a year later.

USC and Mississippi had just canceled a home-and-home series, and rumors were swirling that Riley had pushed administrators to pull out of last September’s matchup with Louisiana State too. When he was asked what led to those changes, Riley didn’t hide his feelings about how scheduling should be handled. Why would any power conference school schedule marquee nonconference games in the future, he wondered aloud, unless there were “more guaranteed [College Football Playoff] spots in some of these conferences.” Otherwise, he predicted, those games would happen “less and less.”

“Our schedules are already going to be so good,” Riley said. “At some point, you’re like, alright, is the juice worth the squeeze in terms of playing these games?”

Before we address how that logic applies to Notre Dame — and before you start screaming “COWARD!” at your phone/computer screen — let’s acknowledge the fact that Riley has a point. (Ducks.) He is paid — more than all but a few coaches in the sport — to get USC to the College Football Playoff. Period. And as the playoff is currently constructed, there is no real incentive, on paper, for a coach such as Riley to want an extra marquee nonconference game on the schedule. Remove 95 years of context with the Irish and, to his point, the juice probably isn’t worth the squeeze.

This issue runs far deeper than just Notre Dame and USC, but let’s address the golden-domed elephant in the room, since Notre Dame’s athletic director has the college football world worked into a lather.

This is what Riley said about the rivalry last summer:

“If you get in a position where you’ve got to make a decision on what’s best for SC to help us win a national championship versus keeping that, shoot, then you gotta look at it. I mean, listen, we’re not the first example of that. Look all across the country — there’s been a lot of other teams [that] sacrifice rivalry games. I’m not saying that’s what’s going to happen, but you know, as we get into this playoff structure, and if it changes or not, we’re in this new conference, we’re going to learn something about this as we go.”

And boy did USC learn something on the road in its Big Ten debut. The Trojans unraveled on all four of their conference road trips. They realized how hard it would be to mix in an October trip to South Bend during that annual gantlet. No other Big Ten teams have that challenge on the Trojans’ particular timeline. Not to mention there’s a possible Southeastern Conference-Big Ten crossover matchup to consider in the future.

Automatic qualifiers to the College Football Playoff are the quickest way to solve this problem, as far as USC is concerned. It would give teams such as USC comfort that a loss to a nonconference opponent in September wouldn’t keep them out of the playoff. However, it would also mean rendering games such as USC-Notre Dame mostly meaningless as far as playoff resumes go.

USC is choosing to take the cold, calculated route when it comes to this quandary. And I understand why. Why should the Trojans be expected to carry the water for the soul of college football at the cost of their own playoff odds, while the rest of the sport’s leaders, USC’s own included, have made clear just how much tradition actually means to them?

Don’t get me wrong. USC isn’t being brave with its stance. It’s openly acknowledging that it is choosing the route of least resistance, no matter how its fans may feel about it. That’s not exactly valiant. And by calling them out for holding up negotiations, Notre Dame’s athletic director has already won the PR battle. If the rivalry ends after this season, the narrative will forever be that USC killed it with cowardice.

I do think that narrative would ignore some key points. Notably that USC hasn’t said it wants to end the game. Only that it doesn’t want a long-term contract before it understands the parameters of the playoff. Nor was Notre Dame interested at all in having a conversation about any concessions to USC’s situation, such as an early season date for the game, to help get a deal over the finish line. If these negotiations were simply about maintaining the rivalry, Notre Dame would have agreed to play next season already. This isn’t a one-sided stalemate.

I know that USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen would prefer to continue the rivalry with Notre Dame. I know she understands how much equity she could lose if it doesn’t continue.

I also have no doubt that she will take the heat, if necessary, for its demise, if it means putting USC on a better path to the College Football Playoff.

Is that hope of a playoff worth losing a storied rivalry? I’d understand if you said no. But USC leaders have made abundantly clear how they feel about that question. Let’s hope they never have to answer it.

USC-Notre Dame poll

Let’s hear from you. Could a smoother path to the College Football Playoff be worth losing the Notre Dame-USC rivalry? Vote here and let us know. Results announced in the next Times of Troy.

Will Saint Thomas walk onto the court with the Trojans next season?

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

—USC basketball still has two roster spots available for the 2025-26 season. One is currently being held for Saint Thomas. But it’s not clear how much longer Eric Musselman and his staff are willing to wait on Thomas’ appeal to the NCAA. The sentiment within the program was that Thomas had a compelling case for a mental health waiver, but the gears of justice grind slowly with the NCAA, and Thomas is running out of time. Summer practice kicks off on June 9. If he isn’t granted an extra year, expect USC to fill that spot with a low-major, all-conference-type point guard who could initiate the offense when called upon.

—Six-foot-10 sophomore forward Jacob Cofie is one to watch this summer. USC’s staff is very bullish on the young big man. One person with close knowledge of the program told The Times that they expect Cofie to be on draft boards by the start of Big Ten season. Along with Utah transfer Ezra Ausar — who stands 6-8, 242 pounds — Cofie should give USC much more of a physical presence in the paint, something it sorely lacked last season.

—Leaders from the Power Four conferences are floating a binding document that would force schools to fall in line with the new NIL enforcement entity … or else. It won’t work. I, for one, would love to see the Big Ten try to kick USC or Michigan or Ohio State out of the conference for not bending the knee to the new College Sports Commission. But more critically here, there’s no way that such an agreement would pass legal muster. College sports can’t supersede state law, no matter what some galaxy-brained commissioners might think.

—The College Football Playoff field will no longer give the four highest-rated conference champions an automatic first-round bye. That change to “straight seeding” was unanimously approved last week by CFP leaders, after the initial format last season was received poorly pretty much everywhere outside of Tempe, Ariz. In the new format, the committee’s top-four rated teams will be ranked one through four and get that coveted bye, no matter if they won their conference or not. That might sound like a tedious change. But this is better for everybody.

—Former USC point guard Kayleigh Heckel finally has a transfer destination. Heckel is joining Connecticut months after losing to the Huskies in the Elite Eight in her last game at USC. No one would’ve anticipated that turn in the immediate aftermath of that loss in Spokane. But hey, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, I guess.

In case you missed it

Rancho Cucamonga cornerback RJ Sermons to join USC a year early

College Football Playoff shifts to straight seeding for upcoming season

USC baseball program looks to continue breakthrough season

USC pushes for one-year renewal of Notre Dame series until CFP bids are clarified

Lincoln Riley made more than twice what USC’s president did in 2023

What I’m watching this week

Tony Reali on the set of “Around the Horn.”

(Phil Ellsworth / ESPN Images)

When I was a kid, still just dreaming up the possibility of writing about sports, I would flip on ESPN every afternoon after school to try and catch Bill Plaschke or Woody Paige or Jackie MacMullan on “Around the Horn.” It was the show that taught me, in my ways, how to talk about sports.

That feels more and more like a lost art these days. And maybe that’s why ESPN unfortunately saw it fit to end “Around the Horn’s” run after nearly 5,000 shows. But I will always hold the show near and dear and forever respect its host, Tony Reali, for reminding the world all these years that sports talk can still have a soul.

Until next time….

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected], and follow me on Twitter at @Ryan_Kartje. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

From Ryan Kartje: With the contract between USC and Notre Dame set to expire and one of college football’s most storied rivalries in serious danger of ending, officials at USC extended an offer to Notre Dame earlier this month in hopes of continuing the historic series for at least one more season — through the fall of 2026 — a person familiar with the negotiations not authorized to discuss them publicly told The Times.

The future of the rivalry beyond that, in the eyes of USC’s leaders, hinges in large part on what happens with the format of the College Football Playoff — namely, the number of automatic qualifiers guaranteed to the Big Ten in future playoff fields. And until those questions are answered, USC leaders agree the best course forward for its century-old rivalry with Notre Dame would be to continue their arrangement one season at a time.

Anything else would be “a strategically bad decision,” a USC source said.

That timeline is where the two rivals find themselves at an impasse. Notre Dame is seeking a long-term extension of the series, and in an interview with Sports Illustrated earlier this week, Irish athletic director Pete Bevacqua not so subtly suggested that it was USC putting the rivalry at risk.

Continue reading here

NBA MVP

The case for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was simple. He’s the best player on an Oklahoma City Thunder team that had the best record this season and set a league mark for margin of victory. As if that weren’t enough, he also won the scoring title.

That’s an MVP season.

Gilgeous-Alexander was announced Wednesday as the NBA’s Most Valuable Player, his first time winning the award. It’s now seven consecutive years that a player born outside the U.S. won MVP, extending the longest such streak in league history.

It ultimately was a two-person race. Gilgeous-Alexander received 71 first-place votes and 29 second-place votes; Denver’s Nikola Jokic got the other 29 first-place votes and the other 71 second-place votes.

Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo was third, getting 88 of the 100 possible third-place votes. LeBron James of the Lakers came in sixth, James Harden of the Clippers was 11th.

Continue reading here

NBA PLAYOFFS RESULTS

All Times Pacific

Conference finals

Western Conference

No. 1 Oklahoma City vs. No. 6 Minnesota
at Oklahoma City 114, Minnesota 88 (box score)
Thursday at Oklahoma City, 5:30 p.m., ESPN
Saturday at Minnesota, 5:30 p.m., ABC
Monday at Minnesota, 5:30 p.m., ESPN
Wednesday at Oklahoma City, 5:30 p.m., ESPN*
Friday, May 30 at Minnesota, 5:30 p.m., ESPN*
Sunday, June 1 at Oklahoma City, 5 p.m., ESPN*

Eastern Conference

No. 3 New York vs. No. 4 Indiana
Indiana 138, at New York 135 (OT) (box score)
Friday at New York, 5 p.m., TNT
Sunday at Indiana, 5 p.m., TNT
Tuesday at Indiana, 5 p.m., TNT
Thursday, May 29 at New York, 5 p.m., TNT*
Saturday, May 31 at Indiana, 5 p.m., TNT*
Monday, June 2 at New York, 5 p.m., TNT*

*if necessary

DODGERS

From Jack Harris: On Tuesday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts made a decision.

A day after Teoscar Hernández returned to the Dodgers’ lineup, activated from the injured list Monday following a two-week absence because of an adductor strain, Roberts decided to sit the veteran slugger for the second of a three-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

It was a surprise choice, but with a simple reason.

Knowing Hernández would play only twice this week coming off his injury, Roberts wanted to ensure he would be available Wednesday to face former Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes.

“I just felt like having him in there tomorrow,” Roberts said Tuesday, “I feel good with.”

Twenty-four hours later, the result was even greater than he expected.

In the Dodgers’ 3-1 rubber-match victory over the Diamondbacks, Hernández delivered the night’s biggest swing in the bottom of the sixth, taking a wrecking ball to what had been a flawless outing from Burnes with a three-run home run that turned the game upside down.

Continue reading here

Dodgers box score

MLB scores

MLB standings

ANGELS

Logan O’Hoppe hit two home runs and drove in three runs, Jo Adell and Zach Neto also homered and the Angels beat the Athletics 10-5 on Wednesday night for their season-high sixth straight victory.

O’Hoppe led off the fourth with his second homer of the game, third in two nights and 13th of the season, just before Adell hit his sixth. Neto’s two-run homer in the third, his eighth, gave the Angels the lead for good at 4-3. The Angels had five two-run innings.

Taylor Ward had three hits, including a triple and double. Jorge Soler had three hits, with two doubles and two RBIs.

Continue reading here

Angels box score

MLB scores

MLB standings

SPARKS

Satou Sabally scored 25 points, Alyssa Thomas added 19 and the Phoenix Mercury held off the Sparks 89-86 on Wednesday night.

Two free throws from Kelsey Plum had the Sparks, who trailed by 14 early in the fourth quarter, within one at 78-77 with 2 1/2 minutes to play in a game of long runs but Thomas scored the next six Phoenix points.

Plum kept pace, scoring the last 11 points of the game for the Sparks. That included the 500th 3-pointer of her career and then a shot with four seconds left. On that tightly contested desperation shot from the left wing, her foot was on the line so the Mercury led 87-86.

A second later Sabally made two free throws and Plum’s half-court heave wasn’t close.

Continue reading here

Sparks box score

WNBA standings

TUSH PUSH

From Chuck Schilken: NFL owners have decided to keep the “Tush Push,” the signature short-yardage play of the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, after a vote Wednesday at their spring meeting in Eagan, Minnesota.

Multiple media outlets are reporting that the vote was 22-10 in favor of the ban, falling short of the 24 votes it needed to go into effect. The teams that are said to have joined the Eagles in voting against the proposal were the Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, New York Jets and Tennessee Titans.

The “Tush Push” is a version of a quarterback sneak in which two or three players line up behind the signal caller and help drive him forward in short-yardage situations.

Continue reading here

Colts owner Jim Irsay, a music lover and philanthropist, dies at 65

COLLEGE BASEBALL

From Benjamin Royer: Mike Gillespie had a premonition about Ben Orloff.

The USC and UC Irvine coaching legend guided Orloff for two years as an Anteater, watching Orloff become the baseball program’s all-time hits leader with his peak bat-to-ball abilities. But it wasn’t Orloff’s eye-popping swing or swift speed on the basepaths that captivated Gillespie the most. It was the future he imagined for his star infielder, the then-Big West Conference player of the year.

“I don’t know how else to say it: His instincts, his clue, his feel for the game, his baseball IQ, is like nothing else,” Gillespie said as Orloff’s collegiate career wrapped up in 2009. “He should be a major league manager. He might be wasted as a major league manager, because they can do so little, in terms of all these little things.”

The American Baseball Coaches Assn. Hall of Famer, who died in 2020, continued: “He probably should be a college coach, a college head coach.”

It’s mid-May and Orloff sits in the office Gillespie once occupied. Orloff is bald with a bright smile. He’s just 38, and yet this is his 12th season on the UC Irvine coaching staff — and his seventh as the Anteaters’ head coach.

Orloff settles down at a table, crosses his legs and is ready to reminisce, talk shop — and praise the mish-mosh ballclub that’s set the Big West aflame for the second consecutive season in which it won its second regular-season conference championship under the coach.

Continue reading here

2028 L.A. OLYMPICS

From Kevin Baxter: A bipartisan group of Congressional representatives are calling on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to streamline the government’s visa processing system to ensure visitors from abroad will be able to attend next year’s FIFA World Cup as well as the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

The World Cup, which kicks off in less than 400 days, is expected to generate $3.75 billion in economic activity in the U.S. With SoFi Stadium in Inglewood hosting eight games, the economic impact on Southern California is estimated at nearly $600 million.

But cost-cutting measures proposed by Rubio could threaten that by reducing staff and closing some embassies and consulates, increasing visa wait times and making an already cumbersome system more complicated and costly. That could keep tens of thousands of fans at home.

Continue reading here

NHL PLAYOFFS SCHEDULE, RESULTS

All times Pacific

Conference finals

Western Conference

Central 2 Dallas vs. Pacific 3 Edmonton
at Dallas 6, Edmonton 3 (summary)
Friday at Dallas, 5 p.m., ESPN
Sunday at Edmonton, noon, ABC
Tuesday at Edmonton, 5 p.m., ESPN
Thursday, May 29 at Dallas, 5 p.m., ESPN*
Saturday, May 31 at Edmonton, 5 p.m., ABC*
Monday, June 2 at Dallas, 5 p.m., ESPN*

Eastern Conference

Metro 2 Carolina vs. Atlantic 3 Florida
Florida 5, at Carolina 2 (summary)
Thursday at Carolina, 5 p.m., TNT
Saturday at Florida, 5 p.m., TNT
Monday at Florida, 5 p.m., TNT
Wednesday at Carolina, 5 p.m., TNT*
Friday, May 30 at Florida, 5 p.m., TNT*
Sunday, June 1 at Carolina, 5 p.m., TNT*

* If necessary

THIS DAY IN SPORTS HISTORY

1877 — Baden-Baden, ridden by C. Holloway, catches Leonard just before turning into the stretch and wins the Kentucky Derby by two lengths.

1885 — Tecumseh, ridden by Jimmy McLaughlin, wins the Preakness Stakes by two lengths over Wickham.

1902 — Mastermam, ridden by John Bullman, wins the Belmont Stakes by two lengths over Renald.

1906 — Whimsical, the favorite ridden by Walter Miller, wins the Preakness Stakes by four lengths over Content.

1954 — Hasty Road, ridden by Johnny Adams, edges favored Correlation by a neck to win the Preakness Stakes.

1963 — European Cup Final, Wembley Stadium, London: José Altafini scores twice as AC Milan edge Benfica, 2-1 for first title to an Italian club.

1975 — Artis Gilmore scores 28 points and grabs 31 rebounds to lead the Kentucky Colonels to a 110-105 victory over the Indiana Pacers for the ABA championship.

1988 — Atlanta’s Dominique Wilkins trades bucket for bucket with Boston’s Larry Bird in the fourth quarter of Game 7 of the 1988 Eastern Conference semifinals until the Celtics escape with a 118-116 victory. Wilkins finishes with 47 points and Bird has 34 — with 20 of his points scored in the fourth quarter. The teams shoot a combined 58.8% from the field, the second highest mark in playoff history.

1988 — LPGA Championship Women’s Golf, Jack Nicklaus GC: Sherri Turner birdies final 2 holes to win her only major title, 1 stroke ahead of runner-up Amy Alcott.

1991 — NFL Owners agree to add 2 teams in 1994.

1993 — Riddick Bowe successfully defends his IBF and WBA heavyweight titles with a second-round knockout of Jesse Ferguson at RFK Stadium in Washington.

1994 — Toronto NBA franchise unveils name “Raptors” & logo.

1996 — 4th UEFA Champions League Final: Juventus beats Ajax (1-1, 4-2 on penalties) at Rome.

1997 — The Chicago Bulls win the lowest-scoring playoff game in NBA history, a 75-68 victory over the Miami Heat. The 143 combined points were two fewer than the previous postseason low set by Syracuse and Fort Wayne in 1955.

2003 — Annika Sorenstam becomes the first woman to play in a PGA Tour event in 58 years when she shoots a 71 in the first round of the Colonial in Fort Worth, Texas. Sorenstam misses the cut the next day by four shots.

2004 — English FA Cup Final, Millennium Stadium, Cardiff (71,350): Manchester United beats Millwall, 3-0; Ruud van Nistelrooy scores 2 and Cristiano Ronaldo 1 in Red Devils’ 11th title win.

2005 — Paula Creamer, 18, makes a 15-foot birdie putt on the final hole to win the Sybase Classic by one stroke and become the second-youngest first-time winner on the LPGA Tour.

2006 — Pat Summitt becomes the newest millionaire coach — and the first in women’s basketball. Tennessee raises Summitt’s salary to $1.125 million for next season and extends her contract six years.

2009 — Dara Torres sets an American record in the 50-meter butterfly at the Texas Senior Circuit No. 2 meet at Texas A&M. The 42-year-old, breezes to victory in the 50 fly, touching the wall in 25.72 seconds to beat her record time of 25.84 seconds from the morning preliminaries. Both her times beat Jenny Thompson’s American record of 26.00 seconds, set in Barcelona in 2003.

2010 — UEFA Champions League Final, Madrid: Internazionale beats Bayern Munich, 2-0; Inter’s 3rd title and first treble (Italian Serie A & Cup).

2016 — The Tradition Senior Men’s Golf, Greystone G&CC: Germany’s Berhard Langer wins sixth of 13 Champions Tour majors by 6 strokes from Olin Browne.

2021 — 30 year old Scottish light-welterweight boxer Josh Taylor becomes Britain’s first undisputed world champion in the four-belt era by beating Jose Ramirez by unanimous decision in Las Vegas.

2022 — PGA Championship Men’s Golf, Southern Hills CC: 2017 champion Justin Thomas beats Will Zalatoris by 1 stroke in a 3-hole playoff after 54-hole leader Mito Pereira double bogeys the 72nd hole.

THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY

1933 — Joe Sewell of the New York Yankees struck out for the first time this season, during a 3-0 win over Cleveland. Sewell would strike out only three more times in 524 at-bats.

1942 — Ted Williams is sworn into the U.S. Navy, but will remain with the Red Sox until he is called for active duty.

1957 — The Boston Red Sox hit four home runs in the sixth inning of an 11-0 win over Cleveland. Gene Mauch, Ted Williams, Dick Gernert and Frank Malzone connected. All the homers came on the first 16 pitches from Cal McLish.

1958 — Ted Williams hits his 16th career grand slam to provide the Red Sox with the margin in an 8-5 win over the A’s. Ted’s 4th-inning blast, off Jack Urban, ties him with Babe Ruth for second place on the career slam list.

1959 — Baltimore’s Hoyt Wilhelm pitched a one-hitter against the New York Yankees for a 5-0 win. Jerry Lumpe’s single in the eighth spoiled the no-hit bid.

1963 — Mickey Mantle hit a pitch from Kansas City’s Bill Fischer off the right-field facade at Yankee Stadium in an 8-7 victory over the A’s.

1968 — Willie Stargell of the Pittsburgh Pirates hit three home runs, a double and a single in a 13-6 victory over the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Stargell’s double just missed going out, as it bounced off the railing of the left-field bleachers.

1976 — St. Louis’ Reggie Smith hit three home runs — two right-handed and one left-handed — and drove in five runs in a 7-6 win over the Philadelphia Phillies. Smith’s third homer came with two out in the ninth and broke a 6-6 tie.

1977 — Boston and Milwaukee hit a combined 11 home runs in a 14-10 Red Sox victory at Fenway Park, tying a major league record. The Red Sox connected for six and the Brewers hit five in the first game of a doubleheader.

1983 — Cliff Johnson of the Toronto Blue Jays hit his 18th career pinch homer. The homer, off Baltimore’s Tippy Martinez, tied Johnson with Jerry Lynch on the career pinch home run list.

1990 — Andre Dawson sets a major-league record when he is intentionally walked five times during a 16-inning, 2-1 Cubs win over the Reds.

1998 — The Mets acquire catcher Mike Piazza from the Marlins in exchange for OF Preston Wilson, P Ed Yarnall and a player to be named. Piazza has barely spent a week with Florida, following a trade from the Dodgers.

1998 — Brian Cox went 6-for-6, including a grand slam in a 10-run third inning, as Florida State rolled past Delaware 27-6 in the NCAA Atlantic II Regional. Freshman Matt Diaz hit three home runs for the Seminoles.

2000 — Milwaukee beat Houston in the first game of a doubleheader, 10-9, coming back from a 9-2 deficit to tie the score with seven runs in the bottom half of the ninth inning. The Brewers won the game in the 10th on a home run by Jose Hernandez.

2001 — The Twins score 8 runs in the 3rd inning to give Brad Radke an 8-0 lead, then hold on to edge the Mariners, 12-11. The M’s will use the momentum to win their next 15 and set a franchise record.

2008 — Ken Griffey Jr. hits his 200th home run as a member of the Cincinnati Reds. He becomes the fourth player in major league history to hit 300 for one team and 200 with another. Preceding him are Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and Jimmie Foxx.

2008 — Boston’s J.D. Drew and Mike Lowell hit grand slams to help Daisuke Matsuzaka remain unbeaten as the Red Sox posted an 11-8 win over the Kansas City Royals.

2009 — Michael Cuddyer hit for the cycle and matched his career high with five RBIs as Minnesota defeated Milwaukee 11-3. Cuddyer hit a three-run homer in the first inning, doubled in the third and singled in the fourth before completing the cycle by tripling on a broken-bat liner into the left-field corner in the sixth.

2012 — C.J. Wilson and Ernesto Frieri combined on a one-hitter to give the Angels a 4-0 win over Oakland. Cliff Pennington had the only hit — a one-out single in the fifth — for Oakland.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

With the bases loaded and her team down by one run in the seventh inning, JuJu Brower stood in the batter’s box for El Modena in a Southern Section Division 1 quarterfinal playoff game Wednesday. Her team was trying to rally against one of the hottest softball teams, Sherman Oaks Notre Dame.

Brower hadn’t been fully cleared by her doctors to play catcher because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament in August suffered while playing flag football. She had been cleared to hit, something she was doing for four weeks. Then came her most important at-bat of the season. She delivered a two-run single up the middle to help El Modena come away with a 6-4 victory and advance to Saturday’s semifinals against Temescal Canyon.

“It means a lot,” Brower said of her hit and the comeback. She had to go through months of rehab just to get back on the field, from stretching to leg exercises.

El Modena started the game with consecutive home runs by Kaitlyn Galasso and Kylie Tafua. After that, Notre Dame pitcher Aliyah Garcia threw five consecutive scoreless innings to help the Knights take a 4-2 lead going into the seventh. Charley Tapia had a home run and triple.

But the fifth inning was the key moment for the Knights. They had the bases loaded and none out against No. 2 pitcher Ashley Driskill. She got a 1-2-3 double play, then a flyout to end the threat.

Then El Modena scored four runs in the top of the seventh to take the lead and eliminate the Knights, Monica Garcia had a run-scoring single to support Brower’s hit. Notre Dame had been hitting home runs in bunches during playoff wins over Orange Lutheran and El Segundo.

El Modena coach Bobby Calderon praised Brower. for her dedication to make it back to the field this season. “For her to come through at that moment shows how much she believes in our team,” he said.

Norco 9, Chino Hills 1: Ashley Duran had three hits for the top-seeded Cougars, who will play Ayala on Saturday in the other Division 1 semifinal.

JSerra 7, Palos Verdes 1: Melia Munoz had a two-run home run and Annabel Raftery had four hits to lead JSerra in Division 2. JSerra will play Great Oak in the semifinals.

Santa Margarita 2, Ganesha 1: Sawyer Denser pitched the Eagles into the Division 2 semifinals. She struck out eight. Sofia Zavarella had a solo home run. Santa Margarita will play Los Alamitos, a 7-1 winner over La Serna.

Baseball

Carson 4, Taft 2: Xavier Allen hit a walk-off two-run home run in the bottom of the 11th inning to enable the Colts to advance to Saturday’s 10 a.m. City Section Division I championship game at Dodger Stadium.

With the contract between USC and Notre Dame set to expire and one of college football’s most storied rivalries in serious danger of ending, officials at USC extended an offer to Notre Dame earlier this month in hopes of continuing the historic series for at least one more season — through the fall of 2026 — a person familiar with the negotiations not authorized to discuss them publicly told The Times.

The future of the rivalry beyond that, in the eyes of USC’s leaders, hinges in large part on what happens with the format of the College Football Playoff — namely, the number of automatic qualifiers guaranteed to the Big Ten in future playoff fields. And until those questions are answered, USC leaders agree the best course forward for its century-old rivalry with Notre Dame would be to continue their arrangement one season at a time.

Anything else would be “a strategically bad decision,” a USC source said.

That timeline is where the two rivals find themselves at an impasse. Notre Dame is seeking a long-term extension of the series, and in an interview with Sports Illustrated earlier this week, Irish athletic director Pete Bevacqua not so subtly suggested that it was USC putting the rivalry at risk.

“I think Southern Cal and Notre Dame should play every year for as long as college football is played,” he told SI’s Pat Forde, “and SC knows that’s how we feel.”

The two blueblood programs have played 95 times since 1924, when the story goes that the wife of legendary Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne convinced her husband to schedule the series so she could visit Southern California every other year. In the century since, only World War II and the COVID-19 pandemic have stood in the way of USC and Notre Dame meeting on the football field. Between them, the two rivals boast 16 national titles, more than any other teams that play an annual college football series.

They’re scheduled to meet again in October in South Bend. What happens to the historic series after that matchup may come down to who blinks in a high-stakes game of chicken between the two schools.

USC has no plans to budge on its position without clarity over whether the Big Ten will have four automatic qualifiers in any future playoff format, a source told The Times. With nine conference games already built into the schedule and the possibility of an annual crossover matchup with the Southeastern Conference still on their radar, USC officials see no reason to commit long term to the Notre Dame matchup without assurances they wouldn’t be punished for scheduling such a marquee nonconference matchup.

The demands of Big Ten travel have also been a part of the conversation at USC, to the point officials broached the potential with Notre Dame of moving the game to the first month of the season. The hope was to better balance its future slate of travel to the Midwest and East Coast. Last season, in their Big Ten debut, the Trojans lost all four of their Big Ten road trips.

But Notre Dame was not receptive to the idea of moving the game, which traditionally has been played in the latter half of the football season.

The Irish agreed earlier this month to a 12-year home-and-home scheduling agreement with Clemson. But while that deal seemed like a precursor to moving on from the USC series, Sports Illustrated reported this week that it was not expected to stand in the way of continuing with the Trojans.

Uncertainty has loomed over the rivalry since last summer when USC coach Lincoln Riley was first asked about its future at Big Ten media days.

Riley said at the time that he hoped to continue the series, but hinted pretty strongly at the possibility that USC could drop the game if it would better position the team to win a national title

“I know it means a lot to a lot of people,” Riley said. “The purist in you [says] no doubt. Now if you get in a position where you got to make a decision on what’s best for SC to help us win a national championship vs. keep that [game], shoot, then you got to look at it.

“And listen, we’re not the first example of that. Look all the way across the country. There have been a lot of other teams sacrificing rivalry games. And I’m not saying that’s what’s going to happen. But as we get into this playoff structure, and if it changes or not, we’re in this new conference, we’re going to learn something about this as we go and what the right and the best track is to winning a national championship, that’s going to evolve.”

Those comments led many to point fingers at Riley for laying the groundwork for the rivalry’s possible demise. But as the two sides now stand at an impasse, a person familiar with the discussion at USC insisted that any decision on the series and its future would come from athletic director Jennifer Cohen.

She’ll have plenty to weigh on that front in the coming months, with both schools likely to dig in their heels for the long haul, slinging mud at one another in the meantime.

Nick Garcia, the throws coach at Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, calls shotputter and discus thrower Aja Johnson “the dragon slayer.”

She’s only 5 feet 3 but slays taller girls competing in those events.

Last weekend, she won the Southern Section Division 3 shotput and discus titles. This weekend she will try to qualify for the state championships when competing at the Masters Meet at Moorpark High. She won the state discus title last year. She was state champion in the shotput in 2023.

Aja Johnson of Sherman Oaks Notre Dame.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

Under Garcia’s guidance, Johnson uses technique, athleticism, agility and explosiveness to excel in the two events. She has committed to Louisville. Notre Dame athletes have won every Division 3 shotput or discus title since 2021. …

The City Section Division I baseball semifinals will be held Wednesday at Stengel Field in Glendale with a trip to Dodger Stadium on Saturday at stake. Carson will play Taft at 3 p.m., followed by Banning taking on Verdugo Hills at 6 p.m.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].

Sherman Oaks Notre Dame High was supposed to be a year or two away from softball prominence with its collection of six talented freshmen.

Well, the Knights have already arrived after a 9-7 victory over Trinity League champion Orange Lutheran on Thursday in an opening game of the Southern Section Division 1 playoffs in which freshman Jackie Morales hit three home runs.

Notre Dame, the Mission League champion, was leading most of the game until Orange Lutheran scored three runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to take a 7-6 lead. Morales tied the score with a home run in the top of the seventh. Then the Knights scored two more runs on an RBI single from freshman Keira Luderer and an RBI single from junior Ellayne Tellez-Perez.

Orange Lutheran was the Division 1 runner-up last season. For Notre Dame to go on the road and win is quite an accomplishment for coach Justin Siegel and the Knights.

“Big players show up in big situations and Jackie Morales has been a big player for us all season,” Siegel said.

Huntington Beach 8, Charter Oak 7: The Oilers hung on for the Division 1 win. Tea Gutierrez and Maleah Humble each had three hits.