SportsLit

Neil Acharya & Neate Sager
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SportsLit

Join journalists Neil Acharya & Neate Sager as they explore the latest sports books through conversation with the authors and athletes.

  1. 2 DAYS AGO

    SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 19) - Mirin Fader (Sr. Writer - The Ringer ) - Dream: The Life and Legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon

    Hakeem Olajuwon left Lagos, Nigeria in 1980 and barely a year after taking up basketball, he blossomed into the game’s first international star in Houston, first collegiately with the Cougars and then with the NBA’s Rockets.  In an 18-season career he was a nine-time NBA all-star and two-time league champion.  He played his last season with the Toronto Raptors.  Olajuwon was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013 and is a member of the NBA's 75th anniversary team. In “Dream: The Life and Legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon,” biographer Mirin Fader draws on some 250 interviews to present a silent sports star who experienced a religious metamorphosis.  A fiery competitor who led by example in all aspects of his life, paying it forward with teammates and current NBA stars through the type of mentorship he benefited from early in his career.  She also utilizes her extensive research to debunk myths surrounding Hakeem’s life and career. Fader is a senior writer with The Ringer. Her début book, “Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an NBA MVP,” reached The New York Times best-seller list.

    1h 4m

  2. DEC 2

    SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 18) - Ed Willes (Regina Leader-Post, The Province) - Never Boring: The Up and Down History of the Vancouver Canucks

    Every hockey fan knows how it always ends for the Vancouver Canucks — no Stanley Cup — but Ed Willes digs in the corners to poke at the why, with a wry perspective. The veteran journalist (Regina Leader-Post, The Province) presents a case study, with novelistic detail, about the West Coast NHL franchise. Weaving a thread — one of instability at the top — through the history (and prehistory) of the team, Willes explains why the Canucks have fallen short of winning the Stanley Cup, but have never been boring across five-plus decades of torment. Relying on firsthand research and contemporary accounts from fellow Vancouver sports journalists, Willes provides painstaking details about the life-arcs of stars such as Henrik Sedin, Daniel Sedin, Pavel Bure, Markus Näslund, and Todd Bertuzzi. The author also playfully teases out the franchise’s many what-ifs. Willes is also author of “The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association” (2005) and “End Zones and Border Wars: The Era of American Expansion in the CFL” (2013).

    1h 10m

  3. NOV 21

    SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 17) - Atiba Hutchinson (Captain - Canadian Men's National Team - FIFA 2022 World Cup) - The Beautiful Dream

    Atiba Hutchinson finally has space to contemplate the inner strength it takes to chase goals that were often, and understandably, hard to define. In “The Beautiful Dream,” the retired captain of the Canadian men’s national soccer team (CMNT) lets fans and readers in on a footballer’s journey. Now retired as a player, Hutchinson delves into his early life as a first-generation Canadian growing up in Brampton, Ont. in the 1980s, and ’90s and how he navigated the uncertain path to professional success in Europe during the days when a true domestic league hardly existed. That perseverance led to a 20-season pro career that included championships, adulation, and celebrity outside Canada. And, after several frustrating World Cup cycles, Hutchinson was the 39-year-old captain when Canada broke through to qualify for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. Hutchinson joined us from his home in Turkey to discuss his life story. He joins Dwayne De Rosario as the second CMNT alumnus to appear on SportsLit.

    53 min

  4. NOV 7

    SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 16) - Jason Kirk (Sr. Editor - Newsletters - The Athletic) - Hell Is a World Without You

    In his début novel, sports journalist Jason Kirk gives readers a rigorous and referentially tight portrait of growing up in an evangelical world. “Hell Is a World Without You” plunges readers into the world of early-2000s teen Isaac Siena Jr., his youth group friends, widowed mother Katherine, and intense big brother Eli. Its themes delve through faith, the lingering effects of being raised with “constant fear of hell, and shame, and damnation,” and being in a world where “youth pastors dress like Stifler.” Kirk, who calls himself a “lazy Christian pantheist,” is a senior editor at The Athletic and part of the long-running Shutdown Fullcast (“the internet’s only college football podcast.”). An Atlanta native, he and his wife Emily Kirk have also had a pod called Vacation Bible School.

    1h 24m

  5. SEPT 29

    SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 15) - Mike Keenan (Stanley Cup winning coach - New York Rangers 1994 ) - Iron Mike: My Life Behind the Bench

    Mike Keenan is a madman. Mike Keenan has a method. All things considered, both descriptions are part and parcel of a coaching career in which he angered many, and accomplished a great deal. 30 years ago he won the Stanley Cup and then abruptly parted with the New York Rangers, the team he led to the title. Iron Mike addresses career defining events such as this and covers much more in his life’s journey through hockey. The 1985 Jack Adams Award winner (NHL Coach of the Year) joined SportsLit to discuss his exploits behind the bench, the front office, and off the ice. If he was do it all again, would he do it any differently?  Find out.

    52 min

  6. SEPT 15

    SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 14) - Melissa Ludtke (Groundbreaking Journalist ) - Locker Room Talk

    Relying on a near half-century of deep research and reflection, Melissa Ludtke recounts her landmark federal case in “Locker Room Talk.” In 1977 and ’78, as a Sports Illustrated reporter, Ludtke was the winning plaintiff in Ludtke v. Kuhn, a U.S. federal case that Time Inc. and lawyer Fritz Schwarz Jr. brought against Major League Baseball. In the courtroom, Justice Constance Baker Motley — a civil rights icon  — found that MLB commissioner Bowie Kuhn had violated Kuhn’s constitutional rights by denying her the same access the male reporters had at Yankee Stadium during the ’77 World Series. Neither the legal win nor the affray in the court of public opinion came easily. But within a decade, Ludtke notes, the ranks of female sports journalists had increased enough to start AWSM (Association of Women in Sports Media). Ludtke, a former TIME magazine correspondent, has also worked at Nieman Labs. She lives in Massachusetts and writes the Let’s Row Together newsletter on Substack.

    2h 9m

  7. JUL 22

    SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 13) - Michael Cochrane (Partner - BT Legal) - Olympic Lyon: The Untold Story of the First Gold Medal of Golf

    Michael Cochrane found an artifact of early Canadian golf great George S. Lyon hiding in plain sight one day — and set to bring him to life on the page, and on the links. In “Olympic Lyon: The Untold Story of the First Gold Medal for Golf,” Cochrane digs deep to tell the story of the Toronto insurance salesman who captured Olympic glory in the early 20th century, to the delight of fans in the young nation of Canada. Lyon never got to defend his title, or congratulate his successor. But through deep research honed over decades as a lawyer, and a keen understanding of golf’s appeal the world over, Cochrane may have readers feel like they’re in George’s gallery following him around the course. A resident of Burlington, Ont., Michael Cochrane is a partner at Brauti Thorning LLP in Toronto. He hosted the program “Strictly Legal” on Business News Network (BNN). He has penned two other novels, and also has made two holes in one.

    1h 7m

  8. JUL 16

    SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 12) - Jerry Grillo (Journalist) - Big Cat: The Life of Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Mize

    Johnny Mize, a top home-run hitter in a turbulent time for baseball and North America, never got a complete biography in his lifetime.  Author Jerry Grillo, who lives in the same region of rural Georgia where Mize hailed from, has remedied that by examining Mize’s baseball life and his effect on the sport. Mize (1913-1993, inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981) played in the majors during an era marked and marred by segregation, the Great Depression, and the Second World War. The lefty-hitting slugging first baseman won four league home run titles, still has some unmatched batting feats, and shares the record for most career three-home run games. And he was almost forgotten by the keepers of baseball history.  Grillo began researching a Mize bio in 2000. It is his second book, following, “The Music and Mythocracy of Col. Bruce Hampton: A Basically True Biography.”

    1h 26m
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5
out of 5
24 Ratings

About

Join journalists Neil Acharya & Neate Sager as they explore the latest sports books through conversation with the authors and athletes.

Information

  • Creator
    Neil Acharya & Neate Sager
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2024
  • Episodes
    83
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2017. All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    SportsLit

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