by Diego Santizo, Sports Editor

Former St. John Bosco and Ohio State guard Wyatt Davis was selected 86th overall by the Minnesota Vikings in the third round of the 2021 NFL Draft on Friday night.

Despite initially opting out of the 2020 season, he returned to Ohio State and finished the season as a unanimous All-American. Davis, a team captain in 2020, also earned First-Team All-Big Ten honors in his final two seasons as a Buckeye. He capped off his time at Ohio State by winning the 2020 Big Ten Conference Rimington-Pace Offensive Lineman of the Year Award, becoming the first guard in program history to earn that accolade.

Davis put together an illustrious career with Ohio State, capping off his time in college with 24 straight starts in his final three seasons. He really excelled in his redshirt sophomore and junior seasons, earning First-Team All-American honors in 2019 and 2020 for his play at right guard. He is the fourth Buckeye to hear his name called in this year’s draft, following behind Chicago Bears Quarterback Justin Fields, New Orleans Saints Linebacker Pete Werner and Green Bay Packers Center Josh Myers.

Davis’ decorated college career wasn’t a surprise after he was the number one guard prospect in the nation out of high school for the 2017 class. A five-star recruit, Davis starred here at St. John Bosco High School and was a teammate of current NFL Quarterback Josh Rosen. His strong play along the offensive line helped St. John Bosco win 38 games in his final three seasons, including a 13-win season and a Division I CIF championship in 2016. Davis was named a U.S. Army All-American and the Los Angeles Times’ Southern California Player of the Year.

Davis is a physical tone-setter with the length, use of hands and anchor to excel in a diverse run scheme while setting a firm pocket in pass protection. He needs to shore up his footwork out of his stance and weight distribution to improve his ability to stay upright and locate defenders in space as a run-blocker, but he has the right demeanor and skill set to excel as a pass protector right away and hold his own as a run-blocker.

Many draft experts were surprised to see Davis still on the board in the third round and praised the Vikings for getting tremendous value with him at number 86. In fact, a glance at a trio of pre-draft big boards shows that Davis was among the highest-ranked guards in the draft class, with many experts expecting him to go earlier in the third round. The big board at CBS Sports had Davis as the number 42 overall player in the draft, while analytics website Pro Football Focus had Davis at number 61 overall. Dane Brugler of The Athletic ranked Davis as the 63rd-best player in the draft.

Nonetheless, another Bosco alum is taking his talents to the NFL. Brave Nation wishes him the best of luck going forward!

by Ryan Dwyer

As one of the most outspoken athletes in the world, LeBron James often feels the pressure to speak out on issues of social justice. However, at what point does it become excessive and controversial, if at all?

On April 21st, 2021, Lebron James Posted a tweet with a picture of a police officer which was captioned “YOU’RE NEXT⌛” followed by the hashtag “#ACCOUNTABILITY.” The officer who was featured in this tweet was an officer by the name of Nicholas Riadon, a Columbus, Ohio police officer who was involved in the deadly shooting of Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16 year old African American girl. Bryant called police after she was attacked by a group of girls in her neighborhood.

Initially the vast majority of people were outraged and saw this as yet another racially motivated killing. However, footage soon came out showing that once the officer had arrived on the scene, the incident had fizzled out and no one was being harmed, until video surfaced on Nicholas Riadon’s body cam that showed Ma’Khia out of nowhere lunging at two of the girls with a knife, leading to her eventual fatal shooting.

As sad as the situation is, it was widely accepted that this proved Nicholas Riadon innocent of any racial motivations as he was simply saving a girl from being stabbed or possibly killed by Ma’Khia Bryant. LeBron’s tweet had come out after this information was already made public though, so it faced immediate backlash as many believed he had neglected to do any sort of research on the situation, which is something he has prided himself on doing in the past. He deleted his tweet less than a day later after a massive uproar. In the following days, he put out several tweets in which he both directly and indirectly addressed the situation.

One day after the initial tweet, he put out a new one, in which he stated, “ANGER does any of us any good and that includes myself! Gathering all the facts and educating does though! My anger still is here for what happened that lil girl. My sympathy for her family and may justice prevail!”

This tweet gave sort of an admittance to the lack of research used just the day prior, but still showed his anger for the situation. Later that day, he addressed the fact that he had deleted the prior controversial tweet by putting out one last tweet.

“I’m so damn tired of seeing Black people killed by police. I took the tweet down because it’s being used to create more hate -This isn’t about one officer. It’s about the entire system and they always use our words to create more racism. I am so desperate for more ACCOUNTABILITY,” LeBron said, shedding some light on his reasoning behind deleting the tweet.

It seems as though it was more about preventing a false narrative and preventing the conversation from being taken away from the problem at hand. Also, it was about ending the backlash and controversy. Regardless of the statements put out by LeBron and the removal of the tweet, he still faced significant hate and criticism. This continual outpour of anger and hatred was made even more prevalent when the news broke that an Ohio bar owner had been quoted as saying that NBA games won’t be shown at his establishment until LeBron is expelled from the league.

Lebron responded to this news by retweeting a MSN article about the situation, saying “Aww Damn! I was headed there to watch our game tonight and have a drink! Welp.”

Even former president of the United States, Donald Trump, released a statement about LeBron saying “LeBron James should focus on basketball rather than presiding over the destruction of the NBA”… “He may be a great basketball player, but he is doing nothing to bring our Country together.”

Statements like that only further push a narrative that LeBron spoke when he shouldn’t have, and conservative Americans are not very happy about it.

Nonetheless, LeBron is a massive figure in both sports, activism and pop culture. He is just simply one of the most well known people in the world, and that title holds a lot of weight. He is one of the biggest voices in the world of activism and awareness, so no matter how much hate he receives he will always stick by what he believes is right.

On top of that, he is one of the best basketball players the world has ever seen, and there is no doubt that regardless of the backlash he faces he will always be just as successful and sought after as he’s always been. No matter what happens – what controversy he is surrounded by or what mistakes he makes – LeBron James will always show up for his team and the community to dominate both on and off the court as the voice for so many voiceless people.