Apparently, take off her clothes.

That uncomfortable reality sits at the heart of the backlash surrounding Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney’s new ad for sports betting company Novig. In it, Sweeney poses nearly nude, hugging footballs, basketballs, a tennis racket and other gear. The images are provocative and engineered to go viral, receiving over 22 million views in just two days.

What, exactly, are we being asked to notice? Sweeney? Her body? Or the sports themselves? That distinction is everything. This is not a call to police Sweeney’s choices; she has every right to own her image. Women can be sexual, self-assured and authentically themselves. The problem is when a woman’s body becomes the main event in a sports narrative, especially when she is not even an athlete.

The Fight to Be Seen

Women in sports already battle to be seen for their achievements, not just their bodies. Last year, nearly 3.54 million girls played high school sports in the U.S., accounting for 43% of all participants. At the college level, 242,341 women competed in NCAA athletics. Women are not side characters in American sports; they are nearly half the talent on the field, court, pool and track. Nevertheless, the struggle for equal opportunity is far from won. A 2024 GAO report shows women make up 56% of college students, yet only 42% of college athletes. At nearly two-thirds of colleges, women’s sports participation lags by at least 10 percentage points compared to enrollment. Four in ten colleges have not closed the gap since 2009-10. For decades, women have fought for funding, respect and the right to compete. Still, when they finally stand in the spotlight, another question arises: What are they being valued for? Female athletes face a constant balancing act. Strong, but not “too” strong; competitive, but always “feminine.” They are judged on their performances and their appearances, asked to perform at the highest level and then explain how they look doing it. Their bodies are both their instruments and their first hurdle.

There is no single age at which people start sexualizing girls in sports. Research does show, however, that the way female athletes are represented can affect how adolescent girls view both those athletes and themselves. Elizabeth Daniels, a developmental psychologist who researches gender, media and the experiences of girls and women, studied how different portrayals of female athletes affected adolescent girls and college women. In her 2012 study, Daniels examined responses from 258 girls ages 13-18 and 171 college women. She found that images of female athletes actively performing their sports encouraged viewers to focus on athletic ability and view those athletes as role models. Sexualized images, by contrast, encouraged more objectified views of both the athletes and themselves. Is it about what her body is doing or what her body looks like? 

Olympic figure skater Evgenia Medvedeva knows that line all too well. In a 2024 interview, she referenced being just 14 when judges told her to pad her costume because she did not have enough breasts for higher scores. Body commentary, she said, was simply routine in figure skating. Fourteen. At an age when most girls are still discovering themselves, an elite athlete was told she was not “feminine” enough. This is the culture young female athletes inherit.

Context Changes Everything

Sweeney’s response to the backlash made things even more tangled. She posted images of female athletes posing nude for ESPN’s Body Issue — Serena Williams, Ronda Rousey, Sue Bird, Megan Rapinoe, Caroline Wozniacki. Her argument: “Athletes do it too, so what is the difference?” The answer is context. Those athletes were featured because of what their bodies can do. The Body Issue celebrated the power, discipline and stories written in muscle and sweat. Those bodies were not just for display; years of training built them.

The Novig ad tells a different story. Sweeney is not there for her athletic skill; she is there for her appeal. That difference is exactly why so many athletes pushed back.

The Backlash from Pro Athletes

British sprinter Amy Hunt addressed Sweeney after competing at the Ultimate Championships, saying, “Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like.” She pointed to the reality behind elite performance: “Muscles, hard work, sweat, blood tears.” Those are the things the advertisement leaves out. The exhaustion. The injuries. The early mornings. The failed races. The missed opportunities. The hours of practice when nobody is watching.

Australian Olympic swimmer Ariarne Titmus made a similar argument, calling the advertisement “a kick in the face” to women who have dedicated their lives to perfecting their craft. She questioned how society could still be “monetizing a woman’s body and sexualising women’s sport.” Boxer Skye Nicolson made perhaps the clearest distinction: “There’s a big difference between looking ‘sexy’ because you do sport compared to using sex to sell ‘sport’.”

Its significance matters even more when considering how few female athletes actually make it to the professional level. The NCAA estimates only 0.8% of women’s college basketball players were drafted into the WNBA in 2024. Including international professional opportunities, NCAA estimates 9.1% of that cohort had professional opportunities. For most female college athletes, playing professionally is not the next step. It is an extraordinarily narrow path. The women who do make it have already spent years proving they belong. They should not then have to compete with another standard of attention, one that asks whether women are attractive enough to sell the sport.

Choice vs. Expectation

The history of women’s sports uniforms shows how complicated that expectation could become. In 2021, Norway’s women’s beach handball team was fined €1,500 after its players wore shorts instead of the bikini bottoms required by competition rules. The European Handball Federation classified the shorts as “improper clothing” and fined each player €150. The controversy was not about whether the athletes could play in the shorts. It was about whether they were showing the expected amount of skin. The real problem lies in the tension between choice and expectation. Nothing is wrong with a female athlete choosing a bikini. Nothing is wrong with an athlete choosing shorts. Nothing is wrong with a woman choosing to pose nude. The problem comes when women are expected to display their bodies to participate, compete, or attract attention. That is why this issue goes beyond Sweeney herself. Her campaign followed a well-worn playbook: appeal to the male gaze, go viral, and rake in exposure. Novig got what it wanted; the bigger question is what this strategy says about how women are still sold in sports.

Representation is not just about women being visible; it is about what they are valued for. A young athlete should see a woman in a sports ad and think, “I want to be that strong.” She should see a swimmer and want to work that hard. She should see an athlete and be inspired by what her body can do, not just how it looks. Beauty and sexuality are not the issue; it is the difference between valuing a woman’s accomplishments and using her body for clicks. Those are not the same.

A woman can be exceptional at her sport and still find that her appearance gets more attention than her performance. Women in sports have invested generations fighting to be seen as more than bodies. They have demanded the right to compete, to lead, to inspire. As a woman in sports, I know an athlete is never just a body. She is the hours no one sees, the losses she learns from, the work she puts in and the moments she earns.  Young girls are watching. They deserve to see women honored for their power and achievement. Women in sports are competitors, athletes, leaders, teammates and champions. Watch them for what they can do, not just for how they look.

Everyone’s favorite season is upon us… not fall (although that’s happening too, if only the weather would agree), but FOOTBALL. For those of us living in Kansas City, football is basically a religion, so I am excited to be watching the Chiefs just like everyone else. But if you’re anything like me, you may be wondering: What exactly is happening this season, and what do we need to know before settling in to watch?

First, the official NFL season kicks off on September 9 with the Patriots taking on the Seahawks. But, of course, here in Kansas City, the big question is all about our Chiefs. One of the biggest storylines this season is Travis Kelce. The question on everyone’s mind seems to be; when will Travis Kelce retire, and could this be his final season? After everything he has accomplished, it’s hard to imagine the Chiefs without him, so there is definitely going to be a lot of attention on what he decides to do next.

Then there’s the very important question of where we can actually watch the games. YouTube TV or Hulu + Live TV, combined with Amazon Prime Video and Peacock, should cover the vast majority of in-market NFL games this season.

And finally, if you don’t know much about football, I encourage you to just enjoy it! That’s honestly where I was a few years ago. I didn’t understand every rule, every penalty, or why everyone was suddenly yelling at the television over what seemed like a very ordinary play If you’re new to football, you may feel like everyone around you knows something you don’t. They don’t. Well, some of them do—but plenty of people are just very confident.

Here are some things to say if you have no idea what you are talking about:

“That was a terrible penalty.”
There is almost always a penalty happening at the exact moment you need one. You don’t necessarily need to know what the penalty was. You can simply be disappointed by it.

“We need to establish the run.”
I’m not going to pretend I completely understood this phrase when I first started watching football, but it sounds extremely knowledgeable.

“That was definitely pass interference.”
Use this one when your team’s receiver gets tackled, pushed, bumped, looked at incorrectly, or otherwise fails to catch the ball. If the referee agrees, congratulations. If not, simply shake your head and say, “Of course.”

“Come on, Chiefs!”

The NASCAR Cup Series completed the first quarter of their season this past Sunday, April 19th. A lot has happened over the first nine races, including a never-before-seen achievement, so let’s do a quick season recap to hit the highlights.

Tyler Reddick keeps winning

Tyler Reddick, driver of the #45 Toyota for 23XI Racing, had a winless 2025 campaign, and with Reddick’s contract expiring at the end of 2026, expectations for this season were somewhat mixed. There were concerns that 23XI was going to take a step back, especially since adding a third full-time car in 2025 had seemingly stretched their resources.

With nine races complete, Reddick has put those concerns, and the rest of the NASCAR field, in the rearview mirror. The #45 car won the season-opening Daytona 500 with help from his teammate Riley Herbst in the #35, before also winning the next two races at Echopark Speedway and Circuit of the Americas. This made Tyler Reddick the first driver in NASCAR history to win the first three consecutive races of a season and earned him and his team owner Michael Jordan (yes, NBA legend Michael Jordan) attention not just from the NASCAR media but from the wider sports media.

Reddick’s winning streak ultimately would end at the next race in Phoenix, but he would click off another win two weeks later at Darlington, and just this last weekend he picked up his fifth win of the season at Kansas Speedway. He currently leads the points standings by 105 points (more than a full race’s worth) over fellow Toyota driver Denny Hamlin. The questions surrounding Reddick and 23XI Racing are now focused on how many more races they can win in the coming months, and how big of a contract renewal Reddick has earned for himself.

Toyota’s dominance

Tyler Reddick may be stealing most of the wins, but Toyota as a whole has had an excellent start to the 2026 season. Besides Reddick’s five wins, two Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas have also picked up wins. Denny Hamlin, the driver of the #11, defended his race win at Las Vegas, while Ty Gibbs earned his first career win, driving the #54 to victory at Bristol. Hamlin leads the series in laps led (575), while Reddick and Gibbs lead the series in top 10 finishes with seven each.

Toyota teams also are dominating the points standings. Four of the top eight drivers in the standings are in Toyotas (Reddick, Hamlin, Gibbs, and Bubba Wallace, driving the #23 for 23XI Racing). The top 16 in points after 26 races will be eligible for the season championship, and so far, six of the top 16 in points are Toyota drivers, while Ford and Chevrolet each have five. This is despite Toyota only having nine full-time cars, the fewest of any manufacturer (Ford has 10 full-time cars, and Chevrolet has 17).

Ford gains a new top team

Part of Toyota’s dominance can likely be explained by the other manufacturers undergoing significant transitions to start their 2026 campaigns. For the last decade, Ford’s main powerhouse team has been Team Penske, a three-car operation that has won three of the past four NASCAR championships. However, this year Penske’s start to the year has been slower than expected. Ryan Blaney has brought the #12 to victory lane at Phoenix and currently sits third in points, while three-time Cup champion Joey Logano is 14th and Austin Cindric is 17th. Cindric has recovered from a terrible streak of luck, having crashed in the first four races, while Joey Logano has three finishes of 30th or worse, two of which came purely on pace. When they’re fast, the Penske Fords have earned great finishes, but their inconsistency this early on is worrisome.

While Penske has been inconsistent, another Ford team has risen to the occasion. RFK Racing’s three Fords have been the models of consistency, with Brad Keselowski and the #6 sitting 9th in points, Chris Buescher’s #17 car in 11th, and Ryan Preece’s #60 in 13th. Keselowski and Preece both have finished on the lead lap in every race so far, and the team only has two finishes below 20th, one each for Preece and Buescher. None of their cars have shown winning speed so far in a points race (Preece did win the season-opening exhibition Clash), but RFK has proven themselves more than capable of competing on a weekly basis. It remains to be seen whether RFK can one day overtake Penske, but the future of Ford’s NASCAR program looks bright.

Chevy’s early struggles

While Toyota is dominating the season and Ford is gaining a new top-tier team, Chevrolet is having its worst start to the season in decades. The flagship Chevy team, Hendrick Motorsports, only has one win through the first nine races, with Chase Elliott taking the #9 to victory lane at Martinsville. No other Chevy team has looked particularly close to winning, with Spire Motorsports being the only other Chevy team with a car currently in the top 16 in points. Trackhouse Racing, which won six races last season, has been completely off the pace so far, with New Zealand-born Shane van Gisbergen currently their highest-ranked driver at 18th in points. Two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch, driving the #8 car for Richard Childress Racing, is currently 27th in points, an all-time career low for him this far into the season.

The cause of Chevy’s troubles is complex, with much of it being due to individual teams performing poorly, Trackhouse and Richard Childress in particular. However, Chevy has debuted a new body design this season, which has made much of their simulator data and performance data irrelevant. The early part of the season may simply become a waiting game while Chevy teams refill their notebooks for the new car body. If Hendrick, Trackhouse, and others continue to struggle into the second half of the season, then there will need to be deeper conversations in the Chevy camp about how to keep up.

Connor Hull is a senior Accounting major on the Jewell track and field team. The Hilltop Monitor interviewed Hull as part of a series featuring senior athletes at Jewell.

THM: What was going through your head when you recently broke the 200 meter school record at CMU this past weekend?

So I was in line 8 and everyone in the heat was faster than me. So all I was thinking about was that I had to go because I was terrified that they were going to catch me on the curve and that would have been embarrassing because it was a short curve. But no, I just gave him my all. The track was giving out, so I felt a little divot in it, but you know, it was a fun race. 20.3 easy, so… happy to PR.

THM: What’s your main (favorite) event in track?

Sadly, my main event is the 400. I love it. I hate it. It’s the best and the worst at the same time. It’s always super tiring. It was always nerve-wracking, but it’s always good to run fast in it. I don’t know. I respect it the most.

THM: When you broke the 200m school record, how did it feel to run that PR? Is that something you had been working toward for a long time, or did it come naturally with your training?

It kind of came along. You know, I had a plateau, you know, for the past 2 years. That was always annoying. But, no, the new training, I guess, has been helping a lot. I mean, I PR half a second since last year in the 200. I mean, I was excited that I PR’d. I’m a little disappointed, you know, because I still lost by quite a bit. in the race. But, you know, also have, you know, next week to do better. So, you know, I’m so happy that I broke the record because I didn’t even know what the time was, so… It’s kind of neat when coach told me.

THM: During indoor season, you also ran a new PR in the 400 and broke the school record. What were your thoughts on that race?

That one was… Oh, where was that at? I’m trying to like picture it. Oh, it was Northwest. At that, what was it, a Thursday meeting? Yeah, and I was so pissed off that we had to go to a meet on Thursday. And I was like, you know, we’re just gonna run. not going to be good or anything. And I mean, I just got out there and started running and I PRd. I didn’t really have any hopes to run fast at all. I don’t know. I was more surprised that I ran that fast, so many things. I don’t know. I was just like, we had to go, so it’s just…I was just kind of disappointed. But, you know, I was happy to PR.

THM: After being named GLVC Freshman Athlete of the Year during indoor season, it seems like you’re having a strong comeback now—what changes have you made in your training, and what do you think has contributed to your recent record-breaking performances?

Part of it, you know, is like the training changes up, so I think I’m adapting to like how the training’s going. But the other part is I’m a senior. This is, like, the last time I’m gonna be competing in college, so if I don’t do good in that, it’s gonna stay like that forever. That’s one of those times, like, I don’t want to end off on a bad time or anything. I want it to look good. I want to leave. I don’t look like I, you know, I just, like, ran 48s all year, and, like, didn’t get better throughout my 4 years of college. So it’s kind of motivation to not be worse than my freshman year yourself.

THM: What keeps you motivated to keep pushing your limits on the track?

Honestly, to not let the coaches down. It’s always, you know, like, you get into, like, almost like a lull with some coaches, like Coach Walker, you know, you, like, kind of, like, stop pushing us as hard and everything. So like when you get a new coach, you know, you don’t want to disappoint them and everything. Yeah. So there’s always that in the back of your head. Like, you don’t want to, you know, do bad every week when they have high hopes for you, but, I mean, the other one, the motivation is just, you know, I just want to be better. I don’t want to lose to [first-years] anymore. We’ve got a month left of school and everything, and I just want to give it my all. You know, I’m not gonna be doing it as hard again for a while, so… It’s my last chance.

THM: What is one piece of advice you would give to other athletes at Jewell or elsewhere, and what advice would you give to your younger freshman self?

Just stay focused. It’s difficult to balance school and sports at the same time, but I don’t know. If you just love the sport that you do, it’s pretty easy. Just, you know, you just have to do everything that you’re supposed to, you know, go to practice on time, lift, do everything you’re supposed to do. Recover, get 8 hours of sleep, and all that. You know, because you if don’t get enough sleep, you know, you kind of look like you got bed head, and you do really bad. But yeah, uh, I don’t know. I guess the biggest thing is, uh, it’s not my coach is, uh, to stay hydrated and get sleep. Take care of your body.

THM: You heard it here. Connor Hull.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

This interview was edited for brevity and flow.