Podcasts about Naismith

  A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Hosts Miko Lee & Guest Host Mia Nakano celebrate Bayanihan in Ballhalla. Bayanihan is a core Filipino cultural value of community unity, and Balhalla is the home arena of the Golden State Valkyries. Apex Express was invited to join Filipino Heritage Night at the Valkyries game. We speak with the community behind this cultural celebration. That includes Al Perez, artists Venazir Martinez and Kristian Kabuay, and coach Carolyn Sideco about the history of Philippines and basketball. Links for more information: More information on our guests: Golden State Valkyries Al Perez, President of the Filipino American Arts Exposition Artist Venazir Martinez DJ P-LO Cultural Practitioner Kristian Kabuay Carolyn Sideco Coaching Kapwa Raquel Redondiez SOMA Pilpinas     Show Transcript: [00:00:00] Opening: Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express. [00:01:13] Miko Lee: Welcome to Apex Express. I'm your host, Miko Lee, and tonight is Bayanihan in Ballhalla. Bayanihan is a core Filipino cultural value of community unity, and Balhalla is the home arena of the Golden State Valkyries. Apex Express was invited to join Filipino Heritage Night at the Valkyries game. Tonight, please join me and my guest host, Mia Nakano, as we speak with the community behind this cultural celebration. That includes Al Perez, artists Venazir Martinez and Kristian Kabuay, and coach Carolyn Sideco about the history of Philippines and basketball. Join us. Today I have the honor of having my bestie with me who's gonna co-host Welcome to Apex, Mia Nakano.  [00:01:59] Mia Nakano: Hi, Miko. Thank you for having me.  [00:02:01] Miko Lee: I was invited to a Valkyries game, and I said, “Oh, my gosh, I need somebody with me that can speak basketball.” And so I thought of you.  [00:02:10] Mia Nakano: And here we are. And the Valkyries do put on a show. That's one of the things that makes them so great.  [00:02:15] Miko Lee: Yeah, it was super fun. It was Filipino Heritage Night, and so we got a chance to talk with the different artists that are there, what is the night about, what's the cultural celebration. What were some of the things that stood out to you?  [00:02:28] Mia Nakano: I think that it really got to the roots of, one, what a great sports city San Francisco and then just the broader Bay Area is, and two, the deep connections to the Filipino community that exists within the Bay Area. When you look at how historically the Warriors really came up and the fan shots from when they were at Oracle Arena, the huge fan base that was there initially was the Filipino community. To see that translate in a very different way as the Valkyries are coming up in the WNBA as this incredible team, second year, on their way to probably making the playoffs for the second year in a row, bringing that community back, particularly with all the connections of the artists, the activations, and even the food that they have in Chase Arena brings it full circle. [00:03:26] Miko Lee: Having Natalie Nakase as the coach there is so powerful and important representation for Asian Americans as well. The other thing that stood out to me was I did not know there was this history of basketball in the Philippines, and then to talk to the different guests on our show tonight about what that history represents, where it comes from, the connection to colonization, and then also how it's really developed into its own cultural phenomena in the Philippines. [00:03:55] Mia Nakano: I played basketball- All throughout junior high and high school and was very immersed in it in Southern California, but I had no idea that basketball was the national sport of the Philippines. After we came back from the game, I did a little a bit of a deep dive, and it was really wonderful to see that it actually started in the Philippines as a women's sport? And it was making sports more accessible to folks, and also very clearly connected to,, roots of colonization and religion. But to still have that anchor and connection there, and then this interesting juxtaposition where right now there has still never been a Filipina player in the WNBA. There are folks who people really thought were almost gonna make it. So there's still that one last phase that they need to break into this sport that is their national sport, but in the United States they're not quite there yet in terms of representation.  [00:04:55] Miko Lee: And talking with Coach Caroline, which people can hear later in the episode, about that history and how it was intended to be this women's sport in the Philippines because it was easier. They thought they'd give it to the women to play. But the men were watching going like, “Oh, this looks fun. This looks more fun than baseball. So it really just took off. I love that transition for that it went and across the country. A few of our guests talked about tenement basketball courts. It's just so wildly different from this country.  [00:05:25] Mia Nakano: I think that that is contextually just how sports are played in a lot of different countries in the world where they don't have access. When you think about people playing football, right, like soccer, in different areas where they are playing barefoot. They are playing in dirt or, like, fields that are not necessarily fields. I think that in the context of playing basketball differently in the Philippines versus the United States or even in European leagues, when the United States goes to play in the Olympics, even though you have the USA women's team, USA men's teams who are supposed to be the best of the best in the world, the way that the game is played at that particular level and arena is quite different. And so they all have to adjust to the physicality, to how calls are called just slightly differently. With smaller players in the WNBA what I find really incredible, and this is what Carolyn talks about a little bit, is like the layup packages? When you get close to the rim, you don't have a Filipino who just goes up and makes a regular layup. They do it with flair, right? There's a part of that maybe is a little bit of showmanship, but also it's a part of trying to sneak your way around bigger players so that you can get the basket. And anybody that you play against, even in a league that is familiar to you, you're gonna have to change your game up, and play to your strength, and also just know what you can't do in the game, and go to another person who has more of those strengths  [00:07:03] Miko Lee: One of the other things that stood out to me in talking with one of the artists, Christian, who was there in the outside, in the cultural area, and he was doing, pre-Filipino writing with folks, and we'll interview him later in the episode. He was saying how he does this activity at a lot of different games, but it was very different. That was the first time at the Valkyries, and he said the crowd was so different, that it felt like back in the day. It felt like community. There weren't tech bros. You feel like it, The audience was way more women, As someone that goes to Warriors' and Valkyries' games, do you notice a difference in the audience?    [00:07:41] Mia Nakano: The first Valkyries game that I had the opportunity to go to last year was their Pride Night, and that is the game that my wife and I always go to for the Warriors. It's a special feeling there. I noticed there was a whole parking lot area for strollers on different levels. There was such great energy, and people just talking about the game, people cheering or rooting for players on the other team. There was not a lot of negative energy going around. When Christian mentions, the tech bro energy, the people rolling around with Patagonia shirts, and sweatshirts, that is so true. You truly feel this family environment that's also very queer friendly. There's so many folks of color, and they're not just there because the team's winning, because last year we didn't know if the team was gonna win or not. They were just showing up. The Valkyries have really created such a strong culture that is team based. That's what you see with the Valkyries, but I also think that that's a testament to the coach, to the players, who really trust in one another, and to the community that we have in the Bay Area. I think even the players did not understand when they came here what they were stepping into, and they talk about talking to other players on opposing teams who are like, “Is it always like this? Is it every night?” They're like, “Every single night, this is how our fans are, and we love it.”  [00:09:14] Miko Lee: So it's in different WNBA hometowns it's not like that? [00:09:18] Mia Nakano: Absolutely not. The Valkyries have sold out every single game from day one. They are the first WNBA team, and I think the first women's professional sports team, to reach $100 billion in valuation. then you see other teams, like the Atlantic Dream, who are playing in arenas of 3,500, or the Dallas Wings, who are playing in much smaller arenas, even though they have all these franchise players like Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers and AZ Fudd. The Dallas Wings are actually moving to the same arena that the Mavericks are gonna play in next year. It's an interesting juxtaposition given where the context of our world is at, who's in office right now, the battles that we're having to fight to keep women's rights, queer rights, trans rights in the forefront and not have them stripped away. Yet on the other side of this, we have this huge, meteoric rise of women's sports, and it's not just basketball. It's baseball. It's hockey. It's all these different leagues that are starting to emerge and have huge fan bases where you can watch women's professional sports all year round. They're nationally televised games. [00:10:31] Miko Lee: Thank you for the history lesson and current events of women's sports. I love it. One of the other things that was really special for this Filipino heritage night was the halftime show where they had DJ P-Lo playing. And then they brought onto the court, the director of SOMA Pilipinas, Raquel Redondiez, and she runs San Francisco's Filipino Cultural Heritage District. She got her name on a Valkyries jersey, and was announced in the halftime moment as a big show. [00:11:05] Mia Nakano: I had a conversation with her said, ” the work that you are doing, particularly in this moment, bringing together the artists, the culture of Filipinos and Filipino history is so critical right now because so many of our communities, cultures, and stories are getting erased, that we are the culture bearers and culture keepers, and so thank you for doing that work.” [00:11:31] Miko Lee: SOMA Pilipinas, for those that don't know, was established as a Filipino cultural heritage district in 2016 and was one of the first in the state designated as an arts district by California Arts Council in 2017. So they do so much great work, they host great things from the, United States of Asian America Festival every year. Self-defense workshops for women. I've taken those in Kapwa Gardens that were amazing. They do mental health services for Filipino folks and provided groceries and COVID education and, Filipino language training, and then artists, as you were saying. They pulled together all these different folks, for this wonderful night to introduce a sense of heritage and a sense of pride that was really powerful. [00:12:19] Mia Nakano: , It's a really lovely connection back to the Filipinos banding together with Chinese American folks in Chinatown that really helped create the broader Asian American movement and what that word and power even means. [00:12:38] Miko Lee: From the I-Hotel to today [00:12:40] Mia Nakano: exactly, and all of that being really anchored and rooted in San Francisco, as well as everything that Larry Itliong did with union organizing that I think has just recently started to get recognized in the broader social justice movement.  [00:12:58] Miko Lee: I'll put links to past shows that we've done on the I-Hotel, on Larry Itliong, because folks, if they don't know about either of those movement le- leaders and huge moments in our Asian American history, they should. It's powerful part of our labor and housing rights history. Were there other things that stood out to you at this Valkyries game? [00:13:20] Mia Nakano: I know that this is probably not gonna be a surprise to you, but the fact that we honestly just got to go behind the scenes and see the inner workings of what the Valkyries, the tunnels and getting lost and trying to figure out where we're going. [00:13:34] Miko Lee: It was a maze down there, by the way. It was like, which direction? Go to this press room. No, this press room. This place. It was very much kind of, in theater-wise, it's like going backstage and seeing how the tech is done.  [00:13:46] Mia Nakano: The thing that was the most exciting about this unique experience was being able to see Natalie Nakase talk after the game, and the snippet in here is really incredible because it shed light into not just who she is as a coach and how she approached the game, but her investment in people, and the importance of seeing people for their full selves, and the importance of the whole WNBA as a league, as a business. They have a lot of money and power, so who are we gonna lift up? It's a always a very intentional choice of what is happening at Chase Arena, at the Valkyries nights, these heritage nights that really uplift so many wonderful communities that are doing incredible work.  [00:14:36] Miko Lee: We're gonna get a chance to do an interview with Coach Natalie in a different episode, so stay tuned for that. Is there anything else that you would like to share with our audience?  [00:14:45] Mia Nakano: Go see a Valkyries game. Go to Balhalla. It will change your life.  [00:14:50] Miko Lee: Experience Balhalla. Okay. Thank you for joining me, and hopefully you'll join me back when we do an interview with Coach Natalie too.  [00:14:59] Mia Nakano: Oh, absolutely.  [00:15:00] Miko Lee: To frame the conversation, we start with Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase, the first Asian American woman to coach a WNBA team. Last year, she was named WNBA Coach of the Year, and at the post-game presser, a reporter asked her, “Tonight is Filipino National Heritage Night, so can you talk a little bit about what it means for fans to be seen around the league?” This is her response. [00:15:25] Natalie Nakase: Yeah. It's huge. I love the fact that we can celebrate and acknowledge different cultures. I'm really big on that. I think it gives people almost like a superpower or a confidence for, you know, the day to be recognized like that and to be celebrated for everything that their, their culture brings. it also, I think, educates people about different cultures. And so I love the fact that we're super intentional about that because I think we have to do that more than not. And, it's exciting. I think this world needs more celebration. I think this world needs more love, more care, especially when some people are not seen as much. [00:16:01] Miko Lee: In the very loud outdoor Chase Arena area, we spoke with several of the folks involved in Filipino Heritage Night at the Valkyries. Please note that the sound quality is due to the nature of being outside a really excited fan base at the game. First off, listen in as we hear from Al Perez, who helped to curate this community celebration. [00:16:23] Al Perez: Hello, my name is Al Perez. I am a community organizer. I'm serving as president of a nonprofit called the Filipino American Arts Exposition, and we partnered with the Valkyries to help curate their cultural activation for Filipino Heritage Night tonight. [00:16:41] Miko Lee: Since the Valkyries are named after women warriors, is there a Filipina version of a woman warrior? [00:16:48] Al Perez: Absolutely. We have one that's local. Her name is Victoria Manalo Draves. She was the first American woman to win two Olympic golds in the Olympics in nine- 1928. She happens to be Filipina-American. So yeah, she was born and raised here in, in San Francisco Bay Area, so we're very proud of her to be, to represent us and be the warrior and an inspiration for all of us.  [00:17:11] Miko Lee: Excellent. And since Valhalla or Valhalla is the space that we want to get to, what is the Filipino version of that place you want to see? [00:17:19] Al Perez: Wow. [00:17:20] Miko Lee: That perfect world you wanna get to. [00:17:21] Al Perez: I think for us, we have this tradition called bayanihan. That's when we help each other towards a common goal. Yes. No matter how Herculean that task is, it's just coming together to help each other. So it's not necessarily a destination. It's more like an attitude of, coming together as a community towards a common goal, towards a cultural pride and community empowerment. [00:17:46] Miko Lee: Great. And tell us what you're doing here today with all these groups. [00:17:47] Al Perez: So we have an outreach table here because we're part of the organizing committee to curate tonight's event. So we actually have an event next weekend called the Pistahan Parade and Festival. It's the largest Filipino cultural celebration in the country, happening August 8th and 9th at the Yerba Buena Gardens, so please come check us out. There's a big parade down Market Street on Saturday to kick off the festival weekend, and then the festival's at the Yerba Buena Gardens, 11 to 5. We're here to promote that event as well as all our other upcoming events in the fall. We're also curating the Filipino Heritage Night with the Golden State Warriors, with the Giants, San Jose Sharks, and San Jose Earthquakes. And then one more. October is Filipino American History Month in the country. So we also produce official celebration proclamation by the mayor at City Hall. So we have a reception, we have entertainment, and we light the City Hall building with Philippine flag colors.  [00:18:42] Miko Lee: And when folks are coming out to these Filipino nights, what should they expect? What's happening?  [00:18:47] Al Perez: Our goal is to be here to be in community, to help showcase our beautiful culture, our traditions. So when these events happen, we usually have, cultural performances, either a pre-game or a halftime. Tonight you're gonna see, P-Lo, a Filipino rapper and a hip hop singer. Here in the plaza we have some basketball hoops, because basketball is a big thing in the Philippines, our national sport. There's also, Sarap Shop is a concession inside. They have Filipino food there. Our goal is to get people a little taste of our Filipino culture, so hopefully they'll be inspired to, to learn more about our community and our culture. [00:19:29] Miko Lee: And what's your dream for the game tonight?  [00:19:31] Al Perez: Of course, to win, right? Number, yeah, number one, Valkyries to win. And also, I hope that people will come and learn about our culture, and to appreciate it more. Maybe it will inspire them to try some Filipino food, or even come to our Pistahan Festival next weekend. Also Señor Sisig is right here in the plaza. They also do fusion Filipino food. I'm hoping that, by being here, people can get to be a little bit more familiar and curious about Filipino culture and community. We have such a, vibrant and diverse culture, we love to be in community. Our food's delicious, and entertainment's fantastic. So come check us out wherever and whenever you can.  [00:20:14] Mia Nakano: I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about the artists who are here and the community organizations that are here tonight.  [00:20:19] Al Perez: So there's several of us nonprofit organizations here. Our group's the Filipino American Arts Exposition, our mission is more about broadening awareness and deepening understanding of Filipino culture and traditions by doing these cultural events. There's another group here called Young Filipino Professionals Association, or YFPA. They're more about, , uplifting young entrepreneurs, young career-minded, individuals to help them on their path to being more successful. There's also SoMa Pilipinas Cultural District is here. That's a new, relatively new, neighborhood in San Francisco. You know, there's Chinatown, there's Japantown, there's North Beach, so now we also have a Filipino community. It's called SoMa Pilipinas, they're also celebrating their 10th anniversary this year as being, designated as a cultural district. There's also Venazir is a visual artist. She's doing live art mural here inspired by Filipino culture and the intersection of culture and basketball. So it's a great way for people to kind of learn about our fine arts, our visual arts, and our he- heritage. Kristian Cabuay is doing script writing of traditional pre-colonial Philippine script. You know, Chinese and Japanese have their own script writing. The Phi- Filipino community also did before we were colonized by Spain. It's kind of almost forgotten and almost wiped out, so there's a few people now that's trying to revive that, that old tradition of writing .. It's called Baybayin.    [00:21:42] Mia Nakano: Can you talk a little bit about the history or why basketball is the national sport of the Philippines?   [00:21:48] Al Perez: Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah, why is basketball the national sport? I'm not sure exactly, but I think it has to do when after the Philippines was colonized by Spain, and then it, the country became, a commonwealth of the United States, right? And during that time, a lot of Americans came to the Philippines, to establish educational institutions, and one of them is sports. It just got introduced to us, and somehow it clicked. Everybody loves basketball. No matter where you are in the Philippines, in every little barrio, every little town, there's always a game happening [00:22:21] Miko Lee: So are people playing in school, like they start in elementary school, or is it more community based?  [00:22:26] Al Perez: I think it's both. It's just kinda grow, ingrown when you're just a kid growing up in your community. There's always basketball around you, surrounded by basketball. And then of course in more, elementary, high school, it became more teams dynamic, and you got competitions , intramural games. Even between little neighborhoods and little towns, they also have competitions. It's really a big deal. In fact, they love NBA. All the American basketball players are so popular. Everybody knows who they are. [00:22:54] Miko Lee: Al mentioned artist Venazir Martinez, and we pulled her away from the beautiful mural she was creating to talk with us. Again, this is outside, so the sound is quite loud. Venazir is a muralist and a visual anthropreneur. She weaves a tapestry of narratives that explore the connections between human traditions and the ever-changing landscapes that shape them. Listen as she tells us about her work and how she utilizes a symbolic red thread [00:23:25] Venazir Martinez: I'm Venazir Martinez. I am a muralist and a visual entrepreneur, and I am invited to create a live painting for the Golden State Valkyries. [00:23:36] Miko Lee: What has inspired you to create this work of art? [00:23:39] Venazir Martinez: So first and foremost, of course, women empowerment, and we have a lot of very talented Filipino Americans who play basketball. In the Philippines, because I grew up in the Philippines, basketball is such a huge deal. Everywhere in the most promote areas in the Philippines, basketball is their way of enjoying themselves and just pretty much having a time of their life. Basketball tenements are everywhere in the most remote areas in the Philippines. There's this concept of Filipino resiliency that I wanted to incorporate in my work, there are basketball hoops that is made out of wood scraps and like discarded metals. I wanted to highlight that part of Philippine ingenuity. That's why I'm here is to just shed light on that beautiful concept of Filipino ingenuity that we have.  [00:24:40] Miko Lee: I love that. Thank you for sharing. Can you break down what a basketball tenement is?  [00:24:44] Venazir Martinez: Oh, basketball tenement. So tenement courts, these are,.. How do I say this? In America, there's basketball courts that is, like, roofed. Okay. With a roof, and-  [00:24:54] Miko Lee: Like in a gymnasium.  [00:24:56] Venazir Martinez: In a gymnasium, yes. But in the Philippines, anywhere can be a basketball tenement court. They'll just put up a basketball hoop in a pole, like an electricity pole, and they can already play basketball in that area. [00:25:12] Miko Lee: So their court's just made up anywhere. Yeah. Anywhere in the community.  [00:25:14] Venazir Martinez: Anywhere in the community, in the most remote areas in the Philippines, they do that all the time. I grew up in the Philippines, so, it's that really is an immersive experience of having to see basketball really change lives for young people in our community. [00:25:32] Miko Lee: So we're at a WNBA game, and I'm wondering if there was a woman basketball player that you looked up to when you were growing up.  [00:25:39] Venazir Martinez: Growing up, my dad plays basketball. That's the only experience I know that, remembering what basketball is like. ‘Cause I'm mostly in martial arts. But here I am trying to experience a different, like, more empowering way of sports. And it's when I came to America that I experienced this kind of really, it's kind of empowering.  [00:26:01] Miko Lee: And since the Valkyries are women warriors, is there a Filipina equivalent of the woman warrior? Is there a Filipina equivalent of a woman warrior? [00:26:01] Venazir Martinez: There's a lot. There's a lot of very empowering Filipina. First and foremost, it's the Filipina community leaders that I know of in the Bay Area. They are my women warriors. They helped me from the ground up. They created a home for me. They, you know, so they welcomed me. The filipina community in the Bay Area welcomed me. They're all women.  [00:26:31] Miko Lee: Who would you say are some of those folks, some of those women?  [00:26:34] Venazir Martinez: Sonia Villarin, she wears so many hats. She's president of Filipina Food Movement, founder of summer camp in the University of the Philippines Alumni Association in San Francisco. She was the, senior vice president for Bank of America Global Leasing, and she welcomed her home to me and, pretty much, helped me establish my life here as an artist. So those are my women warriors. [00:27:00] Miko Lee: And when people see your beautiful work, what do you want them to walk away with feeling? [00:27:05] Venazir Martinez: I want them to take a second look again in my work, because these, my work pretty much talks about Filipino immigrants, and immigration at large, and pretty much our contributions and the harvested hopes that we have contributed in this cultural landscape,  [00:27:28] Miko Lee: this show is a pop-up tonight, so where can folks find out more about your work or see your work in the community? [00:27:34] Venazir Martinez: I have a huge, huge mural, 2,500 square feet mural in 5th and Folsom in San Francisco, downtown San Francisco in SoMa. It's called Ani, meaning to harvest. There's one in downtown Santa Cruz. There is one in Yuba City. There are multiple murals in Michigan, in New York, mostly in Queens. It's pretty much everywhere, but if you follow the red thread, which is my signature, my artist signature, you'll know that it's my work.  [00:28:08] Miko Lee: Thank you so much. Thank you so very much. Appreciate you taking the time. Another artist presenting their work was Kristian Kabuay working on pre-Philippines calligraphy. His line was so long that we ended up interviewing him separately. Christian is an artist, entrepreneur, futurist who specializes in endangered writing systems and tattoos from the Philippines. Hello, and welcome to Apex Express. Can you tell me your name, your background and what you were doing at the Valkyries Filipino Heritage Night? [00:28:40] Kristian Kabuay: Yeah. My name is Kristian Kabuay. I'm a cultural practitioner specializing in our old, uh, pre-colonial, I say pre-Philippine, writing system and tattooing traditions. I was at the Valkyries, Filipino Heritage Night to interact with the community. I've done a lot of work with the Warriors, you know, going back to Oracle for these cultural nights, the Giants, as well. So most of the teams in the Bay Area, but it was my first time with the Valkyries, and it was quite different. [00:29:16] Miko Lee: How was it different?  [00:29:17] Kristian Kabuay: The vibe was, um… I'm telling everybody that it was my first Valkyries game, too. So the vibe was different. It reminds me of the old Oracle, it wasn't full of, like, tech money that are, you know, Patagonia vests watching the game. It felt very homegrown and it just brought me back to those days in old Oakland A's and when the Warriors were in Oracle. [00:29:42] Miko Lee: What does that evoke for you? What is that feeling like?  [00:29:46] Kristian Kabuay: It gives me a stronger sense of community and the audience is different. The demographics is different. There isn't that toxic male energy. I don't have to worry about someone being drunk and going off and, it was very homey and welcoming. It brings back, as a kid, when I used to watch A's games in the bleachers, watching at Oracle, the community, and not everyone was there to be seen. They were really there for the team.  [00:30:15] Miko Lee: Oh, I love that. I actually do feel like it is, it's such a we're together community vibe. [00:30:20] Kristian Kabuay: Yeah. They even had the wave. I know some snooty teams, they don't have the wave, so-  [00:30:26] Miko Lee: That wave went on for a long time, too.  [00:30:29] Kristian Kabuay: Exactly. I've been to a lot of games. They're, “Oh, I don't wanna look stupid,” or whatever? So that's a big part of my childhood.  [00:30:36] Miko Lee: So I was gonna try and talk with you at the game like I did the other artists, but you had a huge line waiting to see you and talk to you. Talk with me a little bit more about your art form and this pre-clo colonization form of writing.  [00:30:52] Kristian Kabuay: Yeah. Most civilizations had a writing system. It was prior to the land alphabet when the Spanish came and colonized the Philippines in the 1500s. We have this writing. There's only one ethnolinguistic group left in the Philippines that writes it. I come from a background of calligraphy, graffiti and abstract art. When I started to practice it, I incorporated those things. Later I found that I had to become an educator. Then starting to do the cultural festivals. Then you make your parents proud. It wasn't until I started to interact with the community that, there was this responsibility. I didn't come from a highly academic background, but I was being invited to Stanford and Berkeley to give talks about this. So, you know, that imposter syndrome kicked in. Because of the efforts that I've started in, 2010s, the idea of education around this specific writing system, my service isn't really needed. It's out there. Wikipedia, even AI can do it now, and there's a lot of influencers on TikTok that are, building on the stuff that I did 10 years ago. It goes in line with my idea of putting myself out of business. ‘Cause if it's a cultural practice, then you shouldn't be this gatekeeper, this apex of this this knowledge or this practice. It needs to be spread  [00:32:15] Miko Lee: What is the writing system called?  [00:32:17] Kristian Kabuay: A couple names. One of the popular names is Baybayin, and that literally means to spell. It's an adverb, but then it became a noun. So there's many different names depending on the languages in the Philippines.  [00:32:30] Miko Lee: And you said that there's a village of folks that still utilize it. Have you been there?  [00:32:34] Kristian Kabuay: Yeah, I was there in 2016 with a research trip. I stayed with them for a few days to learn, a bit about more about the culture and to donate some time and volunteer, 'cause there's the Mangyan Heritage Foundation. I did some technology work with them. But then also meet with the elders that were there. The village elder did an interview for a film project that I'm doing, but also met the heirs, the daughters in the family that ultimately inherited this practice. [00:33:02] Miko Lee: And so they know that you're teaching this cultural practice around the world, and what is their opinion of that? What do they think?  [00:33:09] Kristian Kabuay: They like it, because it's a different perspective, and a lot of questions. When I go home they go, “Oh, why are you interested in this?” It's a totally different perspective. ‘Cause out here, we have our identity, and the diaspora issues. But back home, because of circumstances, colonization, et cetera, then, the priority is to eat, to live, not to preserve these cultural practices. I've had some indigenous elders tell me that when People come over there, to do their dissertation and they need to figure out their paper to get their PhD. They ask them, “What are you doing to preserve this?” It's kind of extractive or, like, information gathering. Honestly, it really is you strip it down, it is, survival: food, clothing, and shelter.  [00:33:52] Miko Lee: When people were standing in line for you at the actual Valkyrie's game, what were they asking you to write? Were they asking you to write notes or their name, or what was the request?  [00:34:03] Kristian Kabuay: Yeah. Yeah, the line… I was telling people I've never had a line that long when I've done the Warriors. So- … you know, it's kind of different.  [00:34:10] Miko Lee: That's interesting. Just saying [00:34:11] Kristian Kabuay: Yes. I was writing mainly people's names- Mm um, and some words. Maybe a, a good third were non-Filipino, some were there just curious and asking and cultural sharing. Someone knows a Filipino and they go, “Oh, can you write mahal kita?” Like, I love you. And so, we pick up things, just here in the Bay Area. I have conversations with people wanna hear a family name that I never heard about. I say, “Whoa, where's your family from?” Kids learn the stories on how they combine names and some of the origins. It's always interesting when I do this with folks. [00:34:44] Miko Lee: I love that. And you're also a tattoo artist. Do you use some of this writing in your tattoo artistry?  [00:34:51] Kristian Kabuay: Yeah, I do. And that's where the separation between the art and the cultural practice is. Where the writing wasn't tattooed traditionally, but that's where I kind of balance the art. And I separate those two where art is my expression, my personal expression on paper or maybe even on a body, but a cultural practice is more about them and their lineage. So I have to be clear to make those two distinctions.  [00:35:20] Miko Lee: So a question I've asked all the different people that have been involved in this night is that the Valkyries are based on women warriors, and I wonder if there's a Filipina woman warrior that comes to mind to you? [00:35:32] Kristian Kabuay: Yeah, there is. There's one that, part of the lore. Where my dad's from, in his area called Pangasinan, the land of the salt. There's a princess warrior named Princess Urduja that was thought of as a great warrior. This specific Princess Urduja has that Valkyrie's spirit. All the artwork that you see and Academics will say, “Oh, it's you're romanticizing,” and things like that. But you know what? We need a little romance in our lives, right? And romance leads to action.  [00:36:03] Miko Lee: Ah, we certainly do. I'm wondering, with all those people, the long line that stood waiting for you, and you're having these conversations, what would you like them to walk away with after interacting with you?  [00:36:14] Kristian Kabuay: Yeah. That's why there was a sign, and I took a picture of it. It doesn't say, Philippine writing. So it says pre-Philippine calligraphy. I made that term up in 2007 as a way to jolt someone's idea of what pre-Hispanic, pre-colonial is. ‘Cause those things kinda just fly overhead. But if I said pre-Philippines, people, they take a step back and they, “What's that mean?” Or they try to have a smart comeback, “Well, what were we before then?” And my question's always then, “Well, I don't know. Let's talk about it.” That gray area, that being uncomfortable, leads to more curiosity, and ultimately, that's what I want folks to go ahead and, you know… oh, I have this banana leaf. I ran out of index cards. I brought 100 of them. I had these banana leaves that I just meant to decorate the table. I said, “You know what? Let me write on these banana leaves like how our ancestors did.” People are asking, “Oh, what, we wrote on banana leaves?” I'm all, “Yeah, we wrote on, organic materials.” So this thing is probably gonna wilt away in a few weeks or a month or so, but that's how it is. So it's a metaphor for our physical selves, but then also, the message. Maybe they can go ahead and learn how to write it themselves or until we reconnect again. [00:37:31] Miko Lee: Hmm. That's beautiful. And how can our audience find out more about you and your work?  [00:37:36] Kristian Kabuay: Yeah, you can just search for me online. My last name's K-A-B-U-A-Y. First name's Kristian, both with a K. All over the internets and the socials, pretty easy to find.  [00:37:46] Miko Lee: Thank you. And we'll put links to your website in our show notes, so thank you so much for chatting with me today. [00:37:52] Kristian Kabuay: Thanks, Miko [00:37:54] Miko Lee: I honestly didn't know that basketball was such a revered sport in the Philippines. So wanting to find out more, I reached out to a bunch of community folks, and multiple people said, “Reach out to Coach Carolyn Sudeco. She's the one. She's in the know.” So talking to me from her vacation spot halfway around the world is Coaching Kapwa's Carolyn Sudeco. Welcome, Carolyn Sideco, to Apex Express. I'm so happy to have you here.  [00:38:19] Carolyn Sideco: Thank you for having me.  [00:38:21] Miko Lee: Can you first start by telling me who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you? [00:38:27] Carolyn Sideco: Oh my gosh, my people are, collectively, folks who identify as, Philippinics, Filipina, Filipino, and American, and, migratory, and those who claim blood relation and those who I'm still looking for. I live in San Francisco, California, Ohlone land, and also in the land of Choctaw Bulbancha, which is New Orleans, Louisiana. Those are the two places I reside.  [00:39:04] Miko Lee: Can you share about your work with Coaching Kapwa?  [00:39:08] Carolyn Sideco: Coaching Kapwa is what I love to do, and my background professionally is as a certified athletic administrator. I'm a physical educator at the high school level by profession, by certification, by training. But really what I love to do, and so what I do in my consultancy, is I explore and I examine and I think about and learn about everything related to sports cultures and how the culture of sports in all its various ways affect our societies. Specifically, I geek out over learning about my own Filipino American histories and other peoples. Learning that through the concept or the constructs of culture and how sports really is, for me, the funnest way to investigate who I am and who we are to each other. I call myself a sports relationship coach. I am a sports cultures consultant. I also like to identify as a sports liberator. [00:40:16] Miko Lee: Ooh, can you break down what a sports liberator is? [00:40:20] Carolyn Sideco: Miko, I took that from a friend of mine, Danya Cabello, also from the East Bay. Played at Cal, played professionally, and when I first met her years ago, she identified as such, and I said, “That is exactly the kind of person that I wanna be, like, in sports.” I wanted sports to be a way that I could share with people who we are to one another. I wanted to teach young people that they can express themselves in a way that helps make them feel free. With my background in sports administration, I was feeling like the sports industrial complex was really the antithesis of that. And what a lot of people in my profession were striving for was this success that was not defined in the same way that I was defining what my liberation was, and what I felt through sports. So I adopted that. I asked Dania, “Can I call myself a sports liberator too?” And she said, “Girl, you call yourself whatever you want.” So that's what I go by.  [00:41:37] Miko Lee: Ooh, thank you for sharing. That's so interesting in the midst of our kind of capitalization of sports, how corporate it has become. Interesting. Thanks. I also wanted to thank you for sharing with me, Rafe Bartholomew's Hoop Nation and Cassidy Hubbard's, Hoop's Paradise. So those, along with your YouTubes, really gave me a grounding in the connection to between basketball and the Philippines. I'll put a link to those in the show notes for other people that like to do deep dives like me. But can you just give our audience a sense of why basketball is so popular in the Philippines?  [00:42:10] Carolyn Sideco: I learned about the history of basketball and Filipino culture in the Philippines through various people, Rafe Bartholomew one of them, and his book Pacific Rims. A friend of mine here in the San Francisco Bay Area, Kevin Santos, was doing his master's thesis on the history of basketball in the Philippines, and putting an ethnic studies frame on it, so he was the one who actually, practiced his thesis and presentation with me, and I learned a lot through him, and through other people as I was learning about this myself, and how basketball when it was initially, or as we, the modern game of basketball was invented, by Dr. Naismith in Massachusetts with the peach tree basket. Most of us are familiar with that history, but also that was around the time of the Philippine-American War, and US colonization was at its beginning. And so what did the United States export, was its culture, and a lot of that was through sports, mainly baseball, 'cause baseball was already the national pastime. Basketball was relatively new, and basketball was taught in the Philippines also, like in conjunction with the American education system by teachers, by the Thomasites, and by others who were using that form of colonization. They gave basketball to the women and the girls, because it was the lesser sport. It was the newer sport, so it was the lesser sport. They gave it to the women. The men were supposed to play baseball. The Philippines is a collective society- Baseball is a spread out sport, and people aren't close to one another. You're out on a field, it's hella hot, and it's boring. [00:44:17] Miko Lee: Agree. Totally agree …  [00:44:19] Carolyn Sideco: it's easy, to make this assumption that these people playing baseball were watching the girls and women play basketball, and it's faster. Close to one another. It's easy to make a space. So they started playing basketball.  [00:44:39] Miko Lee: Also, you don't need all the things. You need a ball. [00:44:41] Carolyn Sideco: Exactly. In the early days, you didn't even need shoes. Yeah. So it took off in that way because basketball already itself was an activity that Filipino people, kinda took hold of already, and they made it their own. Trained teams started forming and the Philippines had national teams that were already very successful in Asian context, so Asian tournaments they were dominating. In 1975, the Philippine Basketball Association became the first men's, basketball league in Asia, and the first after the NBA in America. So the Philippines has had a long history of relationship with the sport of basketball, but because it's been so long, the sport itself was formed in response to all the cultural aspects that were already existing, right? a lot of town squares had basketball courts 'cause it was so easy to put there. So the same plazas, meeting spaces where people would have their town gatherings, social places, were also courts  [00:45:56] Miko Lee: And why do you think or just surmise that basketball has taken off more than, football or American term soccer, which is developed so much in other countries, which is also a little bit more communal? [00:46:08] Carolyn Sideco: My opinion is that American colonization, in the United States dictated, much more the United States cannot dictate because football or soccer is a more global sport, and the US didn't have as much stake in guiding that as a colonization tool as they did basketball. [00:46:29] Miko Lee: Hmm. Interesting. Speaking of the colonization and politics, I'm wondering about the connection between basketball and politics. In, Cassidy's podcast, they were talking about a politician who released their own basketball shoe, which is wild to me. Yes. So I wonder if there's other connections between basketball or politics, and if that's generally somebody who's more on the colonizer's viewpoint or more conservative viewpoint. Hmm.  [00:46:58] Carolyn Sideco: Hmm. Interesting. I, hmm, I go back and forth with this a lot, Miko, the colonizing tool that is sports, especially the capitalistic sort of, extraction, of sports, right? Of its players, who I like to think of as workers. They're also workers, right? The professional, Philippine Basketball Association is not much different than even professional sports in America with the way they're set up, right? You have owning groups or companies, and so you have these ways that exploitation and that workers' rights are… how do I say it? Because it's at the professional level, these concepts are very much at play, excuse the pun. The Philippines also has a governmental arm related to sports. So sports in and of itself is recognized, right? It doesn't have as much of this sort of altruistic thing as, as we say in the United States, like the sports is like the good of mankind, like that sort of thing. Like, I think, you know-  [00:48:08] Miko Lee: The kind of Olympic idea of unity, it brings us all together. [00:48:11] Carolyn Sideco: Right, like that, those conceptual sorts of virtues.  [00:48:15] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.  [00:48:15] Carolyn Sideco: Yeah. So in the Philippines, I think it's so much more practical because it's fun, and you could get in a game anywhere, and it's accessible. Mm-hmm. It's accessible to all strata, economic strata, right? You see basketball courts everywhere, in rural areas in cities. Everywhere you'll see basketball courts. The Philippines itself as a country- I think that relationship to sports is something different than the American relationship to professional sports, where dominance and, winning and, beating others and making as much money as possible in that is at the forefront. In the United States even with youth sports now. I do some consulting work, especially in youth sports spaces, and the privatization and the extraction of the youth sports space is, is… We could go on all day about that. I think, this is obviously from a Filipino American perspective. For sure. I've never lived in the Philippines. I was born in the Philippines, but my relationship to the Philippines is also, being mitigated by how I experience American sports, right? So when I think about how I've experienced basketball when I've gone to the Philippines, , and it's the same as any aspect of that culture, right? It's warm, it's welcoming, it's friendly, and those are the cultural aspects that kind of, , supersede the fact that basketball… Basketball has its place, but it's in service to the cultural needs, right? To the need to be social, to participate in a town gathering. It's so sociopolitical.- And because it is, it's still a colonizing tool, right? But it's still mitigated in a way that I think just like Filipino basketball players are so, like, quick. They're known for quickness, agility, and finesse, and, like, drama, right? I used to joke around, like, you can always tell where a Filipino basketball player is in the United States 'cause no Filipino who has Filipino blood in them can do a regular layup. Like they have to make it all fancy. I think that, those sorts of aspects that are not tangible, that bring to light, the way a culture of people affect the sport. it enables a culture to push out through the boundaries of that sport what was given to them. What was given to them is, “This is how you play. These are the rules,” and all that kinda stuff, and that's great, but Filipino history of basketball is always, like, how do you integrate all the really cool things about your culture? It's something that's very different, and it emerges as something that's not quite American. [00:51:36] Miko Lee: Thank you so much. I'm wondering how our audience can find out more about you and your work.  [00:51:43] Carolyn Sideco: They can, follow me on Instagram at coachingkapwa, K-A-P-W-A. Kapwa is the Filipino word for the concept of interrelationship, interconnectedness. And so everything I learned about being, being a person really is through being a good teammate, and sports is the funnest way, like I've said before to practice being a good teammate  [00:52:12] Miko Lee: Thank you so much, Coach, for sharing with me about Sports Liberation and your work, and I'll put links to all that in our show notes. And I thank you so much for joining us on Apex Express.  [00:52:23] Carolyn Sideco: Thank you, Miko [00:52:25] Miko Lee: Please check out our website, kpfa.org/program/apexexpress to find out more about our show and our guests tonight. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating, and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Isabel Li, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Miata Tan, Preti Mangala-Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Tonight's show was produced by me Miko Lee, and edited by Ayame Keane-Lee. Have a great night.    The post APEX Express – 8.13.26 – Bayanihan in Ballhalla appeared first on KPFA.

Send us Fan MailThis week, host @bobrathbunTV welcomes the winningest coach in Notre Dame history: Coach Mike Brey! They talk about summer college hoops and more! Presented by Jersey Mike'sWANT TO SUPPORT A TROPHY LIFE?Leave a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback only helps make the show better, and we appreciate your support! For more information about the Naismith Trophy Award, visit our home on the web. 

Running for about 177 miles along the Welsh-English border is the remains of an earthwork, a fortification over a hundred miles longer than Hadrian's Wall. Built sometime in the eighth century, it is known as Offa's Dyke, one of the few surviving reminder of one of the most formidable kings in English history.“As a man,” writes my guest Roy Naismith, “Offa is effectively lost.” Winston Churchill framed the issue thus: “In studying Offa we are like geologists who instead of finding a fossil find only the hollow shape in which a creature of unusual strength and size undoubtedly resided.” Or as the historian Kenneth Sisam observed, Offa “seems to have had all the attributes of a great ruler except a contemporary historian.”But if he is effectively lost, then how can Naismith have written a new book titled Offa: King of the Mercians? Because he has, to paraphrase modern terminology, historyed it. This is a conversation about a great English king; but it's really a master class in the careful and demanding work of historical inference.

Ben Criddle talks BYU sports every weekday from 2 to 6 pm.Today's Host: Ben Criddle (@criddlebenjamin) and Co-Host: (ronthe3manweav)Subscribe to the Cougar Sports with Ben Criddle podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/cougar-sports-with-ben-criddle/id99676

Today we have a special episode with the return of Professor Rory Naismith! You will remember him from his interview on Anglo Saxon Economics and Money, and today he is back to talk with us about his new book on Offa, King of the Mercians.  Professor Rory Naismith is the Professor of Early Medieval History […] The post An Offa Interview with Rory Naismith first appeared on The British History Podcast.

Let's travel back to the 8th century England, to the kingdom of Mercia to be precise.Rory Naismith has just published a book with Yale on KING OFFA - the King of Mercia who also might be crowned the king of puns...Welcome, Rory!Get this great OFFA:https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300257465/offa/Find and Follow RORY:https://x.com/Rory_Naismithhttps://bsky.app/profile/rorynaismith.bsky.socialhttps://www.instagram.com/rorynaismith/https://www.threads.com/@rorynaismithhttps://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/rory+naismithFind Baroque: https://www.instagram.com/ifitaintbaroquepodcast/https://www.instagram.com/natalieisahistorybuff/https://www.tiktok.com/@ifitaintbaroquepodcasthttps://x.com/BaroquePodcasthttps://www.tiktok.com/@reignoflondonhttps://bsky.app/profile/ifitaintbaroquepod.bsky.socialhttps://www.threads.com/@ifitaintbaroquepodcastSupport Baroque: https://www.patreon.com/c/Ifitaintbaroquepodcast/https://buymeacoffee.com/ifitaintbaroqueIf you would like to join Natalie on her walking tours with Reign of London:RMS Titanic: https://www.getyourguide.com/en-gb/london-l57/london-rms-titanic-walking-tour-t1246693/Saxons to Stuarts:https://www.getyourguide.com/london-l57/london-the-royal-british-kings-and-queens-walking-tour-t426011/Tudors & Stuarts:https://www.getyourguide.com/london-l57/royal-london-tudors-stuarts-walking-tour-t481355/The Georgians:https://www.getyourguide.com/london-l57/royal-london-the-georgians-walking-tour-t481358/Naughty London: https://www.getyourguide.com/london-l57/london-unsavory-history-guided-walking-tour-t428452/For more history fodder please visit https://www.ifitaintbaroquepodcast.art/ and https://www.reignoflondon.com/ . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us Fan MailThis week, more NCAA Tournament discussion with the great Christy Winters Scott! Bob starts us off with a news note from the week, all presented by Jersey Mike's!WANT TO SUPPORT A TROPHY LIFE?Leave a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback only helps make the show better, and we appreciate your support! For more information about the Naismith Trophy Award, visit our home on the web.

College students are uniquely positioned to respond to the Great Commission—energized, flexible, and seeking purpose. In this breakout session, we'll explore how to engage, equip, and send students on short-term mission experiences that ignite a lifelong commitment to Jesus and His mission. Discover practical strategies for casting vision, preparing teams, partnering with churches and agencies, and ensuring that these trips foster spiritual growth and gospel-centered impact—both abroad and back on campus. Whether you're a pastor, campus leader, or student, this session will help you see short-term missions as more than a trip—it's a launchpad.This session was recorded live at Roundup 2026, a gathering of college ministry leaders hosted by the Southern Baptist of Texas Convention.Matt is the Canadian Collegiate Strategist for Send Network Canada and National Director of the Canadian Campus Collective (C3), a ministry of the Canadian National Baptist Convention (CNBC). Prior to his work with Send and the CNBC, Matt served as Pastor for Teaching & Vision with Church of the City, a church he co-founded and planted in Guelph, Ontario, in 2013. Church of the City is home to many students from the University of Guelph, and Matt was instrumental in seeing that come to fruition.  Matt is married to his wife, Andrea, and they have three boys. 

Send us Fan MailThe NCAA Tournaments are expanding!Bob leads off this week's show with that blockbuster! Later, he chats with our 2026 Jersey Mike's Naismith Awards Girls High School Coach of the Year: Aundre Cummings from Ontario Christian School in Ontario, CA! WANT TO SUPPORT A TROPHY LIFE?Leave a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback only helps make the show better, and we appreciate your support! For more information about the Naismith Trophy Award, visit our home on the web.

Send us Fan MailThis week, we salute our 2026 Jersey Mike's Naismith Trophy men's winner, Duke freshman sensation, Cameron Boozer! Back to Indianapolis we go, presented by Jersey Mike'sWANT TO SUPPORT A TROPHY LIFE?Leave a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback only helps make the show better, and we appreciate your support! For more information about the Naismith Trophy Award, visit our home on the web.

This week the Cambridge professor Rory Naismith takes us back to the eighth century to glimpse what we can of Offa King of the Mercians. Offa was a mighty figure in this early moment in the history of Britain and he is remembered chiefly for the extraordinary earthwork – Offa's Dyke. But what more can be said about Offa's life? In this episode Naismith explains that he was a ruler of considerable gifts whose reputation stretched far beyond his considerable kingdom. He corresponded with Charlemagne and was connected with the Islamic World and, when he died, he left a great void behind. The scenes, characters and storylines in this episode of Travels Through Time all feature in Rory Naismith's book, Offa: King of the Mercians. Read more about Offa at Unseen Histories. Show Notes Scene One: Offa of Mercia receives a letter from Charlemagne that is one of the first diplomatic exchanges between two Medieval monarchs. Scene Two: 29 July. Offa's dies. Scene Three: December 796. Offa's son and heir Ecgfrith dies unexpectedly. Memento: Offa's side of the correspondence with Charlemagne People/Social Presenter: Peter Moore  Guest: Rory Naismith Producers: Maria Nolan Theme music: Firelight by Minka

If you’ve ever stepped inside a Latter-day Saint meetinghouse, you likely noticed almost every LDS Church has basketball court. But have you ever wondered why basketball became the unofficial sport of the church? Dr. Matthew Bowman, the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University discussed his new book, Game Changers: AJ Dybantsa, BYU, and the Struggle for the Soul of Basketball, which he co-authored with BYU alum Wayne LeCheminant. Their fascinating conversation peeled back the historical layers of basketball, revealing that the sport was intentionally designed to promote religious virtue/ https://youtu.be/5K58pElo0CA 0:00 Why Basketball is a Christian Sport 9:10 BYU Banned Football? 12:35 Why LDS Church Adopts Basketball   Don't miss our other discussions with Matthew. https://gospeltangents.com/people/matthew-bowman Copyright © 2026 Gospel Tangents All Rights Reserved Invention of a “Christian” Sport While many fans know that James Naismith invented basketball using peach baskets in Springfield, Massachusetts, few realize that Naismith explicitly designed basketball to produce “Christian gentlemen”. Naismith was a frustrated minister working at a YMCA training school during the dead of winter. His students were bored with indoor calisthenics, but it was too cold for outdoor sports. To keep them active, Naismith created basketball, drawing heavily on the popular 19th-century concept of “muscular Christianity,” which taught that developing a healthy body was just as important as developing a healthy soul. Unlike other popular sports of the era, Naismith structured basketball around self-sacrifice and fellowship. He believed baseball was too individualistic, focused largely on the isolated duel between pitcher and batter. By contrast, basketball was designed as a game of unending cooperation. The earliest rules only allowed passing or shooting—no dribbling—forcing players to subordinate their individual egos for the good of the team. Civilized Alternative to Football In the 1890s and early 1900s, football was wildly popular but incredibly violent. Without modern helmets or pads, the sport was literally killing dozens of players each season. In 1905 alone, 18 football players died, leading multiple states to consider banning the sport entirely. Because of this brutality, the board of trustees at Brigham Young Academy (now BYU) voted to ban football in 1901. Basketball was championed as the perfect, civilized alternative. It allowed for vigorous physical activity without the deadly consequences, aligning perfectly with the moral framework desired by religious leaders. LDS Church Has Basketball Court As the LDS Church looked to expand out of Utah and into urban centers across the country, basketball offered a logistical advantage. While baseball required large outdoor fields, a basketball court could easily be placed inside a church building right in the middle of a city. During the presidency of Joseph F. Smith, the Church built the massive Deseret Gym in Salt Lake City (where the Conference Center stands today), featuring multiple basketball courts. By the 1920s, the Church formally recommended that wards build “recreation halls” or “amusement halls” under the same roof as their worship spaces. The primary goal of these courts was to attract the youth. Church leaders believed that by offering basketball, they could bring young men off the streets and into the Church building. Because young men were priesthood holders necessary for the formation of new wards, keeping them engaged in wholesome, cooperative activities was seen as crucial to the church’s growth. To hear the full interview and learn more about how modern money is reshaping BYU’s basketball legacy, check out the full episode on Gospel Tangents! What’s Next? Basketball’s role in the Church evolved deeply throughout the 20th century, leading to massive All-Church tournaments and a prominent NCAA footprint at BYU. However, the landscape of college basketball is shifting. Today, athletes like BYU’s AJ Dybantsa are navigating an era of millions of dollars in NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) money and “one-and-done” draft prospects—developments that past leaders like Ernest Wilkinson would likely have hated. Don't miss our other discussions with Matthew. https://gospeltangents.com/people/matthew-bowman Copyright © 2026 Gospel Tangents All Rights Reserved

This week, it's back to the podium in Indianapolis to meet our 2026 Naismith Awards Men's Defensive Player of the Year Presented by MOLECULE: Florida's Rueben Chinyelu!Our weekly podcast is presented by Jersey Mike's.WANT TO SUPPORT A TROPHY LIFE?Leave a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback only helps make the show better, and we appreciate your support! For more information about the Naismith Trophy Award, visit our home on the web.

In Offa: King of the Mercians (Yale UP, 2026), Professor Rory Naismith presents an authoritative biography of Offa of Mercia, revealing his importance as the king who stood at the turning point of Anglo-Saxon history. Offa ruled the Mercian heartland of the west midlands from 757 to 796. But while Alfred the Great and his dynasty are seen as agents of a new beginning that resulted in a unified Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Offa is best remembered as the builder of a great dyke and as a symbol of an older, divided order. In this major new biography, Professor Naismith challenges this view. Professor Naismith reveals how Offa cemented Mercia's position as the dominant force in the southern part of Britain, strengthened the internal cohesion of his domains, and laid the basis for a new model of kingship. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including charters, coins, and chronicles, Professor Naismith reveals Offa as a king who was ambitious and successful, and who carefully constructed his image and that of the royal family. Far from just one in a sequence of overlords, Offa had a lasting impact on how kingship was practised and conceived across England. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In Offa: King of the Mercians (Yale UP, 2026), Professor Rory Naismith presents an authoritative biography of Offa of Mercia, revealing his importance as the king who stood at the turning point of Anglo-Saxon history. Offa ruled the Mercian heartland of the west midlands from 757 to 796. But while Alfred the Great and his dynasty are seen as agents of a new beginning that resulted in a unified Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Offa is best remembered as the builder of a great dyke and as a symbol of an older, divided order. In this major new biography, Professor Naismith challenges this view. Professor Naismith reveals how Offa cemented Mercia's position as the dominant force in the southern part of Britain, strengthened the internal cohesion of his domains, and laid the basis for a new model of kingship. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including charters, coins, and chronicles, Professor Naismith reveals Offa as a king who was ambitious and successful, and who carefully constructed his image and that of the royal family. Far from just one in a sequence of overlords, Offa had a lasting impact on how kingship was practised and conceived across England. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

In Offa: King of the Mercians (Yale UP, 2026), Professor Rory Naismith presents an authoritative biography of Offa of Mercia, revealing his importance as the king who stood at the turning point of Anglo-Saxon history. Offa ruled the Mercian heartland of the west midlands from 757 to 796. But while Alfred the Great and his dynasty are seen as agents of a new beginning that resulted in a unified Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Offa is best remembered as the builder of a great dyke and as a symbol of an older, divided order. In this major new biography, Professor Naismith challenges this view. Professor Naismith reveals how Offa cemented Mercia's position as the dominant force in the southern part of Britain, strengthened the internal cohesion of his domains, and laid the basis for a new model of kingship. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including charters, coins, and chronicles, Professor Naismith reveals Offa as a king who was ambitious and successful, and who carefully constructed his image and that of the royal family. Far from just one in a sequence of overlords, Offa had a lasting impact on how kingship was practised and conceived across England. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Offa: King of the Mercians (Yale UP, 2026), Professor Rory Naismith presents an authoritative biography of Offa of Mercia, revealing his importance as the king who stood at the turning point of Anglo-Saxon history. Offa ruled the Mercian heartland of the west midlands from 757 to 796. But while Alfred the Great and his dynasty are seen as agents of a new beginning that resulted in a unified Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Offa is best remembered as the builder of a great dyke and as a symbol of an older, divided order. In this major new biography, Professor Naismith challenges this view. Professor Naismith reveals how Offa cemented Mercia's position as the dominant force in the southern part of Britain, strengthened the internal cohesion of his domains, and laid the basis for a new model of kingship. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including charters, coins, and chronicles, Professor Naismith reveals Offa as a king who was ambitious and successful, and who carefully constructed his image and that of the royal family. Far from just one in a sequence of overlords, Offa had a lasting impact on how kingship was practised and conceived across England. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

This week, we start the recaps of our fabulous Naismith Award presentations from Phoenix and Indianapolis! In this edition, the announcement of the 2026 Werner Ladder Naismith Men's Coach of the Year to Arizona MBB Head Coach: Tommy Lloyd. Our podcast is presented by Jersey Mike's. WANT TO SUPPORT A TROPHY LIFE?Leave a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback only helps make the show better, and we appreciate your support! For more information about the Naismith Trophy Award, visit our home on the web.

Send us Fan MailS8 Ep.15: Mile High Move — Mike Malone and the New Blueprint for North CarolinaThe lineage is broken, the cord is cut, and a new era has arrived in Chapel Hill. In the most shocking coaching hire in college basketball history, UNC has reached into the NBA ranks, naming Denver Nuggets head coach Mike Malone as the next leader of the Tar Heels.In this historic Episode 15, Darryl and Will break down the seismic shift in the 919. For the first time since the 1960s, the seat once held by Dean Smith will not be occupied by a direct disciple of his coaching tree. We explore the end of the Naismith-to-Smith-to-Guthridge-to-Matt-to-Roy-to-Hubert lineage and what it means for the "Carolina Family" brand.In this episode, we dive into:The Malone Era Begins: Why the 2023 NBA Champion is the "outsider" the Heels needed.Family Ties: With Malone's daughter already on the UNC Volleyball team, how deep do his roots in Chapel Hill already go?The Staffing Shakeup: Who stays and who goes? We discuss the urgent need for a "bridge" between the NBA blueprint and the Carolina Way.The Rivalry Reset: How does the Duke camp feel about an NBA heavyweight entering the Triangle?Don't forget to Like, Subscribe, and leave a 5-star review! Your support helps us keep the rivalry conversation going across the country.Follow us on Instagram: @BlueBloodRivalry#BlueBloodRivalry #UNCBasketball #MikeMalone #DenverNuggets #CollegeHoops #NorthCarolina #919Sports #NBAtoNCAA #TarHeelNationSupport the showKeywords: Duke basketball, Carolina basketball, Louisville, Jason Williams, Hubert Davis, combo guards, transfer, Dean Dome, ACC

The Mercian king history reduced to a ditch—but changed EnglandMost people know Offa of Mercia for one thing: a giant ditch dividing England and Wales. But that familiar image hides a far more powerful—and fascinating—figure.In this episode, host Paul Bavill is joined by Cambridge historian Rory Naismith to challenge the long-standing myth of Offa as a brutal warlord. Instead, we uncover a ruler who helped shape the political, economic, and diplomatic foundations of early England.Why Offa of Mercia deserves a rethinkFor centuries, narratives shaped by sources like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle have painted Offa as a violent tyrant. But as Rory explains, that version of history is incomplete—and often biased.Look closer, and a different picture emerges:A king who ruled for nearly 40 years, stabilising a vast kingdom A ruler who centralised power across southern England A leader who pioneered systems later used by kings like Alfred the Great Offa wasn't just surviving—he was building something lasting.More than Offa's DykeYes, Offa's Dyke is impressive—stretching coast to coast and rivaling Roman engineering in scale. But it wasn't simply a defensive ditch.It was:A symbol of power and dominance A political statement to neighbouring Welsh kingdoms Part of a wider strategy to control borders and project authority Offa wasn't just reacting—he was sending a message.The king who connected kingdomsFar from being isolated, Offa operated in a deeply interconnected world.This episode explores:His rivalry and diplomacy with Charlemagne Trade, coinage, and economic reform across his realm A remarkable gold coin linking Mercia to the Islamic world From Rome to Francia, Offa was playing the game of international politics at the highest level.Offa's real legacyForget the “bloodthirsty conqueror” cliché. Offa's greatest achievement was something far more significant:Creating a unified system of kingship Bringing together multiple regions under one authority Laying the groundwork for the future kingdom of England Without Offa, the later successes of rulers like Alfred may not have been possible.Listen MoreEpisode 16 – Eleanor Janega on the Dark Ages: https://pod.fo/e/11c7f3Episode 240 – Dirk Hoffman-Becking on the Holy Roman Empire: https://pod.fo/e/3330ceGuest details: Rory NaismithTwitter/X: https://twitter.com/rory_naismith

NBA referee legend and Philly's own JOEY CRAWFORD has been announced as a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2026. After a tense Final Four matchup, Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley are at the center of a major conversation. Al Morganti and Joe DeCamara disagree on a crucial Eagles draft debate.

It's Wednesday, April 1st, A.D. 2026. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 140 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Jonathan Clark and Timothy Reed Muslim Nigerians killed 53 people on Palm Sunday Muslim gunmen in Nigeria killed 53 people in a predominantly Christian area on Palm Sunday, reports the Baptist Press. The attackers arrived in a van, killing men, women, and children and wounding dozens more.  A local Christian told Morning Star News, “We saw the terrorists coming down from their vehicle with guns. … Within seconds from alighting from their vehicle, we heard gunshots. They were shooting at anyone in sight. Many have been killed, and I feel so heartbroken.” Daniel Okoh, president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, said, “Nigerians are tired of mourning. Nigerians are tired of statements. Nigerians want to see action. Those responsible for this atrocity must be found, arrested and made to face justice; swiftly and decisively. Anything less will only deepen the sense that life in our country is no longer protected.” Please pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ in Nigeria.  YouGov retracts British religious study YouGov retracted it's “Quiet Revival” study last week. The 2024 study suggested a rise in church attendance in Britain, especially among young people. However, after an investigation, YouGov said the survey sample was faulty.  The U.K.-based Bible Society commissioned the study. The organization noted, “YouGov's error does not mean that all of the findings were wrong. It means that we cannot reliably support those findings on the basis of this survey.” YouGov plans to conduct new research with the Bible Society on religiosity in the United Kingdom. U.S. Army raises recruitment age to 42 The U.S. Army has raised its max recruitment age from 35 to 42. This comes as the United States has had trouble meeting its recruitment standards in recent years.  Part of the reason for the change? American youth are not ready to fight in the military.  ABC News reports that, “The Pentagon has estimated that only 23% of young Americans (between the ages of 17 and 24) are eligible to serve. Much of this is due to academic performance on the military's SAT-style entrance test, obesity, and criminal records.” Judge rules against Biden's COVID-era censorship U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty has ruled in favor of the State of Missouri in the Missouri vs. Biden free speech case.  The case centered around the Biden administration's censorship of free speech and silencing of opposition through Big Tech platforms.   The judge ruled that the U.S. Surgeon General, the Centers for Disease Control, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are barred from threatening social media companies with retaliation for not censoring what they deem to be misinformation.  Trump to Planned Parenthood: No more Title X grants! The Trump administration announced this is the last year that Planned Parenthood will receive Title X grants from the federal government.  White House spokesman Kush Desai told The Daily Wire, “The administration has issued the fifth and final year of Title X grants that were locked in place during the Biden presidency. … Title X funds cannot be used for abortions by law and … the Administration remains committed to realigning the Title X program with the President's pro-life and pro-family agenda going forward.” However, pro-life leaders are criticizing the administration for the additional year of funding to the abortion giant.  NBA player cut for expressing Christian beliefs A professional basketball team cut one of their players on Monday for expressing his Christian beliefs. Jaden Ivey played in the NBA for the Chicago Bulls. He recently described Homosexual Pride Month as a celebration of unrighteousness.  Listen. IVEY: “The world can proclaim LGBTQ, right? They proclaim Pride Month and the NBA. They show it to the world. They say, ‘Come join us for Pride Month to celebrate unrighteousness.'” The Chicago Bulls described Ivey's conduct as “detrimental to the team.”  Send a polite, yet firm 2-sentence letter of complaint. Coach Billy Donovan, 1901 W. Madison Street, Chicago, IL 60612. Isaiah 5:20 says, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness.” Basketball invented by Christian chaplain in 1891 And finally, men's college basketball teams are competing for the national championship in the March Madness tournament.  What many do not know about the popular sport is that it was invented by a Christian named James Naismith.  He was a Christian chaplain and sports coach. Naismith invented basketball in 1891 while serving at the YMCA International Training School in Massachusetts. He started the sport in order to evangelize young men.   Basketball spread as far as China by 1895 thanks to YMCA missionaries.  Naismith said his goal was to “win men for the Master through the gym.” In Matthew 4:19, Jesus said, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”  Close And that's The Worldview on this Wednesday, April 1st, in the year of our Lord 2026. Follow us on X or subscribe for free by Spotify, Amazon Music, or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com.  Plus, you can get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

Our big week is here! Stay locked and loaded to all of the Naismith Awards social channels for the latest announcements of the most prestigious awards in College Basketball! This week, Bob chats with our 2026 Jersey Mike's Naismith Boys' High School Coach of the Year: Glenn Farello of Saint Paul VI Catholic High School in Chantilly, VA!WANT TO SUPPORT A TROPHY LIFE?Leave a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback only helps make the show better, and we appreciate your support! For more information about the Naismith Trophy Award, visit our home on the web.

Frank Kaminsky played eight seasons in the NBA and was a first round pick after a stellar career at Wisconsin, where he led his team to two Final Fours and was the 2015 Naismith college basketball player of the year. Today on the podcast, Matt Forte talks to Frank Kaminsky about his fandom for the Chicago Bears, the phone call he got from Michael Jordan, playing in two Final Fours with Wisconsin, growing in his faith and becoming a dad.Have a question? Got a guest suggestion? Want to advertise with us? Email us - jason@sportsspectrum.comWATCH all of our podcast episodes on our YouTube page:https://www.youtube.com/SportsSpectrumMagazineSign up for our Sports Spectrum Magazine and receive 15% off a 1-year subscription by using the code PODCAST15https://www.theincrease.com/products/sports-spectrum-magazine Do you know Christ personally? Click below to learn how you can commit your life to Him.https://sportsspectrum.com/gospel/

This week, our 2026 Naismith Awards Outstanding Contributor to Basketball winner, Tara VanDerveer joins Bob for a look back at her amazing career. Plus, a recap of the March Madness first week! All presented by Jersey Mike's WANT TO SUPPORT A TROPHY LIFE?Leave a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback only helps make the show better, and we appreciate your support! For more information about the Naismith Trophy Award, visit our home on the web.

The head coach of the 23rd ranked Saint Louis Men's Basketball: Josh Schertz joins Bob to talk about the 25-3 Billikens! Plus, this weekend's key games, all presented by Jersey Mike's! WANT TO SUPPORT A TROPHY LIFE?Leave a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback only helps make the show better, and we appreciate your support! For more information about the Naismith Trophy Award, visit our home on the web.

Two wins against UCLA and Ohio State keep the Spartans at 22-5, but this episode earns its soul not from the wins themselves — the UCLA game was a blowout and the Ohio State game was an officiating drama wrapped around a Bruce Thornton highlight reel — but from the questions underneath: whether Kohler's foul trouble and shooting coldness is a problem that follows them to Mackie, whether Fears can finally become the guy Izzo is still waiting for, and whether Carson Cooper's career performance against Ohio State is a new floor or just a good day. Mick Cronin provides the comic relief, the Naismith committee provides the outrage, and Plum once again is right about Jeremy Fears being maddeningly inconsistent, even in a win.

Ben Criddle talks BYU sports every weekday from 2 to 6 pm.Today's Co-Hosts: Ben Criddle (@criddlebenjamin)Subscribe to the Cougar Sports with Ben Criddle podcast:Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/cougar-sports-with-ben-criddle/id99676 

Over a distinguished NBA and collegiate career, Shane Battier established himself as a scholar-athlete, All-American, leader, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "No-Stats All-Star" by Michael Lewis in a New York Times Sunday Magazine cover story, Shane is regarded as one of the most successful, albeit atypical, basketball players in history for using his leadership, lockdown defense, and intellect to win championships at every level. After graduating with honors from Duke University with two Final Four appearances, one national championship, two All-American awards, & Naismith and John Wooden National Player of the Year awards, the Memphis Grizzlies selected Battier in the 2001 NBA draft. Battier went on to be part of the back-to-back 2012 and 2013 NBA championship Miami Heat team and a USA Basketball Men's Senior national team member. He understands that champions are made when no one is looking and that attention to the often-unnoticed intangibles makes the difference in building a championship culture. In our conversation this week, John and Jerry unpack the highs and lows of Shane's remarkable journey, from his childhood and the role of his parents, to his high school and college days, to his introduction to the NBA, and finally his championship seasons. We also discuss his post basketball years, his struggles with the transition off the court, an dhow he has reinvented himself to become an advisor, speaker, and a better father and husband.  BOOK A SPEAKER: Interested in having John or one of our speaking team come to your school, club or coaching event? We are booking November and December 2025 and Winter/Spring 2026 events, please email us to set up an introductory call John@ChangingTheGameProject.com PUT IN YOUR BULK BOOK ORDERS FOR OUR BESTSELLING BOOKS, AND JOIN 2025 CHAMPIONSHIP TEAMS FROM SYRACUSE MENS LAX, UNC AND NAVY WOMENS LAX, AND MCLAREN F1! These are just the most recent championship teams using THE CHAMPION TEAMMATE book with their athletes and support teams. Many of these coaches are also getting THE CHAMPION SPORTS PARENT so their team parents can be part of a successful culture. Schools and clubs are using EVERY MOMENT MATTERS for staff development and book clubs. Are you?  We have been fulfilling numerous bulk orders for some of the top high school and collegiate sports programs in the country, will your team be next? Click here to visit John's author page on Amazon Click here to visit Jerry's author page on Amazon Please email John@ChangingTheGameProject.com if you want discounted pricing on 10 or more books on any of our books. Thanks everyone. This week's podcast is brought to you by our friends at Sprocket Sports.  Sprocket Sports is a new software platform for youth sports clubs.  Yeah, there are a lot of these systems out there, but Sprocket provides the full enchilada. They give you all the cool front-end stuff to make your club look good– like websites and marketing tools – AND all the back-end transactions and services to run your business better so you can focus on what really matters – your players and your teams. Sprocket is built for those clubs looking to thrive, not just survive, in the competitive world of youth sports clubs.  So if you've been looking for a true business partner – not just another app – check them out today at https://sprocketsports.me/CTG. BECOME A PREMIUM MEMBER OF CHANGING THE GAME PROJECT TO SUPPORT THE PODCAST If you or your club/school is looking for all of our best content, from online courses to blog posts to interviews organized for coaches, parents and athletes, then become a premium member of Changing the Game Project today. For over a decade we have been creating materials to help change the game. and it has become a bit overwhelming to find old podcasts, blog posts and more. Now, we have organized it all for you, with areas for coaches, parents and even athletes to find materials to help compete better, and put some more play back in playing ball. Clubs please email John@ChangingTheGameProject.com for pricing.  Become a Podcast Champion! This weeks podcast is also sponsored by our Patreon Podcast Champions. Help Support the Podcast and get FREE access to our Premium Membership, with well over $1000 of courses and materials. If you love the podcast, we would love for you to become a Podcast Champion, (https://www.patreon.com/wayofchampions) for as little as a cup of coffee per month (OK, its a Venti Mocha), to help us up the ante and provide even better interviews, better sound, and an overall enhanced experience. Plus, as a $10 per month Podcast Super-Champion, you will be granted a Premium Changing the Game Project Membership, where you will have access to every course, interview and blog post we have created organized by topic from coaches to parents to athletes. Thank you for all your support these past eight years, and a special big thank you to all of you who become part of our inner circle, our patrons, who will enable us to take our podcast to the next level. https://www.patreon.com/wayofchampions

Ben Criddle talks BYU sports every weekday from 2 to 6 pm.Today's Co-Hosts: Ben Criddle (@criddlebenjamin)Subscribe to the Cougar Sports with Ben Criddle podcast:Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/cougar-sports-with-ben-criddle/id99676

Hanna, Andy, and Fish cover the early days of basketball, with its 13 rules, 9 man teams, and peach baskets nailed to the walls! Intro music is from "Across the Line" by the Wellington Sea Shanty Society.

Send us a textBurnout can creep up quietly - until one day you realise you've got nothing left to give.In this honest, wide-ranging conversation, Dr Gillyanne Kayes, Jeremy Fisher and guest Dr Marisa Lee Naismith (host of A Voice and Beyond) talk about burnout in the performing arts: how it happens, what it feels like, and what recovery really takes.We explore:The link between trauma, stress, and burnoutBoundaries and learning to say “I don't have the capacity”Why people-pleasing drives exhaustionThe real brain changes in burnout and how to resetWhat it means to honour yourself as a creativeThis episode includes insights from Stress Burnout Reset by Kerry Norton, reflections on somatic recovery, and practical tools for singers and teachers finding their way back to balance.00:00 Intro and Phlegm Alert02:10 When Burnout Creeps Up On You03:23 Losing Everything and Working Harder05:39 Adversity vs Trauma07:53 Burnout in the Performing Arts08:41 Self-Worth and People-Pleasing11:11 Learning To Say No And Setting Boundaries15:19 The 24-7 Access Problem19:28 The Power Of Saying "I Don't Have The Capacity"22:07 What Burnout Does To The Brain25:25 Recovery Tools and Somatic Practices33:45 Maria's Final Reflections - Honouring YourselfWatch, reflect, and share your experience of burnout in the comments.Remember to like, subscribe, and hit the bell icon for more insightful episodes. Leave a comment below on what inspired you the most!

It's time to celebrate! This is our 300th episode of A Trophy Life! And who better to join than the President of the Naismith Awards and the Atlanta Tipoff Club: Eric Oberman! He joins Bob this week, presented by Jersey Mike's.WANT TO SUPPORT A TROPHY LIFE?Leave a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback only helps make the show better, and we appreciate your support! For more information about the Naismith Trophy Award, visit our home on the web.

This week, we feature the 2025 Jersey Mike's Naismith Trophy Boys National High School Player of the Year, current freshman Darryn Peterson! Plus Bob with the week's news and notes.WANT TO SUPPORT A TROPHY LIFE?Leave a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback only helps make the show better, and we appreciate your support! For more information about the Naismith Trophy Award, visit our home on the web.

The lads meet up for their weekly catch up and talk all things Luton Town!

The Green Impact Report Quick take: Most commercial buildings are controlled by 200 global logos—and the way they're financed makes decarbonization almost impossible. Christopher and his team at Audette are flipping that script, proving sustainability and ROI can—and must—go hand in hand. Meet Your Fellow Sustainability Champion Christopher Naismith grew up on Vancouver Island surrounded by forests and ocean. After starting as a civil engineer, a career pivot led him into construction, building science, and eventually founding Audette, a fintech company redefining how real estate owners invest in decarbonization. Today, his platform models over 30,000 commercial buildings, helping some of the world's largest portfolios cut emissions and boost asset value.

This week, Bob chats with our 2025 Naismith Defensive Player of the Year, presented by MOLECULE --Creighton's Ryan Kalkbrenner! He's one of the Creighton's and Big East's all-time greats! Plus, our weekly news and notes! WANT TO SUPPORT A TROPHY LIFE?Leave a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback only helps make the show better, and we appreciate your support! For more information about the Naismith Trophy Award, visit our home on the web.

Clair Bee is one of the greatest coaches in basketball history. But, he is rarely included in the conversation. He won 82% of his games as a college coach. He also contributed three new ideas that are still used today throughout basketball. And he wrote 24 novels for young readers. He might be the largest contributor to basketball outside of Naismith himself.CREDITSRick Loayza: Head researcher, writer, and voiceJacob Loayza: Editor, producer, and publisher MUSIC"Happy Days" by Chuck Sims"Horizons" by Roa SPORTS HISTORY NETWORKsportshistorynetwork.comsportshistorynetwork.com/podcasts/basketball-history-101/ FACEBOOKm.facebook.com/Basketball-History-101-103801581493027/ BUSINESS CONTACTbballhistory101@gmail.com

In this mini-season of the Roundup Podcast, we're featuring every breakout session from Roundup 2025. Enjoy this episode on On Mission Now: Mobilizing Students for Short-Term Impact with Long-Term Vision with Matt Naismith.

A Wisecracker Classic [tm] - Sam and Mac talk current events while Matt investigates the new Pope in Villanova. Remember to like, subscribe, leave a nice comment and KEEP GAMBLING using the you know what "WISECRACKER" at you know where dot you know what. Happy Mother's Day.Follow @wisecrackerpodFollow Matt Burn @mattmburnFollow Sam Naismith @samnaismithcomedyFollow Mac Naismith @macnaismithVideos referenced   • how'd they even get that picture?     • she's immune #thelastofus  #comedy #podcast #podcasts #podcasting #comedian #funny

The history of Basketball begins in the unassuming town of Springfield, Massachusetts. Canadian born James Naismith is trying to keep his group of students at the YMCA busy during a cold New England winter. It took 2 peach baskets, a soccer ball, and a few simple rules to create the game of basketball... sort of. The first thing Naismith created was chaos. Eventually, out of the chaos came basketball. The popularity of the game spread much like other sports. Barnstorming teams like the New York Rens and the world famous Harlem Globetrotters popularized the game in small towns all over the country. On a professional level some leagues came and went, but eventually found their way to the NBA and ABA merger. These two leagues would form the modern NBA today. There is so much more to the story though. Don't miss a second as we get Historically High on Basketball and the NBASupport the show

This week, Part One of our look back at our fabulous Naismith Awards Ceremony from San Antonio. In this edition, MC Fran Fraschilla introduces our 2025 Jersey Mike's men's national player of the year Cooper Flagg from Duke! Plus his coach, Jon Scheyer joins the program! WANT TO SUPPORT A TROPHY LIFE?Leave a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback only helps make the show better, and we appreciate your support! For more information about the Naismith Trophy Award, visit our home on the web.

In this episode of Rogue Bogues, the NBL Free Agency is heating up while the NBA nears the end of the regular season with the Playoffs in sight. The Chicago Bulls earn Team of the Week honors, and Josh Giddey continues to shine. What's going on in Memphis as coaching changes raise eyebrows? Dwight Howard and Carmelo Anthony head to the Hall of Fame. Jokic racks up a wild defensive stat, and we reveal the Aussie of the Year. Plus, a great Fact or Fake News stat from Naismith, and Dellavedova is heading to the Sydney Kings! Tune in! 00:00:17 Intro 00:08:51 Team of the Week 00:13:41 Week team of the Week 00:30:29 
Latest NBA News 00:52:04 Useful or Useless 00:59:26 
Aussie of the Year 01:00:10 Fact or Fake News 01:02:33 Latest NBL News © 2025 AMB Media

In hour three of 3 Man Front we went to Fayetteville and caught up with Tye Richardson with ESPN Arkansas & got his preview of the Razorbacks in the Sweet 16. Brett Norsworthy joined to preview the Rebs and their potential 4th matchup with Auburn. Plus, we discussed Coach Cal's first year at Arkansas & Naismith finalists! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, we salute our 2025 Jersey Mike's Naismith High School Boys Coach of the Year, Andrew Moran, from Columbus High School in Miami, Florida! Bob chats with the coach of the country's #1 high school team!WANT TO SUPPORT A TROPHY LIFE?Leave a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback only helps make the show better, and we appreciate your support! For more information about the Naismith Trophy Award, visit our home on the web.

In this engaging episode of the Driving Change Podcast, Jeff Bloomfield interviews Dr. Iona Naismith, a clinical psychologist, adventurer, and expert in the neuroscience of compassion. Dr. Naismith shares her fascinating journey from growing up in the Scottish Highlands to leading expeditions in the Italian Dolomites and pursuing a career in psychology. The conversation explores the neuroscience behind compassion, the importance of self-awareness, and practical strategies to rewire negative thought patterns for personal and professional growth. The episode offers actionable insights into achieving balance through mindfulness, self-compassion, and emotional intelligence. Why You Should Listen This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking personal growth or looking to improve their leadership and relationships. Dr. Naismith's unique blend of adventure and psychology provides inspiring lessons on resilience, self-awareness, and the power of compassion. Whether you're navigating life's challenges or seeking to optimize your mental well-being, her insights will leave you equipped with practical tools to transform your mindset and achieve balance. Key Takeaways Neuroscience of Compassion: Compassion is more than being nice—it's about addressing and alleviating suffering while fostering resilience and growth. Self-Compassion vs. Self-Criticism: Many people are compassionate toward others but harsh on themselves. Learning self-compassion can unlock greater potential and self-acceptance. Mindfulness as a Tool: Staying present helps disrupt negative thought patterns, reducing anxiety and increasing focus. Neural Pathways and Habits: Rewiring negative beliefs requires consistent effort, likened to forging a new path in a forest. Three Circles Model: Understanding the balance between the threat, drive, and soothing systems is key to maintaining emotional equilibrium. Visualization's Power: Mentally rehearsing positive outcomes can build confidence and reinforce neural pathways for success.

Penny Hardaway named to Naismith Watch List 2024 25 - Jason & John discuss it full 775 Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:14:44 +0000 itjZvEad1uuoOqCapmdY98a2EWQ5bBwf sports 92.9 Featured Podcast sports Penny Hardaway named to Naismith Watch List 2024 25 - Jason & John discuss it 92.9 ESPN FM/680 AM Featured Podcast of the Day 2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc. Sports False https://player.amperwavepodcasting.com?feed-link=https%3A%2F%2Frss.amperwave.net%2F

The definitive college basketball coach rankings going forward! College basketball time machine: Where will these teams be in 5 years? Picking the winners for every Naismith positional award! PRESENTED BY MyBookie! Double your first deposit with promo code SLEEPERS here: https://bit.ly/SLEEPERS

#199: Jerod Haase is the former Stanford university head men's basketball coach. During his time on the farm at Stanford the Cardinal had won 126 games, recorded its best conference finish and most league wins in a decade and earned a postseason berth for the first time since 2015. The 2020 team was set to be postseason bound before the cancellation of the NCAA Tournament.A native of South Lake Tahoe, Calif., Haase attended California in 1992-93, starting 23 games as a freshman and playing alongside Jason Kidd in the backcourt. Haase then transferred to Kansas, where he helped lead the Jayhawks to three consecutive conference titles and finished his career ranked in the school's top 10 in assists, three-point field goals and steals. Haase started 99 of 101 games at Kansas and scored 1,264 points, averaging 12.5 per game and reaching double figures 74 times. While at Kansas, Haase was a candidate for the Naismith and Wooden Awards. Haase was also a first-team GTE Academic All-American as a senior, a second-team Academic All-American as a junior and a three-time academic all-conference pick. The Jayhawks' Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 1997, Haase later earned a master's degree in business at Kansas in 2000.After playing professionally he went on to help as an assistant with his former college coach Roy Williams at Kansas and then North Carolina, before he became the head coach at UAB. At UAB, Haase led the Blazers to a regular-season Conference USA championship in 2016 and the program's 15th all-time NCAA Tournament berth in 2015. Haase compiled an 80-53 overall record in four seasons while improving the Blazers' win total every year. In 2016 he was tabbed as the Gene Bartow Conference USA Coach of the Year, leading the Blazers to a 26-5 overall record and a 16-2 conference mark while capturing their first regular-season title since 2011. In 2017, Haase joined the National Advisory Board of the Positive Coaching Alliance, the organization that uses the power of positive reinforcement to pursue winning and the more important goal of teaching life lessons through sports.On the show you will hear his story, overcoming setbacks, being genuine and authentic, core values, relationships, and much more. Enjoy the show! Book Link:https://www.amazon.com/Floor-Burns-Inside-Kansas-Jayhawk/dp/0965839214  

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Paul Putz, director of the Faith & Sports Institute at Baylor University, where he helps to lead and develop online programming and curriculum as well as assisting with communications and strategic planning. They discuss his journey from high school teacher and coach to historian, diving into insights from his new book, The Spirit of the Game: American Christianity and Big-Time Sports. Putz reflects on the role of sports in K-12 education and the importance of of resilience, collaboration, and integrating faith into leadership in both education and sports. The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work. The Center for School Leadership and Faith & Sports Institute are partnering together for a summer professional event! Join us for the FIT (faith-integration-transformation) Sports Leadership Summit! We will gather at Baylor to empower and equip Christian sports leaders in K-12 schools to lead, serve, and educate well as they pursue competitive excellence. Be encouraged. Mentioned: The Spirit of the Game: American Christianity and Big-Time Sports by Paul Putz Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe by David Maraniss. Faith & Sports Institute Youth Sports Summit  Connect with us: Baylor MA in School Leadership EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership Jon Eckert LinkedIn X: @eckertjon Center for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl   Jon Eckert: All right, so we've got Paul Putz here in the podcast studio and we get to talk about a new book. We get to talk about coaching, we get to talk about teaching. So Paul, it's a huge blessing to have you here today. Can you just give us a little bit of your background about how you got to this office today, where you came through as a student and professionally? Paul Putz: Yeah. Well, I started, we'll start with I'm a teacher at heart and was a teacher, a high school teacher. So I grew up in small town Nebraska and playing all the sports thinking that I'm going to become a coach. So I went off and played small college basketball and then wanted to hang around sports. And so I got my secondary ed degree, was a social studies teacher. And as I started teaching in Omaha, Nebraska, I had a sense of how important sports were to me in terms of forming me. I was a pretty good student too, but sports mattered to me on a deeper level. And so I was really intrigued about learning more about sports. As I'm teaching social studies classes, I'm thinking about, man, how historically did we get to a place where sports are part of a school curriculum where sports are actually seen as educational or sports are seen as formative? I was just so curious about that. So instead of becoming a coach as a high school teacher, I get my master's in history and I start exploring these questions about the history of sports and as connections with Christianity. So those sort of questions I was wrestling with as a high school teacher lead me to applying to Baylor, coming to Baylor to get a PhD teaching at Messiah University for a year, and then coming back to Truett Seminary where I lead the Faith & Sports Institute and have been involved with FSI for the past five years. Jon Eckert: So love the work you do. I also understand from guys who still are able to play basketball with you, I have not been able to, as my knee no longer allows it, but you have a nice mid-range game still. Paul Putz: Old school. We keep it old school. Yeah. Jon Eckert: That's great. That makes Nebraska and Indiana boys proud. So love that. And I love the journey that you took. You go into education thinking you're going to coach and you're going to teach, and then you go down this history path, which then leads you to leading a Faith & Sports Institute. So it's kind of funny the way the Lord weaves us through these paths. And then to this book that's been published by Oxford University Press, really nice book by the way. Paul Putz: Thank you. Jon Eckert: Much nicer production than I typically get in the books that I write. So I'm impressed with what Oxford's done with it. The Spirit of the Game: American Christianity and Big-Time Sports. It says it's this fascinating look at the overlap and the way Christianity and major college sports and professional sports have been woven together starting in the 1920s. So tell us how you got to this book from that journey you just described. Paul Putz: Yeah, I think so many authors say their book is in some sense autobiographical. You have a question that you want to think about and in the process of exploring your own questions, you kind of realize, hey, other people might be asking these questions too. So that's how it started for me. I mentioned I'm growing up in Nebraska, I was a pastor's kid, I was also loving sports. And so this idea of being a Christian and being an athlete were so central to how I saw myself. And so when I did pursue the PhD and became a historian exploring sports in Christianity, it was my desire to figure out where did I come from? How was my high school basketball coach, Joel Heeser, who's a friend of mine now still coaching high school basketball? How did he learn what it means to be a Christian athlete, a Christian coach? And so out of that kind of sense of curiosity and a sense of where's my own place in this story, I went and do what historians do. So we go back to the archives and we try to look at the origins and we look at the cultural context and we try to figure out cause and change over time and how did this happen and how did it influence culture and how did culture influence what was going on? And so that's what I got to spend five years doing. It started as a PhD doctoral project. I'm going to archives across the US and I'm looking at memos and documents, and going to the libraries and just trying to tease out how this space to bring together sports and faith developed and then how it evolved and advanced to the place where it shaped my life and shaped the lives of so many others in America. Jon Eckert: That's well said and a great setup to the book. And one of the things that kind of blew my mind, and it's just in the introduction to your book, you have this comment here, "Compared with 100 years ago, there are far more athletes and coaches today willing to publicly champion Christianity as a formative influence in their lives." So I think sometimes in the US we feel like we're in this post-Christian world. And in some ways it's a very different world, especially when you hear athletes as soon as they're interviewed after a game, immediately giving credit to God and giving glory to God and the Steph Currys of the world and any number of football players. And you see this over and over and over again. And that wasn't the case a hundred years ago, probably because sports weren't as, they didn't have the platform that they do now. But as you've written the book, what do you attribute that to the most? I know that's the point of the whole book, but can you distill that down to two or three points for the people listening and why you think that's the case? Paul Putz: Yeah, what I try to suggest in the book is the blending of sports and Christianity kind of happens in two phases. And so I start in the 1920s, but there's this era before the 1920s, we'll say goes from after the Civil War until the 1920s. And it's during this era there's a movement called, muscular Christianity. And what muscular Christianity does is it helps Christians see the value of the body, the value of physical activity to moral formation. And it's out of muscular Christianity, which is a movement that starts in England and then it comes to the United States. It's out of muscular Christianity that a lot of these ideas about character formation in sports are developed. And it's why sports become connected to schools and education because people and school leaders are trying to figure out how do we channel this interest that our students have in athletic activity into productive ways so we can use it to form and shape them as good citizens. So muscular Christianity is kind of the first stage, which again connects sports to Christian mission with this character building way. And it has a profound effect. I mean, some of the sports we play today are products of muscular Christianity. And the classic example is basketball, 1891, James Naismith enrolls at a Christian college in Springfield, part of the YMCA. And when he enrolls at the school, he said his desire was to win men for the master through the gym. So he has a Christian purpose, a Christian mission at a Christian school, and he creates basketball to advance these muscular Christian ideas. Jon Eckert: And I didn't realize this, but in the book you highlight, Naismith is the only coach in Kansas history that has a losing record. Paul Putz: Only coach with a losing record. Jon Eckert: Because he didn't care. Paul Putz: He didn't... And this is such an important point because in that first era there were some real idealistic people like Naysmith who thought sport legitimately as first and foremost for moral formation, it's about developing people. Win or lose doesn't matter. So that's the first era. 1920s comes along and it's pretty clear that sports has developed into something else. Sports is connected to commercialization, winning comes first. Even at colleges it was supposed to be educational, but it's clear that at the college level, if you're a coach, you might be a great molder of young men, but if you don't win games, you're getting fired. Jon Eckert: Right. Paul Putz: So there's this sense in the 1920s, this reality sets in that sport is now commercialized. It's big time. And even though it's still connected to say college, at the big time level, that muscular Christian mission isn't there. So what my book tries to do is say, okay, when muscular Christianity is sort of on the back burner because we now have this big time sports structure in the 1920s where it's all commercialized, it's all celebrity, how do Christians still engage in that? How do they wrestle with that tension of a, when at all cost atmosphere, a space where Christians don't determine the culture of sports they're guests in this culture and how do they create a space to still cultivate and nurture Christian athletes and coaches there? And that's where we see in the 1920s, very few Christians able to navigate that. There's just a handful of them who can be in major league baseball or can be in big time college athletics and still feel strong about their Christian commitments. But a hundred years later, we now see all sorts of Christian athletes and coaches who are comfortable in those spaces. And you kind of asked what drove that. What I would say drives that is the formation of a community that was embedded within sports institutions, that creates a sense of shared mission, shared purpose, and that over generations continue to invite more people in, continue to develop and just kind of under the radar, ministry of presence was just there and available to help athletes and coaches identify as Christians in that space. So it really comes down to the creation of these networks and organizations like the Fellowship of Christian athletes, like athletes in action, like Pro Athletes Outreach, like Baseball Chapel, people starting something new and then sustaining it over time and seeing the ripple effects years later. Jon Eckert: The beautiful example and what I had just finished this summer, this, Path Lit by Lightning, it's the Jim Thorpe book. Have you read this? Paul Putz: Yes, I have. Fantastic book. Jon Eckert: Such a fascinating read, because it's in this, leading up to the 1920s, his career is this amateur versus professional, which he gets caught and just treated so poorly and Pop Warner, the king of amateur child sports that we have Pop Warner leagues all over, kind of a horrific human being in the way they exploited people and they did it through sports. But he started his career at the Carlisle Indian School, which was one of the horrific experiments in US history when we took students off from their families off of reservations to try to quote, unquote civilize them into these things. And sports were a major part of it. So in our conversation, I'd love to pivot a little bit, well maybe not even pivot, but integrate sports into what K-12 education has been because still most places other than maybe Friday night lights in Texas football, most K-12 sports are not big time sports yet that most of the athletes playing sports there. You would make the case that the extracurricular there is to support the moral development. It's not a huge money sport until you get into the AAU stuff and some of those things where you have revenue, but K-12 systems, it's still more about that and it's been used for a lot of good things. And then in some cases, in Jim Thorpe's example, it was good kind of. So could you integrate those a little bit and how you see K-12 sports still having an influence and where Christian coaches and Christian athletes have a spot in that? Paul Putz: Yeah, yeah, you're right. There is a difference. And that muscular Christian ideal still continues in some ways, certainly even at the big time sports level. There's elements of it, but especially I think when we get into K-12 or if we get into division three small colleges. Jon Eckert: Yes. Paul Putz: There's a better chance to I think fully integrate the sports experience with the mission of the school. And at the same time, I would say the trends that we see at the highest levels of sports, your professional leagues, those do filter down because kids are looking to athletes as celebrities and heroes. So they're emulating them in some ways. So even though at the K-12 level and the small college level, there's a difference structurally and financially, you still have people who are formed and shaped by what they're seeing in these images in this culture. Now at the same time, I do think in terms of the growth of sports in what we've seen, I think we saw really a century from the 1920s until the last 10 years of continual development of sports as a central part of education in the United States. And this was done intentionally through organizations and networks like coaches associations, high school athletic associations. These develop in the 1920s and after the 1940s and 1950s, they sort of take on this professional identity. There was a period in time where to be a coach at a high school, you were seen as like, well, you're not really part of what's going on at the school. And so it took time for coaches to establish a professional identity linking it with education. And that evolved over the course of, again, a hundred years from the 1920s into the present. But these coaches and athletic directors, I have a quote in my book where I mentioned this, they intentionally had this vision for cultivating in young people a love of sports, because they thought through sports we can instill good values for American citizens or if you're at a Christian school you can instill Christian values. And so at the K-12 level, sports were always connected with some sort of vision beyond just the game. It was more than a game. It was about who you're becoming as a person. It was about learning life lessons and it sounds like a platitude. We've all heard this and we've also, I'm sure seen hypocrisy where we know of a coach who says this, but it doesn't seem like it plays out that way. But there's also some deep truth to that. I think anyone listening to this, if you've played a sport at the high school level that formed and shaped you, maybe in some bad ways, but in some good ways too. And so I think there is a power to sports that continues to have relevance and resonance today. I will say in more recent years we're seeing some really big shifts with K-12 school. With club sports, with travel sports. And there's some ways that that sense of community identity that was tied into the school level, it doesn't exist everywhere. There's pockets where it does. But in some places, some of the best athletes are now not connected to their school. And so for the future, I worry about what will it look like in 40, 50, 60 years where sports could be such an important part of a community and neighborhood identity at a school level. Will that go away as more and more athletes maybe turn to different models to pursue their dreams and goals? Some people in education might say that's healthy. They might say we need to separate education from sports. For me, and maybe I'm naive, but I think there's something important and beautiful about linking sports to education. But we do have to have guard rails and we do have to have people fighting to do it the right way. Jon Eckert: I completely agree. I want to see sports, I want to see all extracurriculars integrated well into what's going on in the classroom. I think that provides more holistic place for kids to learn is where kids can be more engaged and kids can flourish in areas where they may not flourish in one classroom, but they might flourish with an instrument they might flourish in a club or with sports. And I think sports are a powerful place for that. I do know with some states moving to NIL deals for high school athletes, that completely changes the dynamic and is really disconcerting for me because in that case, unlike colleges where that athlete is generating revenue for the school, it's hard to argue that the gate attendance at the high school game is really that much impacted by an individual athlete. But that's coming and that is the world we're living in. And that's some of that trickle-down effect that you described. I never want to be the sky is falling person. I'm thrilled that we have a 12 team playoff system in college football. I'm also not ignorant of the fact that, that completely changes the dynamics of the economics of the sport. So what I'd like to say is Christian leaders, because our set in the Interfaith Sports Institute and the Center, we overlap in some really good ways. What I'd like to see is what you described about the athletes in the twenties and thirties, creating these associations and these communities that fly under the radar of just inviting people in because I think that's what as Christians we should be doing in whatever we're called to. So do you see overlap for Christian administrators and teachers for how we can represent Christ well in the platforms big or small that we have? Do you see any lessons that we can take away as educators from what you found from your athletes in the book? Paul Putz: I think so. I think probably one of the most important, or I guess if I were to highlight two things. One is I would say there's lots of different ways to do it. Jon Eckert: Yes. Paul Putz: I think sometimes a certain person or a certain organization, they come up with a way that works really well for them and then they hold fast to that as if this is the way, this is the biblical way, this is the Christian way. And what I would want to say is it's a part of a conversation. Different contexts need different resources, different methods. And the way God made us as a community talks about the diversity of strengths we have in giftings and callings. And so I think one thing to learn is you can learn from other people who have methods and approaches when it comes to integrating faith in sports. And you probably also have something to offer to that conversation too. So if we can hold what we do loosely, but also not in a way that shies away from the calling to step up as Christian leaders and to say there is a way to engage in sports that reflects my convictions, but then also in a way where there's a sense of humility that I can learn from others. I don't have it all figured out. A bunch of Christians before me have messed up as they're trying to do this, but they've also done some good stuff along the way. And I think that can give us freedom to try, probably to fail, but to maybe advance the conversation forward. So that's one piece. And the other piece is I think it's simply expect tension, expect that there's not an easy overlap between the culture of sports and Christianity. I think there are certain elements to sports that I'm really drawn to. I'm competitive. I love the competitiveness of sports. I want to have the winner. For me, there's a drive for all of that. Jon Eckert: You're not James Naismith, is that what you're saying? Paul Putz: I'm not. I love James Naismith, but for me, boy, I want to, I'm kind of like, I want to win. Jon Eckert: You can be John Wooden. He wanted win too. Paul Putz: There you go. That's right. He did it. The quiet winner. But biblically, there are all sorts of messages, passages, commands from Jesus that tell us that his kingdom is upside down. It's different than the way the world works. And sports culture so often has a certain way where we prioritize the winner. We maybe give our attention to the star athlete. And that type of culture, it's really difficult to fully, fully integrate that into this full-fledged view of Christian faith. And especially because sports is also a pluralistic space where you're going to have people of all different faith, traditions, race, ethnicity, backgrounds, which is beautiful. But it also means let's just have some realistic expectations for what we can accomplish in sports, realizing tension's going to exist. It's the already not yet tension. We live after Jesus's life, death and resurrection before he comes to make it fully complete. And so in the midst of that, we can witness to Christ's way right now and point to glimpses of his coming kingdom. But let's not have this sense of maybe an idealistic perfectionist bent that insists or expects that we're going to round out all the sharp edges of sports. There's going to be tension there. Jon Eckert: And so as educators, the beautiful thing, I got to teach coach for years and what I loved about it was I love basketball, but it wasn't going over the same play for the fourth year in a row. And the 50th practice that I've done it was seeing how individuals came to that and what skills you had and how you could put them in place to be successful. And so when I taught a science lab the 16th time I taught the science lab, I knew what was going to happen with the chemical reaction, but it was fun to see through the eyes of the kids that were there. So the more diverse and pluralistic the classroom of the team is, the more interesting it is to see that through all those different perspectives. And I think that's really how God sees us anyway. And so there's beauty in that and it's not a challenge to be overcome. It's the beauty of being in the world that every person is made in the image of God, whether they're the guy on the end of the bench or the best player on the team, or the kid that struggles in the science lab and flourishes in the art classroom. That kid is fascinating. And then you can't give up on that kid. And so the great coaches don't give up on players. It's why I'm super curious to see how Bill Belichick does at University of North Carolina, having been a pro coach for so many years where it is like, yeah, you've got to recruit well, but you also have to build a culture where your team, and that's harder to do now than ever because of what's going on in the transfer portal. And I don't like this, so I'm going to leave. And at least in the classroom, for the most part, we get a kid for the year and we get to be with them. We get to walk alongside them for a time and help them become more of who they're created to be and then pass them off to the next person. So I know in the Faith and Sports Institute, this is a lot of what you're trying to do through sports and how you integrate faith well. So talk a little bit about any events you have coming up or what you hope to do through that. Paul Putz: Yeah, well one thing we are excited about is the stuff we get to do with you, the Center for School Leadership. I think just over the past couple of years we've connected and collaborated. We've hung out and [inaudible 00:22:43] Jon Eckert: Board, you're on our advisory board board. Paul Putz: I often tell people, CSL think is one of the best things Baylor has going for it. And that's because I was a high school teacher and I see the sort of leaders that are developed through CSL. And so I immediately wanted to get connected and to see some overlap. I also knew sports is so central to education, and I know you have many coaches and athletic directors who come through your degree programs. And so it's been fun just to explore together some of the ways we can partner. So we do have, in June, we're actually going to be putting on at Baylor in conjunction with Baylor Athletics Center for School Leadership, faith and Sports Institute. We're going to have a little Christian Leadership Summit event. We're going to gather people together who are interested in these questions of faith and sport integration and how do you compete with excellence, but with Christian values and perspective. And so we're real excited about that. We have other events that we're doing in February, we're hosting a youth sports event, thinking about how the church navigates youth sports issues. And that's going to be February 7th and eighth here at Truett Seminary in Waco. And then in next summer, July, late July, we're hosting the Global Congress on Sport and Christianity. This is more of an academic gathering. We're bringing in scholars who do research on sports and Christianity, but we're also bringing in some thoughtful practitioners, some chaplains, some coaches, some athletic directors, people who have thought deeply about sports and faith. And it's a shared conversation. So a lot of what we try to do with the Faith and Sports Institute, convene people, have conversations, collaborate, bring people together. And we do have some grad programs and online certificate programs. So we have some educational pieces that are foundational to what we do, but also we have these just public facing programs and collaboration opportunities that I'm real excited about. Jon Eckert: Love that. And I love being at a place like Baylor where there's so many good things going on. As a center, we get to partner with you, we get to partner with Baylor Athletics. Anything Coach Drew does, I will happily support. Paul Putz: 100%. Jon Eckert: So we have so many great people like that. So that's a blessing. And I know we're almost out of time, so I'm going to do our lightning round because we really need to do the lightning round. But I want to start with this. What's the biggest challenge you see facing Christian coaches and educators right now? Paul Putz: I think it's margin and time, and the demands of the job. It seems there's more and more responsibility, and for good reasons. It's because there's these issues. It's mental health. We want to care for the kids. And there's all these challenges kids face now you need to figure that out, because if you're going to teach the kid, you better know what you're doing. And it just seems like I was last a high school teacher 11 years ago. I don't know that that world exists now 10 years later. It's totally different when I hear what educators are going through. I think for coaches as well, you've talked about it with NIL, it feels so new. I would just say some margin, some grace, some space, some sense of community. And then through that, maybe we can figure out some healthier rhythms because it's unsustainable with the way it is now. So that's one thing I see just with the people I've been around, and I know we've talked a little bit about this too, it's something... We need each other. At the end of the day, we need each other for this. Jon Eckert: Yeah. Best advice you've ever received? Paul Putz: I would say, I'm going to, boy, here's what I'll go with. John Wilson said this, "Let a thousand flowers bloom," was what he said. And he was talking about in the context of academics who kind of try to claim their territory, their space, and kind of own it. And his perspective was, let's encourage it all. Let's let it all grow. Don't try to cultivate your little space, a little thousand flowers bloom. It's going to look more beautiful and let's encourage one another along the way. And so that's the first thing that to mind. If I were to think more, I might have something else, but that's something I've been continually reminded of is how much we need each other and how much we need to encourage one another. And how much there is when we look out from ourselves and see the other work that's being accomplished. There's so much to support and encourage. Jon Eckert: That's good. I always like what comes to mind first. So that's good. Worst advice you've ever received? Paul Putz: Worst advice... Jon Eckert: Or given? Paul Putz: Or given? I've probably given some bad advice. I cannot think of... There's nothing specific that's coming to mind. That's for worst advice probably because sort of just went in one ear and out the other. Jon Eckert: That's good. Paul Putz: Gosh, I've run a total blank. You stumped me. [inaudible 00:27:39] Yeah. I'll circle back. I'm going to email you, if I can think of one after. Jon Eckert: You have to have gotten bad advice from a coach or from about coaching. That's where some of the worst advice I've ever received about coaching. Paul Putz: Well, I'll tell you. So this isn't necessarily advice, but I have heard a coach say, and this is about being a Christian, basically it was, "Hey, when you're a Christian, when you step onto that field, you're someone else. You're totally someone else. You can become whatever you want to be there." So there you go. That's some bad advice. Jon Eckert: Yeah. That's good. Paul Putz: As Christians, sports are part of life. So we don't separate who we are as Christians, we don't compartmentalize. So there you go. Worst advice is that you can separate who you are in the field to play. Jon Eckert: So if you had to distill down into a sentence your one takeaway piece of advice for somebody who wants to write a book, I talk to a lot of educators who run to write a book, you've now written a book. Any nugget that as an encouragement or as a discouragement, like, "Hey, think about this." What would you say? Paul Putz: I would say you got to write it for yourself. You got to care about it. And it's got to be important for you that you put this out because there's a ton of great books out there. You're not going to get rich off writing books. It's got to be because you're passionate about it. For yourself, not in the sense of to glorify yourself, for yourself in the sense that I have these words that I think could be helpful if I get it out. And the other thing is resilience. You got to be willing to sit down in that chair and write when you don't feel like it. Get that draft out, edit, revise. So it's resilience. And it's also a real calling that these words need to be out there. Jon Eckert: Yeah. Well, you said you were not going to make money on this. I've heard you refer to yourself as the John Grisham of sports historians. Paul Putz: There's only... Yeah, of sports and Christianity in America. Historians. There's like two of us. Jon Eckert: That's good. No, no, that's good. It's so true about the books and not getting rich, and you do have to have something that you feel so deeply that you need to get out there that it's going to drive you on those days you don't want to do it. So that's good advice. Last question, what makes you most hopeful as you look ahead, as an educator, as somebody who's interested in sports, what makes you most encouraged? Paul Putz: I think it's being around people who we're in this with, it's about the people we're in it with. There's a lot that I can get discouraged about when I see the news and it feels like there's so much that's changing. But then I'm around people who are saying, "You know what? This is a time we lived in. We didn't choose this time, but here we are, and what are we going to give up? We're going to say, oh, it's hopeless." No, it's the people. It's looking for people who want to find solutions and who realize young people are growing up. They're being shaped and formed right now. And if we're not in that work, what are we doing to shape the future? So that's more than anything. It's just being around people who are willing to put in the work, even in the face of the struggles. Jon Eckert: Well, until wrap up, I'm grateful that you decided not to take your talents to the NBA, but you brought them into academia and you brought those loves together. So I really appreciate your partnership and you being here today. Paul Putz: Thanks so much. Really appreciate you and the work you do.