Sports Illustrated Weekly

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Trans Swimmer Lia Thomas Tells Her Story Mar 16, 2022

Show notes

The NCAA women's swimming and diving championships begin today in Atlanta and all eyes are on University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas. Robert Sanchez and Julie Kliegman join us to discuss the coverage, conversations and controversy surrounding Thomas and her rise to the top of women’s collegiate swimming. We’ll also hear exclusively from Lia Thomas in her own words.

Daily Cover: ‘I Am Lia’: The Trans Swimmer Dividing America Tells Her Story by Robert Sanchez

Daily Cover: Why Can't Luc Play? by Julie Kliegman

With March Madness upon us, SI’s Kevin Sweeney explains why tiny Coppin State played almost all its games away from home this season. It’s the story of a never-ending season-long road trip that included 400-mile bus rides, 50-point losses and someone forgetting to pack their jerseys.

Daily Cover: The College Road Trip From Hell by Kevin Sweeney

Former SI staffer Grant Wahl is here to tell us how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has impacted the world of soccer, from Chelsea FC’s financial strictures to Vladimir Putin’s “sportswashing” and FIFA finally being forced to shut the door on Russia.

Read Grant at GrantWahl.com

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Basketball Bribery Scandal, Formula One Fever, Calvin Ridley’s Bad Beat Mar 09, 2022

Show notes

With March Madness around the corner, Sports Illustrated senior writer Pat Forde tells us the story of Merl Code, a former sneaker executive who claims the biggest recruits to the biggest programs are all getting paid. We take you inside the scandal that rocked college basketball.

Article: Merl Code Peels Back the Curtain on College Basketball’s Bribery Scandal by Pat Forde

The fourth season of Netflix’s smash hit Formula 1: Drive to Survive drops this weekend. Formula One reporter and digital presenter Will Buxton joins us to explain how the show’s surprise success in the U.S. has created countless new fans and helped grow the sport.

Article: Through the Fire and Flames by Shaker Samman

Mike Garafolo of the NFL Network fills us in on the fallout over Falcons wideout Calvin Ridley and his season-long suspension for gambling.

Article: Calvin Ridley’s Suspension Is NFL Business As Usual by Conor Orr

Special thanks to Sean Sullivan of Yahoo Sports for the Merl Code audio. It originally appeared on the College Football Enquirer podcast.

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NBA One-Minute Club, JJ Redick, Steve Smith Sr. with “Where Were They Then?” Mar 02, 2022

Show notes

Making it to the NBA is a dream come true. But for members of a small group, it also means playing exactly one minute and one minute only, before never playing in the league again. Sports Illustrated staff writer Ben Pickman tells the tale of perhaps the most exclusive and heartbreaking club in all of pro sports.

SI Daily Cover: In It for a Minute by Ben Pickman

JJ Redick is here to discuss the fallout from his Zion Williamson comments and what it was like to play with Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid, and to share memories of Coach K as he eyes his final big dance.

SI Vault: Boo Devil by Grant Wahl

Former All-Pro wide receiver Steve Smith, Sr. talks about the first time he was in Sports Illustrated for another edition of “Who Where They Then?”

SI Vault: Steve Smith Rules by Greg Bishop

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Katie Nolan and Stephanie Apstein Close the Olympics, Emma Baccellieri on a ‘Sex and the City’ Baseball Mystery Feb 23, 2022

Show notes

Katie Nolan is a TV personality who just finished covering the Olympics for NBC and Peacock. Katie joins our host John Gonzalez for a wide-ranging conversation that includes the Russian figure skating doping controversy, how we talk about athletes when they struggle with mental health issues, how she recently came to my rescue on Twitter and what’s next for her career.

Clip: Kate Nolan tries figure skating on Peacock

The Olympics are over, but before SI senior writer Stephanie Apstein left Beijing, she reported a rather amusing story. Stephanie spoke to a whole host of Winter Olympians with one surprising thing in common: how much they really hate being cold.

SI Daily Cover: ‘It’s a Necessary Evil of Doing a Snow Sport’

Emma Baccellieri is a staff writer for Sports Illustrated who covers Major League Baseball. She’s also a fan of the Sex and the City reboot. And while MLB is still mired in a lockout, the show And Just Like That took Emma down an entertaining baseball rabbit hole that prompted her to solve an unexpected mystery.

SI Daily Cover: How ‘Sex and the City’ Sent Me Down a Fake Baseball Rabbit Hole

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Matthew Stafford in Cabo, Ben Schwartz and Chris Herring on ’90s Knicks, Simmons for Harden With Devine and O’Shaughnessy Feb 16, 2022

Show notes

Matthew Stafford and the Rams are Super Bowl champions. But before they even got to the big game, there were whispers and rumors about the legendary trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, that ended up with Stafford being traded from Detroit to L.A. Sports Illustrated senior writer Greg Bishop pulls back the curtain and explains how a joint vacation and the fate of an unusual L.A. rainstorm changed the Rams’ fortunes and altered the course of NFL history.

Pop culture and sports collide when actor-comedian Ben Schwartz and SI senior writer Chris Herring join us to discuss Chris’s new book, Blood in the Garden, our shared love of the ’90s NBA and the state of the Knicks franchise.

Excerpt: Blood in the Garden

Ben Simmons and James Harden were part of a blockbuster trade during last week’s deadline. But how will Simmons look on the Nets? And will Harden finally make the Sixers a championship contender? Host John Gonzalez is joined by friends and former coworkers Haley O’Shaughnessy of the Spinsters podcast and Dan Devine of The Ringer for a reunion deep dive.

Podcast: John Gonzalez on Spinsters

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SoFi: The Toll Stadiums Take on a City Feb 09, 2022

Show notes

This weekend, Super Bowl LVI descends on Inglewood, Calif., and gleaming SoFi Stadium. For NFL fans with money to burn, this is the party of a lifetime. For the residents who never got a vote on this stadium, they’re left to deal with the aftermath. In conversations with residents, business owners, the mayor and more, our host John Gonzalez went to Inglewood to learn first-hand what’s happening to the people who live, work and worship there as so much in their city changes.

When Brian Flores filed his recent lawsuit against the NFL and three teams, it yet again placed the spotlight on the league’s failure to hire Black candidates into its highest ranks of leadership. Despite 20 years of the Rooney Rule, GQ staff writer Tyler Tynes tells us why he’s not surprised at the current state of affairs and why this landmark lawsuit is about so much more than Brian Flores.

Chris Wesseling, known to his friends as “Wess,” was a host of the popular Around the NFL podcast. A lifelong Bengals fan, Wess would have relished a Super Bowl matchup with his wife Lakisha’s favorite Rams. Sadly, Wess died of cancer last year. His wife and ATN co-hosts Gregg Rosenthal, Dan Hanzus and Marc Sessler join John and his wife, Colleen Wolfe, of the NFL Network, to mark one year since Wess died and honor their dear friend.

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Erin Jackson’s Need for Speed, Ben Rhodes on Olympic politics, Michael Vick’s Where Were They Then? Feb 02, 2022

Show notes

Erin Jackson grew up competing in inline skating and roller derby as a rink rat in Ocala, Fla. Now, she’s America’s best hope for gold in long-track speed skating at the Winter Olympics. Considered a sure bet to make the U.S. team, Jackson slipped during qualifying and nearly missed the games until a fateful decision made by her childhood idol, Brittany Bowe, gave her a ticket to back to the Olympics. Senior writer Stephanie Apstein wrote SI’s cover story on Erin Jackson and tells us about her incredible journey from Florida to Beijing.

SI Cover story: Erin Jackson Is Ready to Make a Statement on Ice

As the sports spotlight shifts to Beijing, not all invited guests are showing up to the party. Along with Great Britain, Canada and Australia, the United States is enacting a “diplomatic boycott” of the Beijing games, which means no government officials will attend, though athletes will still compete. With critics like French President Emmanuel Macron dismissing these efforts as “insignificant,” Ben Rhodes is here to tell us why the conversation around these Beijing games is already very different from 2008, the last time China hosted the Olympics. Rhodes served as deputy national security adviser for the Obama administration, and he’s cohost of Crooked Media’s Pod Save the World.

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Before Michael Vick was a household name, he was a kid focused on football growing up in Newport News, Va. It’s at nearby Virginia Tech where SI first caught a glimpse of his star on the rise. Vick describes what life was like when he stood on the brink of being selected first in the 2001 NFL draft, fulfilling his and his family’s wildest dreams.

SI Vault: Virginia Tech's Michael Vick Is a Marvel Without an Ego

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Shawn Bradley’s New Life, QB Evolution, When Kobe Ruled Philly Jan 26, 2022

Show notes

Former NBA star Shawn Bradley was living out an idyllic retirement in Utah until one day a tragic bike ride left him paralyzed when a driver hit him from behind. SI contributing writer Brian Burnsed is here to tell us how Bradley; his wife, Carrie; and their family have been forever changed by this experience.

SI Daily Cover: Life After 7'6": Shawn Bradley, Paralyzed in a Bike Crash, Knows ‘It’ll Never Be the Same’

Quarterbacks study the game of football and their competitors incessantly, so when a standout performer like Aaron Rogers develops a “foot pop” or Lamar Jackson starts bending his throws around defenders, players are bound to copy their moves. SI staff writer and mad genius Conor Orr delivers a treatise on the evolutionary development of quarterbacks with some solid blocking by world-renowned biologists from Harvard University.

SI Cover story: In the Throws of Change

On the anniversary of Kobe Bryant’s death, we welcome Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Mike Sielski, whose new book delves into what Kobe was like as a young phenom before he became a basketball legend. Sielski joins us to tell the entertaining story behind the unlikely college that almost landed Kobe before he decided to jump straight to the NBA.

Excerpt, The Ones Kobe Left Behind

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Premiere: Warriors Dynasty, Tom Brady, and ‘Where Were They Then?’ with Joe Thomas Jan 19, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to Sports Illustrated Weekly, where we gather the best sports stories from inside and outside the pages of SI and deliver them to you in audio form every Wednesday.

+ Our premiere tips off with SI Senior WriterHoward Beckwho reports on the Golden State Warriors rebooting their dynasty with young players and an elite core still in its prime. Read: “The Warriors’ Quest to Achieve What Other Dynasties Couldn’t”, “The Fire That Burns Inside Klay Thompson”

+ Then, SI Senior Writer Jon Wertheim walks us through a conversation with Tom Brady on the occasion of receiving our Sportsperson of the Year award for the second time. After 22 years in the NFL, is Brady's career worth another look? And could the GOAT actually play until he’s 50? Read: “2021 Sportsperson of the Year: Tom Brady”

+ Finally, NFL legend Joe Thomas describes what it meant for him to be profiled in the pages of Sports Illustrated as a young offensive lineman. Read: “Old School” by Peter King, April 23, 2007

Read SI.com and get in touch with us on Twitter at @podcasts_si.

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Introducing: SI Weekly Jan 12, 2022

Show notes

Introducing the new flagship podcast from Sports Illustrated. Storytelling, interviews, unforgettable sports moments – SI Weekly is everything you love about the iconic sports magazine, now in podcast form.

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