college sports

A $2.8 billion settlement involving the NCAA sent shockwaves through the college sports world last week and paved the way for schools around the country to pay student-athletes directly for the first time. It'll be a big change for the University of Missouri, the University of Kansas, Kansas State University and other local powerhouses.

A $2.8 billion settlement involving the NCAA sent shockwaves throughout the college sports world last week, paving the way for colleges around the country to pay student-athletes directly for the first time.

Only about 5% of college baseball players and coaches are African American. At Kansas Christian College, team leaders have made a deliberate effort to recruit from inner-city Kansas City — boosting Black representation in the process.

The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, which oversees some 83,000 athletes competing in more than 25 sports, is thought to be the first college sports organization to take such a step. The policy was approved in a 20-0 vote at its annual convention in Kansas City.

Stanley Redwine previously served on the international stage as the USA men’s coach at the 2022 IAAF World Outdoor Championships, and a USA assistant coach for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The Hall of Fame, which has been inducting honorees since 2006, is expected to open late next year at the Museum at Prairiefire. Patrick Mahomes, who played college baseball at Texas Tech, played an "instrumental role" in the landing the deal for Overland Park.

A coalition that includes the Kansas City Chiefs, Royals and Current — and that's funded by two sports betting platforms — is launching an initiative campaign to put sports gambling on this year’s ballot. Team owners say that efforts to persuade Missouri lawmakers have been futile.

The 20-year-old Grain Valley native, who trained in Blue Springs, said on social media last week that a toxic coaching environment at the University of Utah negatively affected her mental health. “The abuse often happened in individual coach-athlete meetings," she wrote.

The decision from the NCAA's Independent Accountability Oversight Committee was six years in the making. The Independent Resolution Panel largely accepted the Jayhawks' self-imposed penalties from last season, when coaches Bill Self and Kurtis Townsend sat out the first four games.

Kansas City native and former Seattle SuperSonics basketball player Dean Tolson made it to college without learning to read. Now, he holds an advanced degree, and is advocating for education with a new memoir, "Power Forward."

A new Kansas law bans transgender girls from playing sports on girls' teams in schools and colleges. Opponents say that discriminating against transgender children was a solution to a problem that didn't exist, and the law ignores real fairness problems that female athletes face in Kansas.

Neither the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education nor the Missouri State High School Activities Association could say how they will enforce the state's restrictions on transgender athletes — one of the most controversial new laws approved by Missouri legislators this year.