Author: Laken Litman

SOUTH BEND — Miles Boykin and Julian Love ask their friends to grade their ceramics projects after the 3-hour class every Friday. They want to know who made the better sculpture, pot or plate.

So far, the winner has been split 50-50, which makes sense because they’re used to beating each other about half the time. Whether it’s an art class or going one-on-one every day in football practice, Boykin and Love are constantly challenging each other to be better at something.

“We compete at everything,” Boykin said.

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SOUTH BEND — The good thing about the new guy playing left tackle for Notre Dame is that he has experience against Rashan Gary. Yes, junior Liam Eichenberg, the rookie starter replacing Mike McGlinchey this season, knows Michigan’s future first round defensive lineman because he played against him in high school.

In 2014, Eichenberg was a junior at Saint Ignatius High School in Cleveland, Ohio. That September, the football team took a bus more than 450 miles to play Paramus Catholic in New Jersey, a school that has produced notable talent such as former Michigan star and current Cleveland Browns safety Jabrill Peppers, and won three state championships since 2012. Adam Rini, Saint Ignatius offensive line coach and longtime Eichenberg mentor, remembers three things about the game: The temperature was something like 100 degrees, his team won 37-31 in double overtime, and Eichenberg vs. Gary was the “main event.”

“It was like two gladiators battling against each other every single play,” Rini said.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio – Arike Ogunbowale and Marina Mabrey huddled at their lockers with their heads buried in their phones, giggling. They were pointing and laughing and gasping and smiling, totally in their own world and ignoring the celebration around them. They couldn’t stop watching the shot that beat Connecticut.

“That’s so lit,” Mabrey said.

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GANGNEUNG, South Korea — Matt Hamilton is going to get a McFlurry.

It doesn’t matter which flavor is his favorite because the McDonald’s in the Olympic Village only has one. It’s Oreo. Hamilton already knows this, by the way.

Ordering one is how he’s going to celebrate the greatest win in U.S. curling history.

Continue reading at usatoday.com.

INDIANAPOLIS – Janet Guthrie used to sleep in her car.

Long before Danica Patrick, Katherine Legge, Sarah Fisher or Pippa Mann were offered sponsorships in competitive racing, Guthrie funded herself and drove — and slept in — her own cars.

Guthrie, who 40 years ago this Memorial Day weekend became a pioneer in motor sports as the first woman to race in the Indianapolis 500 and Daytona 500, chuckles about that time now. She is nearly incredulous today that she did those things.

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SOUTH BEND — Vice President Mike Pence called Notre Dame a “vanguard of freedom of expression and the free exchange of ideas” during his commencement address on Sunday.

Pence’s comments, though, were not heard by about 100 of the 3,171 graduates. As soon as the vice president and former Indiana governor stepped up to the podium — where he spent a chunk of his 15-minute address discussing his support for freedom of speech at universities — students quietly got up from their seats and left Notre Dame Stadium in protest of some of Pence’s policy positions.

Continue reading at IndyStar.com.