Stop Looking At Me, Swan! with Big Citrus

Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're basking in the glory of correctly predicting the Women's College World Series winner.

I'm not the kind of person to say I told you so, so.

Who am I kidding? I'm absolutely that person I told you so. It's Monday, June ninth, and on today's show, Big Citrus will reconvene to talk Texas's first Softball National Championship Athletes, Unlimited Softball Leagues opening day, Coco Goff's French Open win, and we'll check in on happenings in the WNBA. Plus the House versus NCAA settlement is done, NWSL expansion side, Boston Legacy FC has its logo, and one team's new tradition is so good it should be illegal. It's all

It back in twenty fifteen.

Goff actually dropped the first set of the final, but she bounced back to win the latter two handily. It made the twenty one year old the first woman in tennis history to rally from a set down to win their first two major titles. The other was at the twenty twenty three US Open, also a win over Sabolenka.

If you didn't catch the match, you missed a.

Lot, including the elation that Coco Goff displayed after the final point.

It was so pure.

We'll link to a slow mo video of that moment in our show notes. You also have to check out her adorable celebration with the French Open ball kids. We'll link to that one too. After the contest was all said and done, runner up Seblanka gave Golf her props in the on court interview, saying, quote to Coco, you deserve it. You're a hard worker, a fighter.

End quote.

But then in the press conference, Sablenka made some interesting comments. She told reporters in part, quote, I think she won the match, not because she played incredible, just because.

I made all of those mistakes. End quote.

Sablenka also alluded to the idea that fellow WTA superstar Egas Fontech might have defeated Goff had she been the one to make it to the final. This, of course, set off alarms across the tennis space, but Sablenka took to her Instagram story on Sunday to try to make things clear. She wrote, in part quote, she was the better player yesterday, and I want to give her the credit she earned.

You all know me.

I'm always going to be honest and human, and how I process these moments. I made over seventy unforced errors, so I can't pretend it was a great day for me.

But both things can be true.

I didn't play my best, and Coco stepped up and played with poise and purpose.

She earned that title respect end quote.

And you know what, I like that because Golf did step up and play her ass off, and I liked that. Sablenka decided to make things right by saying, so what's off to you, Coco, and thanks for breaking the curse for American women at Roland Garros. Some college sports news, the House versus NCAA anti trust settlement has officially come to a conclusion. On Friday, Judge Claudia Wilkin formally approved.

The deal that will allow schools to.

Pay their athletes directly ending three federal antitrust lawsuits that claimed the NCAA was illegally limiting college athletes earning power. Now, you might remember we did a very in depth episode about this not too long ago, So if you want the real nitty gritty, go back and listen to that.

For now.

The gist of it is, athletic departments will be able to dule out roughly twenty and a half million dollars in name, image, and likeness revenue to athletes over the twenty twenty five to twenty sixth season. The NCAA and the Power conferences also agree to pay out nearly two point eight billion dollars in damages over the next ten years to D one athletes that weren't allowed to sign

End quote.

Will be of course, keeping an eye on how Title nine intersects with this ruling and the future of college sports to softball. Congratulations to the Texas Longhorns, who won the school's first ever softball national championship. They beat lone star state foe Texas Tech ten to four in Game three of the Women's College World Series Championship series on Friday night. The Longhorns bats were hot from the start. They scored five runs on five hits in the bottom

Yeall.

She was the first softball player to sign a million dollar nil contract, and now she's the first to sign two million dollar nil contracts. She inked another seven figure deal with the Mattador Club the Red Raiders Collective. With this smooth the two time National Fast Pitch Coaches Association Pitcher of the Year put any and all transfer rumors to rest.

She'll be returning to play for Texas Tech.

Add this new bag of bucks to the fire in her gut from the championship loss, and she's going to be more motivated than ever next season. I can't wait to see what that brings for Kennedy More Softball. Saturday saw the first games of the brand spankin new AUSL Pro Softball League, with each of the four teams in action. On opening day, the Bandits defeated the Talents three to one in Rosemont, Illinois, jumping into the lead on a two run triple from Aaron Koffel and hanging on for

End quote.

We could only hope that ba Swan brings that same energy with considerably less drop kicking of heads. We'll put a link in the show notes to a frankly fascinating medium dot com story about the man inside Cyril. Worth noting the story says that Cyril the Swan is allegedly now reformed and married to.

His wife Sybil. Apparently she's calmed him down.

More footy May's NWSL awards are out, and first up it was Kansas City current forward ten whewinga earning Player of the Month honors. The striker scored in three straight games to finish the month of May. She also passed Sophia Wilson formerly Sophia Smith to become the fastest player in league history to notch twenty five goals with her game winner against the Orlando Pride on May sixteenth. Took

Last, but not least, Coach of.

The Month went to first Your San Diego WAVEFC head coach Jonas Idavol. His Wave went undefeated in the month of May and at one point sort as high as second in the league standings to the WNBA, where the Chicago Sky got the news many expected but hoped wouldn't come, and MRI on Sunday revealed an ACL tear for point guard Courtney van der Slut, who went down in the sky seventy nine to fifty two loss to the Indiana Fever Saturday night at the United Center. Vander Slute is

Shoes over the last week.

Sabily, a Jordan brand athlete until she signed with Adidas in January, showed off her Don Issue six un Corn kicks for the first time ahead of her Phoenix Mercury's game against Seattle on Saturday. Those shoes aren't available for retail sale, which is a bummer because they're and.

Fly Chicago sky Ford.

Reese's PE is rebox engine a pretty gritty colorway, and it dropped for one hundred and twenty dollars retail sale in the company's website on Wednesday. The shoe is complete with their new signature logo as well, which was unveiled late last month. If you haven't seen that, it's pretty slick, go check out that logo. Reese also has a signature shoe in the works, which is currently slated for release in twenty twenty six.

We'll link to.

Both pes and our show notes so you can check them out for yourself. And I think we might have mentioned this before, but I sometimes even forget, so just

When we come back, Big.

Citrus is serving up a glass a juicy conversation pulp optional.

Welcome back, slices.

I hope you had a gate gay weekend.

Happy pray.

I did have a gay weekend. That's all right, We're it's great, We're keeping it in. Welcome back. I hope your weekend was gay or great or both.

I'm gonna welcome in my producers, Alex, Hi, Alex.

Hello, and me. She's crying. Hi, Mesh, Liza.

We're gonna have a little big Centrius conversation about a weekend chock full of sports news and games and gays if you were Mesh, I want to.

Talk about the Boston Swans first.

First of all, I really enjoyed doing a deep dive into Cyril the swan, and I really recommend everyone else too, So kind of a sad story actually about the man inside the swan, but just the pictures alone are worth it because.

It looks like his wings are on backwards.

But anyway, back to the Boston Swans, what do y'all think about it? Because I'm trying not to be critical for no good reason. It just is weird for it to be a swan, But I also think it's pretty so I'm reserving judgment.

So it's so funny to hear your reaction to it, because swans actually are kind of a symbol of Boston, and I realized that that information was just ingrained in my brain in a way that I thought was common knowledge for the rest of the world. But apparently it's not. So I think it's fine, but I cannot stop thinking about fans just honking like a real Swan, and I cannot stop laughing. I just want like a whoa.

First of all, that's a really good Swan. It's a great wait, do it, do it again? Do it again?

Hold on, hold on stage right? Seriously.

Ha ha, You're just full of surprises, Alex.

You just really good. It's a really good Swan.

I do worry now that you said that, that they might have like a Vouzela situation where they think that that's close enough to a bunch of swan talking, because the Vouzelas are no good in my book.

No, I agree, I mean, I listen. I just think you gotta embrace the weirdness of your mascot, regardless of what the mascot is. So I guess we'll see.

Me swan thoughts.

So I have an unfair bias against swans because I had a teacher named miss Swan who was not very nice to me.

Oh well, don't hold that against the birds.

Yeah, so's it's tough. It's tough.

It's just when I hear the name Swan. There's one thing but two and I kind of fell on the same side of the line as you.

It's like, I don't I don't immediately think of a swan.

What I think of sports or mascots. I think of just literally anything else, just beauty and grace, beauty, maybe.

Beauty and grace. I don't know.

I think when I saw the controlling owner's comments saying that they're gritty, immediately I thought, no, but you told us, what did you tell us about you as well?

In the campus?

So these are not swans, these are geese. But I'm just thinking to myself, I've never approached a swan in the manner that some have a roach to geese, and they've learned real quick that you don't with geese. Like ESPN had to put up signs all over the Connecticut campus that were like, we're not kidding, stay away from the geese because when they're mating or when they have babies.

They will few up.

And I feel like maybe swans are the same, and we just don't approach them in the same manner because they stay in the water more and the geese are always kind of like in our business. So I'm willing to afford them the benefit of the doubt that swans can be as gritty and territorial as geese, and we just don't know it because we're usually looking at them from afar, floating along on the surface, looking beautiful.

And I will say, you know what, Boston has an opportunity to prove us all wrong. They have an opportunity to in so many legacy, in.

So many ways of the swan.

Okay, one final note on this, because I just googled swan reputation birds. Fun fact about swans, y'all. A study into the reputation for aggressiveness of swans found that they're more likely to be hostile to their own kind to other birds. Boy, I sense a team full of drama.

Oh, we're gonna have a lot of juicy tea coming out of that locker room in fighting.

Yeah.

I also whenever I don't even really watch a lot of Adam Sandler, but they're all ingrained in my head as a result of it just being part of the societal lexicon.

So I always think of Billy Madison and he says.

Stop looking at me, swan, And so that's the first thing I thought of when I saw the shield, and I was like, I'm going to use that in every social post about this team every time, and it's just gonna it's just gonna be a regular thing. Okay, So we're we're excited, enthusiastic, patient about how the whole Swan thing will work out for them. I want to talk AUSL Opening Day because it was the bulk of my weekend and it was a frickin' blast. I didn't end up getting to watch a ton of the final Women's

Oh, she's so happy.

Yeah, it's so funny because I think back to your interview with Kat and it's like she literally still owns all the records that you forget that she didn't actually win a national title when she was in college.

Yeah, it's kind of amazing that they didn't considering her greatness. But she was super pumped. The party was really fun. It was actually cool. A couple athletes unlimited basketball players were in town with the Fever or the Sky, which had a game the next day, so Kia Nurse and Sidney Colson and a couple others ended up coming for the AUSL party as well. So that's always anytime I get to talk shit with sid is a good time.

So the party was really fun.

And then the next day, opening Day, there was a brunch in the morning and a big fan fest before the game started, which was really cool. There were interviews with me and a handful of players on a stage. There was a live band, a lot of games and activities. Each of the teams had their own little tent with something different, which was fun. The talents had these like bird wings and mask and like talents that you could

Were really gobbling up.

My friend makes these bracelets called Changed by the Game and you could keep track of the outs on your wrist while you're playing the different logos and stuff. And then there's like these little strips that you move to remind yourself how many outs, which is pretty cool. So they were selling those. And then there was just I mean, it was like legends everywhere you look. Joe Torre was there,

Oh, very great.

I have a great wedding ring, but this middle diamond in this Yankees World Series ring was wow. Kenny Williams, former White Sox GM was there. They were there to support Kim Eng the commissioner, Sue Anquist, legendary UCLA coach and my personal life coach was there, Lisa Fernandez. All just I mean everywhere you looked were legends and what

So it was just awesome.

It was just a really great day and it was a total sellout, and I'm just really excited for them.

So, Sarah, I'm curious for your thoughts on this because I think, as we've discussed on this show before, Athletes Unlimited has done some really cool stuff before, from basketball to lacrosse, to volleyball to softball. Also with their a youth style format before where an individual player is winning to now this more traditional league format, and it feels to me like this is a real pivot point for AU.

Certainly for this sport, and I think it's necessary for this sport where they're not a secondary league in any sense of the word. They are the main professional league, and even in the last couple of years they were the main professional league even using their au individual player model. I don't know if this signals a change that they'll look to make in their other sports.

I don't know if they think it's.

Necessary in basketball to pivot to a traditional team model. I don't know if they feel that way in volleyball either, As they try to separate themselves potentially from the pack with the PVF and love volleyball, maybe they think it's better to have a model that is a little bit different. I think just in terms of awareness, size.

Resources, investment.

The MLB part of this, which is rumored to be like a seven or eight figure investment, and the fact that every single game will be on MLBtv, the app and streaming is huge.

I did not. I talked to both Jonathan's who run it.

I didn't talk to them about whether they'll plan to do this with their other leagues. But I think the thing that I've talked to Jonathan patrick Off about the most is how does AU step into being a little bit cooler and a little bit edgy, because it does tend to read, in my opinion, and has read the last couple of years as a little bit more of a traditional old school model where it's about kids watching, and the graphics and the vibes and the social all

Wasn't the way to go.

So I like that they're already establishing some of those, like routines and habits and traditions so fun.

I'm jealous that you got to be there for it.

It's fun how many firsts we were having of late and getting to like experience.

It's such a great sign for women's sports.

Alex, I think that you had texted me something about the Women's College World Series. Was there something that you wanted to say about that other than just enthusiasm for Texas winning it all?

Yeah.

I think it's interesting because even earlier in the show you mentioned it in talking about Nigerie Kennedy and her one million dollar an IL collective. And after that series ended with Texas Tech losing. Of course, their coach, Jerry Glasgow spoke about how he thought it was quote almost insulting to Canady how often that one million dollar ANIL deal was brought up. I'm going to continue the quote here. I think it's interesting. You watch Ohio State in the

I see both sides of it.

I think, on the one hand, it's great to talk about women making money, getting paid, bringing victories to schools, bringing revenue to schools. Because of the conversations were likely to be in the future about NCAA versus House and all of the money being dumped into men's sports because they believe that's the only space that will bring something back.

There's just so much joy and mesh.

I know we talked earlier in the show about breaking this sort of curse or this long drought since the last American twin it was Serena ten years ago. But I don't think we need to compare Serena and Coco here. I think it's okay to mention that and then just be like, let's talk coc and not bring it all the way back to ten years ago.

Exactly my thoughts exactly to a Tea Sera, because first of all, I'm thinking about Coco being twenty one, being so early on in her career, having so much talent, and being her own person, right, I feel like it's worth appreciating what she's done, aside from everybody else and all the accomplishments that we want her to reach because

I'm not worried about them.

So I think Serena's legacy we have to put it in context and remember how freaking outstanding that was, and also know that Coco just got here for real, she just got here stopp putting that pressure on her. You can compare in that, Yes, she won a French Open, and she's the first one since Serena to do it. Yes, in full stop, keep it it ends there right now.

And that's not a knock on Coco.

It's just we're talking about two completely different, completely different plan It's completely different atmospheres right now. But I want to give Coco her props because I love what she's been doing. I love watching her play, and I really

So yeah, and that's what I want to say, is what you had to say about her. And Serena reminded me a little of Mariah Stakos coming on and saying, it's great that people were excited about me as a young black golfer, but immediately it was like and Tiger Woods.

Yeah, and she's like, no, don't do that. Tiger Woods is this whole thing different.

Great that I'm a young prodigy black golfer, but like that is too much pressure.

And I feel like that's the same for Coco.

It's great, we love to see it the black joy, especially in a sport that you want to bring more eyeballs too that you want to bring more young black players to. But not if we're going to force the pressure on her of being the next Soreena.

Yes, because then what inevitably happens is if she doesn't live up to Serena, then she's a bust, which is completely untrue in and of itself as well. So yeah, I gotta give left to Coco and to Serena because that WNBA collab with the Toronto Tempo, her being an owner. I love that. I love her having her hands all over that. But yeah, she's She's one of a kind.

I think what stood out to me the most about Coco's win is something that I feel like I saw a lot covering the Olympics, which is that when you win the first time, I often see a lot of joy. Sometimes there's some relief in there depending on what the stakes were, but I think sometimes winning the second time is so much harder. Obviously this is a different tournament than the one that she won before, but right there's

I agree there is a little bit of that like relief plus joy of like I did it again.

I wasn't a one hit wonder. I want to quickly talk about the WNBA from this.

Weekend too, because Mesh, I was thinking about you as I was texting Front of the Show Jess Smith about the big win that the Valks got over the Aces three players in double digits, and some like serious statlines Kayla Thornton twenty two points, eleven boards, Veronica Burton fourteen points, career high, twelve assists and seven rebounds, and Monique Billings fourteen points eleven boards, like a real team effort.

But the aces, Sarah, you've been officially it's officially.

Time to worry. I was, I was holding off on the worry. It's officially time to worry.

Okay. They got worked. They got worked.

They've got so much connectivity work to do on the defensive end, which surprises the hell out of me, and.

Rebounding the ball.

Let me not forget to mention that they were negative twelve minus twelve on the boards against the Valkyries.

You mentioned it.

Three players in double double territory. That's you cannot be given that up under Becky Haam and she's obviously upset about that, she had some comments about it in the postgame press conference.

But offensively too. They're missing that fourth dog.

Remember Monica McNutt coined Jack the Jack Crew for them when it was you know, when they had Kelsey Plumb on this roster. They need Jewel Lloyd to be that fourth player. And frankly, Asia Wilson's doing what she does. She's second best in scoring average right now in the WNBA. Jewels got to step up. Chelsea Gray doesn't have the assist numbers that she's had and granted, team, you know, players got to hit shots for you to get the assists.

I think she's she's the answer.

She's shooting twenty nine point four percent right now, which is worse than any season average field goal percent and.

Get some time hopefully. Yeah, and that's part of it. It's just getting used to a new system. I do have to say, and Asia is not at fault for this, but if the Aces don't do that well, and Asia has already won a couple MVPs, it does support my preseason prediction that voters might think it's time for a new MVP or should I say fee P because I just want to point out then if it's a Collier heading into the Links game against the Dallas Wings, was putting up over twenty one points per game on fifty

Again, it's early.

I'm just pointing out that my chip on her shoulder feeling a little ragie after losing in the finals and getting second in the MVP voting might end up all being what we see this year.

Yeah, I think there's some merits to that, but man Ace has got to figure it out.

They gotta figure it out.

Okay, last WNBA, we have to talk about the Studs Buds because it is Pride.

This is my new favorite thing in the world. If y'all are paying attention to this, I need you to go follow them immediately. It's at stud Dot Buds with a Z on Instagram and the stud Buds are Courty Williams and Natisha Heideman. It's it's my favorite thing to come out of Pride month. So far, We're not even halfway through and I'm obsessed I'm obsessed.

They just get on there, shoot the shit.

I love having two masculine presenting players have a friendship that's visible to people, especially at a time like this. So if you're not following them, go follow them and get yourselves a laugh.

So far, there's been some good moments, for instance, asking Elana Smith when she knew she was straight, or maybe they were telling her when they knew she when they knew she was straight. Either way, the stud buds are are a good watch and absolutely just in time for Pride.

I just need to say that I googled stud buds and the first thing I found was a stud Finder, which also in time for Pride.

Thank god, that's what you said, because I was gonna say.

I don't know where you were going.

Sometimes I google stuff out of the context and my brain just isn't hasn't gotten there yet, and then whatever comes up, I'm like, oh, yeah, I deserve that. I deserve the results I just found. And I was worried about you with stud buds with a Z, but thankfully just a good old Studfinder.

We got to take another break, y'all.

When we come back, a brand new tradition has already lassoed our attention and shot right through our hearts.

Stick around welcome back slices.

We love that you're listening, but we want you to get in the game every day too, so here's our good gameplay of the day once again. Tune into the PWHL expansion draft tonight. It's been so much fun watching the league and the teams navigate expansion, so make sure you follow along for the culmination of all that shuffling and signing as PWHL Seattle and PWHL Vancouver round out their rosters at eight thirty pm Eastern. We'll link to the PWHL dot com and the PWHL.

YouTube channel in our show notes.

And we always love to hear from you, so hit us up on email good game at wondermedianetwork dot com or leave us a voicemail at eight seven two two o four fifty seventy. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review, y'all. We ask you every show because it's so easy. The bandits player intros at the first ever AUSL game, rating ten out of ten best player intros in Sports Review. You heard me mention it earlier, but I can't say it enough. The bandits player intros are the best.

New thing in sports.

We'll link to them in the show notes so you can watch them and keep an eye out, in particular for the spinning fake guns into the Holster move and my personal favorite the Rhdam Cowboy slash Pony by Genuine Dance just insane. Also, there's smoke blasting out of the saloon doors when they run through them, which really took things up a notch. Just ten out of ten. I love it so much. Now it's your turn, y'all rate and review. Thanks for listening, See you tomorrow. Good Game