Dave Zirin, The Nation magazine’s first ever sports writer, has been called the best sportswriter in the United States and also hosts a weekly podcast, Edge of Sports.

Howard Zinn said of Zirin, 'It is so refreshing to have a sports writer who writes with such verve and intelligence, who also has a social conscience,and who refuses to keep those parts of his life separate.'

Follow this link to hear his terrific and humorous talk on The People's History of Sports. It's packed with insights and little known history about sports in the US.

In an interview in 2013, Zirin talks to Bill Moyers about the collision of sports with politics and why it’s not only inevitable but significant and newsworthy:

The Collision of Sports and Politics

Why Kyrie Irving’s Connection to the Standing Rock Sioux Matters

Kyrie Irving is a wizard with the basketball in his hands. (If only he was a Wizard. He’s actually a member—sigh—of the Boston Celtics.) Off the court, Kyrie Irving is most known for starring in the summer kid’s flick Uncle Drew and saying with the world’s finest poker face—or perhaps true sincerity—that he believes the earth is flat. This has masked a more weighty, consequential side to Irving, for example his being one of the first athletes to wear an “I Can’t Breathe” shirt after the police killing of Eric Garner.

That serious side showed itself this week as Kyrie Irving became one with his Native American heritage. As Irving has discussed for years. His mother Elizabeth Ann Larson—who passed away when he was 4—was a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation until adopted (more on this later). Now Kyrie and his sister have participated in a naming ceremony with the Dakota Sioux at Standing Rock, formally reentering the community. In front of 1,000 members of the Nation, he was given his Sioux name, now Little Mountain—“Hela” in the Lakota language.

Kyrie has made his ancestral connection known for years. He tweeted support for the Indigenous people and environmental activists of Standing Rock and offered solidarity in their fight against the Dakota Access Pipe Line. He also has a tattoo of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal logo on the back of his neck. In addition, he gave the tribe $100,000 last year.

Irving also comes about the name Little Mountain—“Hela” in a profound way. In a statement from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, they said, “The family connection of Kyrie Irving comes from the White Mountain family (also known as Mountain) of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe…. Kyrie’s grandmother is the late, Meredith Marie Mountain, who is a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Kyrie’s great­grandfather is Moses Mountain and great-grandmother is Edith Morisette-Mountain.”

This has been a story both moving and widely covered. But two issues shine out from this issue beyond Kyrie’s personal, political and spiritual journey. The first is, in a sports world that still leans on Native American racist mascots and slurs, including a billion-dollar NFL brand in Washington, DC, here is a very different kind of collision between Native American life and professional sports.

The Kaepernick Whisperer

Racism is not about hurtful words, bruised feelings, political correctness, or refusing to call short people 'vertically challenged.' Racism is about the power to treat entire groups of people as something less than human—for the benefit of that power. That’s why a Native American sports mascot is far from harmless.

Sports has become such a big business that the line between journalism and being a broadcast partner for all intents and purposes has been obliterated.

We are confronting nothing less than a global system of brutal misogyny. Too many men across the world see too many women as repositories of their rage, frustration, narcissism or simply their will to enact violence.

The building of publicly funded stadiums has become a substitue for anything resembling an urban policy.

What's My Name, Fool?

EDGE OF SPORTS archives