Some athletes are celebrated for their on-field accomplishments and for showing who they are between the lines or when the ball is in the air. Others recognize the importance of having a platform and use it to help people off the field. The truly great are remembered for both. 49ers defensive back, Richard Sherman, falls into that latter category.

The standout cornerback was honored last week by the NFLPA as the Community MVP of the week, thanks to his work through his charity Blanket Coverage, the Richard Sherman Family Foundation. His work didn’t stop there, as Sherman made the news the next day as he personally delivered a check to a middle school in Santa Clara for nearly $7,500 to clear out the school’s existing lunch debt.

The principal announced the gift from Sherman and released a pretty funny photo of the two of them. The principal attributed the 49ers dominating win over the Packers to karma from the gesture.

“Richard’s gesture created such good will for the 49ers that they went on to sack Aaron Roger’s and the Green Bay Packers the next day on national tv by a score of 37-8,” he wrote. He told ABC the donation was the ‘kindest, most generous thing’ someone has done for the students, 60 of whom will benefit directly.

Sherman has made this play before, as he donated $20,000 to Tacoma Public Schools to clear meal debt earlier this year. His foundation also released a letter explaining why they are focused on eliminating student lunch debt.

“We have found that eliminating student lunch debt is one way to help assist students and their families in relieving some of the stress that comes with attending school on a daily basis,” they said. “The last thing any child should have to worry about is being able to afford eating breakfast and lunch at school; we aim to do our part in eliminating that obstacle.”

It’s just one more in a long line of classy moves from an integral part of the NFL’s best defense.

.@RSherman_25 & his team @BC_RS25‘s mission is to provide school supplies for students across America. Richard has visited several elementary and high schools, speaking to the student body on making the world a better place.

More on our #CommunityMVP: https://t.co/L7NWXToq0P pic.twitter.com/a9BhThRHrx

— NFLPA (@NFLPA) November 23, 2019

To athletes accustomed to playing in packed stadiums surrounded by the tangible energy of countless fans, this is a strange time. Let’s be honest, this is a strange time for everyone, and we’re doing our best to carve out a new normal. Sportscasters are trying to fill the void of delivering riveting sports commentary by giving play-by-plays of everyday life instead. Even the NFL is planning to emulate the feel of a real, live football game by blasting pre-recorded crowd noise into the empty stadium during televised games. Yeah, it’s not going great.

Football is in a virtual offseason since the coronavirus has made regular offseason training impossible. During this time, some teams are conducting virtual classroom-type instruction to prepare for the next season. Teams have been given permission by the NFL to send their players $1,500 in equipment to create their own home-training spaces. Most of these workouts and classroom sessions are voluntary, so it’s up to the athletes to decide how to spend their virtual offseason time.

For 25-year-old Philadelphia Eagles running back Boston Scott, this time away from the grueling day-to-day as an NFL athlete has allowed him to focus his attention on family. In 2018, Scott’s father Anthony suffered a stroke. Anthony has worked with multiple therapists over the years and regained most of his mobility on the right side of his body, but continues to struggle with his speech. Due to the coronavirus, Anthony’s speech therapist was unable to continue working with him. Fortunately, Anthony had a couple of backups, Boston and his little sister Alana, ready to take over.

Twice a week, Scott works with his father on regaining his ability to speak using both exercises he learned by watching his father’s speech therapy appointments over the years, and strategies he’s developed on his own. Scott told NJ Advance Media, “When he can’t pronounce a word, I get him to sing his ‘ABCs’, which I think is a staple in a lot of our minds. Singing your ‘ABCs,’ that’s something you can remember from your childhood.”

So twice a week, that’s where you’ll find them. Anthony and Boston, sitting at the kitchen table, practicing the ABCs. The same activity that they likely did together more than two decades earlier, this time, with Boston taking the role of teacher. Never before has the line “next time won’t you sing with me” struck such a heartwarming, love-filled chord

I’ve been trying to get my 9-year-old to watch Labyrinth for two years.

I don’t know if the trailer freaked him out, or he doesn’t like movies about girls, or if David Bowie’s codpiece scared him off, but I haven’t been able to convince him yet. I will though, especially now that it’s the latest movie from my childhood to get a sequel / prequel / reboot / remake / legacyquel because news has emerged that they’re making another one.

That’s right, Labyrinth, the movie that launched Jennifer Connelly into our lives and introduced us to David Bowie’s creepy Goblin King, is getting a sequel. Released in 1986, the story of a teenage girl’s attempt to retrieve her baby brother from the land of the Goblin King will be introduced to a new generation, albeit sadly without Bowie’s villain.

Deadline reported the news, including the fact that it will be directed by Scott Derrickson, who recently left the Doctor Strange sequel and is now going into business with the Jim Henson Company, because, yes, if you have forgotten, Labyrinth is full of muppet-like monsters.

Henson’s creatures recently resurfaced in Netflix’s Dark Crystal series, which revisited the world of another creepy 80s movie. The series did well, critically at least, and now they’re moving on to more live-action fare. Unfortunately, we have no news on plot or casting, and while David Bowie is no longer with us, it would be a real missed opportunity if Jennifer Connelly doesn’t come back.

The first movie is a cult hit that has a rabid fan base who will surely have opinions on this new project as it shapes up, and even casual observers like me can’t help but wonder who they’re going to get to try to capture some of the weird charm Bowie brought to the role.

When I was a kid in the 80s, space shuttle launches were must-see TV. They were big deals, for everyone, not just kids, and everyone stopped what they were doing to see us blast people into outer space.

They kind of lost their luster after the Challenger explosion, and NASA slowly began ramping them down in general. Nowadays they just don’t happen, and when they do, there’s nowhere near as much excitement. NASA last flew a shuttle in 2011. But over the past few years, people have started to grow more interested as private companies start making forays into space travel, the most prominent of which is Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.

SpaceX is back it. Today, at 4:33 ET, the Demo-2, manned by NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, is set to launch on a voyage to the international space station. This is the first time SpaceX is using NASA astronauts, the first time NASA astronauts have flown to space commercially, and the first time Americans will enter space from America since the end of the space shuttle program nearly a decade ago.

But the window is tight. If there’s any delay in the launch, even by a minute, they’ll miss their window to get on the right trajectory toward the ISS and will have to try again on Saturday or Sunday.

Hopefully, everything will go smoothly, and we can start getting excited about space travel again!

“We have this moment in time where we can unite people again,” Jim Bridenstine, NASA’s administrator, said during a press briefing before launch. “The whole world is going to be watching this.”

There are a variety of ways to watch the launch, as listed by Entrepreneur magazine:

NASA TV

SpaceX

American Museum of Natural History

National Geographic and ABC Live

Discovery and Science Channel

The Museum of Flight

Something tells me this won’t make it into the Man in the Arena documentary.

Over the weekend, Tom Brady participated in a golf competition with former NFL rival Peyton Manning and pro golfers Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. During Sunday’s The Match: Champions for Charity, in which Brady and Mickelson put up a good fight before ultimately losing to their rivals, Brady had a bit of a wardrobe malfunction.

In an incident that could have happened to any of us – and may or may not have happened to yours truly! – he bent down to pick up a ball, and as he did, his pants split open, right on his 6-time Super Bowl-winning derriere. Unlike any time that’s happened to us, Brady’s pants tore open while he was being broadcast on national television. Somewhere, Mark “Butt Fumble” Sanchez must have been loving it.

Tommy doin lots of squats and lunges….🍑 #TheMatch2 pic.twitter.com/QwmcjjHwRl

— Bucci Mane (@Buccigross) May 24, 2020

It was an embarrassing moment, but Brady has been in pressure-filled situations before. The unflappable second-best QB of all time (Dan Marino FTW!) handled the situation with his typical clutchness and showing that he has a sense of humor just as prominent as his chin dimple.

ESPN shared a photo of the exact moment when his pants ripped, and Brady was quick to respond with a joke and a topical one at that!

Next time I’ll make sure to be wearing my @UAGolf pants 🤦‍♂️ #LessonLearned https://t.co/GauGM9ZLdl

— Tom Brady (@TomBrady) May 25, 2020

Now that he’s on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Brady may not win a seventh Super Bowl, but with a new documentary hitting ESPN next year and this weekend’s successful defusion of an awkward situation, maybe the somewhat stiff QB can actually make a winning transition to the broadcast booth!

Hopefully with some pants that are a little less tight…

In a bid for any semblance of camaraderie outside of his family, local dad Barry McLeod has chosen to put aside his beef with the robot lawnmower and finally befriended it.

“It’s an unlikely friendship, for sure,” stated McLeod, who’d previously harbored strong animosity for the smart mower, fearing he’d eventually be rendered useless in the great robot uprising. “It can’t talk back, but the mobility gives it some appearance of sentience. Also, it isn’t my wife or kids, so that’s really cool during quarantine life. Our friendship has become so strong that we’ll be pals long after COVID-19 is in our rearview mirrors.”

McLeod, seen above sharing a cold one with his new companion, was initially hesitant of the technology, worried his passion for mowing would one day be supplanted with sheer convenience.

“I won it in a work raffle,” he continued. “I loathed it so much I didn’t even open the box. But it turned out to be a really chill piece of lawn equipment, thanks in no small part to its incapacity for speech. Doesn’t scream about Paw Patrol or ask weird hypotheticals or anything. Very cool.”

McLeod’s wife could not be reached for comment, as she was inside discussing the arts with a Roomba.

Despite being completely plausible to parents, THIS JUST IN is satire and intended for entertainment purposes only. For more stories like this one click here.

“When I found out I was pregnant, Griffin was in New Orleans (on Bourbon Street to be exact). I called him because I couldn’t keep the secret while he was gone.

‘I’m pregnant,’ I blurted out, crying hysterically.
I then asked, “Are you mad at me?”
He laughed hysterically.
‘Why would I be mad? This is what we wanted. I kind of want to puke but I would never be mad!’

Maybe he wanted to puke from the debauchery and not the announcement?

We’re realists, so we anticipated everything going wrong. Always better to expect the worst than be let down by complications. And then I went into labor at 28 weeks.

For three weeks in the hospital, Griffin did not leave my side. He bathed me, worked, held my hand, and took care of everything (including a burst pipe and reconstruction, nursery furniture delays, the laundry, etc.). I have never felt so loved and supported.

And then our son showed up at 32 weeks.

Griffin did not miss a day at the NICU. He was at the hospital (an hour round-trip from home) for something like 53 days including my stay. And for hours at a time, learning everything he could about NG tubes, feedings, baths, oxygen saturations, stridor, and poopy diapers.

I had low expectations… because we are realists. But Griffin has jumped into fatherhood with such zeal, it puts my love of motherhood to shame. Middle-of-the-night feedings, making bottles, cleaning bottles, cuddling his son to sleep, letting me have ‘me’ time, all while balancing working full-time and going to school at night.

He is my hero and the best life partner I could have asked for.

He still golfs too much in the summers though.”

– Heather Schiele

Check out the previous editions of Father Figures here.

Alright, alright, alright. Looks like Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camila Alves McConaughey had themselves a feel-good, productive Memorial Day weekend. Ol’ Wooderson has partnered with Lincoln (his favorite car in which to pontificate the meaning of life) to donate 110,000 masks to medical workers at rural hospitals in need throughout Texas. He loaded up the back of his Lincoln… truck, to the brim, and hit the road to hand-deliver the PPE to medical workers in need.

View this post on Instagram

Thanks to @lincoln for donating 110 thousand masks – me and @camilamcconaughey hitting the road to get em to rural hospitals in need across Texas

A post shared by Matthew McConaughey (@officiallymcconaughey) on May 21, 2020 at 5:01pm PDT

Everyone’s favorite Austinite has been pretty busy being an all-around great guy. The pair had previously hand-delivered 80k masks to Austin and New Orleans hospitals through a partnership with Bethenny Frankel’s BS Strong initiative. Before that, Mr. McConaughey prepared meals for the firefighters battling the California wildfires, he gave a virtual speech to his alma mater’s graduating class, he surprised a nursing home with his family for an epic night of Bingo, and he showed up on ‘Good Morning America’ to personally give a shoutout to the New York’s Urban Assembly School for Emergency Management.

Say what you will about Ghosts of Girlfriend’s Past (and Failure to Launch and Surfer, Dude) this guy has more than made up for it with his public outreach and charity in the midst of national tragedies. I think everyone is happy to live in a post-McConaissance world and we can only hope he said “alright alright alright” every time he pulled up to a hospital in that truck. Please let that be true.

To sweeten the good feels we already have from this news, it seems as good of a time as any to revisit the Lincoln ad in which Matthew McConaughey rolls a booger and talks to a bull:

Set your wands and robes aside for now, J.K. Rowling is gracing our computers, tablets, smartphones, and Devices That Shall Not Be Named with something brand new. No, she won’t be compiling the ridiculously entertaining predictive text generated chapters of Harry Potter into a standalone book titled, “Hermione Has Forgotten How To Dance” (and yet I hold out hope).

Early on in quarantine, Rowling announced an open license for all seven Harry Potter books so they could be shared by educators over Zoom, or read in weekly videos by stars such as Daniel Radcliffe, the OG Harry Potter. Rowling knows just how much her books have helped children and adults alike cope with quarantine, and as her fans often do, we wanted more.

On May 26th, J.K. Rowling heard our pleas and delivered something to keep our kids entertained (and who are we kidding, it’ll keep us entertained too – looking at you, person who sees their Hogwarts house as a central part of their identity) for months to come. Starting today and continuing through July, Rowling will release a chapter of her new book, The Ickabog, on the book’s website daily at 3 PM GMT.

Rowling describes the endearing origins of the book on her website, recalling how she read chapters to her children nightly as she wrote them. The time spent immersed in the world of The Ickabog became a time for bonding between Rowling and her two children, and for a while, it would stay that way. After Harry Potter, Rowling decided to step away from writing children’s books, and The Ickabog was put aside for the time being.

Over time I came to think of The Ickabog as just for my family. The manuscript went up into the attic, where it remained until a few weeks ago.

This is the very dusty box I got down from the attic.
(It’s a Net-A-Porter box and might well have held a premiere dress.)

4/13 pic.twitter.com/vg8F5Qx33M

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 26, 2020

Nearly a decade later, Rowling decided that releasing the book for kids in quarantine was the perfect way to get this beloved story out into the world. Even more special, Rowling is asking kids to submit illustrations that will be published in the print and e-book versions of The Ickabog.

Illustrations have already started pouring in from around the world.

There’s King Fred,

I love, love, love this King Fred! #TheIckabog https://t.co/HzX8wekbun

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 26, 2020

A map,

I love this map! #TheIckabog https://t.co/QbPngMVIZD

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 26, 2020

And the Ickabog himself.

This is a fabulous Ickabog #TheIckabog https://t.co/vhN1DIR2ZY

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 26, 2020

Read along each day, and don’t forget to submit your kid’s illustrations! It’s never too early to start building up their resume. The full version of the book, including some submitted illustrations, will be available to purchase in November.

Please share your children’s artwork with us using #TheIckabog and tag us in the post. Read our submissions guide at https://t.co/msLWYGDlYF

— The Ickabog (@TheIckabog) May 26, 2020

At some point over the past few decades, politics became pop culture. When I was growing up, smack-dab in the middle of the Reagan era, I was blissfully oblivious to most of the goings-on, at least until I got into high school and college. I don’t think most kids have that luxury anymore, thanks to the internet and social media, TV channels devoted to news and politics 24/7, and politicians themselves becoming celebrities, playing the sax on Arsenio Hall, and hosting reality TV shows before becoming president.

Politics has become entertainment – and thanks to the pandemic and quarantine, education has become largely virtual – which makes this a perfect time for Schoolhouse Rock to return and remind kids of the importance behind the pomp and circumstance.

Schoolhouse Rock is an animated TV series that originated in the 70s. It used catchy musical sequences to teach kids about the logistics of democracy, as well as other foundational lessons in grammar, history, and the like. With everyone being forced to learn via screens these days, Schoolhouse Rock’s debut on Disney+ this summer – the first season will be available to stream on June 19th – couldn’t come at a better time.

The series is fun and educational, and for 40-somethings like me, it’s a real blast from the past. If you remember any of these, it’s probably the incredibly catchy song about how a bill becomes law (embedded below). I can still remember the words, and the lesson behind it, which is a testament to the power of the show.

I can’t wait to show it to my kids, and relive my youth. You can still sign up for Disney+ for $6.99/month or $69.99/year.