a brother, and a son.

“The wheel in the sky keeps on turning!” Ezekiel 1:16, 2Kings 2:11-12

[Arizona Diamondbacks @Dbacks]

Luli wears the crown 👑

[NASA History Office @NASAhistory]

"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

President John F. Kennedy's speech at Rice University OTD in 1962 inspired the nation to take up an audacious goal to become the world's leader in space exploration.

[Arizona Diamondbacks @Dbacks]

We will #NeverForget.

[U.S. Department of the Interior @Interior]

Forty voices. Forty lives. A story of courage that will never be forgotten.

Standing 93 feet tall at Flight 93 National Memorial, the Tower of Voices holds 40 wind chimes, each representing one of the passengers and crew members of United Airlines Flight 93.

When the wind moves across the Pennsylvania landscape, their voices continue to ring. We remember their courage. We remember their sacrifice. We remember the 40 lives lost 25 years ago.

[NASA Moon Base @NASAMoonBase]

No aim too high. No journey too far. No terrain too challenging.

We’re going back to the Moon. This time, to stay.

[a brother, and a son. @BronYrAurMatt]

@barstoolsports A lot of loser comments here

[a brother, and a son. @BronYrAurMatt]

@WhiteHouse Nah the flappy bird one is messed up after what happened.

[a brother, and a son. @BronYrAurMatt]

@BoandBubba @MLB What’s wrong with patriotism?

[a brother, and a son. @BronYrAurMatt]

@BigLeagueDigest Stupid

[Arizona Football @ArizonaFBall]

𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙣 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 🗣️

[Baseball Quotes @BaseballQuotes1]

Man this is what it’s all about 🥹

[NASA Mars @NASAMars]

It happened again! Here's Phobos passing in front of the Sun as seen from the surface of Mars by the Perseverance rover on Aug. 12. https://t.co/Rb20GF3qkZ

[NASA Solar System @NASASolarSystem]

The Moon blocked out the Sun on Aug. 12 — and we watched from the ground, the air, and space.

NASA researchers and photographers followed the total solar eclipse across Iceland and Spain to study the corona and how the eclipse shaped Earth. 🌑

https://t.co/9xLC14gdWz

[the Sports ON Tap @thesportsontap]

In 2003, the most hated team in the NBA did the kindest thing anyone has ever done on a basketball court.

April 25, 2003. Rose Garden, Portland. Game 3 of the first round against Dallas. The Blazers are down 2-0 and facing elimination from the moment they wake up.

That Blazers team had a nickname. The Jail Blazers.

They were, at the time, maybe the least likable team in professional sports. Arrests. Suspensions. A roster full of guys the national media treated as villains. Portland fans were exhausted by them.

Before the game, a 13 year old girl named Natalie Gilbert walks to center court to sing the national anthem in front of 19,980 people.

What nobody in the building knew is that she was sick. She had the flu. She later said she just didn't feel like herself at all that day.

She gets a few lines in.

And then her brain goes blank.

She sings "star's last gleaming" instead of "twilight's last gleaming," realizes it instantly, and stops. She looks around. She puts her hand to her face.

Thirteen years old. Twenty thousand people. National television. Frozen.

There is no worse feeling available to a human being.

And then a man walks out of the Portland huddle.

Maurice Cheeks, the head coach, minutes away from a playoff elimination game, leaves his team, walks across the floor, puts his arm around her shoulder and says, "C'mon."

Then he starts singing with her.

Now understand something. Maurice Cheeks cannot sing. At all. He is not remotely trying to rescue the performance.

He's just refusing to let a kid stand there alone.

He keeps his arm around her the whole way. He feeds her the next words. And within a few seconds, all 19,980 people in that building stand up and sing it with them.

A moment that was going to define a little girl's life in the worst possible way became the exact opposite.

Dan Patrick wrote at the time that Cheeks' simple actions had become the defining moment of the entire playoffs.

They went on Jay Leno together. CNN. Good Morning America. It became one of the first truly viral NBA moments, years before that word meant anything.

Portland lost the game. They lost the series. Cheeks finished his Blazers tenure with a fairly ordinary record and was eventually let go.

Now here's the ending.

In March 2025, almost 22 years later, Maurice Cheeks came back to Portland as an assistant coach with the New York Knicks.

The Blazers found Natalie Gilbert.

She's 35 now. Married. Goes by Natalie Zito. She's also, as it turns out, a Blazers season ticket holder.

They brought her back to sing the anthem again.

She nailed it. The whole building erupted. And the camera cut to Cheeks on the sideline, beaming like a proud father.

The two of them met before the game and hugged.

What she said afterward is why this story matters. She explained that she'd been made fun of a lot as a kid, and that in the moment she felt most helpless and hopeless, a stranger walked right over with no hesitation.

"This moment changed my life."

And then she said something even better. That she wouldn't go back and change any of it. That seeing him again and finding out he's still the same standup guy proved it was all real.

Twenty two years. One arm around a shoulder.

Follow @thesportsontap, we post a story like this every day.

[NASA Mars @NASAMars]

In its 14 years on Mars, the Curiosity rover has taken more than 700,000 images, but this one is special – because it was one of the first.

Happy landiversary, Curiosity!

[Phoenix Suns @Suns]

Buzzer beaters, shifty moves, tough buckets, franchise records and more 😤

Collin Gillespie's season was a true testament of the work he's put in and he's just getting started 🗣️

[Juan Serrano @Serrano_Sports]

Jared Tevis days until Arizona Football

[NASA @NASA]

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon.

[Arizona Diamondbacks @Dbacks]

All-Star E-Rod has a nice ring to it 🛎️