As they are designed to do, the Olympics made me proud to be an American yesterday. I watched Simone Biles make history and I said, on my couch, “I am proud to be an American.” I then spent the rest of the day on that couch before eating an entire frozen pizza for dinner. It was a big one, too. Rising crust. Not thin crust.
Clearly, Simone Biles is one of the coolest Americans out there right now. With all due respect to Suni Lee, she’s definitely the coolest gymnast. Who else is cool? Who are our coolest athletes right now?
Sport by sport, the current coolest American:
Gymnastics: Simone Biles
As established.
Basketball: Derrick White
Also goes without saying.
Baseball: Kyle Schwarber
I know, this is a little off-brand, but I’m trying to be a unifier here.
Football: George Kittle
Burrow’s gone Bieber, and that’s going to work for him, but we can’t name him the coolest in football right at this moment. He vacated that throne. Jason Kelce retired, and while other retired athletes will make this list, I just think we can do better. I’m a Quinn Ewers backer here, as a sleeper pick, but that’s probably too niche a take.
I think Kittle’s the answer. He’s a dork, but he’s way too strong for anyone to ever call him that. Also, football fans can never say they don’t like him without accidentally calling themselves wimps. So much of his game is blocking. You don’t like blocking? Go back to France.
Hockey: Vacant because I never know which hockey players are American and which are Canadian
Just kidding. I think it’s Patrick Kane?
Soccer: Rose Lavelle
In the interests of transparency: I checked whether Lavelle or Mallory Swanson had more Instagram followers, and when I saw it was Swanson, I said, “Yeah, but Swanson would have more followers, because she scores more goals. And Swanson scores more goals because she’s a forward.” That was the methodology here. Sometimes it’s cooler to have a smaller social media presence.
Rugby: Ilona Maher
Much like George Kittle, if you don’t like Ilona Maher you ought to be deported are exercising your First Amendment rights but I’m exercising mine too when I call you a used piece of toilet paper.
Swimming: Michael Phelps
We’re getting into a run now of retired or semi-retired stars waiting for their crown to be claimed. It’s still him. It’ll probably always be him.
Tennis: Serena Williams
Coco Gauff might get there soon, but Williams’s coolness is still echoing around the room.
Golf: Tiger Woods
It’s preposterous that golf produced someone this cool. This is a record less likely to be broken than Cal Ripken’s consecutive games streak.
Etc.
- I know we’ve talked about this before, but I like how Flavor Flav made “hype man” a profession through his work with Public Enemy, and I really like how he made “hype man” a societal role through his support of the 2019 Penn State men’s basketball team, Taylor Swift, the 2024 U.S. Olympic Women’s Water Polo team, and now any and all Olympians. I know we can’t make Flavor Flav our national hype man, but what if we made Flavor Flav our national hype man anyway? Send him to something American once a week. Presidential press briefing. Little League baseball game. The Tony Awards. Various Culver’s.
- The Cubs have won twice in the last 24 hours, but we weren’t going to let the first of the two escape notice. Remember when Mike Tauchman beat the Cardinals by robbing that home run last July? Well, last night he beat the Cardinals with a walk-off single. Almost a year to the day. Maybe the Cubs are getting hot a couple weeks later this season so that they also fade later? Up to eleventh in the National League, guys! That’s almost as close to the playoffs as it is to the Colorado Rockies!
- Prayers to Freddie Freeman and his family. Freeman’s been away from the Dodgers for the last week, and yesterday his wife announced that their three-year-old has been in the hospital battling Guillain-Barré syndrome, an autoimmune condition in which the body attacks its own nerves. In this case, it led to full-body paralysis. Most people with Guillain-Barré make a full recovery, which is great news, but unfathomably scary stuff. So, again, prayers to Freddie Freeman and his family.
