Today, we sum up the past sports year with the annual list of Southern California sports stories that mattered. These aren’t all the biggest or most newsworthy (click-worthy?) stories of 2025 – although one particular L.A. team dominates the latter part of the year, as you might expect – because in the busiest and most diverse sports market in North America and maybe even the planet, it’s impossible to settle on 10 and include (or satisfy) everybody.
The goal here: To mix the stories everyone talked about with those that might be quieter or lower profile but, in this columnist’s eyes, no less impactful or worthy of attention. So, in roughly chronological order, here they are:
The fires: Southern Californians are used to being wary during fire season, but nothing like the infernos that ravaged Altadena and Pacific Palisades last January. It wasn’t a sports story but it had an effect on our games – a Rams home playoff game moved to Arizona, the Genesis Invitational golf tournament moved from Riviera Country Club to Torrey Pines, games rescheduled or canceled.
As UCLA women’s basketball coach Cori Close noted, the flexibility required resembled that of the COVID-19 pandemic – and yet, with fires raging so close to their campus, UCLA’s players found refuge in the gym.
Home office of college women’s hoops? The good people of Storrs, Conn., will have a legitimate argument, since their UConn Huskies defeated both USC and UCLA en route to another national championship. But the USC-UCLA rivalry was one of the sport’s big stories. USC (31-4) won the regular-season Big Ten championship by routing UCLA in Pauley Pavilion. The Bruins (34-3) responded by beating USC in the Big Ten tournament final in Indianapolis and reached the Final Four.
The devastating knee injury suffered by USC’s JuJu Watkins during an NCAA Tournament game against Mississippi State had an effect on not only last season but this one, but she’ll be back for her junior season in the fall of ’26. (And, oh, by the way, that rivalry between the Bruins (12-1, ranked No. 4) and the Women of Troy (10-3 and ranked 17th) resumes Saturday at Pauley Pavilion.
The Luka trade: Who knew that Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka could keep a secret this well? The trade that brought Luka Doncic from the Dallas Mavericks to the Lakers, completed late at night on Feb. 1 with Anthony Davis going to the Mavericks, came out of nowhere and shocked the NBA world – including ESPN’s Shams Charania, who was convinced his phone had been hacked when he first got the word.
The same with LeBron James, who said, “First time I heard it I thought it was for sure fake, a hoax,” and added that even after Davis called him to confirm “it still didn’t seem real.”
Sportsmanship: Have you, too, noticed that our athletes and sports figures consistently display the sort of sportsmanship that others in our society aren’t? A seminar co-sponsored by the Reagan Foundation Center on Civility and Democracy and the Rose Bowl Institute discussed ways to keep that trend going – and the leaders, USC alumnus Fred Ryan and former UCLA football player James Washington – set a good example.
House v. NCAA: The professionalization of college athletics is complete, after the settlement of the lawsuit filed by a group of college athletes created a mechanism by which universities can pay players directly, in addition to name-image-likeness (NIL) agreements. Let the bidding begin … and it didn’t take long for the new open market to begin affecting the transfer portal.
Rose Veldman: This was a story I felt compelled to write. As a 10-year-old in an orphanage in Haiti, Veldman lost both of her legs while trying to save a younger child in the chaos of a 7.0 earthquake. Long story short, she was adopted by a family in Indiana, and while trying to fit in in her new country she eventually took up golf – and can hit it further, and straighter, than many of us.
Meet the new boss: Dodgers owner Mark Walter and his group completed their purchase of controlling interest in the Lakers in June. That meant the two most popular teams in SoCal’s sports ecosystem were under one ownership, though Jeanie Buss would maintain her role as the team’s governor. The valuation was eventually estimated to be as much as $12 million, twice as much as the rival Boston Celtics had sold for less than three months earlier. I don’t think that was happenstance.
Kershaw Day: What turned out to be the final season of Clayton Kershaw’s almost certain Hall of Fame career had its first peak on July 2 when he became the 20th pitcher, and just the fourth lefty, to reach 3,000 career strikeouts. The ovations that night were as much a recognition of Kershaw’s place in Dodger history as they were celebrating his milestone.
They continued through the season, with fans maybe understanding these would be the final opportunities to salute him. The last season became official on Sept. 18 when Kershaw announced his retirement – ironically, just hours after Kings captain Anze Kopitar announced that this would be his last season – and those cheers would reach their crescendo during Kershaw’s last home start. There will be one last celebratory ovation, on Opening Day 2026, for a reason that will become apparent here in a bit.
Greatest performance ever: If you happened to be at Dodger Stadium on Oct. 17, or watching Game 4 of the National League Championship Series on TV … well, it’s probably shortchanging Shohei Ohtani’s feat to say you were sitting in on history. Three home runs, including a 469-foot tape measure shot, and 10 strikeouts and one hit allowed in six-plus pitching innings. More likely, you saw something you’ll never see again … unless Shohei does it.
And the best World Series ever? Anyone who witnessed the seven games of madness between the Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays has to include it in the mix, at least. And while the series as a whole had so many moments, including another memorable 18-inning marathon (and another Freddie Freeman walk-off homer) in Game 3, it came down to a Game 7 in which the Dodgers didn’t lead until the 11th inning, and produced, among other things:
• One of the most improbable home runs in World Series history, Miguel Rojas’ game-tying drive in the ninth, drawing this reaction from Dodgers and Fox broadcaster Joe Davis: “No way!”
• A true iron man act by Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who pitched six dominant innings and won Game 6, and then pitched the last 2⅔ innings of Game 7 on his way to World Series MVP honors.
• Andy Pages running over Kiké Hernández to record the final out of the ninth inning in left field, a scene that has since been immortalized on T-shirts and Christmas ornaments.
• Will Smith’s go-ahead home run in the top of the 11th, and the symmetry involved. More than four decades after Rick Monday’s NLCS home run beat the Montréal Expos, another Dodgers’ No. 16 denied Canada a championship.
• And, lastly, another defensive play that will be remembered for years: Mookie Betts’ grab of Alejandro Kirk’s broken-bat ground ball to start a game-winning, Series-winning, back-to-back championship-securing double play.
When Game 7 alone is worth five separate items … yeah, that’s difficult to top in the “best ever” category. Or, for that matter, the “dynasty” category.
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