Episode Reviews

There was a time when sports entertainment could largely be sanctioned off in a corner free from the perils of critical thought. Sure, people have always talked about the strategy of a coach or the abilities of a player or the breakdown of a specific game, but off the field issues were relegated to the errant criminal episode that might befall an individual . Which, really, was just a projection of field-related issues - you can't play in the big game inside the big house. There have of course long been people of conscious who have sought to link struggles for equality across the lines of a field or court. A shift began arguably as early as the 1990s with the advent of ESPN's Outside The Lines, and as ESPN's coverage expanded a natural vacuum began to demand more information. This meant that any kind of detail that might be seen to have an effect on a game would be pushed into the mainstream of public consciousness. Yet still, in my lifetime, there has never been an extra-athletic event as public and pervasive as the one currently facing us with Colin Kaepernick and the deviousness of the NFL. Long-term effects of concussions, toxic work environments, and the ever-more-obvious tilt of racial bias among owners are but a few of the troubling things discussed aptly on this iteration of thoughtful sports podcast Hang Up And Listen. This episode gave me some serious pause about what I'm implicitly supporting by following the NFL.