Hang Up And Listen

Hang Up and Listen: The Platonic Ideal of Team Edition

Slate’s sports podcast on the NBA Finals, Jim Tressel, Barcelona’s Champions League title, and cheerleading as a college sport.

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In this week’s episode of Slate’s sports podcast Hang Up and Listen, Stefan Fatsis, Mike Pesca, and guest host Franklin Foer discuss the 2011 NBA Finals, the sudden resignation of Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel, Barcelona’s resounding victory over Manchester United in the Champions League Final, and further signs of corruption within FIFA. And they talk to former Olympic swimming gold medalist Nancy Hogshead-Makar about the possibility that competitive cheerleading could become a fully sanctioned college sport.

Here are links to some of the articles and other items mentioned on the show:

Frank’s book How Soccer Explains the World
A preview of the NBA Finals.
LeBron James’ clutch play during the 2011 playoffs.
Even LeBron hater Scott Raab thinks the Heat will win.
Jim Tressel resigns as Ohio State’s football coach.
Sports Illustrated’s  investigation of Tressel.
A timeline of the Tressel case.
Barcelona dismantles Manchester United in the Champions League final.
Why Barcelona is awesome.
Brian Phillips wonders on Slate if this is Barca’s last hurrah.
Barca’s renowned player academy, LaMasia.
FIFA is “a complete, literally perfect oligarchy.”
Frank’s Newsweek essay on the FIFA scandals.
The Guardian live-blogs the FIFA chaos.
The effort to make “competitive cheer” an NCAA sport.
The Quinnipiac University Title IX case
Nancy Hogshead-Makar on cheer as a sport.
The New York Times on how colleges circumvent Title IX.
A 2008 Washington Post story on the high rate of cheerleading injuries.
Real Sports With Bryan Gumbel’s story on “mini-cheerleading.”

Hang Up and Listen’s weekly sweater vests:

Mike’s sweater vest: Elway the band and Elway the quarterback.
Frank’s sweater vest:  The Manager by Barney Ronay and the new soccer literary journal The Blizzard.
Stefan’s sweater vest: Barcelona also wins the Champions League in team handball; fieldball at the Naval Academy.

Podcast production and edit by Abdullah Rufus.

You can e-mail us at hangup@slate.com.

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