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Content of Character: Union Leaders’ Roundtable
Outside the Lines (Sunday, 8 a.m. ET, ESPN2; 9 a.m. ESPNEWS; 10 a.m. ESPN2)
Lorenzo Bevilaqua/ESPN Images
(l to r) Jay Harris, Tony Clark, DeMaurice Smith, Michele Roberts
From the activism of athletes, to the NFL’s handling of domestic violence cases, the last year has brought profound attention to player conduct and its consequences and issues of race in sports. As the nation observes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, Outside the Lines brings together for the first time the leaders of the professional baseball, basketball and football players’ unions, all three of whom are African-American, to discuss race and diversity, fairness and equality, and the role of unions. SportsCenter anchor Jay Harris moderates the panel featuring the MLBPA’s Tony Clark, NBPA’s Michele Roberts and NFLPA’s DeMaurice Smith. Bob Ley hosts.
College hoops is on pace for its most sluggish season yet. But there’s an enticing upside to the slow-ball strategy — wins. Jordan Brenner reports.
“UNLV assistant coach Stacey Augmon squeezed into a folding chair at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Nov. 22 and watched his team score 57 points on 65 possessions against Temple — and win by seven points. By contrast, in Augmon’s final season as a small forward for UNLV in 1990-91, the Runnin’ Rebels famously scored 117 points on six occasions. “I don’t know,” he says of why his alma mater is turning into the Ploddin’ Rebels. All he knows is that the trend is growing, despite last year’s rule changes to speed up the game. And while it’s tough to peg the cause, the fan-unfriendly effect is clear: Slow teams win. Here’s why. – Jordan Brenner
Adoption Gives Virginia Coach Joanne Boyle New Life
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Joanne Boyle’s dream of adopting a child from Africa was more than half a decade in the making. The dream finally came true when she brought her daughter Ngoty home on Dec. 23. Vicki L. Friedman reports.
OTL
After the executive directors of the NBA, NFL and MLB players unions agreed to get together for their first inclusive TV interview, it took more than two weeks to make it happen because of their busy travel schedules, including Michele Roberts’ effort to visit every team early in her first season with the National Basketball Players Association.
Their ESPN-organized round table in a mid-Manhattan loft — the NFLPA’s DeMaurice Smith travelled from Washington, D.C to join the NYC-based Roberts and MLB’s Tony Clark — resulted in, “a lively and enlightening discussion,” according to producer Willie Weinbaum. The results can be seen on Sunday’s Outside the Lines (8 a.m. ESPN2; 9 a.m. ESPNEWS).
Lorenzo Bevilaqua / ESPN Images
Producer Willie Weinbaum preps (l to r) Clark, Roberts & Smith
“The approach to preparing questions was to formulate a list that would cover important general questions such as the state of race relations today, and specific timely topics such as players’ outspokenness about tragedies in Missouri, Ohio and New York,” Weinbaum said of the planning by he, moderator Jay Harris and others. “When we had everyone in their places we gave them a brief overview of our objectives to have them discuss general and specific matters touching on race and diversity and fairness and equality, with perspectives on the past, present and future. I asked if there were any topics I hadn’t mentioned that they would like to discuss, and Smith said he wanted us to include the role of unions in Dr. King’s life’s work, the civil rights movement.”