Dave Zirin on sports, politics, homophobia & making sports an ‘anti-sexist safe space”

Nate Parham of Swish Appeal reports:

This past week, Dave Zirin of The Nation visited the Bay Area for a few speaking engagements and appearances in support of the San Francisco Giants concession workers. During Zirin’s appearances at SoleSpace and on local radio, he discussed mixing sports and politics, homophobia in sports, and the role of women’s sports in helping sports culture evolve into an “anti-sexist safe space”.

The Oakland Local article previewing Dave Zirin’s speaking event on Friday night in downtown Oakland opens with Aristotle’s principle that, “…man has the power of speech, a sense of good and evil, just and unjust and a need for community. Without these, he’s pretty much a stateless barbarian – a total jerk, if you will.”

Well, as an introvert – who draws energy from being alone but isn’t afraid of being in public, which can sometimes lead to me being read as a total jerk – that’s what I decided to do for my birthday on Friday night.

Zirin was joined by local radio host Weyland Southon and Mary Tillman, mother of former NFL player and decorated U.S. ranger Pat Tillman. With Jason Collins and Brittney Griner coming out recently, I figured that Zirin would mention Griner and thus women’s basketball at some point and he actually had more to say about women’s basketball than I might have expected.

Southon and Zirin went over most of the major points discussed at Friday’s event in Saturday’s Father Figures show on KPFA (click here to listen), but the following is just a list of some of the highlights (tangentially) relevant to women’s basketball in no particular order.

To read the rest of this article click here.

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