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Much Ado About Butker; Paye Mines Transfer Portal

Kansas City Chiefs placekicker Harrison Butker ignited a firestorm last week with his commencement speech at Benedictine College, a tiny Catholic liberal arts school in Atchison, Kansas.


Butker, never shy about advocating his staunchly conservative Catholic views, railed against "the tyranny of diversity, equity and inclusion," "dangerous gender ideologies," and the "diabolical lies" that have influenced women to pursue careers outside the home.


He also proclaimed that "gay pride" is a sin and complained about the erosion of traditional Catholic values in daily life, lumping birth control, abortion, IVF, surrogacy and euthanasia together as "degenerate cultural values."


Butker is certainly entitled to his opinion and, frankly, when I read the full transcript of his remarks, they didn't seem quite as outrageous as the media coverage indicated. He actually spent most of his time advocating for the Latin Mass and criticizing Catholic bishops and priests for their weak leadership.

Many of Butker's comments sounded familiar to me. I was raised in a very traditional, conservative, Catholic home, and served as an altar boy for many years. I even briefly considered the priesthood before my hormones kicked in.


Whenever my dad thought I'd done something wrong, he'd begin his reprimand with "hey, altar boy..."


But like many thoughtful Catholics, there are things about the church's dogma that have been problematic for me over the years--among them the prohibition of birth control and the requirement that priests take the vow of celibacy. 


Like President Joe Biden, who Butker derided as "a man who publicly and proudly proclaims his Catholic faith, but at the same time is delusional enough to make the Sign of the Cross during a pro- abortion rally," I struggled with the issue of abortion for many years before coming down on the side of pro-choice.


I guess I'm what some people call a "cafeteria Catholic," one who picks some things from the church's menu but leaves others on the buffet table.


Where Butker lost me, and a lot of others, was when he declared that men must "set the tone" and fight against their "cultural emasculation," while urging women to stop thinking about careers and instead realize that "homemaker" is the "most important title they should hold."


Butker apparently hasn't noticed that women can be great moms and still have successful careers. Balancing the two can be challenging, without question, but it's done all the time.


Predictably, many feminist and LBGTQ groups were outraged by Butker's remarks, while conservatives came to his defense and his jersey sales went through the roof.


Butker drew impassioned support from Josh Hawley, the MAGA Senator from Missouri and Stanford grad best known for running away from the mob he helped incite on January 6, 2021.


“We need a different generation of kids that are willing to say no that’s not right, there is such a thing as right and wrong, I’m not going in for all of this lefty garbage," Hawley said, "and I just thought that his calls for folks to stand up and be bold was great."


Hawley knows a lot about standing up and being bold. On Jan. 6 he threw up a clenched fist at the Trump supporters who carried out the deadly attack on the Capitol and then was caught on video running scared through the Senate halls.


Paye Dips Into Portal: New Stanford women's basketball coach Kate Paye is making quite a splash by working the transfer portal. The Cardinal lost their top returning player, Kiki Irafen, to USC, but Paye has quickly recovered by signing Santa Clara point guard Tess Heal and Purdue forward Mary Ashley Stevenson


Both players earned "Freshman of the Year" honors in their respective conferences--Heal in 2022-23 in the WCC and Stevenson this past season in the Big Ten. 


Heal is a two-time All-WCC guard who scored in double figures in all 34 games last year. She averaged 19.5 points and 4.9 assists per game and should immediately take over as the Cardinal's starting point guard. 


The lack of production from Talana Lepolo, who averaged only 4.8 points per game last season, was a contributing factor in Stanford's late-season failures in the Pac-12 and NCAA tourney. 


Stevenson, a 6-2 front court player, averaged 9.7 points and 5.1 rebounds for Purdue and will hopefully replace Iriafen.


The good news is that neither of these players are one-year rentals. Hess has two years of eligibility remaining and Stevenson has three.

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Gary Cavalli - Bowl and League co-founder, author, speaker 

Gary Cavalli, the former Sports Information Director and Associate Athletic Director at Stanford University, was co-founder and executive director of the college football bowl game played in the Bay Area, and previously was co-founder and President of the American Basketball League.

Get in touch//@cavalli49//gacavalli49@gmail.com

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