Whereas Hoops Whereas Hoops

Noah talks to Larry Zarin, longtime St. Louisan, retired former Chief Marketing Officer at Express Scripts, and founder of “The Layup Line," the group that proved instrumental in fundraising and gathering support for the installation of basketball hoops in Forest Park. Thanks in large part to the efforts of Larry and the other members of "The Layup Line," the ground has been broken and hoops are on their way! The basketball facilities should open to the public sometime in Spring 2024. Noah and Larry talk about what the new facilities will look like, what sort of events might take place there, and the story of Nick Booker, the young St. Louisan in whose memory the courts will be dedicated.

Noah talks with Michael Allen, academic researcher, historian, teacher, design critic, public artist, critical spatial tour guide, and heritage conservationist. They discuss what the built environment can teach us, the controversy surrounding the removal of basketball hoops from St. Louis's Lafayette Park in 1997, and how hoops will signal a new era for Forest Park.

Noah and John talk with Nadia Jackson-Fitch, scholar and basketball fan, about researching race and basketball, the aesthetic beauty and political importance of Allen Iverson, and what the outcomes for basketball in Forest Park might look like in relation to surveillance.

John and Noah talk with Geoff Ward, scholar and director of the WashU & Slavery Project, about visual redress, commemorative memory work, the importance of recognizing difficult histories, basketball as graduate school coping mechanism, and encountering Forest Park as a father and a scholar.

John and Noah talk to Kevin McCoy, Work/Play artist and lifelong St. Louisan, about artistic practice, athletic resistance, racial profiling, the importance of uncomfortable conversations, and imagining a better basketball landscape for St. Louis.

Noah talks to Tom Oates, scholar and author of Football and manliness: An unauthorized feminist account of the NFL, about race, sports, and his latest project, which explores pick-up basketball.