This is For The Win’s daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Did a friend recommend or forward this to you? If so, subscribe here. Have feedback? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey! Now, here’s Mike Sykes.
Good morning, Winners. Thanks so much for reading TMW today and being with us. We appreciate your time.
With this newsletter, my normal focus is on bringing joy through the lens of sports to your inbox. That’s a hard task today considering the circumstances of what went down in the sports world on Wednesday.
We were all robbed of the joy that sports can bring when someone decided to open fire at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade. There were at least 21 people wounded. One person was killed. I’m sure every single person in attendance was scarred for life.
RELATED: Patrick Mahomes and Chiefs’ players share concerns after shooting
That’s the part I can’t stop thinking about — the pain and anguish so many of those people must still be feeling today.
Folks pulled up to that parade rightfully thinking that they’d just be there to celebrate a momentous accomplishment done by their favorite team. They were there for joy. Posterity. Because they wanted to feel like they were a part of something bigger. Something that was supposed to be a simple, good time. This was something they’d be able to tell their kids’ kids about.
Instead, some of them were left to wonder if their friends were OK after dodging bullets. Men, women, children, babies. Bullets have no discretion. Nobody was safe. Everyone took cover. For some, taking cover didn’t work.
Here’s the sick part: Those folks might be considered a bit more fortunate than others, given the circumstances. The friends of the 21 wounded probably went to bed unable to sleep because they couldn’t stop wondering if their loved ones would make it through the night.
For one the woman who was killed, local radio DJ Lisa Lopez-Galvan? Her two children just lost their mother. Her brother lost a sister. Her family will never be able to hug her again. They won’t be able to share a meal with her or just tell her how their day went. They’ll never watch movies together again or listen to music. They’ll never get the chance to tell her how much they love her again.
RELATED: Learn more about who Lisa Lopez-Galvan was here
It makes my blood boil just thinking about it. How could someone be so selfish? How can people be so cruel? To steal a life is to steal someone’s joy. Their hopes and dreams are just gone in an instant for no good reason. It just doesn’t add up. It never will. But it happens far too often in this country.
I’m 31 years old and, thankfully, I still talk to my mother every day. We don’t talk about much. It’s just shooting the breeze, you know? But every single time I tell her I’m going somewhere — it could be somewhere as simple as the grocery store — she’ll say to me, “Please be careful, son.” She’s been saying that to me for as long as I can remember.
It always confused me. “I’ll be OK just like I always am,” or something like it is my usual response because I’m a grown man now. I’ve always been able to take care of myself. I know I’m her child, but I’m not a child anymore.
Today? I get it. I see it. Because, just like me going to pick up some fruit from the market, the folks who were shot today expected to be safe. They expected to have a good time. They expected things to be normal. Lisa Lopez-Galvan expected to go home to her children last night.
Instead, she’s dead, and 21 others are wounded. Nobody expected this. And that’s the point. In this country — in this world — you just never know. It shouldn’t be this way. But our reality is it is.
So tell your people you love them today.
Steve Wilks deserved better
In case you missed it in all the chaos yesterday, the 49ers fired their defensive coordinator after his unit held Patrick Mahomes to just 19 points in regulation during the Super Bowl. Christian D’Andrea broke down the Steve Wilks firing.
It feels like Wilks being scapegoated here. Here’s Christian with more:
“Wilks may not have been the solution for which Shanahan asked, but he wasn’t the problem either. He continued his streak of player development, leaning into San Francisco’s strengths to bring the absolute best out of guys like Ward, Lenoir and free agent arrival Javon Hargrave. He authored a bend-don’t-break defense that covered its biggest weakness (consistent stops against the run) only for new ones to bubble to the surface at the worst possible time.
The 49ers couldn’t fire the head coach who is 35-16 over the last three regular seasons and has made it to the NFC title game or further four of the last five years. But they could push Wilks onto Shanahan’s sword after just a year of service. That’s the price of success; a symptom of complacency that sweeps away “good” in a possibly futile effort to be ‘great.’,”
What a tough way to go out. Wilks will land on his feet somewhere at some point. But, man, I can’t help but feel like he deserved another shot in San Francisco.
The Lakers should’ve traded LeBron
That’s according to our Prince Grimes. He put together a pretty compelling case for it in Layup Lines on Wednesday.
“If any other team had been as mediocre as the Lakers have been for so long, people would have been calling for them to either swing big or blow it up a long time ago. But because James is one of the greatest players ever, the Lakers are allowed to continue making marginal changes around him and Davis, moves that have largely failed outside of the trades that sparked last year’s unexpected run to the conference finals (where they got swept).
The next logical step is to assess whether it’s time to start a rebuild. Sit down with James, have a conversation about where this thing is realistically going, then at least consider what a trade could look like. Instead, it sounds like the Lakers stuck their head in the sand and let another team do the work of finding out whether he wanted to be there. Nothing about that sounds promising to me.”
Honestly, trading LeBron is tough. He might be the greatest player to ever touch a basketball. Justifying that to your fans is always going to be an uphill battle.
But Prince ain’t wrong here.
READ MORE: Check out the full Layup Lines from Wednesday and subscribe to the newsletter
Quick hits: Klay Thompson blew it … Dre Greenlaw’s devastating injury … and more
— Prince has more on Klay Thompson’s mystifying foul that stifled a Warriors comeback. This made no sense, man.
— Mic’d up sound shows how devastating Dre Greenlaw’s injury was for the 49ers in the Super Bowl. Charles Curtis has more.
— Here’s Christian again with his latest NFL mock draft. The Bears are going QB, folks.
— Chris Russo on Taylor Swift is so bad. Here’s Caroline Darney with more.
— Here’s everything we know about the shooting in Kansas City so far from Charles Curtis.
— If you’re looking for a bit of joy from the parade, here are some moments you can cling on to.
Thanks so much for reading TMW today. We’re holding off on the Knicks’ poll results until tomorrow given the circumstances. We’ll talk again then.
We out. Peace.
-Sykes ✌️
