This year's women's NCAA basketball championship, the most-watched in history, has provoked a heated debate about how race influences our perception of good sportsmanship and competitive rivalries.

Louisiana State star forward Angel Reese, who won the women's March Madness Most Outstanding Player award, waved her open hand in front of her face at the Iowa Hawkeyes' Caitlin Clark near the end of the Tigers' victory on April 2.

The gesture, meaning "you can't see me," had also been used by Clark toward a Louisville player in the Elite Eight. Bleacher Report said that in that same game, Clark said to an opponent: "You're down by 15 points. Shut up."

ESPN produced a segment hailing Clark, who is white, as the "Queen of Clapbacks," which highlighted moments when she taunted other players. But when Reese, who is Black, used the gesture, the reaction was very different.

Dave Portnoy, founder of the site Barstool Sports, tweeted that Reese was a "classless piece of (expletive)." Commentator Keith Olbermann called her a "(expletive) idiot," also on Twitter.

Part of what makes Twitter so revealing is that we get to see people's immediate first takes. We tweet before we've had a chance to pause and think about what might be fueling our reactions and whether there are any inconsistencies in our perception. Those initial moments after an event are when our subconscious plays a greater role in our response.

Olbermann later clarified his remark: "I apologize for being uninformed last night about the back story on this. I don't follow hoops, college or pro, men or women. I had no idea about Clark. Both were wrong."

Olbermann's admission in this situation is a rarity. Most people double down when they are challenged, especially when it comes to matters of racial bias.

The ones who doubled down on their criticism of Reese said the circumstances of the championship game were different. Mark Harris with OutKick argued that Clark "threw up her hand for half a second while walking to the bench," while "Reese did the motion multiple times two feet from Clark's face."

That kind of parsing, which ignores the more aggressive moments of Clark's previous behavior, comes across as a missed opportunity to reflect on how we instinctively judge human behavior.

Do we respond the same way to trash talk among professional male athletes as we do among women? Does a temper tantrum by John McEnroe or Jimmy Connors provoke the same feelings and coverage as Serena Williams' outbursts?

Reese called out a double standard in how she is perceived versus other players. In the press conference after the victory, she said: "All year, I was critiqued for who I was. I don't fit the narrative. I don't fit the box that y'all want me to be in. I'm too hood. I'm too ghetto. Y'all told me that all year. But when other people do it, and y'all don't say nothing."

It's undeniable that intense rivalries, leading to taunting and trash talk, have long been part of the spectacle of sports. We can debate the role and appropriateness of such behavior -- from youth players to elite professionals -- and disagree about when it crosses the line.

Like many parents of student athletes, I want my own child to show respect to his competitors and win with grace. It goes back to the fundamental Golden Rule of treating others how you want to be treated.

But before I pile criticism on a 20-year-old college student, I'm going to check myself to see if I react consistently when another player behaves the same way. Am I more forgiving if a player on the team I support is taunting or trashing our sports rivals? Am I more understanding if a player looks like me? Am I more outraged when it's a young Black woman taunting an outstanding white player who has been crowned "The Queen of Clapbacks"?

If so, that might say more about me than her.

I never paid attention to school board elections before I had children in school.

My apathy had plenty of company.

In St. Louis County, off-cycle municipal elections might draw anywhere from 10% to 20% of eligible voters. The National School Boards Association cites even bleaker turnout rates: as low as 5% to 10% in several areas.

This means that a tiny sliver of Americans elect the people responsible for educating the majority of our citizens.

Before I had kids in public schools, I assumed these elections didn't really affect my life.

Oh, what a sweet summer child I was.

I had covered dozens of school board meetings as a young reporter 20 years ago, and they could never be described as riveting entertainment. In recent years, however, local school boards have become battlegrounds for partisans more interested in fighting culture wars than balancing school budgets.

The Washington Post recently reported that the violent rhetoric of once-fringe movements has now seeped into the Republican mainstream. The article cited a 2022 Anti-Defamation League report, which documented more than 100 candidates in local and state races who expressed extremist views -- including at least a dozen with documented connections to far-right militant groups.

These are the people who decide what books children in your community can read, what they will learn about our country's past (and present), and how they should treat others. They see school board races as the easiest infiltration point, and for good reason.

In a review of school board election statistics from 2014 to 2016 in the country's 1,000 largest school districts, Ballotpedia found that between 32% and 36% of school board candidates ran unopposed each year. And between 81% and 83% of incumbents who sought reelection won.

A former candidate in our district referred to herself as a "Confederate" on a social media profile. But even when a candidate isn't sharing racist memes on Facebook or Twitter, troubling digital footprints can come to light.

For example, Ryan Kerr, 39, of Ballwin, Missouri, is one of seven people running for three spots on the board for the Parkway district, which serves almost 17,000 students in the St. Louis suburbs. In 2016, Kerr recorded a four-minute profane, unhinged monologue in which he calls an unnamed Asian woman "panda," uses derogatory slurs, references lewd acts and swears dozens of times. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote about the video, which surfaced during the campaign, and about Kerr's apology once it became public.

In his apology, Kerr said he was drunk during the incident, and that afterward, he enrolled in "voluntary cultural diversity, equity and inclusion programs" where he "fell in love with Asian history and culture."

"This was a very isolated and targeted event, intoxicated, and immediately following (a) false allegation of assaulting a female," Kerr said in a written statement. "It wasn't right regardless and there weren't any excuses. I apologized very publicly, privately, and sought a counselor."

I'm glad Kerr recognized that his behavior -- as a 30-something adult at the time -- was unacceptable, and apologized for it. But his past adult behavior does make me question if he has the temperament and judgment needed by an elected official responsible for making decisions affecting thousands of children. It's also concerning that a person who admits to benefiting greatly from a diversity, equity and inclusion program states on his public candidate profile that one of the reasons he's running for the board is because of his belief in "diversity based on opinion and life experience over skin color."

It seems students don't deserve a chance to "fall in love" with other cultures the same way Kerr says he did.

The reality is that the impact and influence of school board elections goes far beyond just the children in that district. If the schools for the majority of children in this country are controlled by extremists or unhinged board members, it affects all of us.

Within a month, I'll again be part of the demographic that doesn't have children in local public schools. Both of our kids, who received 12 years of outstanding public school education, will be in college in the fall.

But I don't plan to miss a school board election ever again.

I've applied for many things -- jobs, fellowships, grants -- and waiting for a response is an agonizing, but normal, part of the process.

The wait for our son's college admission decisions, however, has turned out to be the longest and most frustrating one I've experienced. Now that the final decisions are less than a week away, I've been thinking about why it's been such a difficult period of time.

First of all, our son went into the college application process with very few strong preferences. This was the opposite of our daughter, who had a very clear idea of what she wanted to study and the type of school and setting she wanted. Keeping your options open means the process will take longer.

Secondly, our son didn't apply "early decision," in which students make a binding commitment to one school, submit their applications by November and receive answers in mid-December. That would have been a mercifully quick turnaround, but he made this call because financial aid will play a significant role in his decision, and also because he is still considering several schools.

This means that, even though our kid completed and submitted his applications in November, he won't hear back until April 1 from a few of these universities. Some of the decisions have trickled in already, but he will have to wait the full five months before he has all the information he needs to weigh his options.

I advised him to focus on enjoying the rest of his senior year as soon as he hit "submit" on his applications. He didn't have any control over the rest of the process, I reminded him; there was nothing to be gained from obsessing over any of it.

Put it out of your mind, I said.

Too bad I didn't take that great advice myself.

From a parent's perspective, my husband and I know that we will be making a substantial financial investment in the near future, but every aspect of the decision is out of our control. In the midst of so many unknowns, it feels like the weight of our child's future is hanging in the balance.

After 18 years of raising a kid, it's an abrupt shift -- letting go of the biggest decision of their life thus far. Accepting that you can't control whether your child gets into a particular college or receives any financial aid is a step toward accepting the upcoming greater loss of influence over their day-to-day life.

I was unprepared for how much pressure some colleges put on students for a commitment before they even know all their options. For example, an out-of-state public university begins its housing process, which requires an acceptance of the admissions offer and a deposit, in mid-March. That's before many other schools have sent their decisions. If a student waits until April to commit, will he or she miss out on campus housing? It's a risk, and no one can answer the question for sure.

The same university opens its orientation dates, which include registration for classes, in late March -- well before the alleged May 1 deadline to submit a deposit.

Selective colleges and universities are reporting another year of record-breaking applications, which means ever-lower admit rates. It's almost as if the process is designed to create confusion, anxiety and stress.

But now that decision day is looming closer, I've finally reached a place of zen. All the things I've been saying to my son all along are starting to sink into my own head: He has several good options already. He will succeed wherever he works hard and stays focused. He can have a great college experience in many different places. It's not where he goes, but what he makes of it.

Too bad it took me five months to get here.