On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss

Vanderbilt University communication studies professor John Sloop joins the show to discuss his new book, “Soccer’s Neoliberal Pitch: The Sport’s Power, Profit and Discursive Politics.” Sloop examines soccer as the game intersects with gender, race, sexuality, and class worldwide. The result of this engagement is a sense of both enormous possibility and real constraint. If American soccer offers mo...

Former Vanderbilt basketball star and coach Jan van Breda Kolff joins the show to discuss his playing and coaching career and the theme of “what I know now that I wish I knew then."

Authors Frye Gaillard and Pat Toomay join On the Ball to discuss their new book, “A Word on Words: The Best of John Seigenthaler’s Interviews.” The book includes transcripts of some of Seigenthaler’s more than 900 televised interviews with acclaimed authors from a variety of genres. Our discussion focuses on the selection of sports books curated for this collection, including books on Grantland Ri...

Author Jules Boykoff joins On The Ball to discuss his new book, “The 1936 Berlin Olympics: Race, Power, and Sportswashing.

Andrea Williams, author of Baseball’s Leading Lady: Effa Manley and the Rise and Fall of the Negro Leagues,” joins us on the eve of Major League Baseball’s Jackie Robinson celebrations to discuss a variety of issues related to African Americans in baseball, past and present.

Shan Foster is the all-time leading scorer in Vanderbilt men’s basketball history and was the SEC Player of the Year. But he’s done his most impressive work off the court, educating men and boys on violence against women and founding a business to perform diversity, equity, and inclusion work for companies across the country. Shan joins us to discuss his journey from ballplayer to community and bu...

We are joined by Ken Reed, sports policy director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan, which is out in paperback with a new introduction. Ken discusses everything from CTE to the professionalization and specialization of youth sports to the economics of sports (and more), and encourages Americans to engage in citizenship through sports activism.

University of New Mexico cross country star Ali Upshaw joined the show to discuss her Navajo heritage, using her platform to raise awareness of Orange Shirt Day (to recognize the abuses and legacy of Indian boarding schools), and her advice to other student-athletes on speaking out for social causes.

Jane McManus, executive director of the Center for Sports Media at Seton Hall University and formerly of ESPN, joined the show to discuss her recent Deadspin column on sports betting and addiction. We also talked about coverage of women’s sports and her recent discussion with Billie Jean King.

Lou Moore, Professor of African American History and Sports History at Grand Valley State University, joins On The Ball to discuss Jalen Hurts, Patrick Mahomes, and the history of the Black quarterback in the NFL.

New Vanderbilt women’s volleyball coach Anders Nelson joins “On the Ball” to talk about building a new program from scratch, his Wisconsin roots, and his experience coming out as a gay athlete and coach.

Charles Davis, one of CBS Sports’ lead NFL broadcasters, joined On the Ball to talk about his experience as the color commentating voice of the insanely popular Madden video game series and give us a behind the scenes look at how the voiceovers are done

Kent Washington joined On The Ball to discuss his unique experience as the first American to play professional basketball behind the Iron Curtain. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Washington played pro ball in Poland, learning the language, feeling as though he had “become Polish,” and enduring the days of Martial Law during the Solidarity protests and social revolution.

Tyler Kepner of the New York Times joined us to talk about the social significance of the World Series and his favorite anecdotes from his new book, “The Grandest Stage: A History of the World Series.” The Vanderbilt alum also talks about his earliest baseball memories and his days as a kid sports writer, and shows off his ability to name the starting pitchers in every World Series game since 1979...

Greg Bishop of Sports Illustrated joined On The Ball to share his thoughts on the death of his friend and colleague Grant Wahl, and to tell us about his own experiences covering the World Cup in Qatar.

In the first edition of "On the Ball," Vanderbilt Sports & Society's new video interview series, Sally Jenkins and David Maraniss of the Washington Post discuss their feature on Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones that inspired a national debate.