Sports
Washington Prodigy takes one for the team
Local women’s football team enjoys breaking barriers
Official team photo of Washington Prodigy. (Photo courtesy the team)
Throwing like a girl is taken as an insult more often than not. But for members of Washington Prodigy, a local all-female football team, the phrase is a compliment.
Washington Prodigy was conceived from a small group of like-minded women on another local female football team, the D.C. Divas. Some players weren’t happy with the direction the team was going.
“The attitude on the team was changing and became less about football,” Jordyn White, general manager and defensive player, says. “It didn’t seem player focused.”
Tiffany Matthews, Washington Prodigy owner and middle linebacker, decided it didn’t have to be the end of the road for those players who wanted to leave D.C. Divas. She began to talk to other team owners and decided that she wanted to try starting a team herself.
In 2012, Washington Prodigy was formed. But it wasn’t an easy task to get the team going.
“Funding came out of my pocket,” Matthews says. “The first season was the hardest part. Players were paying for uniforms. We didn’t have sponsors because no one knew who we were.”
Matthews, who has been playing football since she was young, says women’s football has grown significantly over the years.
“When I first started there weren’t any women playing,” she says. “We get a lot of girls on the team who are younger where it’s more OK now for them. Its almost co-ed.”
More women getting involved in football is White’s favorite part of being on the team. She loves watching the new girls join the team and grow in their success.
“People come from all different athletic backgrounds and for some, it’s nothing like they’ve ever done. Seeing them cultivate all that teaching and having that ‘a-ha’ moment is exciting to watch.”
The stereotype that women can’t play football because it’s a male-dominated sport is one Washington Prodigy encounters often. Player Crystal Boyd thinks it’s totally false.
“We can do anything a man can do,” Boyd says. “We can compete just like they can if we’re given the platform to do it. We’re just as competitive as they are.”
White wants people to understand that women are able to play football just like men do because they aren’t playing against men.
“There are women stronger and more aggressive than other women just like there are men,” she says. “I see it as being equal.”
The team is a diverse mix of local women. Players range from ages 21-45 and work in various professions as well as some having families. Players are a mix of straight and LGBT with Matthews, White and Boyd all being LGBT. The team’s diversity has Washington Prodigy wanting all women to know that they can play too.
“We’re not a special, select breed or type of woman,” White says. “Any woman who has the desire to play can play. We are just a selection of women excited to do something that a few years ago wasn’t even possible.”
Still women playing football, which at one time seemed a fantasy, is still hard for people to accept.
“The biggest struggle is proving that we can play the sport,” Matthews says. “They say girls can’t play and that it’s too tough, but any sport is tough.”
The team is part of the Independent Women’s Football League and Team D.C. Their season, which runs from January through April, leads them all over the East Coast to play against other all-female football teams.
Matthews’ favorite aspect is the sense of community it brings.
“I met my two best friends playing football,” she says. “It’s like a big family because of everything we have to deal with as women. That’s my favorite part, other than trying to knock someone out.”
Sports
Minor league team in York, Pa., forfeits Pride Night game after some players refuse to wear special jersey
City is roughly 20 miles north of Md. border
An independent minor league baseball team says it is forfeiting a game because some of its players refused to wear a special Pride Night jersey.
The Atlantic League Pro Baseball’s York Revolution were planning to hold their 11th annual Pride Night event Thursday for a game against the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs.
But the Revolution announced the day of the game that it wouldn’t be played. York is about 20 miles north of the Maryland line. The Blue Crabs play in Waldorf.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Sports
Jason Collins dies at 47
First openly gay man to actively play for major sports team battled brain cancer
Jason Collins, the first openly gay man to actively play for a major professional sports team, died on Tuesday after a battle with brain cancer. He was 47.
The California native had briefly played for the Washington Wizards in 2013 before coming out in a Sports Illustrated op-ed.
Collins in 2014 became the first openly gay man to play in a game for a major American professional sports league when he played 11 minutes during a Brooklyn Nets game. He wore jersey number 98 in honor of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student murdered outside of Laramie, Wyo., in 1998.
Collins told the Washington Blade in 2014 that his life was “exponentially better” since he came out. Collins the same year retired from the National Basketball Association after 13 seasons.
Collins married his husband, Brunson Green, in May 2025.
The NBA last September announced Collins had begun treatment for a brain tumor. Collins on Dec. 11, 2025, announced he had Stage 4 glioblastoma.
“We are heartbroken to share that Jason Collins, our beloved husband, son, brother and uncle, has died after a valiant fight with glioblastoma,” said Collins’s family in a statement the NBA released. “Jason changed lives in unexpected ways and was an inspiration to all who knew him and to those who admired him from afar. We are grateful for the outpouring of love and prayers over the past eight months and for the exceptional medical care Jason received from his doctors and nurses. Our family will miss him dearly.”
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Collins’s “impact and influence extended far beyond basketball as he helped make the NBA, WNBA, and larger sports community more inclusive and welcoming for future generations.”
“He exemplified outstanding leadership and professionalism throughout his 13-year NBA career and in his dedicated work as an NBA Cares Ambassador,” said Silver. “Jason will be remembered not only for breaking barriers, but also for the kindness and humanity that defined his life and touched so many others.”
“To call Jason Collins a groundbreaking figure for our community is simply inadequate. We truly lost a giant today,” added Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson in a statement. “He came out as gay — while still playing — at a time when men’s athletes simply did not do that. But as he powerfully demonstrated in his final years in the league and his post-NBA career, stepping forward as he did boldly changed the conversation.”
“He was and will always be a legend for the LGBTQ+ community, and we are heartbroken to hear of his passing at the young age of 47,” she said. “Our hearts go out to his family and loved ones. We will keep fighting on in his honor until the day everyone can be who they are on their terms.”
Sports
New IOC policy bans trans women from Olympics
New regulation to be in effect at 2028 summer games in Los Angeles
The International Olympic Committee on Thursday announced it will not allow transgender women from competing in female events at the Olympics.
“For all disciplines on the Sports Program of an IOC event, including individual and team sports, eligibility for any Female Category is limited to biological females,” reads the new policy.
The policy states “eligibility for the Female Category is to be determined in the first instance by SRY Gene screening to detect the absence or presence of the SRY Gene.”
“On the basis of the scientific evidence, the IOC considers that the SRY (sex-determining Region Y) Gene is fixed throughout life and represents highly accurate evidence that an athlete has experienced or will experience male sex development,” it reads. “Furthermore, the IOC considers that SRY Gene screening via saliva, cheek swab or blood sample is unintrusive compared to other possible methods. Athletes who screen negative for the SRY gene permanently satisfy this policy’s eligibility criteria for competition in the Female Category.”
The policy states the test “will be a once-in-a-lifetime test” unless “there is reason to believe a negative reading is in error.”
The new regulation will be in place for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
“I understand that this a very sensitive topic,” said IOC President Kirsty Coventry on Thursday in a video. “As a former athlete, I passionately believe in the rights of all Olympians to take part in fair competition.”
“The policy that we have announced is based on science and it has been led by medical experts with the best interests of athletes at its heart. The scientific evidence is very clear: male chromosomes give performance advances in sport that rely on strength, power, or endurance,” she added. “At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat. So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe.”
(Video courtesy of the IOC)
Laurel Hubbard, a weightlifter from New Zealand, in 2021 became the first trans woman to compete at the Olympics.
Imane Khelif, an Algerian boxer, won a gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Khelif later sued JK Rowling and Elon Musk for cyberstalking after they questioned her gender identity.
Ellis Lundholm, a mogul skier from Sweden, this year became the first openly trans athlete to compete in any Winter Olympics when he participated in Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy.
President Donald Trump in February 2025 issued an executive order that bans trans women and girls from female sports teams in the U.S.
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee last July banned trans women from competing in female sporting events. Republican lawmakers have demanded the IOC ban trans athletes from women’s athletic competitions.
“I’m grateful the Olympics finally embraced the common sense policy that women’s sports are for women, not for men,” said U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on X.
An IOC spokesperson on Thursday referred the Washington Blade to the press release that announced the new policy.
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