A year ago, point guard O'Mariah Gordon was leading Florida State into the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Not only is the 5-foot-5 grad student now at another school, but playing an entirely different sport.
Shooting jumpers has been replaced by covering receivers and catching passes at Warner University in Florida. It’s opened up a whole new lane for her — one that could possibly end up with Gordon on the 2026 Team USA flag football squad for world championships this summer in Germany. Down the road, maybe even on the team when the sport makes its Olympic debut at the 2028 LA Games.
Same with Loryn Goodwin, a second-round pick by the Dallas Wings in the WNBA draft who pivoted and turned her talents toward the football field.
The sport is so new that USA Football is looking for players in all sorts of places. Gordon and Goodwin were among the athletes named to a pair of training camps this spring in Chula Vista, California. Their journeys could be just the start of a migration of players to the football field from the basketball floor or the soccer pitch or the volleyball court or the world of track.
“Friends that I have played basketball with are asking me, ‘How did you get into this? How did you start?’” said Goodwin, who played hoops at North Texas, Butler, UTSA and Oklahoma State, where she earned All-Big 12 honors. “Anybody can play. To be elite, you’ve just got to put the time in.”
The skill set from basketball to flag football is a natural crossover. Rebounding is akin to the timing of pass catching, while the ability to read a defense and hand-eye coordination remain paramount. Not to mention both are 5-on-5, featuring sudden stops and starts.
All those things came in handy for Team USA receiver/defensive back Isabella “Izzy” Geraci, who's developed into one of the top players in the world after a basketball career at Cleveland State and USC Upstate. She envisions players of all sorts and heights one day turning up on flag football fields.
“With the pace the sport’s going, there may be a lot of women who are interested in joining the game,” said Geraci, whose last season was 2022-23 with USC Upstate where she started all 31 games. “Some of those women may be 6-5, 6-6 — your freak athletes.”
Gordon was finished at Florida State last season after a career that saw her score more than 1,000 career points and earn All-ACC honors.
Finished, too, with college sports — or so she thought.
She attended a sneakers convention in Tampa, Florida, last summer when she ran into Warner coach Tim Mimbs. She dabbled in flag football in high school but not recently.
“He's like, ‘Want to give flag football a try again?'” Gordon recounted. “I took a chance on myself and here we are.”
In addition to being a receiver (six TD catches this season) and a safety (seven interceptions, two for scores), she's working toward her master's degree in business.
Last week, Gordon participated in the U.S. national team trials, where she stood out and earned an invitation — along with Goodwin — to the training camps in April and May. On the men's side, Heisman Trophy winner and NFL QB Robert Griffin III earned a spot, while 66-year-old Hall of Famer Darrell Green fell short in his comeback bid.
After the two camps, selected athletes will move to a third one in June. USA Football will then name the 2026 alternates and final 12-athlete rosters for both the men’s and women’s teams. It's another step in identifying talent before the Summer Games.
There's a clip on Instagram that shows Goodwin's pass-catching prowess. It was a backyard family football game a few years ago. Blanketed by little brother TJ, a quarterback in college, Loryn Goodwin sprang free and made a one-handed grab while falling to the grass.
She comes from a family of tackle football players. Another brother, Jayden, played defensive back at Air Force and her cousin, Marquise, was a receiver in the NFL.
A flag football player as a kid, she gravitated toward hoops, where she moved around in college — “before transferring was cool,” she laughed — due to coaches leaving, family situation and staff changes. She found the perfect fit at Oklahoma State and averaged 20.6 points in 2017-18 for a Cowboys team that made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Goodwin was taken by the Wings with the 18th pick. She spent time with the Wings and Los Angeles Sparks. She also played in Europe, where she broke her foot and led to the end of her pro hoops career.
Enter flag football.
A friend introduced the 32-year-old Goodwin to a team in Florida. Little did she know it was an all-star squad.
“I was playing at the very highest level right off the bat with zero experience,” Goodwin said. “That’s wild to think about.”
It prepared her for this — a chance to make the Team USA roster this season. Down the road, maybe the Olympics.
“I've put," Goodwin said, "everything into this.”
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
FILE - Oklahoma State guard Loryn Goodwin (32) holds the ball during an NCAA college basketball game against Iowa State in Stillwater, Okla., Jan. 24, 2018. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro returns to a New York courtroom Thursday as he seeks to have his drug trafficking indictment thrown out over a geopolitical dispute over legal fees.
It’s the first time that Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, will be in court since a January arraignment at which he protested their capture by U.S. military forces and declared: “I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country.” Flores has also pleaded not guilty.
Both remain jailed at a detention center in Brooklyn, and neither has asked to be released on bail. Judge Alvin Hellerstein has yet to set a trial date, though that could happen at the hearing.
Here is the latest:
Maduro, in a jail uniform, is seated between his attorneys at a defense table.
He glanced at his wife, who is sitting between her own attorneys to the right of him and his attorneys. She’s also in a jail uniform.
The couple are both wearing headphones to hear interpretation.
Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been brought into a New York courtroom as he seeks to have his drug trafficking indictment thrown out over a geopolitical dispute over legal fees.
Thursday’s hearing is the first time Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been in court since a January arraignment at which he protested their capture by U.S. military forces and declared: “I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country.” Flores has also pleaded not guilty.
Judge Alvin Hellerstein has yet to set a trial date, though that could happen at Thursday’s hearing.
In Caracas, Eduardo Cubillan condemned the violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty during the Jan. 3 operation. But the 80-year-old retiree hesitated to say whether he would like Maduro to return as president.
While Maduro’s ruling party remains in power, he has slowly been erased from the government of Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s acting president. Cubillan’s hesitation reflected a dilemma that many ruling party supporters face as they see Rodríguez reach agreements with the U.S. that could bring economic improvements.
“We hope that in the United States, if justice truly exists, a trial will be held that will lead to President Maduro’s freedom, because this kidnapping violated international legal principles, and we want justice to be served,” Cubillan said.
During his Cabinet meeting, President Trump accused Maduro of being a “major purveyor of drugs coming into our country.”
Trump said Maduro would be given “a fair trial. But I would imagine there are other trials coming.” He didn’t provide details, but suggested the current charges Maduro is facing might be “a fraction of the kind of things that he’s done.”
Protesters and supporters are still gathering. They’re chanting, blowing horns and beating drums and cowbells.
Among the anti-Maduro contingent, one person is waving a sign reading, “Maduro rot in prison.”
On the other side of a metal barrier, people wave signs saying, “Free President Maduro.”
The officer prefaced Thursday’s hearing with a warning to spectators to stay quiet and seated while the former Venezuelan president is in the courtroom.
People who speak out will be removed and could face legal consequences, he said. The officer acknowledged, “This may be a sensitive case for some of you” and added, “you’re in a federal courthouse. Please respect the institution and what it stands for.”
In Caracas, many attendees wore the uniform of their state agency employer, took selfies to report to managers their participation at the event and waved Venezuelan flags as a group played regional music.
A woman attached action figures modeled after Maduro and Flores to her flag.
A screen behind the stage showed a photo of the couple taken during Maduro’s January 2025 swearing in ceremony and the phrase “83 days have gone by since their kidnapping.”
In Venezuela’s capital, a couple hundred people, among them ruling party supporters, state employees and civilian militia members, gathered at a public plaza Thursday morning, planning to pray for Maduro and Flores and to watch the couple’s hearing, unaware that U.S. federal courts do not allow cameras.
A large screen mixed footage of Maduro, the Venezuelan flag and the country’s recent World Baseball Classic championship win.
“We are going to see him today,” ruling party leader Carmen Melendez told the crowd. “We may see him skinnier. … But that’s our president.”
A group of demonstrators held Venezuela flags and signs saying “Free President Maduro.” They also shouted “No boots on the ground, no bombs in the air. U.S. out of everywhere,” denouncing U.S. military actions abroad.
Some carried an inflatable doll depicting Maduro in orange clothing resembling prison garb.
Signs indicated some of the protesters were affiliated with the Workers World Party, which describes itself as a revolutionary socialist party.
The last time Maduro appeared at the courthouse, he was brought there in spectacular fashion.
A helicopter flew him from Brooklyn to a heliport in Manhattan, where a motorcade of law enforcement vehicles whisked him to the courthouse in just a few minutes.
The city’s multiple local and federal law enforcement agencies have made an art form out of transporting important people through streets that are often choked with traffic.
When Trump was on trial at a courthouse in the same Lower Manhattan neighborhood in 2024, police made sure his Secret Service motorcade also had an unobstructed and traffic-free path to the courthouse.
The judge presiding over Maduro’s case is 92 years old.
A native New Yorker, Alvin K. Hellerstein was nominated to the court by President Bill Clinton in 1998.
He’s not the oldest judge on the federal bench in New York. That honor belongs to Judge Louis L. Stanton, who is 98.
Hellerstein has handled many other big cases. For nearly 25 years, he has also presided over civil litigation resulting from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York.
Legal issues surrounding the drug trafficking case against Maduro are expected to be complex, but they are unlikely to surface in a prolonged way at Thursday’s hearing.
The main subject of the court appearance involves how to pay his lawyers. Because of U.S. sanctions, the legal team can’t simply accept a check from Venezuela’s government. They need permission from the U.S. government. But U.S. authorities don’t want to grant it. They say Maduro can pay for his defense himself.
The dispute will get worked out in court.
Seating will be limited inside the courtroom where Maduro was to appear, and the line to get in started forming a day early.
Several professional line sitters in tiny tents were set up outside the court by Wednesday afternoon.
Some news organizations spent hundreds of dollars to pay people to hold spots for reporters who would arrive in the morning when the courthouse opened.
The indictment against Maduro accuses him of carrying out a wide-ranging conspiracy to traffic illegal drugs into the U.S. for more than a quarter century.
It says he cleared the way for thousands of tons of cocaine to enter the United States by teaming up at times with Venezuelan law enforcement to aid drug kingpins.
Maduro says he’s innocent. His supporters say that the U.S. military seized Maduro because U.S. President Donald Trump wanted regime change in Venezuela.
Demonstrators protest outside Manhattan federal court before a pre-trial hearing in former Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro's drug trafficking case, Thursday, March 26, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)
