An Army of Normal Folks - Supporting Greatness: Scottie Pippen, Sugar Ray Leonard, Top 100 Golfers (Pt 1)

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

For our special series “Supporting Greatness”, where we typically interview those who’ve achieved public greatness about their own Army of Normal Folks that supported them, this time we interviewed award-winning sportswriter Michael Arkush. He's written books with Scottie Pippen and Sugar Ray Leonard, about the top 100 golfers in history, and he celebrates each of their Army of Normal Folks that supported them.   Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

That's why I'm so glad you're doing this podcast in general as well because I think as you get more successful, you start to think that you can only rely on other successful people for these lessons in life. That's such BS because the best lessons always come from those, again, the normal people who their names are not in lights, okay? We don't know who they are. And I don't think you can stress that enough. Welcome to an army of normal folks.

I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis. And the last part of it somehow led to an Oscar for the film about our team. That movie's called, Undefeated. Y'all, I just believe our country's problems

are just not ever gonna be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice clothes, using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather by us, an army of normal folks, that's just you and me, seeing an area of need and Fox, but rather by us and Army of Normal folks, that's just you and me, seeing an area of need and deciding, hey, maybe I can help. And today we have a new edition of our special series, Supporting Greatness,

where we typically interview those who've achieved public greatness about their own Army of Normal folks that supported them and shaped their lives. But this time, we're interviewing award-winning sportswriter Michael Arkoush, who's written books with Scottie Pippen, Sugar Ray Leonard, Phil Jackson, and many others, and his most recent book, About the top 100 golfers in history. Michael will celebrate each of their army of normal folks that supported them to make

it on this list. I cannot wait for you to meet Michael right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. I'm Soledad O'Brien, and on my podcast, Murder on the Towpath, I'm taking you back to the 1960s. Mary Pinchot-Meyer was a painter who lived in Georgetown in Washington, D.C. Every day she took a daily walk along the towpath near the E&O Canal. So when she was killed in a wealthy neighborhood... She had been shot twice in the head

and in the back behind the heart. The police arrived in a heartbeat. Within 40 minutes, a man named Raymond Crump Jr. was arrested. He was found nearby, soaking wet, and he was black. Only one woman dared defend him, civil rights lawyer Dubby Roundtree. Join me as we unravel this story with a crazy twist because what most people didn't know is that Mary was connected to a very powerful man.

I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor provoke aggression. John F. Kennedy. Listen to Murder on the Toe Path with Soledad O'Brien on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the MeatEater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser-known histories of the West.

I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Rannella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here and I'll say it seems like the ice age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In 1978, Roger Caron's first book was published, and he was unlike any first-time author Canada had ever seen. Roger Caron was 16 when first convicted. Had spent 24 of those years in jail. 12 years in solitary. He went from an ex-con to a literary darling almost overnight. He was instantly a celebrity. He was an adrenaline junkie, and he was the star of the show.

Go-Boy is the gritty true story of how one man fought his way out of some of the darkest places imaginable. I had a knife go in my stomach, puncture my skin, break my ribs. I had my feps all in my hands. Only to find himself back where he started. Rod, you're saying this, I've never heard anybody but myself. And I said, oh, you're so wrong. You're so wrong on that one, Rod.

From Campside Media and iHeart Podcasts, listen to GoBoy on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on Good Company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi, for a conversation that's anything but ordinary. We dive into the competitive world of streaming, how she's turning so-called niche into mainstream gold, connecting audiences

with stories that truly make them feel seen. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. It's this idea that there are so many stories out there, and if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Get a front row seat to where media, marketing, technology, entertainment, and sports collide. And hear how leaders like Anjali are carving out space and shaking things up a bit in the most crowded of markets. Listen to Good Company on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. Are we ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. I thought it was, oh, this is fighting words. Okay. I'll put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a bestselling author with the second most banned book in America.

Now, more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back. And that's what we're doing on Fighting Words. We're not going to let anyone silence us. That's the reason why they're banning books like yours, George. That's the reason why they're trying to books like yours, George. That's the reason why they're trying to stop the teaching of Black history or queer history, any history that challenges the whitewash norm. Or put us in a box.

Black people have never, ever depended on the so-called mainstream to support us. That's why we are great. We are the greatest culture makers in world history. Listen to Fighting Words on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Michael Arkoosh, welcome to Memphis. It's great to be here.

Is it? Oh man, I love it. Last time. 10 years ago. That's great to be here. Is it? Oh, man. I love it. Last time? 10 years ago. That's crazy that it's been 10 years since you've been in Memphis, given that you spent about 10 months here during that 10-year period ago. Seemed that way, yes.

Yeah, it does. Everybody, Michael Arkoosh, first and foremost, is my friend. But he's certainly not known for being my friend. What he is is an incredible writer But he's certainly not known for being my friend. What he is is an incredible writer. He's a sports writer. I think you've written for Golf Digest. What are the magazines? Golf Magazine, Golf Digest, Golf World. Yeah. And Rope Daily Times, New York Times, Washington Post. Yeah. Washington Post. Pretty much everybody. Yeah. Yeah. And

he is also an author of Sugar Ray Leonard's book and Phil Jackson's book and Scottie Pippen's book and Ray Allen's book and Kurt Menafee's. Yes, I did a book with him, yes. Yeah, see, I remember things. You got it, you know me more than I do. Some other books, I don't know, what are some other books? I did a book about golfers and their fathers,

who inspired them. Yeah, that kind of thing. I do the first book I did, 60 years of USC UCLA football. Which, who wants to read that? So anyway. That's what we found out, yes. Didn't sell too well.

So Mike Aracuj is my friend, he's a gifted writer and he has just released his latest piece of work called the Golf 100, subtitled a spirited ranking of the greatest players of all time and it is a book that is to elicit argument but we're gonna get into that later. I also want to say that as impressive as Michael's resume is that Pauletta, his wife, is the far superior of the couple. No question about it. What's your line about coverage? Yeah, you outkicked your coverage. You absolutely outkicked your coverage. Pauletta has worked in the Foreign Service in places like Russia and Ukraine and DC and is an incredible woman

in her own right and you way out kick your company. So that's who Michael is in a professional and personal sense as a snapshot. Before we get started, I want you guys know if you're here at the end, we will have a Q&A at the end of this for any of you who want to ask any questions of Michael. We are today in the Memphis Listening Lab in the cool Crosstown Concourse in Memphis. Michael flew in last night, I guess from Santa Barbara, didn't you? Yep. Yep. He flew in last night to join us. Before we get going for those listening,

we will have a live interview on May 8th. That will be our next live interview. It is going to be with 9-11 firefighter Tim Brown. Tim saved 15 lives on that faithful day while losing a hundred friends. His story is unbelievable. He doesn't see himself as a hero and what he has to teach us about the power of an army of normal folks is phenomenal. So May 8th at 630 at Grind City Brewing. To learn more

you can RSVP and find out more at 100friends.eventbrite.com. I hope you will join us and I hope those listening will join us. So we've set up who Michael is, but we're not interviewing Michael for an army of normal folks, really, because he's kind of reached some heights that most normal folks don't. However, as many of you long-time listeners will know, on occasion we do a special segment called Supporting Greatness. And the Supporting Greatness series is where we interview folks who've achieved public greatness, but we interview them about their own army of normal folks who supported, inspired, and helped shape their lives

so that we get to celebrate the army of normal folks and people who've reached greatness that we don't know about. For this series, we've interviewed people like Mike Roe from Dirty Jobs, the author of The Shack, Paul Young, and Medal of Honor recipients Dakota Meyer and David Bellavia. So you were in high company.

In Michael's case, we're interviewing him. We're gonna talk about a couple people in your life. And then also interestingly, as a guy who's done so much biographical work and done so much content, but we're going to let Michael share with us stories about normal folks in the lives of people who supported greatness, like folks like Sugar Ray Leonard and Scottie Pippen. And then we're going to get in some of these golfers that have some extraordinary stories in the Golf 100 and actually how you learn those stories. So that's

it. So to start us kind of tell us where you came from and how you grew up Albany, New York, the capital of the great state of New York. Was a great place to grow up close to New York City and close to Boston. What shaped me and who I am really is my father died when I was young. I was only 12 years old. He died of Lou Gehrig's disease. It was a really horrible time in our life.

And I'll talk about it later, but my uncle and aunt introduced me to golf. It was this way to getting away from the tragedy of what happened at home. It was incredibly helpful. But the influence on my life, the early influence on my life was a guy named Dr. Stephen Burke.

He's a history professor at Union College and is connected to New York. And he taught me the value and the beauty of history in such a profound way. I mean, I was not a great student before then. I was a terrible student. Why am I saying not a great student? I was awful. But he made me care about learning. He made me passionate about it to an unbelievable degree.

And I remember the first time I got an A minus in his exam, I felt like I'd conquered the world. And he taught me European history, Russian history, Jewish history. And this is my high school. He was only 36 years old at the time. He's now 84. And I still consult with him, talk to him once or twice,

every couple months or so, let's say. And we talk about the election, we talk about everything going on in America is an unbelievable resource. And I'm just so lucky to have had somebody like that in my life, somebody who was an authority on a subject like that, who made me care. And it extended way

beyond it extended to sports history, extended to every aspect of history and knowledge. And I never thought that knowledge was such a beautiful thing to obtain as when I learned, when I studied with him. I remember at my high school graduation, he stood up there and he gave the speech and he said, I don't have a panacea for all of you I don't have a cure. I can't give you the key to success in life but what he didn't realize that he had given me the key already and I've held on to that forever. So I'm grateful to him. Would you be a writer for one for him? Um, I don't know I know that when I was in school in sixth or seventh grade,

I used to have a textbook, and in between me and the textbook was a notebook. The teacher thought I was taking notes when I was writing stories. So it's always been part of it. It's always been there. It's always been part of my sickness. And I wrote a story once about a guy

who was a fighter against a boxer. It was sort of a preview of the book I would write 40 years later, and I didn't know it at the time, obviously, about Ali and Frazier, but I had all these, I don't know what happened to those notes. Really, don't you? I think they went the way of my baseball cards.

I think it could be argued then because of the perspective of history and what he taught you, you wouldn't have been nearly as effective of writing. Absolutely, absolutely. I know from personal experience with you, because you're irritating as hell. And proud of it. Yeah. You will research to the nth degree before you put a word in a book. Correct. That has to come from him. Yeah. Yeah, it does because there were so many facts that

we learned from him about all of history Yeah, if I did not have it right factually, I mean I was not getting an A or B when I was getting much worse Absolutely. Yeah, who else? Okay one of the person who I only spoke to once in my entire life Really for two hours guy named David Halberstam Maybe you recognize his great author. He's got powers at be best in the brightest, all these incredible, he was a correspondent for the New York Times in Vietnam.

I mean, I think to the point that Kennedy tried to get him out of the job because he was so on top of what was going on with our failure in Vietnam, really even early on. And my editor at the time, I was working on a book with Phil Jackson, my editor said, would you like to talk to Halberstam? Are you kidding me?

This is like one of my heroes. And we were on the phone for two hours and he told me the whole secret to writing books, which was when you write a magazine article or a newspaper article, in your mind all the time is how do I boil this down? How do I go from thousand words to 700 words to 600 words? How do I keep it down? In books, it's like an accordion. You just keep Expanding and the idea that you could write anything you want just keep it longer

Just because you can always edit later in the Ali Frazier book. I did a chapter on Jerry Corey I don't know how many remember the fighter Jerry Corey Muhammad Ali's first fight after he was suspended was against Jerry Quarry in Atlanta in October 1970. I went up in Bakersfield, California and I met the Quarry family, spent like a whole day with them, came back, I spent the next two weeks and I wrote 15,000 words about the Quarry family. Okay, what the heck was I doing? This is a book about Ali and Frazier, supposed to be like 60 or 70,000 words and I'm writing 15,000 words. I couldn't stop myself. Seriously, I just, it's like some kind of tick or something. I just had to keep

going. Eventually I turned it down to about 3,000 and when you're sitting there at a computer and cutting down 12, 11, 12,000 words is not easy but to get to what those 3,000 words are, I think you sometimes have to write 15,000. The key to writing is not the writing, it's the rewriting. And he taught you that? He told me the importance of that, yeah. So when you think about supporting the greatness of the works that you've put out over the last 40 years, a simple high school teacher and a conversation you had with a guy on

the phone for two hours. Which speaks to the power of an army of normal folks, people you don't even think of. And those people, do you think those people even have any idea of the depth of effect they've done in your life? No, and I told Dr. Burke, I've probably 50 times in the nearly half century since then, boggles my mind, about his influence. I don't know if these people, him or others, really take that in. Because you can hear that line, but what does it really mean? They're there as teachers, but I think somewhere it registers, I hope, because I know other people similarly affected by him as well. It's phenomenal.

And now, a few messages from our generous sponsors. But first, I hope you'll consider signing up to join the Army at NormalFolks.us. By signing up, you'll receive a weekly email with short episode summaries in case you happen to miss an episode or if you prefer reading about our incredible guests. We'll be right back. I'm Soledad O'Brien and on my podcast, Murder on the Towpath, I'm taking you back to the 1960s. Mary Pinchot-Meyer was a painter who lived in Georgetown in Washington, D.C. Every day, she took a daily walk along the towpath near the E&O Canal. So when she was killed in a wealthy neighborhood...

She had been shot twice in the head and in the back behind the heart. The police arrived in a heartbeat. Within 40 minutes, a man named Raymond Crump Jr. was arrested. He was found nearby, soaking wet, and he was black. Only one woman dared defend him, civil rights lawyer Dovey Roundtree. Join me as we unravel this story with a crazy twist. Because what most people didn't know is that Mary was connected to a very powerful man. I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor provoke aggression. John F. Kennedy. Listen to Murder on the Toe Path with Soledad O'Brien on the iHeart Radio

app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests

such as Western historian, Dr. Randall Williams, and bestselling author and meat eater founder, Stephen Rinella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here. And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and

come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on Good Company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi, for a conversation that's anything but ordinary. We dive into the competitive world of streaming,

how she's turning so-called niche into mainstream gold, connecting audiences with stories that truly make them feel seen. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. It's this idea that there are so many stories out there, and if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Get a front row seat to where media, marketing, technology,

entertainment, and sports collide and hear how leaders like Anjali are carving out space and shaking things up a bit in the most crowded of markets. Listen to Good Company on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1978, Roger Caron's first book was published, and he was unlike any first-time author Canada had ever seen. Roger Caron was 16 when first convicted. Had spent 24 of those years in jail. 12 years in solitary.

He went from an ex-con to a literary darling almost overnight. He was instantly a celebrity. He was an adrenaline junkie and he was the star of the show. Go Boy is the gritty true story of how one man fought his way out of some of the darkest places imaginable. I had a knife go in my stomach, puncture my skin, break my ribs, I had my feps all in my hands. Only to find himself back where he started.

Roger's saying this, I've never hurt anybody but myself. And I said, oh, you're so wrong. You're so wrong on that one, Roger. From Campside Media and iHeart Podcasts, listen to Go Boy on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight.

Is that what I thought it was? Oh, this is fighting words. Okay. I'll put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a bestselling author with the second most banned book in America. Now more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back. And that's what we're doing on Fighting Words.

We're not gonna let anyone silence us. That's the reason why they're banning books like yours, George. That's the reason why they're trying to stop the teaching of black history or queer history, any history that challenges the whitewash norm. Or put us in a box. Black people have never, ever,

depended on the so-called mainstream to support us. That's why we are great. We are the greatest culture makers in world history. Listen to Fighting Words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Okay. So let's go to some of your past work before we go to some really interesting stuff about some of the people we've most recently wrote about. But Alex did some research and he talked about Sugar Ray Leonard and Dave Jacobs, the trainer he had as a kid that I think was nicknamed Jake,

that was a volunteer at a local recreation center. As phenomenal as Sugar Ray Leonard is, it feels like Sugar Ray Leonard doesn't become Sugar Ray Leonard is, it feels like Sugar Ray Leonard doesn't become Sugar Ray Leonard without Dave Jacobs. Yeah, there's actually, and there's three, there was three people, two others besides Dave at that time that had such a profound influence on him. I just wanna tell you, Dave was the amateur athletic

featherweight title champion in 49, turned pro, won a bunch. In 1949. In 1949, won a bunch of bouts but boxing he realized was never gonna pay the bills So he began began volunteering the rec center became the coach and cheer leader and what he used to do He used to bring Ray and a bunch of others over to his house to show films of the greats like Jersey Joe Walcott and Willie pep and sugar a Robinson. So Ray learned who great fighters were through Dave Jacobs Sugar Ray Robinson. So Ray learned who great fighters were through Dave Jacobs. So that was one person. Another guy named Pepe Correa. And I want to read this. This is really interesting because just because we're in Memphis. I'm going to read from the book. I constantly marveled at

his ability to recite verbatim Dr. King's, I have a dream speech with remarkable passion in each syllable. And that had a big influence on Ray, understanding Dr. King, and understanding who he was as an African-American. So that's a second person at that point in Ray's life. Another guy was named Jenks Morton, who had wanted to play in the NFL, but wasn't good enough, started an insurance agency in the Washington area. And with him, it wasn't

amount the amount of push ups or sit ups or jumping rope. In his opinion, the only way to beat be among the best was to show more desire than your opponent. And that's what Ray learned. Ray, he just had incredible desire and never stopped. He had these three people that nobody's really heard of or not many have heard of and they form the backbone of Ray's career. When... One of the coolest things about what you do for a living is you get to spend time with these cool people. You get to spend time with Phil Jackson. You get to spend time with Scottie Pippen.

You get access in a very intimate way with people because you're writing their stories. Right. So you have to mine in to not only understand their stories, but oftentimes the why. Right. Absolutely. And the who behind their story.

Right. Um, when, when people like Sugar Ray are talking about Pepe Korea and Janx Morton and Dave Jacobs, does their affect change? Do you see a level of reverence in them? Oh, yeah. Because no matter how famous they are, they haven't lost sight of who they were before they became famous. It's very important to be in touch with that. And we'll get to Scottie Pippen in a while too. Same thing.

They recognize why they're there and they recognize the people that put them there. There's not one person I've ever profiled or been around who has not had that impact of a normal folk person. There's no question about it. Which has to speak to all of you listening to our voice right now. You don't have to be famous. You don't have to be part of some massive organization. You don't have to start some incredible 501c3. The interaction you have on a daily basis with somebody, you may never, you may have no idea the impact of the void that you're filling or the need that you're filling. And that may not manifest itself for 15, 20, 30 years later.

But the point is, every single day, we have an opportunity as just normal folks, when we see areas of need in Philly, when we see want and desire and help satisfy it. Oftentimes, the measure of our success may reveal itself decades later, but it doesn't make it any less profound. And I also think that's when people veer off too, is when they lose sight of that. When they lose- What do you mean by that? What I mean is when they become maybe full of themselves, maybe become too arrogant, go off into different directions,

lose that discipline, lose that character that formed who they were, that's crucial. That can be devastating. I've seen too many athletes who have just gone off the reservation because they have forgot the values and the normal people that help put them there. Family, friends, coaches, etc. That's a good segue. Scotty Pippen talks with reverence about his mom and his brother. And his brother, for those who don't know I think is a quadriplegic or paraplegic his brother I think got into a fight and

didn't walk again is that correct well what's I'll read I'll tell you exactly what happened he was in gym class and some guy just got his brother Scotty's brother Ronnie was in gym class and Scotty was only three when it happened out of nowhere this bully just delivered a sucker punch in the middle of his brother's back his brother fell to the floor unable to get up and he sent to the hospital everything went on and basically never really got that he was able to do some things but never got anywhere better i want to read to you something that Scottie wrote. He goes, Ronnie had every right to give up, to curse the fate he was handed. He didn't. He fought hard to build a productive and happy life. I'm not the biggest success story

in the Pippen family. He is. And everybody knows who Scottie Pippen is and nobody knows who Ronnie is. Correct. But Ronnie's strength clearly provided an illustration to Scottie about how to be a success. Absolutely. And when I hear you talked about the change in the voice, I think a little bit about when they talk with reference. Their affect.

Yeah, the effect. You know, it's just like the veil comes off. I mean, Scottie gets very emotional talking about Ron. You can see it, whether it's about Ronnie or his mother. I'll get to that in a second. And it's like he's brought back to that moment right there with them. You know, that's interesting

because you got the 6'9", massive human being who's got how many championship rings? Six. Six, who's made millions and millions. Who's really been on a pedestal. It has to be interesting to watch all of that melt off of this mammoth human being and watch him get reminiscent and emotional and almost childlike when talking. Uh-oh, those moments are what makes writing books mean everything to me because to see somebody famous be somebody real and to see them show emotion

and understanding of their journey and what moves them. So many athletes these days assume a certain persona. I won't even I don't even want to interview them anymore because you can just tell the cliches are going to come the distancing they don't relate to you but when you spend time with someone or the course of a book they they get down into sort of down to earth with you really telling you candid things and they get vulnerable. The key to a successful book is getting somebody to be vulnerable. How seriously do you take the charge to make sure that vulnerability comes across the words to the reader? I mean, if you don't successfully write it

in a way that the reader understands how very real and vulnerable that is, then it's a miss. Well, you know, this is so weird because when I write with somebody and take on their voice, it sounds crazy. But I try to assume their character, I try to feel like I'm them, which can get too far at times. But I try to take on their persona. So I so in some way I tap into my own vulnerability. So if I can do that, then I can write in their own words, their vulnerability. Do you get emotional? Oh yeah.

I mean, one of the stories in the Sugar Ray Leonard book, I'm not sure how many are familiar with it, but he was sexually abused when he was young, okay? And I didn't- I had no idea. Yeah, and I didn't had no idea Yeah, and I didn't know that he speak about oh, yeah Yeah, and I didn't know about this for like the first four or five months. We worked on the book You're kidding and then one day he just told me and I remember leaving his house and driving about two blocks and

leaving his house and driving about two blocks and parking and just crying. I was so moved by it. Because it also happened with you too. You feel like you have to develop this sense of ownership or protecting. Here I am, this relatively small guy dealing with these huge athletes, and yet I feel I have to assume the role of the protector because their words are gonna be out there. They're gonna be assessed. They're gonna be analyzed, reviewed.

And I wanna make sure they come across factual and fair and honest. And so I start to think of, well, what they say, is it gonna be, is how is it gonna come across? And they're not always so on top of how to protect themselves, believe it or not. So that's one of my big jobs. always so on top of how to protect themselves believe it or not so that's one of my big jobs.

We'll be right back. I'm Soledad O'Brien and on my podcast Murder on the Toe Path, I'm taking you back to the 1960s. Mary Pinchot-Meyer was a painter who lived in Georgetown in Washington, D.C. Every day, she took a daily walk along a towpath near the E&O Canal. So when she was killed in a wealthy neighborhood... She had been shot twice in the head and in the back behind the heart.

...the police arrived in a heartbeat. Within 40 minutes, a man named. The police arrived in a heartbeat. Within 40 minutes, a man named Raymond Crump Jr. was arrested. He was found nearby, soaking wet, and he was black. Only one woman dared defend him, civil rights lawyer Dovey Roundtree. Join me as we unravel this story with a crazy twist,

because what most people didn't know is that Mary was connected to a very powerful man. I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor provoke aggression. John F. Kennedy. Listen to Murder on the Toe Path with Soledad O'Brien on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian, Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian, Dr. Randall Williams, and bestselling author and meat eater founder, Stephen Ronella.

I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here. And I'll say, it seems like the ice age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on Good

Company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi for a conversation that's anything but ordinary. We dive into the competitive world of streaming, how she's turning so-called niche into mainstream gold, connecting audiences with stories that truly make them feel seen. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core.

It's this idea that there are so many stories out there, and if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Get a front row seat to where media, marketing, technology, entertainment, and sports collide, and hear how leaders like Anjali are carving out space and shaking things up a bit in the most crowded of markets. Listen to Good Company on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In 1978, Roger Caron's first book was published, and he was unlike any first-time author Canada had ever seen. Roger Caron was 16 when first convicted. Had spent 24 of those years in jail. 12 years in solitary. He went from an ex-con to a literary darling almost overnight. He was instantly a celebrity. He was an adrenaline junkie, and he was the star of the show.

Go-Boy is the gritty true story of how one man fought his way out of some of the darkest places imaginable. I had a knife go in my stomach, puncture my skin, break my ribs, I had my feps all in my hands. Only to find himself back where he started. Roger's saying this, I've never hurt anybody but myself. And I said, oh, you're so wrong. You're so wrong on that one, Rod. From Campside Media and iHeart Podcasts, listen to GoBoy on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Are we ready to fight?. We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. Is that what I thought it was? Oh, this is fighting words. Okay. I'll put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a bestselling author with the second most banned book in America.

Now more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back. And that's what we're doing on Fighting Words. We're not going to let anyone silence us. That's the reason why they're banning books like yours, George. That's the reason why they're trying to stop the teaching of Black history or queer history, any history that challenges the whitewash norm. Or put us in a box. Black people have never, ever depended on the so-called mainstream to support us.

That's why we are great. We are the greatest culture makers in world history. Listen to Fighting Words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Scottie's mom. Scottie's mom. This is another story. It wasn't around, it wasn't too long afterwards when Scottie's father was sitting on the sofa having dinner and then suddenly he just dropped his plate, slumped toward the edge of the

sofa. There was a deranged look in his eyes. He was food coming out of his mouth. He was having a stroke on the right side of his body and from then on he would never be able to walk or really speak again. He could say yes or no, but he really couldn't put together a full sentence. So think of it about this. Think of Scottie Pippen's background. A brother who has an accident who can't walk, a father then who has a stroke who can't walk. He has a big family, but they... And these are not wealthy people.

They're living in where in Arkansas? Hamburg, Arkansas. Hamburg, Arkansas. No, not wealthy people. So there's a lot of criticism over the time when The Last Dance came out, the documentary that Michael Jordan did basically about the Bulls and their titles. And there has been criticism of Scottie for sort of his contract demands and how he viewed

what he wanted from the Bulls. And I look at, and wanted to say, look at what he went through. Look what he came from. I understand it totally. So his mom? Yeah. So his mom was just unbelievable. She just was always there for him, always there for her father. She just knew how to show strength. I think he learned strength and she learned strength

from her mother, in fact. I love this. The word on the street was, grandma could work hard as hard as any man. Perhaps it was from growing up in an air when black folks in the south didn't complain about their fate. They simply accepted whatever the good Lord gave them and did their best to improve their circumstances one day at a time. And his mom, Scotty's mom, grew up in Louisiana picking cotton with her mama when she was a little girl and from her he learned about the work ethic basically. She was stricter with me than she was with my brothers and sisters. They didn't have to go to Sunday school and church like I did. I resented it.

The feeling is this, I was being punished by having to sing hymns and listen to sermons I didn't understand while my friends were out playing. Looking back, I couldn't be more grateful. The Lord is a powerful presence in my life today, and that's because of my mom. Thank you for reading that. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Pretty phenomenal stuff. Yeah, yeah. So as you go through, you think about Sugar Ray Leonard, you think about you, you think about Scottie Pippen. All of these people who've reached these levels of greatness, Pippin. All of these people who've reached these levels of greatness, there's just no way the level of greatness they've attained don't happen without

this army of normal folks and their wives that supported them along the way. And that's why I'm so glad you're doing this podcast in general as well because I think as you get more successful you start to think that you can only rely on other successful people for these lessons in life. And that's such BS. Because the best lessons always come from those, again, the normal people, their names are not in lights, okay? We don't know who they are. And I don't think you can stress that enough, basically. Now it's time to plug on top of what Michael said.

Don't you have some social media thing of words of wisdom from normal people? Normal folks wisdom. So on Instagram. We have a thing called normal folks wisdom that our guests that say something wise that would be like a quote in a book if they're famous. He now posts them on social media, right? So anybody who wants to hear normal folks wisdom just go to whatever. They often have better wisdom than the experts. That's it. That's great. I love that. It is great. Okay, so his latest release and we are going to

stay on the topic of supporting greatness with the people, some of the people in the book, but I think it's important to set up the book. The Golf 100, a spir, some of the people in the book. But I think it's important to set up the book. The Golf 100, a spirited ranking of the greatest players of all time. Anytime we rank, all my friends argue about, you know, is would you rather have Michael Jordan or Lakers? Kobe?

Kobe or Hakeem Olajuwon versus Shaq. I mean, sports fans throughout history, regardless of sport, always rank, was was Marino better than Elway? Did the fact that Marino doesn't have a Super Bowl wing make him less important than Terry Bradshaw? We always want to rank. It's just the way we do. LeBron is the one more fitting than Kobe in that argument. Yeah. That's what you said. See? We're arguing about it. So then in your infinite wisdom, you go write a book that nobody's ever going to agree with. I love it. I don't want people to agree with me. I want people to argue. I want people to present their case. Yeah. So you go through over the course of three years and research

thousands of golfers and one of the beautiful things about this book is you don't care if they're male or female. No. Thousands of golfers and you start ranking them and then in true Michael Arkoosh fashion you're not just going to rank them and talk about them you want to go interview them. Oh yeah. And their families. So it's not just a ranking. Each ranking of a hundred is a profile of these people where you go talk to them and study them and do the history that you learned from your teacher in high school. Yeah, yeah. Which I think is an interesting call.

If I had it my way, I would never finish the book, actually. Well, I think your publisher will watch you finish it. Yeah, that's sort of the idea behind it, yeah. What I find vastly interesting before we get into people, because I want people to understand the work that went into this, is you're not just talking about these people as if you read about them. You've actually interviewed them or their families. But you also said, I don't want to be too arbitrary in my ranking.

Right. So you came up with a system. Explain that. Okay. All right. First of all, in terms of the research, yes, I did not have a life in these three years. Okay. I went back and I read through every golf digest issues since 1950. What? Yeah. Yeah. There's every golf digest issue since 1950. What? Yeah. Yeah. There's our. You read every golf digest issue for the last seven and a half years. Yeah. That is ridiculous. Now I'm on YouTube and I I think there was a missing person report issued on me when I went to YouTube because I basically dived in and did not get out. It's it's the rabbit hole of rabbit holes I think and. And I read,

I watched every single major telecast I could find of every television, you know, tournament they've had. So I did that. I had a hundred books, at least. Friends of mine gave me books to go through. So I did, hey, you know what this fear was? The fear was, who do I leave out here? Right? So far, the books have been out three weeks. I've not heard from anyone not left out I have heard this morning you heard twice the same name yeah that was a joke though the Memphis radio hits he did this morning they both is where's John Daly where's John Daly no I meant some I didn't mean John Daly he's not a joke somebody else I mentioned that that person who plays with the summer metal cough no no nobody you've heard of John

Daly we'll get into that. Hold it. Wait. The ranking. First, we'll get ahead. OK, let's get the metrics. The ranking. All right.

The metrics. The metrics. 2,000 points for every major victory, because majors are what comprise greatness in golf. If anybody's watched the documentary Full Swing, there's a full swing that's been out. You don't even have to be a golfer to get into that, but you can tell amongst the golfers, majors is it to them.

Yeah, yeah, four times a year. 2,000 points for every major victory, 500 for second, 253rd, 104th, and 55th. I also awarded 300 points for every regular tour victory. But I didn't count, if a guy finished third in the John Deere Classic by shooting a 65 on Sunday, to me that's not about greatness. I didn't count senior tour victories, that's not about greatness. I didn't count the Ryder Cup because that came along much later and what about the players

didn't get a chance to play in the Ryder Cup? I also gave bonus points to contribution to the game, impact on the game, and a variety of other factors. So that's the outlines of the metric system. I have a question. By the way, one other thing. I took away points for players who had won a number of tour victories, but no majors. You took away points.

I took away points. And I thought to myself, yeah, that feels right. And I came down, my publisher kept telling me, and I finally realized, my book, my rules my rules. My book my rules if you don't like it write your own day. Absolutely. I spent nine months with you. Yes sir. I have to ask this question. Oh. Because it's not part of the metrics that you've described. You are so big on honesty and integrity and character. Yeah. Did you allow yourself to be dissuaded by horrible behavior? Not really, because then you're opening up a whole other series of problems.

However, in the chapter on Tiger Woods, I did point out the scandal. And I do believe that that whole thing takes away from some of his greatness. Yes. And that concludes part one of my conversation with Michael Arkoosh. And you don't want to miss part two that's now available to listen to. Together, guys, we can change this country. And it starts with you. I'll see you in part two. I'm Soledad O'Brien and on my new True Crime podcast, Murder on the Towpath, I'm taking you back to 1964 to the cold case of artist Mary Pinchomire. She had been shot twice in the head and in the back.

It turns out Mary was connected to a very powerful man. I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor promote aggression. John F. Kennedy. Listen to Murder on the Toe Path with Soledad O'Brien on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michael Kasin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on Good Company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi.

We dive into the competitive world of streaming. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. There are so many stories out there. And if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. Hi, I'm Sam Mullins and I've got a new podcast coming out called Go Boy, the gritty true story of how one man fought his way out of some of the darkest places imaginable. Roger Caron was 16 when first convicted. That spent 24 of those years in jail. But when Roger Caron picked up a pen and paper, he went from an ex-con to a literary darling. From Campside Media and iHeart Podcasts, listen to Go Boy on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm ready to fight. Oh, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm ready to fight. Oh, this is fighting words. Okay. I'll put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a bestselling author with the second most banned book in America. Now more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back. Part of the power of black queer creativity is the fact that we got us, you know, we are the greatest culture makers in world history. Listen to Fighting Words on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers. But we also have to learn to take care of ourselves.

A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council.

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