‘Nightcaps’ is a daily column that catches you up on the biggest sports, news and culture stories you may have missed while pretending to do work at your desk. It runs Monday-Friday on OutKick.com.
I’m not a person who gets starstruck.
Maybe it’s the line of work I’m in. Since college, I’ve spent my entire career working with professional athletes, including some of the biggest names in MLB and the NFL. And working in sports, I’ve crossed paths with countless other celebrities, too — actors, musicians, TV personalities.
I don’t say that as some sort of not-so-humble brag. It’s just a fact that even the biggest stars on the planet are still people, and none of them have ever really blown me away in real life.
Except one: Dolly Parton.
Back in 2016, devastating wildfires ripped through Gatlinburg, Tenn., burning more than 17,900 acres, damaging or destroying roughly 2,400 structures and killing 14 people.
In addition to donating her own money, Dolly established the My People Fund, which ultimately provided millions of dollars directly to families who lost their homes in the disaster. I ran social media for the Titans at the time, and a few of our players volunteered to answer phones during Dolly’s telethon to help raise money for the victims.
I’ll never forget walking into that studio and immediately being greeted by the blondest, biggest hair and the sparkliest rhinestones I’d ever seen.
“Thanks for coming,” she said with a huge smile. “I’m Dolly!”
Folks, I could not breathe.
I could not believe this living legend was standing right in front of me, reaching out to shake my hand. How could someone so tiny be so… larger than life?
They say never to meet your heroes, but that wasn’t true with Dolly. She couldn’t have been kinder or more genuine. Everything I imagined her to be.
And the wildfire relief was just the tip of the iceberg for a woman who seemed to pour everything she had into the people and places she cared about.
Through the Dollywood Foundation, she created Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which has mailed hundreds of millions of free books to young children around the world. She funded scholarships for local students, helped provide tuition assistance for Dollywood employees and donated millions of dollars to medical research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
That generosity wasn’t some side project attached to her celebrity. It was part of who she was.
In the video announcing her death Tuesday, Dolly’s nephew Bryan Seaver said, “She never saw a door she couldn’t open, and the doors she opened made and changed history.”
We can learn a lot from Dolly — how to treat our fellow human beings, how to show up for our communities and how to be so unapologetically true to ourselves that we don’t give a damn what anyone has to say about it.
Dolly’s music will live forever. But her legacy is so much bigger than the songs.
It’s in the kids who learned to love reading because a book showed up in their mailbox. It’s in the families who had somewhere to turn after losing everything. It’s in the people she helped simply because she could.
And, selfishly, it’ll always be in the memory of one dumbstruck 27-year-old standing in a television studio, temporarily forgetting how to breathe because Dolly Parton smiled, reached out her hand and said, “I’m Dolly.”
What a gift she was.
We’ve made it, folks — the weekend you’ve all been waiting for.
You’ve had it in your calendars all year, you’ve sat around all summer desperately yearning for it to get here, counting the days and weeks as they slowly ticked by. And finally it’s here.
The Bassmaster Elite at St. Lawrence River.
You thought I was going to say college football, didn’t you? Well that, too! After a summer full of nauseating WNBA drama, that UNC-TCU kickoff in Dublin is gonna hit like crack. (As they say. I’ve never tried it.)
But I am very pumped about this fishing tournament, too. You may have noticed — as a part of our spiffy new rebrand — OutKick OutDoors is now an official arm of our website. And the St. Lawrence will be our first major event.
After the tournament, we’ll be in a boat for the Randy Moss Pro-Am, where a bunch of Pro Football Hall of Famers will take on the top bass anglers in the country. It’s going to be a hoot.
So make sure you’re following us on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, and don’t miss out, OK?!
Now that we have that out of the way, it’s time to see what the internet is up to today. Grab your favorite cold beverage and settle in for your Tuesday ‘Cap.
Look, I know Bobby wrote about this yesterday and it was a hot topic in our newsletter this morning. But I just cannot get over how expensive NFL Sunday Ticket is these days. $480! And for what?
I’ve had Sunday Ticket for years. I’m a Miami Dolphins fan (womp, womp), and — aside from illegal streams that would almost certainly fill my laptop with viruses — Sunday Ticket used to be the only way I could watch every Phins snap from my house in Middle Tennessee.
But this year, my husband and I had pretty much decided we weren’t going to renew it.
So imagine our surprise when that $480 renewal fee hit the ol’ bank account in EARLY JULY. YouTubeTV pulled a fast one, alright — slapping us with the auto-renewal a full two months before the season even starts.
Dirty.
So here I am again. Paying damn near $500 to watch my crappy football team play crappy football.
At least I won’t have to deal with this dude anymore.
This sort of stuff was endearing when we were putting up 70 points on the Broncos. It got really old after Tua’s 37th concussion.
Oh well, your problem now, Justin Herbert.
Who is Olivia Jade?
Thank you for asking. Olivia Jade is an influencer (because that’s a job in the Year of our Lord 2026), but she’s also Lori Loughlin’s daughter.
Aunt Becky Jr., if you will.
She looks just like her, too.
The daughter who went to USC thanks to that big college admissions scandal?!
That very same one.
Anyway, she’s bounced back and is now dating tennis star Taylor Fritz. But reps say they’re just “taking things slow.” Whatever that means in celebrity-speak.
Listen, summer is winding down (don’t tell Joe Kinsey I said that), and love is in the air. We’ve got all these NFL WAGs petting their husbands and boyfriends at training camp. We’ve got golfer Wyndham Clark and Emily Tanner moving in together. We’ve got Bryson DeChambeau hard launching with Mikayla Demaiter.
And now Taylor and Olivia.
Cuffing season is right around the corner, single folks. Get on it.
📩 Email: amber.harding@outkick.com (Send your thoughts, stories, tips, rants and photos of your dog.)
🐦 Twitter/X: @TheAmberHarding
📸 Instagram: @amberharding
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No mailbag or funny dog videos this time, kids.
I think the only appropriate way to end our Nightcaps today is by honoring the Queen of Tennessee herself.
Fly high, Dolly. There’ll never be another one like you.
