In this pod host Dave Early interviews award-winning sportswriter Mirin Fader on many of her best-written features.
She profiled Markelle Fultz, so what’s the verdict, injury or yips?
Hear Mirin impersonate how Packers’ All-Pro wide receiver Davanta Adams sounds with his 18-month-old daughter, Daija!
Is there something unique about having a daughter that brings out a new side in an athlete as externally stoic and fierce as Adams or Kobe Bryant?
How does Mirin suss out the human and family element within so many high-profile athletes, even when they have already learned to keep that stuff mostly private?
Hear her talk about how being a 5’2 pitbull of a point guard at the college level prepared her for a future career connecting with rising stars like Lonzo and LaMelo Ball, Brandon Ingram, or defensive-minded overachievers like Pat Beverley and Jae’Sean Tate.
How devastating are yips for an athlete, how does one redefine themself after the loss of a critical skill?
There was the time an 18 year old LaMelo got his butt kicked by older grownups overseas then cooly teased Mirin about being short...did that demonstrate a bit about how he tunes out the noise?
Catch the crazy story about how she went over to Alex Antetokounmpo, Giannis’ younger brother’s house, for a profile, and Giannis called from rooms away to check up on Alex to make sure he was OK. Then went into the kitchen to make a snack, which all somehow led to her upcoming book “Giannis: the improbable rise of an NBA MVP.”
If Joel Embiid ended up in Milwaukee, whose team would it have been his or Giannis’? Would they have had to practice their tough-guy faces to prove who is most alpha?
We talk about how there are certain traits and themes that are present when profiling top picks or undrafted scrappers from the importance of mom, family, perseverance, vision, and displacement from home.
And plenty more.
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