Dave Zirin

Why Jason Collins Is More Roger Bannister Than Jackie Robinson

Dave Zirin on May 1, 2013 - 10:34 AM ET

Roger Bannister, after running the first sub–4:00 mile. (Flickr/CC, 2.0)

I discovered a new unity with nature. I had found a new source of power and beauty, a source I never dreamt existed. —Roger Bannister

Jason Collins: The Substance of Change

Dave Zirin on April 30, 2013 - 8:01 AM ET

Jason Collins on the cover of Sports Illustrated. (Credit: SI.com)

Hearing the news made me feel like I’d accidentally walked into a wind tunnel. For as long as I had written about this issue and as many times as I had said in recent years that “this will happen in a matter of months if not weeks,” it still hit me like a triple-shot of espresso cut with a teaspoon of Adderall. Thanks to the courage of 34-year-old NBA veteran Jason Collins, we can no longer repeat endlessly that no active male athlete in North America has ever come out of the closet. Instead we’re now able to say that we were there when our most influential cultural citadel of homophobia—the men’s locker room—was forever breached and finally received a rainbow makeover on its unforgiving grey walls. But we didn’t only get the act of coming out. We also got, courtesy of Mr. Collins and Sports Illustrated writer Franz Lidz, about as beautiful a coming-out statement as has ever been put to paper.

A Fighter by His Trade: Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Sports and the American Dream

Dave Zirin on April 29, 2013 - 10:21 AM ET

The Boston Marathon bombers.

“The most difficult part of getting to the top of the ladder is getting through the crowd at the bottom.”

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Did Shaquille O'Neal Just Box Out Mumia?

Dave Zirin on April 25, 2013 - 11:13 AM ET

Shaquille O’Neal. (Reuters/Brian Snyder)

Why did Newark’s only movie theater, co-owned by Shaquille O’Neal, just pull a scheduled showing of a documentary about Mumia Abu-Jamal? No one is talking, but this is a story that stinks worse than the Jersey swamps. For the unfamiliar, Mumia Abu-Jamal is perhaps the most famous of the 2.4 million people behind bars in the United States. He has spent the last three decades as not only a prisoner but a political lightning rod, with the Fraternal Order of Police demanding his execution after the killing of Philadelphia Officer Daniel Faulkner. Following thirty years on death row, Mumia’s sentence was commuted to life without the possibility of parole last year.

An Interview With ESPN's New Ombudsman, Robert Lipsyte

Dave Zirin on April 24, 2013 - 2:50 PM ET

Robert Lipsyte has a reputation, largely built from his years at The New York Times, as one of the most fearless sportswriters and columnists of the last century. He has been a critic of jock culture, racism, sexism and homophobia in sports, and the over-corporatizing of our games. In his famous book of the same title, he coined the phrase “SportsWorld” to describe this stew of style with little positive substance. Now that same Robert Lipsyte is going to be the Ombudsman at ESPN: the great magnetic force at the heart of our twenty-first-century SportsWorld. Here, The Nation speaks to Robert Lipsyte about this stunning turn of events.

Dave Zirin: So let’s start with the question many readers might be afraid to ask: What the hell is an ombudsman?

Robert Lipsyte: In this case, the ombudsman, like the New York Times public editor (of whom I am currently an avid fan) is the representative of ESPN’s reading, listening and viewing audience. I will be happily wading through the e-mail bag to find out what that audience is concerned about, complaining about, loving, questioning. Then I will try to explain the background of what happened, demystify the process (through reporting) and offer my take. Transparency. ESPN is the world’s great window on sports. I’m the window washer.

'What the Hell!': Steubenville High School Football Coach Gets a Two-Year Contract Extension

Dave Zirin on April 22, 2013 - 7:14 PM ET

A sheriff's vehicle patrols the area around Steubenville High School. (Reuters/Jason Cohn)

Perhaps the most disturbing feature of the Steubenville High School rape trial involving several members of the school’s storied football team wasn't the crime itself as much as everything that surrounded it. It was the fifty people who stood around and did nothing while an unconsious young woman was being carried around like a slab of beef. It was the adults in authority who seemed all too eager to push this under the rug until photos were displayed for the world to see and the justice system was shamed to act. It was those who threatened the life of the young woman for daring to press charges, requiring armed guards outside her family’s home.

Why We Must Protect Next Year’s Boston Marathon From Ourselves

Dave Zirin on April 20, 2013 - 3:04 AM ET

A makeshift memorial for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings on Boylston Street in Boston, April 18, 2013. (Reuters/Shannon Stapleton)

If emerging victorious after being down 3-0 to the Yankees in the 2004 playoffs should have taught us anything, it’s that the people of Boston are tough as hell and never lose faith. After Monday’s bombing of the Boston Marathon and the following days under lockdown, we are already seeing that resilience emerge. Already, people in the city are talking about how the Marathon next year is going to be bigger and better than ever. Already runners are signing up in droves. Already according to one website, the race in 2014 could have “15 to 20 times” the number of people attempting to qualify. As Raymond Britt, a Marathon analyst who ran the 26.2 mile course for thirteen consecutive years said, “We believe it’s an extraordinary sign of the running community’s desire to support Boston. They want to come to Boston in 2014 to defend her honor, take our race back from evil, to prove the spirit of freedom will prevail over all.” Bloomberg News also ran a story about the commitment of runners to retake Heartbreak Hill in 2014.

A Review of '42': Jackie Robinson's Bitter Pill

Dave Zirin on April 17, 2013 - 2:10 PM ET

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment.

This week in Major League Baseball was Jackie Robinson Day. This is when Commissioner Bud Selig honors the man who broke the color line in 1947 and pats MLB on the back for being “a leader in the Civil Rights Movement.” It’s possible to appreciate that Selig honors one of the 20th Century’s great anti-racist heroes. It’s also possible, out of respect for Jackie Robinson, to resent the hell out of it.

The Boston Marathon: All My Tears, All My Love

Dave Zirin on April 15, 2013 - 5:49 PM ET

Kathrine Switzer found herself about to be thrown out of the normally all-male Boston Marathon when a companion threw a block that tossed a race official out of the running instead, April 19, 1967. (AP Photo)