The Green Bay Packers won’t be among the host of NFL teams looking for a new coach in 2026.

The team on Saturday agreed to a multiyear contract extension with head coach Matt LaFleur, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero and ESPN’s Rob Demovsky reported.

Extensions for general manager Brian Gutekunst and executive vice president/director of football operations Russ Ball are also in the works, per Demovsky.

LaFleur’s future with the team was a great source of speculation toward the tail end of the coach’s seventh season at the helm. The Packers began this year 9-3-1 but lost their final four games of the regular season, with All-Pro pass rusher Micah Parsons suffering a torn anterior cruciate ligament in mid-December. Green Bay then squandered a 21-6 fourth-quarter lead over the rival Chicago Bears in a wild-card defeat.

LaFleur did not receive an extension last summer from new Packers president and CEO Ed Policy, leaving 2026 as the last year on the coach’s deal.

Now, LaFleur will be back without any questions about his long-term standing.

‘I mean, this is one of one. I love this place. I love the people,’ LaFleur said after the season. ‘I love our players, our locker room, everybody in our organization. This is a unique place. The community has been outstanding.’

Several players, including Parsons and quarterback Jordan Love, were outspoken in their support of LaFleur in the immediate aftermath of the loss.

‘I reached out to him when I started seeing this, and I said, ‘Man, when I agreed to come here, you were part of the reason why I came here, I want you a part of this and I love you and I think you’re a great coach,” Parsons said. ‘And he appreciated those words, and we had a brief conversation, but Matt, I think he’s a great guy and I just think he cares so much, like he cares so much about the players.’

LaFleur is 76-40-1 in the regular season in his career.

DENVER – This is how the Denver Broncos live.

Sweat it, then pull it out.

It happened again Jan. 17 at Empower Field – and this time it punched a ticket to the AFC Championship Game.

The Broncos survived the Buffalo Bills for a 33-30 victory in overtime, winning with Wil Lutz’s fourth field goal, a 24-yarder with 10 minutes, 16 seconds elapsed into OT of the AFC divisional playoff. The game-winning kick was aided by two Bills defensive pass interference penalties after Denver gained possession with JaQuan McMillian’s interception.

While it was another measure of heartbreak for Buffalo – the Bills advanced to at least the divisional round of the AFC playoffs for the sixth consecutive season – the final outcome marked yet another late-game victory for the Bo Nix-quarterbacked Broncos.

Nix guided Denver to an NFL-high seven victories after trailing in the fourth quarter, and now he’s done it again for a franchise hosting its first playoff game in a decade – since the Broncos captured the Super Bowl 50 crown.

This time, though, it came with a twist: The Broncos defense produced a season-high five takeaways – including two interceptions and two fumbles from Josh Allen – and still nearly lost.

Now the Broncos, having advanced to the AFC title game in just Sean Payton’s third season as coach, await the winner of Sunday’s AFC divisional playoff between the New England Patriots and Houston Texans.

Regardless, they are breathing some sigh of relief.

The Bills forced overtime with a 50-yard Matt Prater field goal with five seconds on the clock. That game-tying boot answered Nix’s 26-yard TD pass to Marvin Mims, Jr., with 55 seconds left on the fourth-quarter clock.

It was that kind of flow.

Denver scored 13 consecutive points late in the first half and early in the second half – aided by two Buffalo turnovers – to seize momentum. Buffalo scored 10 straight points early in the fourth quarter to flip momentum.

And now the momentum is all used up until next season for the Bills.

Or until next week for the Broncos.

Contact Jarrett Bell at jbell@usatoday.com or follow on X: @JarrettBell

Blue and white smoke is finally emanating from East Rutherford, New Jersey.

The New York Giants and John Harbaugh have finally completed a five-year deal to make him the team’s next head coach, per multiple reports, days after Harbaugh and the club had agreed to join forces. His package is expected to be worth in the neighborhood of $100 million, according to multiple reports.

“This is the New York Giants,” Harbaugh told ESPN. “I’m proud and honored to the head coach of this historic franchise, and especially excited to work with the Mara and Tisch families. But most of all, I can’t wait to get started with the great players on this football team to see what we can accomplish together.”

Per NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo, a news conference is expected to occur Tuesday. Harbaugh and general manager Joe Schoen, who retained his job despite Brian Daboll’s firing during the just completed season, are expected to have a ‘cooperative setup.’

Schoen led the coaching search that quickly led the organization to Harbaugh.

Harbaugh led the Baltimore Ravens to 12 playoff berths, AFC North titles and one Super Bowl victory in his 18 seasons in Charm City. His record, including postseason, is 193-124.

The Giants have made the playoffs just twice, winning one wild-card game under Daboll, since winning Super Bowl 46 nearly 14 years ago.

The divisional round of the NFL playoffs is regarded as the best weekend of the season by some fans. Four games over two days, two of them including the regular season’s best teams − insomuch as one might regard the No. 1 postseason seeds as the best squads.

Saturday, the Denver Broncos, the top seed in the AFC, will host the Buffalo Bills in a rematch from the 2024 wild-card round − Josh Allen and Co. cruising best then-rookie Bo Nix and the Broncos 31-7. In the NFC, the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks will meet for the third time (and second in three weeks) − the ‘Hawks returning to action at Lumen Field following their bye.

Sunday afternoon, the New England Patriots will try to advance to their first AFC championship game in seven years − by beating a red-hot Houston Texans squad hoping to get that for for the first time. Ever. The final matchup of the weekend quartet will pair the Los Angeles Rams and Chicago Bears, who will square off in the postseason for the first time in 40 years − since the legendary ’85 Bears shut out the Rams at Soldier Field.

Which teams will qualify for the NFL’s version of the Final Four? Our experts make their selections:

(Odds provided by BetMGM)

Divisional round picks, predictions, odds

Bills at Broncos
49ers at Seahawks
Texans at Patriots
Rams at Bears

The Miami Hurricanes football program connects current players with program legends like Ray Lewis and Michael Irvin.
Coaches, many of whom are former players, use these legends to reinforce the team’s high standards and legacy.
While embracing the past, the current team is focused on creating its own unique legacy.

MIAMI — Before every game this season, Miami wide receivers coach Kevin Beard would gather his players together to FaceTime with former program greats such as Andre Johnson, Reggie Wayne and Santana Moss, asking each one: What do you expect to see from us?

A wideout for the Hurricanes himself in the early 2000s, Beard would open up the floor and let each former player share their thoughts on what it means to play receiver at Miami. In doing so, Beard’s current group would hear the same message he’d been delivering, but from outside voices with baked-in credibility.

“I want them to hear from somebody else,” said Beard. “So when they hear, they understand that this is the standard.”

Miami has long been defined in part by the parade of former players who continue to haunt the program’s halls and practice fields, passing along tips and tricks in a type of oral history.

“They understand it already,” said defensive line coach Jason Taylor. “They hear about it. The brotherhood the University of Miami has post-playing days is palpable.”

Led by a former Miami offensive lineman in coach Mario Cristobal and motivated by pregame speeches from program legends such as Michael Irvin and Ray Lewis, this year’s team has clearly taken these lessons to heart, leaving the Hurricanes one win away from the program’s national championship since 2001.

“You can’t afford to lose,” said offensive tackle Francis Mauigoa, who had the chance to spend time this season with former Miami linemen Bryan McKinnie and Jon Feliciano. “They were the tone-setters back then. So we want to continue on their legacy.

“You can see the sense of brotherhood that the program has. It’s something that you don’t get often.”

When talking to the team, as Lewis did before the Fiesta Bowl against Mississippi, these former players describe how the names, coaches and conference affiliations may change, but that every Miami player is responsible for continuing a legacy that dates back decades, even if the program has been mired in a generation-long championship drought.

“I’m learning anything I can,” he said. “It’s a little like, ‘Damn, that’s Ray Lewis. That’s Edgerrin James.’ At the same time, they’re here for us, and I’m taking as much knowledge that I can on and off the field.”

In some cases, understanding the legacy means going on YouTube and watching grainy, standard-definition clips of vintage TV broadcasts.

Irvin left Miami after the 1987 season and finished his NFL career in 1999, when Cristobal was in his second season as a Miami graduate assistant. Lewis retired in 2012 and James in 2009, when most of this year’s team was in elementary school.

But all three lingered around this installment of the Hurricanes, sharing what their teams looked like and their opinions on what creates and maintains a winning environment. Before the Peach Bowl, linebacker Wesley Bissainthe recalled, Lewis told the team to play for one another and to take things one play at a time.

“To have him come back and speak life into us, there’s no better feeling,” Bissainthe said. “We try our best to model our games after guys like that.”

This year’s team is the first since at least 2003 to find a place in Miami’s pantheon of great teams, joining championship-winning squads of 1983, 1987, 1989, 1991 and 2001 along with the many groups — in 1986, 1988, 1990, 2000, 2002 — that staked a claim to being seen as the best team in college football.

There’s a subtle turn-back-the-clock aspect to this year’s run to the championship game against unbeaten Indiana, in part because of Cristobal’s blueprint for reestablishing the Hurricanes’ physical dominance on the line of scrimmage. Because of his existing links to the program, Cristobal hasn’t shied away from connecting the past with the present; instead, the Hurricanes have embraced the expectations that come with tying the 2025 team with those that established Miami as a national power.

“That’s the foundation that we had,” Beard said. “We are living our lives trying to make the guys before us proud.”

But the Hurricanes also understand they are creating their own legacy.

“At the end of the day, they’re not the ones who are making plays,” said defensive lineman Ahkeem Mesidor. “This is the 2025 Miami team. It’s not 2001. It’s not the 1990s.”

Win or lose on Monday night, the 2025 team may go down as the one responsible for putting Miami back on the map, should the program’s upward trajectory continue deeper into Cristobal’s tenure.

This team is already responsible for erasing Miami’s reputation for folding under pressure by beating Notre Dame in the season opener, rallying from a midseason lull to make the playoff and then beating three higher-ranked opponents in Texas A&M, Ohio State and the Rebels.

A win against the Hoosiers might give Miami the most impressive postseason résumé of any team in Bowl Subdivision history, aided by the expanded playoff format. If so, the Hurricanes will have beaten the tournament’s No. 7, No. 2, No. 6 and No. 1 seeds.

While there are tangible ways to show how the Hurricanes have remained linked to the past, Miami has also forged ahead, said Cristobal, adapting to a new landscape of college football that’s miles removed from the era of the program’s heyday.

“To protect that and to keep the integrity of that, we’ve gone a route where it’s different than some of the traditional Miami teams, and that’s okay,” he said.

“But there was never any lean towards going back. You go back to take the principles and values and bring them forward. But to go forward, that’s in my opinion, as a head coach, the best way to do it.”

These Hurricanes are simply writing the next chapter, creating a unique legacy to layer upon the program’s existing history.

“We understand we’re right in the middle of the 2025 chapter of the Miami Hurricanes,” Taylor said. “We’re not living in the glory days or the former times.”

Cal snapped a three-game skid Saturday when the Golden Bears nabbed their second win against a ranked team when they defeated No. 15 North Carolina, 84-78, at Haas Pavilion in Berkeley.

The Golden Bears were led by senior forward John Camden with 20 points. Dai Dai Ames and Justin Pippen, son of Basketball Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen, each scored 17 in the game. Lee Dort had seven points and 12 rebounds.

Cal head coach Mark Madsen was grateful for the loud, raucous environment during their home game at Hass Pavilion.

‘Just really want to thank the Cal coommunity, the students, the alums … the donors and supporters. It was basically a packed house. We’re trying to build something special here at Cal and it takes everybody and I can’t say enough about the environment,’ Madsen told reporters after the game.

Madsen added: ‘Can’t give enough credit to North Carolina. Late in the game they had us on our heels. They did a great job of trying to make us uncomfortable. Credit them and credit some guys of ours that stepped up and made plays late with no timeouts.’

Tar Heels freshman Caleb Wilson had a team-high 17 points for North Carolina. Henri Veesaar and Derek Dixon each had 14. Veesaar grabbed 10 rebounds for UNC.

‘I think there was a sense of urgency that wasn’t there in the first 20, 25 minutes,’ UNC coach Hubert Davis told reporters after the game. ‘There were still mistakes that were made on both ends of the floor but it was done with an urgency, with an effort that allowed us to get back in the game.’

Cal shot 50% from the field and even better from 3-point territory, shooting 54% from deep.

‘It was great to see,’ Madsen said. ‘Everybody knows we put pressure on the rim with attacking the rim with different actions that we have. It was nice to see a few shots drop too, tonight, early, because we can also shoot it, we can do both.’

North Carolina shot 46% from the field and 33% from 3. Additionally, the Tar Heels missed 11 free throws, going 61% (17-of-28).

Despite dominating the paint 32-18, the Tar Heels never led.

Cal advances its record to 14-5 (2-4 in the ACC standings), while North Carolina, 14-4, now has a 2-3 mark in the ACC.

The Tar Heels’ next game is against Notre Dame on Jan. 21 on ESPN2. The Golden Bears visit the Stanford Cardinal at Maples Pavilion on Jan. 24 on the ACC Network.

Cal vs No. 15 North Carolina basketball highlights

In recent days, the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers have faced a new round of criticism for ‘ruining baseball’ after signing top free agent Kyle Tucker to a deal that will pay him $60 million per season and take the team’s competitive balance tax payroll CBT above $400 million.

With tensions already high heading into 2026, the furor and jealousy surrounding the Dodgers’ latest big-money move may embolden MLB owners – many of whom decline to invest in the on-field product – to dig their heels in even further in a push to institute a salary cap.

Unlike the NFL or NBA, MLB has never had a hard cap. It’s something the league and owners have always wanted, but the idea is historically dead on arrival with the players association. MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said last year that a salary cap would be further ‘institutionalized collusion’ that suppresses player wages.

Here’s what some of the biggest names in baseball have said in recent years about a potential salary cap:

Bryce Harper, Phillies

The two-time MVP reportedly got ‘face-to-face’ with Manfred during a visit to the Phillies clubhouse in July 2025 and told MLB’s commissioner to ‘get the (expletive) out’ if he was going to be talking about a salary cap.

Harper didn’t dispute the report, telling reporters later that ‘everybody saw the words and everything that happened, but I don’t want to say anything more than that.’

‘I’ve talked labor, and I’ve done it in a way that I don’t need to talk to the media about it,’ Harper said. ‘I don’t need it out there. It has nothing to do with media or anybody else. … I’ve always been very vocal, just not in a way that people can see.’

Scott Boras, Harper’s agent, backed his client and pointed out the MLB draft cap that was instituted two years after Harper was selected No. 1 overall in 2010.

‘Young players need to talk with veterans like Harp. Harp has been fighting the consequences of caps his whole life,’ Boras told The Athletic. ‘… Harp knows what caps can do to players’ rights, especially young players.’

Tony Clark, MLBPA executive director

“Institutionalized collusion, that’s what a salary cap is …’ Clark told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America at the 2025 All-Star Game. “A cap is not about a partnership. A cap isn’t about growing the game. A cap is about franchise values and profits. …

“A salary cap historically has limited contract guarantees associated with it, literally pits one player against another and is often what we share with players as the definitive non-competitive system. It doesn’t reward excellence. It undermines it from an organizational standpoint. That’s why this is not about competitive balance. It’s not about fair versus not fair.’

Clark says plenty of teams have money, based on the financial information they receive, but choose not to be competitive.

“We believe there are ways to incentivize and provide support to those who are in a different market than in LA or New York,’ Clark said. “There’s an opportunity to do that, and do so to the benefit of the group that doesn’t require a restriction on player salaries to do so.’

Rob Manfred, MLB commissioner

“When I talk to the players, I don’t try to convince them that a salary cap system would be a good thing,” Manfred said in 2025. “I identify a problem in the media business and explain to them that owners need to change to address that problem. I then identify a second problem that we need to work together and that is that there are fans in a lot of our markets who feel like we have a competitive balance problem.’

Scott Boras, baseball agent

The most high-profile agent in American sports has always been vocal in his opposition to a salary cap.

“We’ve heard it for 20 years. It’s almost like the childhood fable,” he said in 2025. “This very traditional, same approach is not something that would lead the younger players to the gingerbread house.”

Dave Roberts, Dodgers manager

‘I’m alright with (a salary cap),’ Roberts said in late 2025. ‘I think the NBA has done a nice job of revenue sharing with the players and the owners. But if you’re going to kind of suppress spending at the top, I think that you got to raise the floor to make those bottom-feeders spend money too.’

The MLBPA wasn’t too pleased with the three-time World Series champion manager showing public support for a cap, but Roberts later stood by his thoughts.

“Here’s the thing,’ Roberts said, “I’m entitled to an opinion, as we all are. And so I think that’s one man’s opinion. And fortunately – unfortunately – I don’t have a vote.’

Indiana University quarterback Fernando Mendoza and University of Miami coach Mario Cristobal are both Cuban-American and from Miami.
The game features numerous intertwined connections, with many players and coaches having attended the same local high school.
This championship represents a significant cultural moment for Miami’s large Cuban-American community, which has deep ties to both teams.

MIAMI ― Banners flap along South Beach’s Alton Road, heralding both Hoosiers and Hurricanes. 

Digital billboards all over town cheer on both Indiana University, led by their wunderkind hero Fernando Mendoza, and the hometown once-dynastic team, the University of Miami Hurricanes. Local radio and podcast personalities spew endless analyses and interview abuelas, trying to gauge a winner. 

At the coffee window at La Carreta on Bird Road, an epicenter of the Cuban community in Miami’s Westchester neighborhood (pronounced “Weh-ché-te” in the truncated lingo of Cuban-Americans), recent talk pinged between business and politics and an upcoming national college championship game that is roiling this tropical city. 

“It’s huge,” said Nicolas Gutierrez, 61, an attorney, as he shared shots of strong Cuban coffee with friends outside La Carreta. “It’s the biggest thing that I can remember we’ve ever had, sports-wise.”

They’re calling it: the ‘Cuban Super Bowl.’

Mendoza is Cuban American and a product of a local Catholic all-boys school. The Hurricanes are led by head coach Mario Cristobal and offensive line coach Alex Mirabal – both also Cuban American from Miami. On Jan. 19, they’ll face off in the College Football Playoff National Championship game just outside, of all places, Miami, where more than 1 million Cubans and Cuban Americans reside.

For weeks during the playoffs, Mirabal drove past a digital billboard near his Miami home heralding the national championship game to be played there. For weeks, the sign didn’t register − just another speck blurring past him on his drive to work.

Then, on Jan. 16, he drove past it again. This time it landed, hitting him like a clean, open field tackle: He and the Hurricanes were playing for the national title in his backyard.

‘It’s a reality,’ Mirabal told USA TODAY. ‘I think you have to be where your feet are at. But, it’s pretty cool. I’m not going to say, ‘It’s just another game.’ There is no other game after this one.’

Having so many Cuban Americans involved in the title game is also a testament to the hard work and grit that comes from the exile community, he said.

‘I’ve known [Cristobal] since he was 14 years old,’ Mirabal said. ‘This program is built under the character, values and morals of his mom and his dad. That came from their Cuban roots, their Cuban ancestry.’

‘Are coach Cristobal and myself proud of the fact that we’re Cuban?’ Mirabal clapped back. ‘Damn right.’

The ‘Natty in Miami’− as the game is heralded in some corners − also features more intertwined storylines than a thicket of mangrove roots. 

Mendoza and younger brother Alberto, his backup QB at Indiana, both graduated from Christopher Columbus High School in Miami – where Cristobal, Mirabal and several Miami players also attended.

Cristobal played football there in the 1980s with Mendoza’s father, Fernando Mendoza IV, and Mendoza’s mom, Elsa, was a standout tennis player at the University of Miami.

South Florida has seen its share of championships, from the Miami Dolphins and Miami Marlins to the Miami Heat and the Hurricanes of the 1980s and ‘90s. But never has such a confluence of Cuban competitors descended on the area.

“In the history of sports in America, there has never been a Cuban moment like this one,” Dan Le Batard, South Florida media personality and head of the “The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz” podcast, told USA TODAY. “This hasn’t happened, not even in baseball, which is the preferred sport of Cubans. We’ve had Cuban excellence. We haven’t had this.”

‘This kid is special’

On South Beach, in anticipation of the crowds drawn to the national championship game, city leaders closed parts of Ocean Drive in front of Lummus Park to traffic, converting the stretch of street lined with Art Deco hotels into a pedestrian-only party. Palm trees, still wrapped in holiday lights, dot the iconic avenue, as strollers braced against a cold snap. Passersby paused to take selfies in front of a giant, lighted “2026 National Championship” statue.  

A large stage rests on the beach, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, where organizers plan to host concerts. On Friday morning, a group of friends from the Los Angeles area strolled on the sand, taking in the brisk, salty air. They weren’t Hoosiers or Hurricanes fans but decided to visit Miami to be near the game. 

Like many around Miami-Dade County, they were split on who they were rooting for. 

Anthony Gagliardi, 24, who regularly vacationed in Miami with his family growing up, would like to see Miami win, given the school’s history and his connection to the area. But he liked the idea of two teams who haven’t recently won a championship – in Indiana’s case, never – battling it out for the title. 

“Regardless of what side wins, you’re happy with the outcome,” he said.  

Joe Vecchione, 53, said he’s been awed by Mendoza’s meteoric rise and marveled at all the overlapping storylines. The storybook ending, he said, would be Mendoza helping Indiana claim its first-ever national title. 

“This kid is special,” Vecchione said. “You hear him talk, his energy, the way he plays the game, the way he carries himself. I just can’t see him not walking off with that trophy.”

Besides the dramatic tension of having a number of Columbus grads playing against each other, the spotlight on the Cuban community is unlike anything they’ve seen before, Gutierrez said.

Rudy Puig, an executive committee member at Columbus High School, said his group met in the days leading to the semifinal games to plan a watch party. When both Miami and Indiana won their matches, they realized they had a much bigger event on their hands.

The school will broadcast the game on the jumbotron screen overlooking the football field, along with food trucks and a caja china, or traditional Cuban pig roast. More than 500 attendees are expected. Classes the next day, Jan. 20, are canceled.

“The Cuban community is going to win on Monday and Columbus is going to win on Monday,” Puig said. “It’s just epic.”

Footballmania in the heart of “Weh-che-te”

Le Batard’s podcast has deployed reporters to La Carreta and Columbus High School to interview people, polled family members for predictions and created a gameshow parody to determine which of its staffers are “most Cuban” and which are cubano arrepentido – or fake Cuban.

“The storyline is the most unusual in the history of a program at Miami that has plenty of history,” Le Batard said.

Before major league baseball was but a glimmer in city leaders’ eyes, before Dwayne Wade and LeBron James brought multiple NBA championships to the city, Miami had football.

The 1972 Miami Dolphins delivered the NFL’s only perfect season and, later, head coach Don Shula and Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino captivated local audiences.

Starting in the 1980s, the Miami Hurricanes began its dominance of college football, winning national titles in 1983, 1987, 1989 and 1991, with teams notorious for their bad boy swaggers and legendary coaches like Jimmy Johnson. The last title they won: 2001.

Cuban exiles who had settled in Miami were infected with the winning zeal and passed it down to their children, said Carlos Gobel, 47, a first generation Cuban American and high school football coach who has coached youth sports for more than 20 years in South Florida.

But through the championship runs, Cubans were more spectator than participant, he said. The fact that a Cuban-American quarterback prodigy and Cuban-American head coach – both from Miami – are the headliners of the game give it a surreal, prideful sheen unfelt in previous eras, Gobel said.

“The stars have aligned to make this the perfect, storybook-type game,” Gobel said. “It’s truly incredible.”

Gobel said he’s awed by what Mendoza has achieved but predicted most of Miami will still be rooting – loudly – for Miami. Talk of the Big Game has flooded every text thread, social media channel and watercooler chat he’s been in.

“Miami hasn’t seen the kind of party that’s going to be thrown if the Hurricanes happen to win on Monday,” Gobel said. “Football just reigns supreme here.”

At Media Day on Jan. 17, players from both teams faced questions about strategy, practice − and the fact that they’ll be playing against former high school teammates.

Bryce Fitzgerald, a safety for Miami, played both offensive and defense while at Columbus High School with Alberto Mendoza.

The two remained friends and texted each other almost daily throughout the season. Alberto would tease his former teammate about playing for Miami, Fitzgerald said.

‘He was saying, ‘Miami this, Miami that,” he said, ‘then, it was us proving him wrong.’

That friendly text banter stopped the moment Indiana beat Oregon in the semifinals, paving the way for an Indiana-Miami showdown. The two haven’t communicated since.

‘I’m just ready to see him on the field,’ Fitzgerald said.

Alberto Mendoza recounted for reporters the story of how his grandparents fled communist Cuba to start a new life in Miami. How his paternal grandmother, Marta Menocal Mendoza, arrived in the U.S. via Operation Pedro Pan, a clandestine exodus of more than 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban youth from the island. How his grandfather and namesake, Alberto Espino, came from Cuba as a young man with nothing and had to work his way back up.

‘They came here, they had nothing,’ he said. ‘They built their way from the very bottom to the top.’

He said playing for the national title in Miami in front of his community was ‘incredible.’

‘It’s awesome that we can expand the awareness of what Cuban Americans can do,’ Alberto Mendoza said. ‘We’re not just in Miami: We’re expanding to Indiana and other places.’

Ryan Rodriguez, an offensive lineman for Miami, was also raised in Miami to Cuban American parents. He said the opportunities for others like himself are endless.

‘Like right here, I’m speaking with someone from USA TODAY: Who would’ve thought that?’ he said. ‘I’m just a Cuban American kid from Miami.’

He said he hopes the game and all the media coverage it draws inspire others in his community to follow in his footsteps.

‘Cuban Americans are making the most of our opportunities,’ Rodriguez said. ‘We made an impact, we’ve made a little splash. And there’s a lot of us.’

Andres Fernandez also grew up a rabid fan of the University of Miami football program and today is a season ticket holder. He traveled to each of the Hurricanes’ recent postseason wins in the playoffs, including the team’s dramatic 31-27 victory against Ole Miss at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta.

He’s also Mendoza’s former quarterbacks coach at Columbus High School and is in regular contact with the star college quarterback.

The vast majority of Miamians will root for the Hurricanes, Fernandez said. But many, like himself, will have his allegiance seriously tested.

Best case scenario: Mendoza throws an epic, five-touchdown game – but the Canes still get their first national title in more than two decades, Fernandez said.

“It’s going to be hard to watch, for sure,” he said.

‘These are the pioneers’

Sylvie Galvez-Cuesta, a guidance counselor at Columbus, has a son who attends Columbus and is in close contact with the Cristobal family. She was also a close mentor to Mendoza during his years at Columbus and attended his Heisman Trophy victory party in New York City last month.

Besides his on-field achievements, Mendoza’s religious dedication (he routinely credits God for victories) and relentless praising of others for his success has made him a popular icon in Miami, especially among the city’s abuelas, or grandmothers.

Galvez-Cuesta’s own 85-year-old mother has watched every Indiana University game this season, she said. She’ll be watching the national championship closely and probably pulling for the Hoosiers and their young Cuban-American quarterback.

“People’s loyalties overall are going to lie with UM,” she said. “But I will say that Fernando has made a lot of IU fans in Miami-Dade County.”

Whatever the outcome, the game will signal a major sports flashpoint for the Cuban community and could potentially galvanize future Cuban football players, Le Batard said.

“This is the way that you grab generations: You tether kids to a story that hasn’t been seen before, make them care,” he said. “These are the pioneers. This is the opportunity that you get to shape lifelong fans who will have memories they will never forget.”

That may already be happening: Cristobal’s two sons currently play at Columbus. And Mendoza’s youngest brother, Max Mendoza, was accepted this week, guaranteeing another generation of Mendozas and Cristobals keeping football relevant in the Cuban community – at least for a few more years.

Jervis is a national correspondent based in Austin, Texas. Follow him on X: @MrRJervis.

Kids’ sports have a price.

There are likely millions of parents who will pay it, whatever it is.

“I think youth sports have gotten too intense and I think it could lead to coaches’ depression and anxiety, parents’ depression and anxiety and players’ depression and anxiety,” says Carly Ellman, a sports mom in suburban Philadelphia.

She was speaking in “Beyond Stigma,” a new documentary about mental health in women’s and youth sports.

Ellman, a former Division I field hockey player, wasn’t asked specifically how much she spent for her daughter, Gianna, to participate in the portion of the documentary, one of its producers, Linda Flanagan, shared with USA TODAY Sports.

But consider that Gianna, 8, plays field hockey, basketball and soccer and participates in theater and dance.

“It kills me to sit here and say this (but) I feel that it’s dangerous and I still want my daughter to do (it),” Ellman says of sports. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Our money, and our anguish, is not only fueling a $40 billion industry. In many cases, it’s fanning the flames of parent and kids’ unease, the opposite effect of what sports is intended to provide.

“I think that we’ve made youth sports too serious for most kids,” Flanagan, who produced the documentry with Villanova University sociology professor Rick Eckstein and others, tells USA TODAY Sports. “This is like beating a dead horse but the stakes are too high for kids, it’s not fun for kids. There’s a reason why kids are dropping out.”

To truly improve the culture, and how we feel immersed within it, it’s going to require us to think more broadly about not only how much we’re spending, but why we’re spending it.

The average U.S. sports family paid $1,016 for their child’s primary sport in 2024, according to the Aspen Institute’s latest parent survey in partnership with Utah State University and Louisiana Tech University. According to New York Life Insurance’s 2025 Wealth Watch survey, parents spend $3,000 annually on their children’s sports.

“You’re talking 3K for one kid for one club sport,” says Christy Keswick, a sports mom in the Boston area who participated in the club sports world. “And if you’re playing hockey, it’s probably 5(K). And that’s one kid. It’s easy to spend $10,000 or more. If you have two kids playing two sports, you’re over that already. That’s just for the fee. Never mind the equipment.”

How much will you pay? It’s a question we can all take more time to consider. It might even give us better guidance as to what exactly we’re buying (or losing).

Where is youth sports leading you? Maybe to a dead end

Keswick is also president of a nonprofit known as Good Sports, which helps provide equipment and access for kids in high-need communities.

In order to get true numbers as to what families spend, she says, we need to split them into two categories: The ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ The latter are kids whose families can’t afford, in some cases, to pay $100 to play for a season.

“Never mind traveling to games,” says Keswick, whose organization served nearly 522,000 kids in 2025. “Typically the practices are in some community that is equidistant to a bunch of different towns that these programs are pulling kids from. So, transportation becomes a huge issue in addition to cost.

“The kids that we are serving, unless somebody has identified an incredible talent within the programs that we serve, they might get pulled out and then somebody might cover the cost for them to play in a more competitive league or to play in a travel program. But that’s not happening for most of the kids that we serve.”

Much of the travel or club sports world many of us experience takes in our kids, but also our money, to turn a profit. In return, we expect something more than the benefits our kids get just being out on the field.

“Definitely our ego comes into play, whether we want it to, or not,” says Joe Ellman, Carly’s husband. “The kids are in it for the right reasons. They have a great time. When Gianna was on the bench last year, she was having a great time with her friends cheering on the kids. It’s the parents on the sideline who are upset that their kids aren’t in the game.”

His wife, sitting next to him, laughed.

“This year she’s probably one of the best out on the team,” she said. ‘And again, she didn’t start today. Pisses me off.”

Gianna, who was also interviewed, says she likes cheering on her teammates when she’s not playing. She also talked about someday having to choose between field hockey and soccer for college. Remember, she’s 8.

“This is what I think is so sad about the early specialization and the intensity at a young age, is that it, I think, kills your desire to play for the fun of it when it’s so serious,” says Flanagan, also the author of the book “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania are Ruining Kids’ Sports – and Why It Matters.’

YOUTH SPORTS SURVIVAL GUIDE: Pre-order Coach Steve’s upcoming book for young athletes and their parents

Adults are controlling the action in youth sports. Let’s give it back to the kids. It might save you money.

We think, Flanagan emphasizes in interviews, that our children’s sports success, perceived or otherwise, is a reflection of our own.

“How has sports changed the last 20-25 years?” Neeru Jayanthi, a sports medicine physician and the director of Emory Sports Medicine Research and Education in Atlanta, says in the documentary, which is expected to air this year. “Sports was a child-driven environment where kids determined how much they would play, how often they would play it and what they would play and now it has become adult-driven focus on performance where adults choose for the children what they should play, how much they should play and this includes the whole environment and coaching. … While there are some perceived benefits of that, by and large, it seems like that it’s hurt the overall experience for young athletes.”

During a recent interview with USA TODAY Sports, Harvey Araton, author of ‘The Goal of the Game,” a middle-grade novel that breaks down how our obsession with kids sports can get the better of us, said that ours are the “most scrutinized children’ in history.

Araton says when his two sons, now in their 30s, played youth sports, parents would hang around watching practices. In my experience, you even see moms and dads doing sideline coaching during those times.

The 2025 Aspen Institute parent survey found the average sports parent spends 3 hours, 23 minutes of their time every day their child has a practice or game. That’s time, according to the research, spent driving and attending activities, washing uniforms, maintaining equipment, preparing meals, talking with their child about their sports experiences, and communicating with coaches and other parents.

A suggestion: The next time your kid has practice, watch him or her for a few minutes at the beginning and end, and observe what they are enjoying and learning without your interference. But leave in between.

“Do not go to the practices and watch your children,” USWNT soccer icon Abby Wambach said last fall on a podcast she shares with former teammate Julie Foudy. They are both sports moms.

“This is their time,” Wambach said. “What is the purpose of practice? It’s not for the kid to look over their shoulder and make sure that their mom or dad or parent is sitting on the sideline watching them. Practice is for free play for them (where) there is nothing that’s going to encumber them from trying something new, taking a risk, making a mistake, being successful because what we’re then doing is we’re externalizing all of our motivation.

“ ‘I’m only gonna do this because I am now looking over to the sidelines and I see my mom looking at me and being proud,’ and then it becomes this thing that that becomes very difficult to actually curate in yourself to have internal motivation, because we want our kids to be self starters and internally motivated and if you’re at practice, it outsources that motivation.”

I have learned to drop off my sons at practice and go to a coffee shop or library to work, or even go for a run at a nearby park, finding my own peace and self-satisfaction.

Letting your kids figure out what they like, and don’t like, might cost you a lot less, too.

Your personal wealth, and health, could be at stake with youth sports

Good Sports, the Boston-based nonprofit, conducted a 2024 study with The Harris Poll examining how rising youth sports costs are impacting families and participation.

According to the survey, which included families from a variety of income brackets, 75% of parents whose children have ever played sports say they have strongly considered pulling their children out of sports, with 21% citing the unsustainable cost of participating as a reason why.

Meanwhile, the survey found, 23% of parents of minors whose children have ever played a sport say they have taken on additional work to afford to pay for their children to play sports. Eighteen percent have taken on debt to afford to pay for their children to play sports.

Here are some rules of thumb from Flanagan, a former high school track and cross country coach, via Jayanthi, who has extensively studied kids sports, as well as the National Athletic Trainers’ Association.

They are designed to reduce injuries and burnout for kids, but they might also help you reduce cost.

Don’t exceed a child’s age in the number of hours per week they play a particular sport.
The rate of organized to unorganized play should not be greater than 2 to 1.

For No. 2, think of the high-intensity moments of the games when everyone is shouting vs. the times you’re playing with your friends at recess.

Keswick, the co-founder and president of Good Sports, senses the latter when she drives home the carpool of her 15-year-old son, Anderson.

“The kids (are) hanging out and laughing together, picking on coach in the back seat, what their coach did that day,” Keswick says. ‘And I’m like, ‘this is kind of what it’s all about.’ They’re not particularly stressed about it. There’s good camaraderie. But they’re getting physical and mental benefit from the ability to play.”

You’re investing in the experience. It’s the only guarantee for your money

Keswick says her son Anderson, who plays three school-based sports, isn’t going to play in college.

If your kid is interested in collegiate sports, don’t think of yourself as investing in it through youth sports. You’re investing in the experience they’re having.

“If 80% of kids are paying for travel and club sports, the recreational programs that were cheaper and in town start to go away,” Keswick says, ‘because there’s not enough kids that really want to play at that level or they can’t get towns to play them.

“And that trickle down effect, even in communities that are not of high need, reduces participation. So instead of 100% of those players, you now have 80% of those players playing soccer.”

Parents often cite a fear of missing out as a reason for throwing their time, and their money, into high-cost and high-intensity sports with heavy time commitments from a young age. Sometimes, it’s the same sport.

Wambach, who grew up playing multiple sports, says in the documentary she would have quit if she played in today’s ‘pro system’ sports culture at 10 or 13.

In other words, in your fear of missing out with your kid’s sports, you might miss completely.

“If you’re telling kids they got to specialize when they’re 8 years old, we’ve lost sight,” Keswick says. “I do think about it as an ecosystem. I’m not saying that club sports are bad or travel sports are bad and that there’s not a place for it in the system. But we are definitely doing a disservice to the masses if we do not provide kids with the opportunity to play recreationally across multiple sports, for as long as they want.”

We don’t need to have it all figured out. We might just need more perspective on what we’re doing, and what we’re spending.

Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons’ baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His Coach Steve column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here.