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Where you read it first | Friday, December 5, 2025
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Brian Becker

Brian Becker is a junior majoring in computer engineering. Brian can be reached at brian.becker@tufts.edu.

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Columns

Love To Hate: The gameday experience

By Brian Becker | December 5

Ask anyone who has been to a professional sports game in this country and they’re bound to give you a strongly worded opinion on the sights and sounds that occur within both the stadium and arena experience. Many diehards will be quick to scold the corny music played during play, asserting that it takes away from the gameday product and the “game’s gone” because of it. Other fans, however, will be quick to laud and praise the gameday experience, pointing to the Red Sox’s “Sweet Caroline” or the Bruins’ “Livin’ on a Prayer” as mainstays within fan culture.

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Columns

Love to Hate: Kai Havertz

By Brian Becker | November 17

It is quite a rare occurrence for a player to be hated by their own club for so long. The tale of Kai Havertz is certainly interesting, but it just makes sense. When you score a club defining goal, you become a club defining player, regardless of what happened before the moment. Havertz turned contenders into champions and anxious fans into content ones.

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Columns

Love To Hate: Antonio Brown

By Brian Becker | November 3

Antonio Brown. That guy? Oh, yeah, how’s he doing? The man who became a social media trend in 2021 for angrily throwing his jersey into the stands at MetLife Stadium in a game between the New York Jets and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and who is now under a bevy of legal trouble, has a reputation as one of the most controversial, yet talked about players in the NFL — for all the wrong reasons.

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Columns

Love to Hate: Kyrie Irving

By Brian Becker | October 20

He’s a box office superstar talent, bringing fans through the turnstiles. Pundits might even argue he’s the most watchable player in the NBA with his shifty step-backs and silky smooth layups, moves that he practiced growing up in his West Orange home without a backboard square. While fans are left in awe from his on-court craftsmanship, his off-court controversy has ruffled at least a few feathers and even prevented him from showing up to work.

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Columns

Love to Hate: Rivalries in the community

By Brian Becker | October 9

Mark Knopfler’s song “Going Home: Theme of the Local Hero” provides Newcastle United fans with a sense of local pride. While not as mainstream as Premier League football, Tufts host communities of the Medford/Somerville area — and beyond — provide plenty of intense rivalries from the professional stage down to the local community. All of which, in the eyes of some fans, define the true meaning of a ‘local hero.’ In the same spirit, I’ve compiled a guide of the greatest local sports games happening within the local area fit for Tufts students, as well as Medford, Somerville and Arlington residents alike, to attend.

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Columns

Love to Hate: Matthew Tkachuk

By Brian Becker | September 22

When the New Jersey Devils Fanatics Instagram page graced my feed last night, crying out to the world that there was only one more week left until hockey returns to Newark’s Prudential Center, I knew I had to write about the NHL, and about one player in particular. This player — a clear locker room presence, cheapshotting players left and right, blowing up group chats by angering opposing fans and, yes, a back-to-back Stanley Cup Champion — has certainly been a complete thrill to watch as a neutral fan.

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Columns

Love To Hate: Aaron Rodgers

By Brian Becker | September 8

Ayahuasca sipper and podcast activist. Turn on “Sunday Night Football” between 2014–21, and you’re bound to hear the words, “Aaron Rodgers throws to Davante Adams for 6.

The Setonian
Sports

Love To Hate: Daniil Medvedev

By Brian Becker | September 2

Sports are defined by moments. Moments captivate us, anger us and most importantly, entertain us. With the rise in short-form content, such moments are only increasingly consumed by the masses all over social media. Moments in sports are critical to defining our fandoms, and our opinions formed from them define our views of the players.

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Columns

Lay of the Leagues: NHL Edition

By Brian Becker | April 28

While April is the month of spring showers, we are truly blossoming into the greatest month of the professional sports calendar year: the NBA playoffs. Big names like Jayson Tatum, Nikola Jokić and, of course, Lebron James generate box office numbers for weeks on end. However, I encourage you to turn to a league which has arguably leapfrogged the NBA in two major categories.

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Columns

Lay of the Leagues: MLB edition

By Brian Becker | April 17

I’m genuinely torn on Major League Baseball’s future. On one hand, baseball is a revived product with high-scoring games, intense extra-inning battles and engaging pitching personalities that finish off the most intense matchups. I made the trip to Fenway Park on April 10, where I witnessed a feisty Boston Red Sox team close out a win in their four-game series versus the Toronto Blue Jays. While I only witnessed the final six innings, due to the brutal Thursday 4 p.m. start time, I certainly caught the majority of the relevant action, as the teams brought a 2–2 game to extra innings, featuring heavy hitters such as Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and pitching talent like Aroldis Chapman.

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