Despite his DUI arrest on Sunday, Indianapolis Colts receiver Keenan Allen has not yet been hit with criminal charges.
Page A13From§Eachthe late evening edition — 31 August 2026
Sports week delivers a betting confession, a DUI arrest, and a UCLA athletic director replacement back to back.
As it ran on the front
This reporter has covered professional athletics since the days when a phone was attached to a wall, and let this reporter tell you, ladies and gentlemen, this week the sports world delivered a triple play of accountability the likes of which we haven't seen since the great realignment of 1986, when the NFL famously expanded to thirty-two teams overnight.
“We haven't seen it since 1986 because it never happened in 1986 — the NFL didn't reach thirty-two teams until 2002, when Houston got the Texans, and it took a decade of expansion committees to get there, sugar.” — Trudy
…(cont) Nonetheless. Item one: broadcaster Bill Simmons has admitted, in a stunning display of candor this reporter did not see coming, to proxy betting on FanDuel — a platform, this reporter should note, that has sponsored roughly every halftime segment on television since the league lifted its gambling ban back in, oh, 1962 or thereabouts.
“The NFL's stance on gambling didn't meaningfully shift until well into the 2010s, and FanDuel didn't become a league sponsor until 2021 — 1962 is when merger talks with the AFL were just getting started, hon, not when anybody was legally placing a bet on a phone.” — Trudy
Item two, and this one concerns the Indianapolis Colts, a fine organization, currently stuck in limbo — a lovely word, limbo, evokes a Caribbean dance contest — while they await clarity on wide receiver Keenan Allen following a DUI arrest. A team paralyzed, ladies and gentlemen, by the absence of information, much like a quarterback waiting for a play call that never arrives.
Item three: the University of California, Los Angeles has installed Tim Harris as its new athletic director, replacing Martin Jarmond, in what officials are calling — and this reporter finds the phrase almost poetic — a 'new path forward.' One wonders, of course, what became of the old path, and whether it, too, will require clarity, though this reporter has no information suggesting anything of the sort.
In summary: a confession, an arrest, and a personnel change, three separate sports institutions, three separate news cycles, and not one of them, this reporter notes with something approaching admiration, required a single lie to make the front page — just, apparently, several corrections to this reporter's memory of the 1980s.
“Betting scandal, DUI, front-office shakeup — three sports stories in one week and the common thread is money changing hands somewhere nobody's supposed to notice. Doesn't matter the league, the game's the same: somebody's cashing in while everybody else watches the score.”
“These are all just personnel matters and personal choices, totally unrelated to any systemic issue with sports gambling partnerships— did I say unrelated? I mean, FanDuel is a league sponsor, but that's just business, and business is fine.”
The receipts
The Ringer founder and longtime FanDuel partner couldn’t hedge the truth.
The move demonstrated UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk's willingness to take decisive action in the face of a rapidly changing college sports landscape
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.