Dear Adam Silver

New York Times Best selling author Andrew Maraniss is back on the pod to discuss his newest book, just out on March 2 (!!!!), entitled Singled Out: The True Story of Glenn Burke. The book is about Glenn Burke, the first openly gay MLB Player and the inventor of the high five. This is an incredible and devastating story and couldn’t be more timely, as Democrats in the House of Representatives just...

Kirk Goldsberry joins the pod to discuss cartography, NBA Stats and how he has combined the two to make (stunning!) graphics that reflect recent NBA trends and the history of basketball. Kirk is a Lecturer in Management and the Associate Director of the Center for Leadership and Ethics at the University of Texas at Austin as well as a staff writer at ESPN . What I love about Kirk's work is that he...

Author Andrew Maraniss joins the show to discuss his book Games of Deception, which focuses on the first Olympics where basketball was included as a sport (for men only). These were the 1936 olympic games played in the heart of Nazi Germany during the regime's ascension. The games were used as a way for the Nazi's to show off and receive some validation from other world powers and individuals. And...

Douglas Hartmann, Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota, is back on the show today to discuss his book Race, Culture and the Revolt of the Black Athlete: The 1968 Olympic Protests and Their Aftermath. This book encompasses the time leading up to the protests during which the Olympic Project for Human Rights, led by Professor of Sociology Harry Edwards, was attempting to organize a...

Back in February of 2020, I was a project based resident at Lawrence Arts Center and spent two and a half weeks researching the history and current state of basketball in Lawrence, KS. The history of the game runs deep in this college town as James Naismith, the inventor of the game, was the first basketball coach at the University Kansas (KU) and worked with many people in the town and region on...

Returning guests and Professors of Sociology (aka The Profs) Stephen Suh , Alex Manning and Kyle Green are back on the show to discuss recent sports news that has been on our minds. We speak about the financial impact of the pandemic on local sports teams, MLB's recent decision to recognize the statistics of the Negro Leagues as major league and breaking as an olympic sports and much more....thank...

Tucson local Zoe Lambert is on the podcast today to discuss her documentary titled Adia, which focuses on the recent history of the University of Arizona women's basketball program and is named for the head coach of the women's basketball team, Adia Barnes. Zoe and I discuss the initial idea for this documentary, how it evolved over time and some of her favorite parts. The documentary will be stre...

As many of you already know, this election cycle I was a volunteer for Mission for Arizona, the democratic coordinated campaign for Mark Kelly and the Biden/Harris ticket that helped to flip AZ from red to blue for the first time in many decades! And today on the pod I am joined by two of the organizers from the campaign, Carly Berke and Ben Horowitz , who dedicated the past year of their life to...

Eric Nusbaum , author of  the recently published Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between, joins the show to share about  researching and writing this book and his personal fandom of the Dodgers.  The book focuses on the story of the Aréchiga family, who were forced out of their home and off their property by the city, like many other families living...

Jessica Luther and Kavitha Davidson join the show to discuss their recently published book Loving Sports When They Don't Love You back: Dilemmas of the Modern Fan . Luther is a freelance journalist, Davidson is a sports writer for The Athletic and they are both dedicated sports fans. This book is an incredible collection of perspectives and stories for dedicated fans who believe in the ability of...

Professor Douglas Hartmann teaches sociology at the University of Minnesota and is on the show to discuss his book Midnight Basketball, which takes a deep, detailed look into the social initiative known as Midnight Basketball, developed in the late 1980s . In this episode, we unpack the racism that was built into this program, which targeted young adult African-American men who were living in larg...

St. Louis based writer and long time (and first!) friend of the pod Brian Tran is back on the show to discuss his championship winning LA sport teams, the magic of baseball and our concerns and hopes for the election.  Thank you all for listening! Please share, rate, and leave a review! And vote! 

Lori Powers is a Los Angeles based artist that works with found objects collected from neighborhoods near her home to create characters that she installs on the streets where she momentarily impacts drivers to get out of their heads and into their heart while passing through her neighborhood. A passionate, senior, gold winning basketball player she lives for the day she can get back on the court w...

A Dear Adam Silver first! Live poetry on the show! Thank you to the writer and poets Cortney Lamar Charleston , Caroline Cabrera and Zain Aslam for coming on the pod to share their poems that were recently featured in Ballerz 2K20, a team of basketball poems edited by P. Scott Cunningham of O, Miami . These three poems are wonderfully rich and add to our collective understanding and narratives aro...

P. Scott Cunningham is a poet and essayist originally from Boca Raton, FL, now based in Miami.  He is the author of Ya Te Veo ,  selected by Billy Collins for the Miller Williams Poetry Series. Scott is a graduate of Wesleyan University and is the founder and director of O, Miami , a non-profit organization that celebrates Miami, FL through the lens of poetry. I found out about his work...

Born in El Paso, TX, Ivan Salcido is a Mexican-American artist living and working in Portland, OR. He draws on personal experience, family history and an interest in Mesoamerican mythology for inspiration. His practice covers various skills and media, with formal training in fine art, carpentry and metalwork, including sculpture, drawing, and painting and the use of steel, wood and neon. His new w...

H-O-R-S-E, a Comedy by Kathleen Cahill featuring Peter Story and Elisabeth Nunziato. 

Bradley Robert Ward is back on the pod (listen to Episode 21 for our previous conversation about bball and some of his older work!!) to discuss his research and new work about the Negro Leagues and his own relationship with baseball, as a fan, former player and image maker. Our conversation was timely for many reasons, one of them being that the 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson signing with the...

Professor's of Sociology Kyle Green and Alex Manning, at SUNY Brockport and Hamilton College respectively, are back on the pod to discuss the last few days in the world of sports.  Please keep in mind that this discussion was recorded on the evening of Thursday, August 27.   You can follow Alex Manning on twitter here for discussion on the crossover between sports and sociology,  an...

Seattle based Art Director Dwayne Mansfield is on the show today to discuss his new and evolving brand Hoops and Horticulture and the concept behind his handmade basketball planters. His dedication to exploring the idea of growth through basketball and plants is at the crux of this work.  Follow Hoops and Horticulture on Instagram here and please check out his Etsy store and support his work...

Ciara Ingram a Videographer and Editor at SLAM magazine. She focuses on using filmmaking to capture life through the lens of the arts, music, and basketball culture. In this conversation, we discuss her beginnings in basketball, her time playing in college, and how she has used the game in a creative way to launch her career as an artist.  If you are interested in checking out Ciara's work, i...

New Orleans based artist Abdi Farah is back on the show to discuss many things including the highs of bubble basketball, the lows of sideline interviews and how it all relates to current happenings around the rest of the country.  As a note, we recorded this episode before it was announced that the Big Ten and the Pac-12 will be postponing their fall athletic season.  You can view and le...

Professors Kyle Green, Stephen Cho Suh and Alex Manning are on the pod to discuss their collectively written paper entitled Discursive Footwork on the Hardwood .  This piece of writing focuses on four NBA players speaking out on the topics of cultural appropriation and both systemic and individual acts of racism through essays published on The Player's Tribune. The paper unpacks the possibili...

We all remember when Laura Ingraham told Lebron and KD to "Shut up and dribble." Her words, infused with racism and hate, were meant to keep two African-American men from speaking out on issues they care about, beyond their sport.  The Speak Up and Dribble movement is a direct response to those racist comments as well as the ongoing protests against police brutality and in support of Black Li...

Kyle Depew is an activist,  the owner of Brooklyn Film Camera, a wonderful photographer and a dear friend from my time living in New York City. Kyle and I first met when we worked together at The Impossible Project, which is a company that made new film for vintage Polaroid cameras (now known as Polaroid). After we both left Impossible, Kyle started his own company and shop called Brooklyn Fi...