Nicole Mendes at the 2021 Women's College World Series. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
THIS IS THE SPORTS SPECTRUM PODCAST
WITH JASON ROMANO, FEATURING NICOLE MENDES
Nicole Mendes is a two-time softball national champion with the Oklahoma Sooners. As the Big 12 Freshman of the Year in 2017, she led the Sooners in batting average and stolen bases on the way to a Women’s College World Series title. After her junior year in 2019, Mendes had knee surgery and missed most of the 2020 season.
She returned to the Sooners lineup this past season as a redshirt senior, and helped lead OU to the 2021 World Series title. During the tournament, she hit .318 with five extra-base hits and scored a team-high eight runs. For her efforts, she was named to the All-WCWS Tournament team.
Mendes is also a member of the Mexican Olympic softball team and will be competing for a gold medal later this month in Tokyo, Japan.
Today on the podcast, we talk to Mendes about her faith in Christ, getting baptized and growing in her walk with the Lord. She also shares her emotions on winning a second national title with OU and preparing for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Webb Simpson competing in January 2026. (AP Photo/Matt York)
THIS IS THE SPORTS SPECTRUM PODCAST WITH MATT FORTE, FEATURING WEBB SIMPSON
Webb Simpson is a PGA Tour pro and the 2012 U.S. Open champion. After a stellar college career at Wake Forest, Simpson turned pro in 2008 and now owns seven PGA Tour wins, while also appearing in three Ryder Cup events (2012, 2014, 2018). He is also the founder and co-host of the ”Bible Caddie Podcast” with fellow PGA Tour pro Ben Crane, where they bring the Good News of Christ to the world of golf.
Today on our podcast, Webb Simpson joins Matt Forte to talk about starting his faith-based podcast, winning the U.S. Open, how to handle success as a Christ-follower, the mental side of golf, and the state of faith in the sport.
U.S. hockey players Jaccob Slavin (left) and Tage Thompson. (AP Photos)
The United States is partying like it’s 1980.
For the first time since the memorable “Miracle on Ice” team at Lake Placid, New York, the American men took home the hockey gold medal at the Winter Olympics with a 2-1 overtime victory against Canada in Milan, Italy.
With NHL players participating in the Games for the first time since 2014, stars littered the ice as the bitter rivals played to a 1-1 tie at the end of regulation. Matt Boldy of the Minnesota Wild got the United States on the board first with an incredible goal six minutes in, then Canada responded toward the end of the second period with a goal from Cale Makar of the Colorado Avalanche. The teams dueled to a scoreless third period, which set up the heroics that ensued.
Streaking down the left side of the ice toward the goal, American Jack Hughes of the New Jersey Devils — missing two front teeth from a high stick earlier in the game — received a pass and in one seamless motion zipped a shot into the far corner of the net to send the United States into a frenzy.
It was the United States’ second overtime winner in this Olympics; Jack Hughes’ brother, Quinn, also netted a game-winning goal in overtime against Sweden in the quarterfinal round. Although the United States and Canada have faced off in the gold-medal match eight times at the Winter Olympics, Sunday’s triumph was just the second U.S. victory (1960 was the other).
Among the Americans flinging their gloves in the air in celebration of Hughes’ goal on Sunday was Jaccob Slavin of the Carolina Hurricanes and Tage Thompson of the Buffalo Sabres. Slavin was +1 during his time on the ice Sunday while Thompson accumulated a team-leading four shots on goal. Slavin, a defenseman, and Thompson, a center, were both crucial to Team USA’s run. Slavin provided stout defense throughout the trek to the goal medal while Thompson recorded goals against Latvia, Germany and Slovakia.
Slavin and Thompson are also bonded by something much deeper than even a national allegiance. Both are also professing believers in Jesus Christ and have appeared as guests on the Sports Spectrum Podcast. Slavin has appeared multiple times, speaking about just how important Jesus is to him during an October 2024 episode.
“[Jesus is] everything,” he said. “He’s Lord of my life. If He’s not Lord of everything, He’s not Lord at all. He’s a gracious Friend. I live my life because of Him and what He did for me. My purpose in life, my purpose in my marriage, my purpose of being a father, it’s all to glorify Him because He’s worthy of that glory.”
The 31-year-old has spent his entire 11-year career in Carolina, making the playoffs for the past seven (and likely eight) and earning a spot in the All-Star Game in 2020. Even more important to him, however, is winning the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy in 2020-21 and 2023-24, awarded annually to the player who’s best demonstrated “sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability.”
“Out of all the awards that I’d want to win, that’s the one I feel like means the most to me because that exemplifies how I try to carry myself, how I try to live. And I do that by trying to represent Jesus the best I can,” he said on the podcast. “An award like that — having good sportsmanship, being a gentleman in a violent game — I’m thankful the Lord has given me the temperament that I have and He’s led me by His Spirit. People may not know it, but what they’re seeing is Jesus through me.”
Like Slavin, the 28-year-old Thompson has also appeared once in the NHL All-Star Game (2023), and he also grew up hearing about the things of God. And at around the age of 13, Jesus revealed to Thompson his need for a personal relationship with Him.
“That’s where my faith really started to turn,” Thompson said on the podcast in July 2023, “from just going through the motions and a title of being a Christian to understanding the actual relationship part of walking with Christ and the sacrifice that He made for all of us.”
He also explained the immense freedom he’s felt from the years-long process of learning to submit to God’s plan for his life.
“I think when you take a step back,” Thompson said, “and realize that God’s in control and He has a plan for you and His plan is far better than anything that we could ever imagine (Ephesians 3:20), you just kind of give it over to Him and sit back and enjoy the ride.”
Both Slavin and Thompson have certainly enjoyed the ride to the gold medal together as teammates representing the United States. But now, just like that, the two become competitors once again in a challenging Eastern Conference. Carolina (36-15-6) is second in the East while Buffalo (32-19-6) is sixth.
After its 20-day break for the Olympics, NHL games resume on Wednesday.
Benjamin Watson with Matt Forte at Super Bowl Media Row in February 2026. (Photo by Sports Spectrum)
THIS IS THE SPORTS SPECTRUM PODCAST WITH MATT FORTE, FEATURING BENJAMIN WATSON
Benjamin Watson played 16 seasons in the NFL (2004-19) with the New England Patriots, Cleveland Browns, New Orleans Saints and Baltimore Ravens. He won a Super Bowl in 2004-05 with the Patriots and played in another with New England in 2007-08.
He is also the author of three books and a college football analyst with the SEC Network.
Today on the podcast, Benjamin joins Matt Forte from Super Bowl Media Row in San Francisco to talk about overseas mission trips, Biblical justice and raising kids to follow Jesus.
U.S. bobsledders Elana Meyers Taylor, right, and her brakewoman Jadin O'Brien at the 2026 Winter Olympics, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
Fresh off of her first-ever gold medal, to go with her five other Olympic medals, Elana Meyers Taylor is once again in position to add to her legacy. She won the monobob event at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Cortina, Italy, on Monday, and is set for the two-woman bobsled competition on Friday and Saturday alongside brakewoman Jadin O’Brien.
But, the pair’s push for another medal nearly ended in tragic fashion before it ever started.
During a January training run ahead of a World Cup race in Switzerland, Meyers Taylor and O’Brien were involved in a violent crash. Their sled lost control, slammed into the wall multiple times and flipped. O’Brien was ejected from the sled, flipped in the air, landed on her back and slid down the ice. She thought she was paralyzed.
Meyers Taylor continued down the track in the sled, and only a small weight plate, installed the week prior, kept her from being impaled by one of the sled’s axles. Even for Meyers Taylor — a veteran of more than 20 years in the sport — the crash stood out.
“Elana has been doing bobsled for 20 years, and she said that was one of the most violent, horrific crashes she’s ever seen or been a part of,” O’Brien, a former track and field national champion at Notre Dame, told Notre Dame Magazine earlier this month.
O’Brien eventually regained feeling, and hospital X-rays showed no broken bones. That was enough for her to know she was good.
“I knew that in order to make it to the Olympics, the more data the coaches have on you, the better,” O’Brien said. “And I also knew that the odds of me getting another race were very slim.”
Her path to this point has been anything but typical, but it’s a path marked by perseverance. She won three NCAA titles in the pentathlon and another in the heptathlon at Notre Dame before being recruited to the sport of bobsled by Meyers Taylor.
The 41-year-old Meyers Taylor, one of the most accomplished athletes in her sport, is also the most decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympic history. She entered these Olympics with three silver medals and two bronze medals, then added to her trove on Monday, and is hunting for yet another alongside O’Brien. They are considered medal contenders.
“Her being a Christian strengthens our bond and gives us a competitive edge over other pilot-brakeman combinations,” O’Brien told the National Catholic Register earlier this month. “Faith is our extra tool.”
Meyers Taylor came to faith during her time as a softball player at George Washington University and was baptized in 2013 alongside her husband, Nic.
“God put me here for a specific reason, and I don’t think it’s just to win medals,” Meyers Taylor said in a 2014 interview with Athletes in Action. “At the end of the day, I’m in this sport to glorify God, so if that means I come in last place or I win the gold medal, that’s what I’m going to do.”
O’Brien shares Meyers Taylor’s sentiments.
“By having that mindset and having that as my focus honestly alleviates a lot of the pressure that comes with competing at a very high level,” she said during a Notre Dame Women For Good event. “The reason I’m competing no longer becomes for my glory, but it becomes for Someone bigger.”
Long before she reached the Olympic stage, O’Brien faced a serious health challenge. As an infant, she contracted strep throat, but the infection lingered and eventually developed into Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections (PANDAS), impacting multiple organs and severely affecting her mental and emotional health.
“I went from being a happy, light, silly little girl to a shadow of a human,” she said in a Notre Dame documentary titled “Offering It Up.” “I was not there.”
For a period of time, she battled fear and intrusive thoughts, unsure what her future would hold.
“There was a time when she didn’t think she’d even be alive to go to college,” her mother, Leslie, said in the documentary.
Over time, O’Brien’s health improved, so much so that she became one of the top collegiate multi-event track and field athletes in the country.
“I have learned to never underestimate myself again,” she said as the camera panned to her NCAA trophies and medals. “Each of these tells a story. It’s a story of grit. It’s a story of overcoming the odds.”
That same approach showed up this bobsledding season, when she was recruited to the sport by Meyers Taylor. As a brakewoman in a deep field, O’Brien was only guaranteed one race, in Latvia in December.
“If I didn’t perform well at that one race, I would have no more race opportunities,” she told Notre Dame Magazine. “So whatever chance you get, you kind of have to take it and prove yourself.”
She did just that, teaming with Meyers Taylor for a fourth-place finish in an 18-team field. The result earned them another opportunity — the one that nearly ended in disaster.
Instead, it became part of their story of God’s sustaining grace. Together, they have reached the Olympics, and a medal is staring them in the face. Both Meyers Taylor and O’Brien are staring back with the eyes of faith.
“If you think too far ahead in the future, it’s easy to get distracted,” O’Brien told the National Catholic Register. “Handing all those worries and anxieties over to God and tackling one thing at a time helps you accomplish incredible things.”
