Episodes
Thursday Mar 14, 2024
Thursday Mar 14, 2024
Jack McCallum is on the case of the Crispus Attucks Tigers, a young Oscar Robertson, and purloined glory in the heartland of hoops.
In The Real Hoosiers, his 12th book, McCallum dives into why Indiana celebrates the 1954 Milan Miracle, and the film “Hoosiers,” more than Attucks. Repping a school community forced into existence in a “bewildering and openly racist big-city educational system,” future NBA assist king and players’ union leader Robertson and his teammates won back-to-back Indiana schoolboy titles barely a decade after the competition was opened to Black schools. It was the first time anywhere in America that a Black team had won ‘State,’ and that gets into some “freighted” history.
Best known as a longtime NBA writer at Sports Illustrated, McCallum’s basketball books include Dream Team, Golden Days, and Seven Seconds Or Less. He also detailed a personal health challenge in The Prostate Monologues.
Tuesday Feb 13, 2024
Tuesday Feb 13, 2024
Morgan Campbell’s debut memoir, “My Fighting Family: Borders and Bloodlines and the Battles That Made Us” is more than a sports book — but sport is a through line.
Campbell, whose parents and a set of grandparents decamped from Chicago for Toronto during the sociopolitically turbulent late 1960s, shares much about growing up Black and learning his way in Canada when holding trenchant American roots.
It explores a rich and nuanced family tree filled with characters that can be turbulently interconnected.
Campbell is a CBC Sports senior contributor who spent close to two decades with the Toronto Star, the largest newspaper in Canada. He also performs boxing commentary, and was a boxing correspondent for The New York Times. His spouse, Perdita Felicien, was also a guest of SportsLit in 2021 (“My Mother’s Daughter,” S5E06).
Sunday Jan 28, 2024
Sunday Jan 28, 2024
Thursday Jan 18, 2024
Thursday Jan 18, 2024
Erik Kramer built an NFL career on precision, timing, and accuracy, but it was his greatest miss that led to him building a complete life.
Monday Dec 25, 2023
Monday Dec 25, 2023
Nothing is ever as good as it once was. That’s a lie —they improve, or more accurately, they evolve. Still, why not look back with a bit of wonder?
Like a hard foul in the paint, Cohen's prose will knock you down and stoke a hunger for more
Sunday Nov 26, 2023
Sunday Nov 26, 2023
Pride and Prejudice
It could have easily been the title of Ted Nolan’s biography.
My Life in Two Worlds: A Coach’s Journey from the Reserve to the NHL and Back encompasses the duality of his drive to show people from his world, Garden River First Nation, could succeed in another one, whilst centering their Indigenous identity.
A career coach who has achieved success at every level, Nolan is best known for his first tenure with the Buffalo Sabres in the 1990s. He earned the NHL coach-of-the-year award in just his second season on the job but faced professional exile for nearly a decade afterward.
Nolan’s journey to the NHL, both on the ice and behind the bench, began in Garden River First Nation, near Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. He and his spouse Sandra have seen both of their sons, Brandon and Jordan, play in the NHL.
Wednesday Nov 15, 2023
SportsLit (Season 7, Episode 6) - Doug MacLean with Scott Morrison - Draft Day
Wednesday Nov 15, 2023
Wednesday Nov 15, 2023
The NHL Draft is one of hockey's great spectacles. Just after the Stanley Cup is awarded, the spotlight shifts to the draft floor, where teams hope to acquire future stars and the diamonds in the rough that can lead them — or keep them — in contention.
As a former NHL president and general manager, Doug MacLean has seen the process from the inside. That is where he and Hockey Hall of Fame-honoured writer Scott Morrison take readers in Draft Day: How Hockey Teams Pick Winners or Get Left Behind. This is a book with a hook — informative with lively anecdotes along the way. MacLean relates what it’s like to call the shots, and he does not mind firing a few more in this book.
Saturday Nov 11, 2023
Saturday Nov 11, 2023
Jonathon Jackson captures the spirit of the thing
Like “Slap Shot” itself, Jonathon Jackson might have been slightly ahead of his time when he set out to write about the timeless hockey movie.
Nowadays, ‘how it was made’ books, podcasts, and limited series are everywhere. But it was back in 2006, Jackson set out to write about the “nuts and bolts” that held together a raunchy, rollicking 1977 sports comedy starring Paul Newman that remains unlike any depiction of hockey put on screens before, and possibly since.
“The Making of Slap Shot” was first published in 2010, and now has a second edition from Double J Media that includes behind-the-scenes photos contributed by cast members. See you down at the Ace’s.
Friday Oct 27, 2023
Friday Oct 27, 2023
Rooted in Jamaica and then Oakville, Ont., Bailey rocketed around the world after a belated entry into athletics. Following his triumphs on the track, his career was derailed by injuries. Decades after retirement, he makes it clear where he stands in the pantheon of Canadian sport. All you need to do is read the title — Undisputed: A Champion’s Life.
Wednesday Oct 25, 2023
Wednesday Oct 25, 2023