GENEVA, Ohio — In a swift motion, he sent the ball flying over the makeshift fence. It was one of those no-doubter home runs, the type you dream of as a kid who just spent a warm summer evening at the ballpark.
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After the win, the athlete was composed in front of cameras and a sideline reporter, stuffing his giddiness into a furrowed brow. Then, as the broadcast’s light flashed off, he turned to his peers.
“For America!” yelped the high-schooler (yes, you read that right) after his team won a kickball tournament (yep, that as well) at the 2026 Patriot Games on Sunday (we’ll get to this). His parting sentiment? “This was for Trump!”
“Trump” is one word that came up a lot during the inaugural day of the inaugural Patriot Games. But another word seemed to be on almost everyone’s tongues at this national gym class jamboree: weird.
To start, some definitions: The Patriot Games is an athletic competition drawing a male and female representative from every state and an assortment of territories, military bases and tribal nations as part of the White House-backed nonprofit Freedom 250’s festivities. The 120 participants were chosen from applicants ages 14 to 17. They’re vying for $250,000 in winnings, which a male and female winner will divide. Over the span of three days, beginning on Sunday and ending Tuesday, the youths will compete in a series of athletic pursuits. Opening morning was a quintessential field day of long jumps and foot races billed as a military boot-camp circuit. Sunday evening turned to the lazy P.E. teacher favorites, kickball and dodgeball — which didn’t seem at all weird to an athlete named Cutter Boggs.
“This is just so much fun,” said Boggs, West Virginia’s male representative. The 16-year-old dreams of playing baseball at West Virginia University. “I’ve met so many new kids my age. The games are all a lot of fun. And the eyes are great for my recruiting, you know, being on ESPN and all.”
Here’s where things take a turn toward Bizarreville. ESPN is broadcasting each day of the competition, from 9 a.m. to roughly 7 p.m. on the ESPN app. Trump is expected to attend some of the events on Tuesday, and ABC will air the final in a recap on Thursday night. “And, that,” one ESPN crew member said on-site Sunday, “is weird.”
In April, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that it would perform an early review of the Walt Disney Company’s broadcast renewals for its owned-and-operated ABC stations. The move came during a period in which Trump repeatedly criticized ABC, most frequently in response to jabs from its late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel.
So a quasi-high-school sporting event drawing ABC’s cameras and some of ESPN’s most notable names (Laura Rutledge, Jordan Rodgers, among others)? Hard to fend off the side-eye. “It’s difficult to not think ESPN is doing this in response to the investigation,” said the crew member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution from their employer. “All of this,” they continued, “just feels quite weird.”
After Trump announced the competition in December, an application opened on Freedom 250’s website for eligible students to express interest. The steps were simple. Teenagers only needed to prove their age and location before submitting a short YouTube video explaining why they should be picked for the Patriot Games.
From there, everything became much murkier, multiple families said Sunday. Freedom 250 notified most competitors that they were selected in late July, about two weeks before the big event. Athletes scrambled to book travel, unsure of the process through which they were chosen. In an email, a Freedom 250 spokesperson didn’t address questions regarding the selection criteria, stating the organization looked for “America’s next generation of leaders, competitors and champions.” What stood out to many upon arriving in Ohio, though, was that roughly 90 percent of the athletes participating were White. Weird doesn’t begin to cover that one.
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“It’s a little startling,” said one White athlete, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to tick off any number of people, including her parents and the leader of the free world. “This is supposed to be the best high school athletes. … It just feels a little concerning not to see very many different types of people.”
The environment also added to the weird. The event was originally intended to be held in Washington, D.C., but then, for reasons that were never explained, it was shifted to a small city 50 minutes northeast of Cleveland. (A Freedom 250 spokesperson said the event “was never planned for DC,” despite the initial announcement.) At any rate, athletes are here now, gathered in the megachurch equivalent of a high school, Spire Academy. The athletic boarding school is best known for being the one-year stop of LaMelo Ball in 2018, drawing eyes and popping him into the professional ranks.
Many of those sleeping in its dorms this week, like Boggs, hope for a similar effect, in addition to a chance to celebrate America.
“When we heard about this, it felt like just a great chance to help him get recruited but also represent his country. It’s only going to happen once, right?” said Chase Boggs, Cutter’s father. He, along with Boggs’s mother and brother, sat in the stands with cutouts of Cutter’s face. Around them, American flags were splayed on so many baggy Freedom 250 shirts, gold-embellished “MAGA” hats reigned chic, and it seemed a crime to don anything other than red, white or blue.
When the competition was first announced, critics compared it to the fictional “Hunger Games,” which similarly took a male and female representative from each district for a grand countrywide competition. In the novels turned films, each participant fights to be the last alive.
The Patriot Games, instead, were closer to patriotism summer camp. Athletes were randomly sorted into dorms with someone from another state, and they have been playing games each night. Spectators wandered between an indoor arena and outdoor stadium, regularly stopping by the mess hall for refreshments. At times, parents lay inside watching on their phones instead of sitting in the heat, thinning an already slim crowd with no outside spectators. The vibe was more Little League than youth Olympics.
But with a hefty dash of politics. As happened during the kickball event, some around the campus expressed their beliefs explicitly. Other athletes aimed to drift into back-of-frame. This is, after all, a shot at a windfall, if they could successfully navigate three confusing days.
“I’m here because I want to win,” said Ellie Harvey, 14. She was Maryland’s representative, and her mother, Beth, showed up in a T-shirt made entirely of the Maryland flag. “I like to think of this as something honoring the anniversary, more than anything else,” Beth said. “It isn’t about your vote or whatever as much as the kids.”
But just after Ellie Harvey left the morning session, another young athlete asked her fellow competitors if they wanted “Make America Great Again” bracelets. It was an overture that, were this any other track meet, would definitely be weird.
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Here, it was right on vibe.
“What’s more American?” she asked, as each of her new friends accepted.
