SportsLit

Dec 23 2024 83 ep. 66 mins 130

SportsLit Podcast artwork

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

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

Dec 23 2024 63 mins

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 indu

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

Dec 01 2024 69 mins

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

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

Nov 20 2024 52 mins

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-generati

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

Nov 06 2024 84 mins

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 o

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

Sep 29 2024 51 mins

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

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

Sep 15 2024 129 mins

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

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

Jul 21 2024 67 mins

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 delig

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

Jul 15 2024 86 mins

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 i

SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 11) - Tiffany Brown, Erin Strout, Katie Steele - The Price She Pays

Jul 11 2024 66 mins

New investment and enthusiasm are pouring into women’s sports. In “The Price She Pays: Confronting the Hidden Mental Health Crisis in Women’s Sports— from the Schoolyard to the Stadium,” lead authors Dr. Tiffany Brown and Katie Steele call for changes to the athletic hierarchy women compete under. As lead authors, along with co-author Erin Strout, they propose that the ex

SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 10) - Madeleine Orr (Asst. Prof., U of T) - Warming Up

Jun 26 2024 77 mins

Sport ecologist Dr. Madeleine Orr is pitching a ‘green game plan’ for sports fans. In “Warming Up,” Orr pairs her academic curiosity and storytelling to stir optimism (or “hopeium”) about using the power of sport to explain climate adaptation. The University of Toronto professor’s début book reminds readers sports are a bigger social connector than politics, arts, an