Sydney Thomas Fires Up TikTok & Reminds The Troops Why We're Bombing Iran - Freedom, RIP Lou Holtz & Dale
Sydney Thomas fired up TikTok to show her fans the freedom we're fighting for in Iran.
Transfer portals and NIL are now part of the 8U football world
New Screencaps YouTube ALERT!
https://www.youtube.com/@ScreencapswithJoeKinsey
Let's dive into the underbelly of 8U NIL deals and what people are telling me about what's available to families from organizations who are desperate to attract the top talent. If you haven't heard about Tonka, the 2nd grader who is in the transfer portal and looking for a team and NIL deal, you're in for a treat.
I thought this was all #fakenews until I started to investigate and do some BigJ work. It turns out there's a whole world out there that's crazier than you thought.
((via Tonka's dad))
— Eric F. tells me:
I coached youth football in Florida for about 8 years from about 2006-2014 (the years my son played), age range was 6-14.
Everything you wrote in the article from my experience is very accurate. But…it’s far from new. It was going on when I was there and well before I got there.
Our team (and we certainly were not the only team) recruited kids from other teams, waived kids registration fees (which wasn’t cheap, I want to say about $300-$400 back then), paying the parents with gas cards, gift cards, cash cards and even straight cash was common.
I coached a team in a suburban area and before every practice I’d have to drive about two hours round trip to "urban" areas to pick up our "good" players and take them home after practice. In many cases when recruiting a kid we had to promise the parents to start him at a certain position (QB or RB usually), which obviously got very tricky.
I think the difference in today vs back then is back then no one was calling attention to it, it was done mostly in secret. Parents and kids for the most part didn’t flaunt it because technically it was against the rules and was frowned upon (even though everyone knew it was going on and rule breakers were rarely punished).
Today it looks very out in the open (I’m speculating, I’ve been out of it for a while). I think that’s where NIL has changed things, parents definitely seem more comfortable marketing/shopping their kids around to the highest bidder. Obviously social media is a bigger influence now as well.
CONTACT! CONTACT! CONTACT!
Do you have stories about NIL deals for youth athletes? I want to hear the stories. How much money have you been offered to have your son or daughter play for an organization?
BTW, if you signed up for the newsletter, OPEN IT. IT'S IN YOUR INBOX!
📩 Email: joe.kinsey@outkick.com
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I want to hear your best memories of Spring Break & I want any vintage photos you might have of the debauchery
It hit me at some point Wednesday that many of you experienced Daytona & other great Spring Break destinations during your college years. I need to hear what it was like and the number of cases of beer you packed into a Jeep Wrangler for the drive. I want to hear about the arrests, the women, the booze-fueled nights.
Email: joe.kinsey@outkick.com
I was never fortunate enough to go on Spring Break. Tell me what I missed out on.
We lost a great one — RIP Coach Holtz
— Patrick C. in Perrysburg emails:
I know you're not a Notre Dame fan, but many of us who read you daily are. When he was announced back in 1985 as the next head coach at Notre Dame he referenced his time at St. Aloysius grade school in East Liverpool, Ohio when the kids would march out to recess as the Notre Dame Victory March would play. My grandfather was the janitor of that school and the nuns would instruct him to play the fight song every day as the kids went outside to play. Needless to say, our entire family took an immediate kinship to the man right then and there.
Football historians will remember Holtz as a great coach, but I think he was a better man.
Rest easy, Coach...and thanks for the memories.
p.s. Jimmy Johnson can breathe a little easier now.
Kinsey:
You don't have to be a Notre Dame fan to respect Coach Holtz. I fondly remember when Holtz and the Cocks embarrassed Ohio State in back-to-back Outback Bowls, especially the 2001 game when Ryan Brewer from Troy, OH destroyed the Buckeyes after being told by John Cooper that Mr. Ohio couldn't play in Columbus.
Cooper was fired after the game with three years remaining on his contract and it ushered in the Jim Tressel era and the rest is college football history.
Lou gave Brewer his chance. Brewer's performance got Cooper fired. Tressel rolls in and wins a national title. Trust me, Ohio State fans are forever thankful to Coach Holtz & Brewer.
"But from day one, he’s known how to push my buttons. He knows how to motivate me. Some people are like, man, I can’t believe he said some of the things he said to you, but in all honesty, if you look back at it, he knew what he was doing," Brewer told The State Wednesday night after news of Holtz's passing was announced.
"He knew how to make me a better man, a better player, and knew how to push me in a direction to make sure I was going in the right direction. He made sure I was motivated, mentally and physically to go out there and dominate."
— Kirk B. says:
God Bless Lou Holtz larger than life legendary coach and had the greatest personality to go with his football skills
R.I.P. Coach
People you run into while being out and about
— Mark R. writes:
Hello Mr Kinsey. We were having dinner at Arnold palmers in palm desert. My wife and I are here for the tennis. Look who was nice enough to take a photo with me!!? CoCo Vandeweghe!! What a pleasant young woman.
An $81.27 lunch in Bologna, Italy
— Mike T. shows us what you get for that price. Yes, the wine is included:
Nothing is inexpensive here, lunch €70. Worth every penny
— Mike T. says the Heineken is $2.32 a can via this vending machine in Magda, Italy:
College baseball cannot be serious with this call
If he goes back to touch the white base, it could cause a collision, which is why they brought in the green bag.
This column continues to be multiple steps ahead
It turns out that The Guardian started writing about Q-zips in late 2025, after it became a massive topic on Screencaps. That came days after the USA Today made it a big topic. Guess what day it became a topic on USA Today?
December 15. Here's the post.
Guess when I wrote about quarter zips? It was at 9 a.m. on December 15 in a Monday edition of Screencaps. I kid you not. Coincidence? Probably not.
Those stories were then turned into this newsletter mention.
— Steve E. points to this:
I’ve been getting this newsletter for years, and it’s awesome; It was started by Chuck Colson (of Watergate fame, but he did much more than that after Watergate, all of it good), and it’s a great point of view on how to see the world. I was quite surprised to see the quarter zip become a topic of worldview discussions, but I find it quite interesting.
Considering the rather heated discussions that have been going on in SC on this topic, I thought you’d find it interesting.
More Iran emails
— Phil S. in Florida checks in:
Hey Joe! Part of me feels like I’m gonna wake up tomorrow and find out the war is over. It’s been overwhelming 1 sided, and the torpedo attack video is so amazing, it’s basically a hype video of what we can do. My favorite part of the ass kicking our troops are delivering right now, besides the ass kicking, is the names of the operations. Operation Iraqi Freedom, ok it said what our ultimate goal was, but wasn’t fear inducing.
The world witnessed Operation Midnight Hammer, nothing more accurate than that name. Operation Epic Fury, it’s like Jules Winnfield is naming these things. I hear these names and it’s like Samuel L Jackson is eating my cheeseburger. I really hope the next strike is called Operation We Drank All Your Sprite. Thank you to all the active and former service members for defending us. Merica!
— John in Milford, MI is learning about the beauty of Iranian women:
I am happy to see the mullahs getting dismantled. They have had it coming for a long time (I remember the hostage crisis when I was a kid), and there is no way they could have been allowed to develop nukes. I have 100% confidence in both our and Israel’s military capabilities, and I don’t see us facing any conventional combat threats at this point. I did read that Trump stated "Iran’s Shahed attack drones represent a major challenge and US air defenses will not be able to intercept them all." Our military needs to start importing Ukrainian drone experts like they did German scientists at the end of WW2.
On a side note, I did not realize Iranian women were so attractive. Lots of videos of them doing the Trump dance out there (including on Screencaps). I’ve been humming YMCA under my breath for two days.
— Stonewaller from West Texas checks in:
I was about 11, nearly 12 when the hostages were taken at the American embassy in Tehran. I remember it very well. It was a dismal time for our country, where everyone felt helpless and everyone hated that feeling. I remember the graphic on the news everyday with the blind-folded hostage and the daily count of "Day 149" or whatever. Very disheartening for all and a little frightening for a kid.
Joe, I wonder how many of those hostages are still living? I doubt there are many. They need to be interviewed, if they are willing. And I wouldn't blame them if they wanted their privacy. The usual media networks aren't going to pursue the interview, but what about Outkick? Can you kick that up the chain? Or better yet, how about if you do it? All they can do is say no. Go for it, Joe.
Kinsey:
It's not out of the question that there might be a Screencaps reader who has a relationship with the hostages, or did. If so, please reach out.
Lisbon, Portugal
— Kevin W. takes us on a tour with him:
In your tradition of showing some pics of food and spots around the world. I give you Lisbon, PT...
The last couple of the snob bar are pretty interesting. Near a government location that looks like a consulate with a lot of power players and the history is fascinating.
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That is it this morning. Emails are piling up. Honestly, it's wild how many are pouring in on a daily basis. It's awesome.
There's never two days that are the same around here. We keep rolling on. We keep adding readers by the day. We keep growing. America's Best Daily Column as named by the readers has never been better.
Let's go have a great day.