Kevin B. Blackistone

Washington, D.C.

Sports Columnist at The Washington Post

Mia's papi @MerrillCollege @PostSports @ImaginingIndian @raceandequity1 folo @kevinbblackistone.bsky.social Around the Horn OG #MedillMafia Aluta continua ✊🏾

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Articles

It’s time for sports to take a stand against Trump’s excesses

1 week ago | washingtonpost.com | Kevin B. Blackistone

It’s time for sports to take a stand against Trump’s excesses (washingtonpost.com) It’s time for sports to take a stand against Trump’s excesses By Kevin B.
Commentary: The leaders of college sports still don’t get it

1 week ago | detroitnews.com | Kevin B. Blackistone

A quarter century ago, the NCAA invested $150,000 in lobbying on Capitol Hill. To a couple of lobbyists. For one year.
The leaders of college sports still don’t get it

1 week ago | macombdaily.com | Kevin B. Blackistone

A quarter century ago, the NCAA invested $150,000 in lobbying on Capitol Hill. To a couple of lobbyists. For one year. In the first quarter of this year alone, the college sports governing body spent more than a quarter of a million dollars on the same. Using more than a dozen lobbyists. After having spent more than half a million dollars on lobbying last year, just as it had in each year since 2021.
If the Hall of Fame is open to Pete Rose, it should find a spot for Curt Flood

1 month ago | washingtonpost.com | Kevin B. Blackistone

If the Hall of Fame is open to Pete Rose, it should find a spot for Curt Flood (washingtonpost.com) If the Hall of Fame is open to Pete Rose, it should find a spot for Curt Flood By Kevin B. Blackistone 2025052209334600 That MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred decided to expunge the permanent ban on Pete Rose being eligible for baseball's Hall of Fame wasn't, for me, what was most uncomfortable.
Can Journalism (the horse) give a boost to journalism (the industry)?

1 month ago | washingtonpost.com | Kevin B. Blackistone

Can Journalism (the horse) give a boost to journalism (the industry)? (washingtonpost.com) Can Journalism (the horse) give a boost to journalism (the industry)? By Kevin B. Blackistone 2025050210051800 A rule in my vocation is that there is no cheering in the press box.
Before Lee Corso donned mascot heads, he helped integrate ACC football

2 months ago | washingtonpost.com | Kevin B. Blackistone

Before Lee Corso donned mascot heads, he helped integrate ACC football (washingtonpost.com) Before Lee Corso donned mascot heads, he helped integrate ACC football By Kevin B. Blackistone 2025041911032700 It was unfortunate in this country, at this time, that the narrative of 89-year-old Lee Corso's retirement Thursday from college football's flagship kickoff show, ESPN's "College GameDay," was him as some sort of clown prince. Not that it didn't make sense.
Jackie Robinson’s Dodgers visiting Trump’s White House? For shame.

2 months ago | phillytrib.com | Kevin B. Blackistone

The Dodgers are not the greatest sports franchise in U.S. history. But maybe more important, as Glenn Stout reminded in the introduction to his 2004 book, “The Dodgers: 120 Years of Dodgers Baseball,” they are the most consequential. “Theirs is an inherently American story that follows a familiar path,” Stout wrote, “a story of immigration, assimilation, migration and change.
Jackie Robinson’s Dodgers visiting Trump’s White House? For shame.

2 months ago | washingtonpost.com | Kevin B. Blackistone

Jackie Robinson’s Dodgers visiting Trump’s White House? For shame. (washingtonpost.com) Jackie Robinson’s Dodgers visiting Trump’s White House? For shame. By Kevin B. Blackistone 2025040710052200 The Dodgers are not the greatest sports franchise in U.S. history. But maybe more important, as Glenn Stout reminded in the introduction to his 2004 book, "The Dodgers: 120 Years of Dodgers Baseball," they are the most consequential.
Column | Playing hockey with Russians would be hypocrisy, not diplomacy

Mar 23, 2025 | washingtonpost.com | Kevin B. Blackistone

Last week, my daughter’s school put on the play “Girls in the Boat” by Alice Austen. Austen ran track at Oregon before studying law at Harvard, where she co-founded the Harvard Human Rights Journal. Correlatedly, this play is about sports and equality — specifically, the American women who persevered against sexism to compete in the first women’s Olympic rowing competition at the 1976 Montreal Summer Games. They went on to become the most dominant Olympic sports team in U.S. history.
Column | Vandalism at Trump’s Turnberry recalls a history of sports venue protest

Mar 15, 2025 | washingtonpost.com | Kevin B. Blackistone

I don’t imagine that human rights activists in the United Kingdom purposely chose International Women’s Day this month to vandalize President Donald Trump’s golf course in Scotland’s Turnberry village in protest of his rapacious speculation about turning war-ravaged Gaza into another gaudy resort. But it conjured for me a similar assault upon a sports facility for a political statement, also in the U.K. And it reminded me how long sports have been used as a stage for protest.