As a high schooler, every day before she left for practice, first-year Maya Letona would look at a newspaper cutout pinned to her bulletin board: “Santa Cruz sophomore Maya Letona suffered a heart-breaking 1-0 decision to San Benito sophomore Jenna Hartman to finish in fourth place, one spot from a state berth.” The snippet from the Santa Cruz Sentinel was a stinging reminder of just how close she came to qualifying for the California Interscholastic Federation State Wrestling Championships tournament months before. Though it was only the second year of her wrestling career, Letona’s narrow defeat at the Central Coast Section tournament left her with a deep desire to compete at the highest level.

Colin Kaepernick famously took a knee against police brutality in 2016. The #MeToo movement reached the sports world in 2018 and exposed repulsive misconduct in many spheres. After the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor by police in 2020, strikes and civic engagement from almost all corners of the sports world, especially the WNBA, swept the nation. In short, modern activism in sports is at an unprecedented level, professor Frank Guridy said at the start of Monday’s Athlete Activism webinar.

Columbia students are returning en masse to campus for the fall semester for the first time in over a year. Whether you need an outlet for that pent-up pandemic energy or you’re an athlete preparing for your return to the field, there are many reasons why you might want to start working out now.

It’s a couple of months into the start of a new school year, and sections of New York City are starting to turn bright red and orange. Looking around Van Cortlandt Park, fall has arrived, painting the park in a stream of colorful hues. Trees and grass aside, the park is eerily empty. On a weekend when visitors would typically see flying disks streaking through the sky, college teams from around the tri-state area dotting the fields, and a steady stream of high school cross country runners grinding through their 5K races, you can only spot one woman taking her dog out on a morning stroll.