David Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
As fans from across the country prepare for the fall college sports season, we will once again witness the power of sports to bring people together regardless of the differences that divide us as a nation. Whether your team is good or bad, whether you are a Democrat or Republican, it doesn't matter as we come together as one community rooting for our team to win. No matter what our backgrounds are, fans feel like a part of the same team as they share in the agony of defeat and the exaltation of victory. The collective energy is powerful.
College athletes are in a unique position as campus leaders to take this energy and help us all rise above what divides us to elevate civic action and a sense of community.
A new program on college campuses across the country aims to do just that. The inaugural season of the Engaged Athlete Fellowship is focused on building upon the sense of community that sports generates by inspiring and shaping the leaders of tomorrow. This groundbreaking program will engage a diverse group of 28 student athletes from across the country offering nonpartisan programming focused on: leadership development, mentoring, a year-long civic project, and a multi-day end of year experience in Washington, D.C.
A list of this inspiring group of student athletes can be found here.
This unique leadership program is a partnership between The Team and the Bridge Alliance Education Fund. The work aims to empower a diverse class of motivated student athletes to strengthen nonpartisan civic participation on their teams, their campuses, and their broader communities. Athletes are in a unique position as campus leaders to use their voice in building bridges to bring the athletic and campus communities together!
The Engaged Athlete Fellowship (EAF) will focus on three areas:
- Phenomenal leadership and professional development curriculum developed by esteemed professors, coaches, professional athletes, and civic leaders.
- Mentorship and support for athletes to execute a project connecting civic engagement, community service, and athletics while working with The Team staff.
- Multi-day civics experience in Washington, D.C. This unique forum will allow athletes to meet each other, participate in workshops, network with sports/business/civic leaders, and present their project work from the year.
EAF is led by Joe Kennedy, a 2007 graduate of Northwestern, former basketball player, and coach who served as a special assistant for the Office of Public Engagement at the White House. Most recently, in September of 2022, Kennedy became the first Executive Director of All Vote No Play. In 2020, Kennedy connected with Coach Eric Reveno, where they became a major force leading a new college athletics movement to expand student-athlete voter registration and create civic resources for coaches and teams. After teaming up with designer and civic catalyst Lisa Kay Solomon in 2021, the movement grew, becoming the pioneer of civic engagement in college athletics. Coach Joe Kennedy is working toward a future where all student athletes and athletic departments establish civic engagement as a priority, and he and his team are working to make that dream a reality through the Engaged Athlete Fellowship program.
Student athletes working with The Team have won prestigious awards and recognition for their work, been invited to work on programs with athletic greats like NBA star Stephen Curry and Athletes Unlimited Cassidy Lichtman, received opportunities to present with city mayors, and had their stories published in major media publications like ESPN, Teen Vogue, Forbes, and others. See the full story and impact here.
Stay turned in the coming weeks as we further share the goals and aspirations of the incredible 28 participants in this inaugural year of the Engaged Athlete Fellowship Program.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
____
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.