The WNBA Las Vegas Aces were hosted by VP KAMALA HARRIS and second gentleman DOUGLAS EMHOFF in the East Room of the White House on Friday in Washington to celebrate their 2022 WNBA championship. Players, coaches and front-office staff “all joined Harris on stage.” A'JA WILSON and 2022 WNBA Finals MVP CHELSEA GRAY presented the VP “with a custom Aces jersey featuring the No. 49 on the back.” The team was originally supposed to be welcomed by PRESIDENT BIDEN and first lady JILL BIDEN, but the Biden family’s extended vacation in Lake Tahoe “meant they weren’t in Washington" (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 8/25).
GIVING BACK: Student-athletes received the first official set of “FLY:FWD sports bras,” an initiative established by the Eagles in partnership with Operation Warm, at an event supported by the Women’s Sports Foundation. Friday’s distribution “was a part of the initiative’s larger goal of handing out sports bras to 30,000 young female athletes in the Delaware Valley this fall” (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 8/25)....A new book, “Mountaintop: The Inside Story of Michigan’s 1997 National Title Climb,” written by former Detroit Free Press beat writers NICK BAUMGARDNER and MARK SNYDER, is now available for purchase (DETROIT FREE PRESS, 8/27).
ICE COLD: NHLPA Exec Dir MARTY WALSH dropped “more than $240,000 in campaign cash this year," spreading donations "from his nonprofits, sports organizations, and other groups." He also has continued to pay a longtime consultant to help manage what remains a “sizable war chest stuffed with” $4.4M. It is a “staggering level of spending” for someone who is “neither running for nor holding public office.” Walsh said that none of the spending is “politically driven” (BOSTON GLOBE, 8/25).
NAMES: Bills play-by-play announcer JOHN MURPHY has broken his silence after the stroke he suffered last season. In “If These Walks Could Talk: Stories from the Buffalo Bills Sideline, Locker Room and Press Box,” Murphy gives a "poignant, detailed written play-by-play account of what prevented him from calling the highly anticipated Bills-Cincinnati Bengals game on Jan, 2, the regular season finale" (BUFFALO NEWS, 8/25).
