Episode 139: The Best Of Burn It All Down 2019, part 2

In part 2 of 2 of our 2019 Best-Of shows, Lindsay, Amira, Shireen, Jessica, and Brenda all talk about what they're most looking forward to in the world of sports for 2020.

Then, we replay three of our favorite interviews of they year, with legendary Brazilian soccer player Sissi (12:25), NOlympics LA activist Anne Orchier (29:50), and trailblazing broadcaster Doris Burke (47:45).

Transcript

Lindsay: Hi flamethrowers, welcome to Burn It All Down, the feminist sports podcast you need. I’m Lindsay Gibbs, here to guide you through our second best of 2019 episode of this holiday season. Happy new year, I guess I should start off with! You’re probably listening to this on New Year’s Day, maybe New Year’s Eve, or maybe a few days later, who knows. But we hope that your 2020 will be off to a wonderful start and we’re grateful you’re starting it with us. So if you missed it in last week’s episode, we all discussed our favorite 2019 sports memories, and then we played three of our favorite podcast discussions from this last year.

In this week’s episode the whole crew is gonna talk about the sports things we’re looking forward to in 2020. Or anything we’re looking forward to in 2020 I guess, not sure how everyone interpreted that. Then we’re gonna play three of our favorite interviews of the year. You’re gonna hear from legendary broadcaster Doris Burke, legendary Brazilian soccer player Sissi, and the great Anne Orchier from the NOlympics LA movement, surely a legend in the making. All three of those phenomenal women were on Burn It All Down this year in 2019. We are the luckiest.

But first, like I said, we’re gonna talk about what we’re looking forward to in 2020. Since Jess went in alphabetical order last week I’m gonna reverse that, keep everyone on your toes. So you’re first gonna hear from freelance journalist and cat lover Shireen Ahmed from Toronto, Canada; then I’m gonna go, I’m Lindsay Gibbs, the author of the Power Plays newsletter; then it’ll be Jessica Luther, freelance reporter and author in Austin, Texas; followed by Dr. Brenda Elsey, associate professor at Hofstra University; and Dr. Amira Rose Davis, assistant professor at Penn State.

Alright friends, what are you looking forward to in 2020?

Shireen: What I’m looking forward to the most in 2020 is probably the NBA Championships, the playoffs. I’m super excited to do a repeat for Toronto, obviously. I have a goal: I would like to attend my first WNBA game. I have a Kia Nurse New York Liberty jersey and I would like to wear that at a New York Liberty game. I think I’m also really looking forward to the conversations around the summer Olympics in Tokyo this year. My friend Jules Boykoff is writing a book and we’ve had NOlympics activists on the show, just to really raise awareness about how problematic Olympics and mega-events can be, and also talk about how amplifying women in sport is really important.

The ICC World T20 Cricket tournament is happening and I’m excited for that, I love women’s cricket, and I’m really really excited. One of my favorite interviews was with Naasira Mohammed and she talked a lot about cricket and women’s cricket. I think there’s so many exciting things happening. I would also like to see women’s hockey in Canada make a comeback in some regard, so hopefully I’m gonna hear about something happening in that realm. Just watching more women’s hockey, be it the Dream Gap Tour or something, but I would love to see something stable for these women because they’re amazing and women’s hockey is so great.

So there’s a lot of things I’m really excited for. I’m also really excited to continue working on the Burn It All Down team and smash toxic patriarchy in sports as we do! So there’s some really cool things happening in the sports world, in the Burn It All Down world, and I can’t wait for those two to collide.

Lindsay: It’s Lindsay again! So as many of you know, I started the newsletter Power Plays a couple of months ago and one of the things I’m really hoping to do is to be able to travel more as the newsletter grows, to be able to make enough money to travel to women’s sports events so I can give my readers some extra special coverage. Because of that I’m planning my dream travel calendar of the season right now, and I’m just getting beyond excited.

So right now I’m looking forward to so many things in 2020, obviously women’s basketball is one of my top loves so I can’t wait til we get closer to tournament time. I can’t wait to see how the top of women’s basketball is gonna shake up this year, and to see if Oregon can finally win their first national title. I really obviously can’t wait for WNBA season, see if the Mystics can run it back again, can get their second straight championship.

The Olympics, it’s just a wonder of women’s sports. If I start listing everything about the Olympics I’m excited about, I will run out of time. But in the short term one of the things I’m very curious about and looking forward to seeing is how this WNBA collective bargaining agreement is gonna work out. They’ve extended a deadline to January 15th, and I’m sure we’re gonna be talking about that a lot on Burn It All Down.

As I mentioned with my traveling, my big things that I’m looking forward to this year that I’m determined to make happen are to get to the women’s Final Four in New Orleans, that would be my first women’s Final Four in basketball; to get to two live women’s hockey games this winter and spring, so in the next few months; to this summer travel to an NWSL stadium I’ve never been to for a game, to also travel to a WNBA stadium I’ve never been to for a game. Also I wanted to attend my first LPGA event and go to the women’s college World Series for the first time.

There are a lot more on my dream list, my calendar’s getting stuffed with dreams. But those are my big travel priorities. Also looking forward to seeing Breanna Stewart back in action. I’m looking forward to seeing Serena Williams win #24, Venus going on a miraculous singles run so she makes the Olympics team, and I’m looking forward to Cam Newton back on the Carolina Panthers. If you speak it, it will come.

Jessica: So I am looking forward to the Olympics in Tokyo this upcoming summer, though I’m sure we’ll talk about this plenty on Burn It All Down, I have lots of mixed feelings about the Olympics in general. But specially I am looking forward to watching Katie Ledecky swim. I love the USA women’s basketball team. I mean, get ready for Simone Biles! Skateboarding and surfing are coming to the Olympics, I can’t wait to see that and see how they show it to us on television.

The CONCACAF qualifying for the Olympics for soccer is gonna be in Houston in February so I’m gonna cross my fingers that maybe I can make it to Houston for that. 2020 Serena Watch will continue, I love tennis and I’m always excited to see where that’s gonna go, especially for the women, we never know what’s going to happen with them, especially at this point. But I really hope we see new male champions this year, I think that would be great. The sport really needs that.

I always look forward to March Madness, of course the WNBA over the summer, Breanna Stewart’s return, Ionescu’s gonna join the W, I miss you Liz Cambage, I cannot wait until I get to watch all the women play ball again. I think it’s gonna be another fun year for sports in 2020, and I feel like we’re gonna need sports this year. I feel like it’s gonna be a rough go for us US-ians who are gonna be dealing with some politics and all that good stuff. So I’m looking forward to it.

Brenda: Twenty twenty. What am I looking forward to? So, we talk a lot about problematic favs on this show…I have to admit, I’m really excited for the Barcelona-Napoli matchup in February for the European Champion’s League. I wish I wasn’t as excited as I am, but to be honest that’s it. I also am a big sucker for the Olympics, as well as the writing of a lot of friends of the show, like Jules Boykoff and Shireen – and people on this show: Shireen, Jessica, Lindsay, and Amira who certainly will have a lot to write about Tokyo. So I look forward to both love-watching and hate-watching those Olympics.

I’m also really looking forward to other opportunities for Burn It All Down to be together. There’s some live shows that we had last year and we’ll continue to have in the upcoming year, and that’s always wonderful. It starts for me in January with the American Historical Association meeting where I present on athletes and labor with Dr. Amira Rose Davis, my co-host, so I’m super psyched about that, and to start the new year learning a bunch of new stuff from people doing history of sport. So that’s pretty exciting as well.

Also I expect to get to meet a lot of the qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar as South America starts its round of qualifying. Again, a pretty problematic fav, but something that I love to do. I love to work with Fare and develop both grassroots projects and help with the monitoring of racism, homophobia and gendered violence with them. I’m excited to get to continue that work too. Of course, smashing toxic patriarchy every single week with these people.

Amira: What sporting moment am I best looking forward to in 2020? Well, as much as I critique the Olympics as an institution and we’ve had great interviews with NOlympics LA and talking about the detrimental effects that the Olympic Games have in Pyeongchang and this year, looking towards Tokyo, I have to say I’m still looking forward to the Olympic Games, the games themselves. You’re gonna see Simone Biles just go to new heights in gymnastics and it really feels like she has absolutely no ceiling so I just can’t wait to see what the Olympics has in store for her. I’m also excited for people like Morgan Hurd on the gymnastics team, if she makes the team, to really have a breakout moment at the Games. My girl Gwen Berry, on the track to see Allyson Felix’s comeback, to look at people like Syd McLaughlin, stars that we’ve seen flicker once or twice, but really have their moment to shine, especially in Olympic sports that people wait four years for and train four years for this moment. I’m excited for that.

I’m excited to see the US National Team back in action under new leadership and maybe some new faces. I’m hoping Casey Short makes the roster. So those are the things that I’m looking forward to all around the Olympic Games. I think that’s what I’m absolutely most looking forward to. Of course the Celtics are playing kind of well, so might be looking forward to the postseason NBA, who knows! But I’m gonna go with the Olympics.

Lindsay: Our first interview goes back to episode 107 when Brenda interviewed legendary Brazilian soccer player Sissi, the Golden Boot winner at the ’99 World Cup. They talk about her memories from that tournament and the state of women’s soccer in Brazil.I'm thrilled today to get to talk once again to Sissi, the amazing legendary Brazilian women's player who is now Youth Director and coach at Walnut Creek and also Assistant Coach for Solano College. She was the 1999 Golden Boot winner and has about a million awards. Sissi, thank you for joining me today.

Sissi: Thank you Brenda for having me.

Brenda: I just wanted to start really quickly. It's coming up on the 20th anniversary of the 1999 World Cup, which is seen as one of the glorious moments in the history of the women's game. Could you tell me a little bit about what your memories are or when you look back, what you think of?

Sissi: Oh my gosh. There are a lot of good memories, of course besides losing to US of course because every time, especially when I have talk to my friends about ‘99, especially here in United States, they are always like, “Yeah but you guys lost to US.” Okay. That's fine but it was probably one of the most, I would say, the best experiences of my life with the national team, with that group. It's funny because right before we had to go for the training camp, I had a bad injury and I was not supposed to even play that year, if I have to follow my doctor's instruction because basically, I was suppose to have surgery and I said, “There is no way for me to have surgery” because I knew something special was on the way. I don't know how to describe that but I had that feeling, there is something special and I said, “Sorry but I can't have any surgery right now.” I broke bones on my face playing futsal and he said, “Sorry but you've got to go. You have to have surgery.”

I said, “No. There is no way.” I went to the camp and I had to basically lie to the doctors because nobody knew, besides my closest friends but I went to the training camp. Nobody knew exactly what was going on. Of course I had, before that, black eyes. It was bad. I had to go to the emergency room and everything. When the doctor came back and said, “No. You got to have surgery,” I said, “No. There is no way” so I went to the training camp and we came to United States and things started to happen. I was never a player that scored a lot of goals before because my job was to be the playmaker, to build the plays and have the vision of the field. That's always my job but I was never a finisher and things started to happen for me and it was unbelievable and I remember well enough that even talking to the players afterwards, especially girls like Brandy, there was always a question mark.

Are we going to be able to sell tickets? When we started to see people come to the games, I couldn't believe it. I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is happening.” It was a thrill to be in the bus, go to the state and you see that much people come and watch our game. It was unbelievable. It was definitely one of the best experiences I ever had in my whole life and not even as a soccer player but with the national team. The group was very special for me. We had the same common goals and it was beautiful to watch after and especially now to see how much the people come to the games, the finals especially. I was speechless, even though we played for third place but to see all who played had the chance to be part of that. I don't think they are ever going to forget that. I have to say I cried, walking, leaving the locker room to go to the field, and you look around. I felt lost. That definitely was the best experience so I was very fortunate to be part of that.

Brenda: Do you remember any one of the goals in particular that was your favorite?

Sissi: Of course the goal that I scored against Italy. I scored one with my left foot, one with my right foot and it was my first time scoring a goal with my right foot but the goal against Nigeria, that feeling, winning 3-0 and the tie, 3-3. We go to overtime, the first golden goal in women's history. I scored that goal, running through the fence. I almost took my shirt off, that sensation, all the sacrifices, all the wait. I don't know. That goal was special. All the goals that I scored, definitely each one was special for me but that one against Nigeria was probably one of the best of my career because I said, “There is no way we are going to stop right here.” We still have a lot to show so I say, “There is no way.” Nigeria took that moment for us but it was at a very crazy game, overall.

Brenda: Did you feel like people in Brazil got a big message, that women's football was here to stay in Brazil?

Sissi: A little bit. I think here I get the sensation that yes, now we are moving forward, in Brazil not so much. When we came back, we had maybe a few people that came to the airport. Again, it doesn't matter the number from me because I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is the first time we have people to come and waiting for us.” At that point it was not about the quantity but it was more, yes they are here. They finally start to understand. Yes we can do this. We are not trying to compete against men. That's not exactly what we are trying to do.

We want to make sure we still have our space. We want to show that we can play but it was not like the feeling of leaving United States. You know what I mean? Because you knew at that moment, oh my gosh, that's unbelievable. We can do this. People pay attention more because we have a message to deliver but in Brazil it took time and it's been like that. Every time we have a competition, people talk and everybody got excited but after that we are going back to the real world. It's not like when Brazil is preparing for a Men's World Cup. It's very different. Who knows?

Brenda: I have a question that is not really as political as it is just about your game and I've watched a lot of those old footage. I've always thought of you as an attacking midfielder and as you said, a playmaker but you didn't wear eight, which is frequently what we think of as the signature South American number. Why 10?

Sissi: Well let's go back. When I started playing professionally for the first time at age 14, my first coach said, “You got to be number 10” but I don't have an idea of what it means wearing number 10. Of course I knew about Pelé and basically all the players that I started to like, they were all number 10, Pelé, Zico, all those players. I said, “Oh my gosh, they are so brilliant, the way they play.” He said, “You are going to be number 10” but there was no explanation of why I should be and I finally started to understand more later. It always came with the pressure because always people say, “The best players are always going to wear number 10” and it was not the case. It was more, “Okay, you are going to be number 10 because that's the playmaker.”

“That's the player that is very different” but I never looked at myself as being different but that's what after I started to have a better understanding. It took time because I knew it came with a lot of pressure and people trying to compare me with those guys and I did not want that. I want to be myself. I don't want to meet people that are trying to compare me with Pelé. There is no way. I said, “I want to create my own identity” but yes, I was attacking midfielder, the player that is going to make things happen, the player that has the freedom. I did not have a lot of responsibility. I was never good on defending but I had to adjust my game but that was the case for me to say, “Here, go ahead” but at the beginning I didn't know. I started to have it maybe and I accepted more later on but I didn't want people always to compare me with those guys.

Even though they were my idols I said, “That's going to be me” but I was nothing with eight. It was more that 10 and that's what you are going to be. It's funny because I don't see a lot of players like that anymore, even in women's soccer and that's what I tried to create here. I said, “Can we create that number 10 again?” Because now even Marta is more of a finisher but Marta is not a playmaker. We were opposites. My game is very different than hers. I'm still missing the player. Even on men's, watching Brazil, I don't think Neymar is the playmaker either and that's what I try to create here. In my team I say, “Can I create that number 10?” It's been very difficult because it's not easy. Friends say, “I don't know if you are ever going to see a player like you.” The game has changed so much but yes, I do miss the players that I watched before.

Brenda: You miss that version of number 10?

Sissi: I do. I really do. Again, they always compare me with Marta but we are very opposite. Besides being lefty, Marta is more of a finisher. She dribbles more. My game was more, okay, create plays. See the whole field, have the vision, very different.

Brenda: You've been a very successful futsal player as well. Do you think that was really important in shaping you?

Sissi: Yes. I think I was a better futsal player. Honestly, futsal helped me so much because it's a tight space. You got to think very fast. There is a lot of movement off the ball and there is a lot of thinking. There's a lot of decision making but it helped me with my touches as well. Futsal, sometimes you don't have time on the ball and that helped me so much and when I was of course in a soccer field, it was a little bit different. I enjoyed because it allowed me to be thinking all the time and-

Brenda: I can hear you snapping.

Sissi: Yes, exactly.

Brenda: Snappy.

Sissi: I played for many years in Brazil. Even here, I enjoy when I have to play four versus four in a tight space and I think that's where the creativity came from. Futsal now is here. It's growing.

Brenda: Yeah. You mean in California?

Sissi: Yes and I try to incorporate this in our program to make sure the girls play futsal because it's very important.

Brenda: And the ‘99, that generation of Brazilian players, when most of them were born there was a legal ban on women playing football in Brazil and playing soccer in Brazil, which is pretty unique but it seems as though that didn't get in any of your way.

Sissi: No, not in my way at all. Of course I was born in a very small town. Everybody knew each other. It was me playing with boys. A lot of times it was me playing with my dad and my brother until I had access to play with boys but it was me doing a lot of training on my own. I started with my doll's head, for you to know. My first soccer ball was my doll's head. My dad said, “What are you doing?” We are playing soccer. Who cares? I was very persistent. I did not, again say, “You cannot do this.” My mom said, “There is not future.” I heard about this law and I said, “Who cares? I'm in the middle of nowhere in Esplanada.”

Brenda: For people who don't know Esplanada, Brazil.

Sissi: Exactly. My dad got a new job. We had to move to a different city now and again. Here we go again. I finally saw the first girl playing soccer and it was in Campo Formoso, again in the middle of nowhere. I was like, “Okay, now finally I can do something.” But still I had to be playing with the boys and I got in trouble a lot because of that but luckily, I heard there was this team in a different city, one hour from where I was living and they said, “Oh, they are all looking for players” so I finally said, “Okay, let's go.” I joined this team, first organized team in Senhor do Bonfim, one hour from my city and that's when I started playing. I heard a lot of things about Haddad that was from Rio de Janeiro. There was this team in Rio and I said, “That's it.” My mom was like, “Again, my goal for you is to make sure you are going to finish school. You are going to be a teacher.” I was like, “No way. That's not going to happen.

I want to become a professional soccer player. I want to play for Brazil and that's it.” It was already inside of my head. That's what I want to do. At 14 be are double header. This team came from Feira de Santana and we played. He brought men's and women's soccer. We played a double header. He's like, “Okay. Do you want to join?” I said, “You've got to talk to my parents.” He drove to my house, talked to my parents. My mom, “What? 14 years old. You think that you are going to leave?” I said, “Yes, I will. You got to let me.” My dad at that point he knew, this girl, she was born with a gift, even though my dad's dream was for my brother to become a professional soccer player. My brother said, “No. I will not do that, not because he wanted me to.” I said, “You've got to let me go” and I said, “I promise I'll finish school. I'll go to school every day but please, let me go” and that's when I left.

Brenda: Sissi, thank you so much for being on Burn It All Down, and go Brazil!

Lindsay: Next up, from episode 115: I interviewed Anne Orchier, an organizer with NOLympics LA, about their quest to stop the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles as we look forward to our 2020 Olympics, and we are looking forward to it, it’s really important to keep in mind all the ways that the Olympics are also bad, and I thought this would be a good chance to re-listen to that interview so we can kind of hold these two things simultaneously.

Hello, everyone. Lindsay here. Joining me is Anne Orchier, an organizer with NOlympics LA, an anti-Olympics movement that is trying to get the Olympics away from Los Angeles and maybe help us come up with a new model all together to do this. Anne, thank you so much for being here at Burn It All Down.

Anne: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me.

Lindsay: I guess like let's just dive right into it. NOlympics LA, why don't you want the Olympics to be in LA because I've heard tons of things about how good it's going to be for Los Angeles. Mayor Garcetti has been on all these podcasts over the years that I've listened to. What would are the downsides of the Olympics being in LA?

Anne: Yeah. I think on something that's important to keep in mind whenever people talk about the benefits of the Olympics, so for example, someone like Eric Garcetti who will talk about kind of what the people stand to gain from hosting the Olympics in LA. For him, that's true. He personally stands to gain a lot from hosting the Olympics in LA. The Olympics are a great way for people who are already based in centers of power, who have a lot of resources, who have a lot of money.

The Olympics are a great way to accumulate more power, resources, and money, and disenfranchise anybody who's standing in your way of that. If you are not a part of the ruling class essentially, if you're not one of the people who stands to, who already is like part of that like super, super powerful minority, you get screwed over basically in every way possible. That's the majority of people in a host city. Typically, we look at six major impacts that the Olympics have on host cities and on the residents have posted these kind of excluding that minority elite.

That's environmental destruction and decimation, displacement, accelerated gentrification just basically like out-of-control real-estate speculation, criminalization of poverty and informal economies, just really accelerated and exacerbated police militarization, and also just keeping in mind these are things in Los Angeles that we already see on an ongoing basis. We're not saying the Olympics cause these. It's just that they basically like pour gasoline on the fire.

Lindsay: Yeah. I think one of the things that has been staggering for me as I've studied up on your movement over the past year or so and written about it from time to time at ThinkProgress has been really how ... There can be all these regulations in place, but in a mega event like the Olympics throws all those regulations out the window. It just seems like it gives those in power the authority to do whatever they want. Particularly let's talk about the environmental impact.

There are certain kind of environmentally safe steps that don't have to be followed if they're using the excuse of their building these projects or these stadiums or housing or hotels for the Olympics. Another thing that, and I think we've talked about this a little bit on the podcast, which is that ICE would have a lot of access to the LAPD. ICE can kind of be much more involved in the local policing.

Anne: Yeah. I think similar to the environmental regulations, I would say just like as a kind of blanket statement whether it's about housing, whether it's about environmental protections and regulation, whether it's about policing, one way that we've sort of talked about and thought about the Olympics are, I don’t know if you're familiar with the idea or your listeners with like the state of exception, which is the idea in politics, it's mainly has referred to the kind of like post 9/11 security state and the idea like in moments of crisis, political actors, and people in power will use that crisis to say, "This is a state of exception," and all of this sort of like normal operating procedures around whatever it is, protecting privacy like that is suspended. And now we have to go into this like hyper-vigilant mode. We see something similar happen with the Olympics, but, obviously, it's instead of a crisis, it's like the celebration basically. It's like we're having this big party and this big thing that needs to happen. Everything that would normally be like a non-starter or that people would get upset about suddenly is somehow permissible. Then, those things get normalized.

For the example of policing and as you mentioned with ICE, and this is also literally connected to like traditional sense of the state of exception since September 11th, Olympic Games have been designated a national special security event which means that it basically mandates what's called a unified command between federal and local law enforcement.

Originally, NSSEs were things like state funerals, the Democratic National Convention. The idea is that they’re events that might be potential terrorism targets. That's the justification for it. Of course, in the case of the Olympics like there have been sort of like two high-profile terrorist incidents, but actually the highest body counts for Olympics are of residents of the host city at the hands of local police, like that's actually the most dangerous if you're thinking about like potential violence and risk related to the Olympics. It's not the terrorist threat. It's what happens when you pour millions and billions of dollars into local police forces and give them high-tech weapons and surveillance and basically like carte blanche to do whatever they want to keep things clean and calm for the wealthy tourists. That's what happened in LA in '84.

Lindsay: I was about to say. That was a big part of like the riots right, like what led up to the riots.

Anne: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Basically, Gates, the LAPD in the 80s for the Olympic Games, he was basically allowed to do whatever he wanted given tons of money like high-grade military equipment. That was basically what provided the foundation for the war on drugs in LA in the mid to late 80s and then up into the early 90s.

Lindsay: We know that there's plenty of reasons not to have in LA, but you are hoping to make this a more global movement. I know that you and some other organizers are headed to Tokyo. Can you tell us why are you going there? What should we be looking out for?

Anne: We recognize that in order for any of us to be effective, the people who are behind the Olympic Games, those interests whether it's the IOC, the real estate speculators, the corporations and public sponsors, they're organizing transnationally. They’re working together. It doesn't make sense for us to just focus on us. We have to also be thinking at that level because that's the level that we're being organized against.

Some of it is on that pragmatic level. On a political level too, it's about recognizing that our struggles are connected, that these are the same problems and that we're all more likely and better equipped to solve them if we're working together rather than trying to just pawn the games off onto another city.

Lindsay: Yeah. That makes sense. What are we going to see from you? I know there's a day of action. I believe it's July 24th. Is that correct?

Anne: Yeah. July 24th is the International Day of Action. The organizers in Tokyo have planned an event in Tokyo so really looking forward to that. Yeah, just really personally looking forward to seeing like how folks in different cities and countries are approaching things like coordinated direct actions, how they're choosing targets, what the parameters are. For folks who haven't looked at them that the name of the group is @hangorinnokai.

 They have Twitter. I don't think they have Instagram, but they have Twitter and a website. You can see they make ... I think, personally, do they make like the most amazing posters. Most of them are out of cardboard. They've done a lot of these sort of like installations around the parks. They formed mainly in response to the criminalization and displacement of unhoused folks in Tokyo which has been accelerating in lead up to the Olympics and getting sort of more aggressive and violent.

Japan has some laws about the rights of unhoused people to occupy public spaces that we don't have in the US. They've made a lot more traction on that front. We're seeing all of that kind of start to just go out the window and be increasingly violated in lead up to the games, along with a pretty concerted attack on public housing.

On that note too, one of the things that I'm also personally really excited about and have been working really hard on is we're going to have an event towards the end where we all get together and just talk more generally about the impact on housing and organizing as tenants and unhoused folks and organizing together and what that's looked like in each of our different cities and countries like what the challenges have been, what are the contexts, what are the things that we're all kind of seeing happen that are similar, what are the things that are different.

Then, how do we all work together not just in the context of stopping the Olympics collectively, but particularly around the right to housing and residence.

Lindsay: But here's another thing is that we here at Burn It All Down. We are a sports podcast. We do love sports. We do love the Olympics. It's always a tough thing for us. It's something we discuss a lot which is how to ethically watch the Olympics knowing what is going on, on the ground in these host countries, knowing the corruption in the IOC, knowing the corruption within some of these federations. I think the problem often is if you're an activist, if you're against something, you have to have absolutely all the answers on how to fix that.

I'm not expecting that from you, but just like where would you like to see us go from here. Is the answer to just kind of like get rid of this competition? It might be like that might be the answer. That might just be something we all need to grapple with because it's not worth it.

Anne: Yeah. I mean the short answer is like yes. I think we all basically like appreciate the importance and value of like athletic competition and physical activity, but it's really about the profit motives. It's like that's the thing. It's the IOC. It's the cooperation between the IOC and the corporations and the politicians.

The short answer is like I don't think that there's a way to perform the Olympics as long as those are the people running it, but I don't think that that means that we get rid of like international sporting competitions. It's just about how do you take that profit motive out, how do you build in accountability?

Actually, there's a video. If you go to our website, nolympicsla.com/video we made a video this past year called swolecialism. I didn't come up with the name so I can't credit. I think it's cute and funny. It's a good like little explainer on the history of basically like anti-capitalist international sporting events of which there are a lot but we don't know about because they don't have the same like crazy multi-gazillion dollar branded stranglehold on our consciousness that the Olympics do, but those have existed.

In particular, there have been like two basically like communist protest games in response to the Olympics. One was in response to the 1936 Berlin games, the Nazi games. There was sort of like a counter-Olympics organized by a communist party. That exists. There are models for that. Again, I appreciate you saying it's like we don't have to come up with all the answers because the sort of project of taking down the IOC and the Olympics is just a big enough task in itself.

Lindsay: Yeah. You're busy! You're busy. Yeah.

Anne: There’s a lot on our plate, but I do welcome, I think people should look into these other alternatives. I think these models exist. I do think it's possible to come up with an alternative that is not dominated by corporate greed and destruction and just like exploitation basically like the IOC and all of the interests that it represents. They're just sucking the marrow out of like every human being city, natural resource like that they can.

When you take them out of the equation and start to look at other people who have run games that are not dominated by that sort of level of rapacity, it seems pretty cool like I would be really excited about that. I would be super excited about like a collectively run international sporting competition where athletes actually got paid.

Lindsay: Just for LA, for the movement that you guys are running in LA on the grounds, what are the next steps because I know that it's technically official that LA has the 2028 Olympics, but that's also a long way off. I know I've talked to some people within your organization who say there's still hope that we could defeat this.

Anne: Yeah, absolutely. I would push back a little bit on that like that idea of, oh it's official, and ask like what does that really mean? And getting back to the idea of like who the IOC is, like they have sort of given their permission. They have sort of bestowed this "Honor onto LA" of hosting the 2028 Olympics, but they make up the rules as they go along. This is not something that is like handed down from a higher power, we don't have to make them in charge of this.

Well, there's sort of two good examples of like why we can sort of question this idea of what it means for the bid to be official. One is, actually, we have historical precedent in Denver in the 70s. Denver rejected a bid that was “official.” It has happened before like it could happen again.

The other one is Amazon. That was “official.” I think we're entering this era where it's like important to look around and ask or ... It's critical that we say when we enter these junctures of like, "Oh, this is official. This is happening. There's nothing you can do." We can step back and say like, "Well, wait. Why is this happening, just because a couple of really like hyper wealthy powerful people decided behind closed doors that this was going to happen like now we have to accept it?" We don't. We can say no.

Lindsay: It's really about getting pressure on maybe some local politicians, local power brokers to keep pushing back on this and, of course, organizers on the ground which are the most important.

Anne: Yeah. What we've seen in the past is basically the IOC. The IOC pretty much will pack up and slink off at any sign of local opposition and democracy. The IOC, it's been super cushy for them for the last whatever like 100 years or so where they could just come in, do whatever they wanted. They're not accountable to anyone. They take home huge stacks of money from this process. It makes sense like when you think about it at any time, there's like a little bit of friction, anytime there's a little bit of even annoyance.

They just will say like, "You know what? Not worth it." We saw that when Oslo rejected the bid. One of the main critiques that residents of Oslo had weren't even around the impacts to the city. People were really upset about … I haven't talked to organizers in Oslo, so apologies to anyone who's listening if I'm mischaracterizing their opposition, but from what I've read, one of the centerpieces of their opposition was all of the demands that the IOC had, including like, "Oh, we need private jets. We need to take over your highways and your transport. We need all of all of these accommodations,” basically.

Residents of Oslo were like, "We don't want to subsidize that." The IOC just said like, "Okay. We're done with you then." They pretty much will pack up pretty quickly at the signs of democracy essentially, at the signs of people exercising their collective right to speak out and to determine like what's going to happen in their own city.

Lindsay: All right. Well, listen. Thank you so, so much. I'm so excited to see what happens in Tokyo and to continue to follow along. We will continue to check in with all of you. Please, keep us updated on all the work you are doing.

Anne: Awesome. Thank you so much, Lindsay.

Lindsay: Finally from our episode 100, a very special interview from a very special episode. Jessica sat down with Doris Burke, who really needs no introduction but that’s what I’m doing here anyways. Doris is the first woman to be a full time NBA game analyst for ESPN on the national level, where she’s the woman that Drake crushes on every day, and she’s simply just one of the best in the business. This interview was a highlight of the year for this podcast. It’s long, but it’s worth revisiting every second of it.

Jessica: I am very excited today, to welcome Doris Burke, THE Doris Burke, to Burn It All Down. If somehow, you're not familiar with her name, you will most likely know her voice. Doris has been a full-time NBA Color Commentator for ESPN for the last two years. The first woman ever to have a regular NBA Game Analyst role on the national level. Over nearly the last three decades, she has also provided commentary for countless men's and women's college basketball games, and for the WNBA.

Additionally, and not least, she is a world class sideline reporter, and one of the best in-game and post-game interviewers in the business. Last year, she became the first female broadcaster to receive the Basketball Hall of Fame's Curt Gowdy Media Award. She is also a former basketball player herself. She played at Providence College. And according to her bio at ESPN, when she graduated, she held seven records there. She was the school and conference all time assist leader, with 602. Providence's single season leader in assists with 224. And with free throws, both for single season, 152, and in her career, 440.

All right, thank you for being on Burn It All Down, Doris Burke.

Doris: My pleasure, my pleasure. Boy, you did your research. You're going back a long way to find those Providence College numbers.

Jessica: Well, ESPN's got 'em right there, so they're easily available. I have so many questions for you, so I'm just gonna jump in. I wanna start at the beginning, for those who don't know, or who haven't read one of the many amazing profiles that have come out of you in the last couple of years, how and when did you find basketball?

Doris: I was seven years old, the last of eight children. Very Irish Catholic family. And my parents decided to move to accommodate my father's job. When I was seven, we moved from Long Island to a very small town ... one mile square town, on the Jersey Shore, called Manasquan. Very difficult to annunciate. And the home that my parents purchased was literally right next door to a park. And I think I was the very first day we moved down there, you can imagine a seven year old is not gonna help in a move. There was a basketball left in the yard, and my mom put it in my hands and said, "Why don't you go over there and do something with that?" So, I feel like I've been chasing that basketball since I was seven years of age.

Jessica: So, you're obviously a pioneer when it comes to women in broadcasting, but I wanted to know, did you have women that you looked up to, or who were role models for you? What made you believe that you could be the first in all these different ways in your career?

Doris: Well, first of all, I'm gonna tell you, I'm uncomfortable with that word, only because there are women who are my predecessors who experienced things in locker rooms that I never had to experience. Suzyn Waldman, the great New York Yankees ... longtime New York Yankees announcer, tells a story, being in a Major League baseball locker room. And I'm not sure how deep into her career she is. I believe she was in the Toronto Blue Jays locker room. Not sure if it was home or visitors, but it was a Toronto Blue Jays game. And you know what it's like after a post-game. There's a media scrum. There could be as many as 10 to 15 people around the start of that particular game, trying to get questions answered.

Doris: And this particular baseball player says to her, all those many years ago, "I'm not talking until that," blank, "leaves."

Jessica: Oh my.

Doris: And the rest of the writers turn around and look at Suzy, as if to say, "Hey, could you cut us a break and get outta here?" And Suzy talks about that being a breaking point in her career. She had been through so much at that point, when another baseball player calls from across the room and says, "Young lady, if you would like to speak to a professional athlete, I'd be happy to answer any question you have." And she talked about that man basically saving her career.

So, I mean, Jessica, that's a long-winded way of saying Jackie MacMullan, Robin Roberts, all these women pre-date me, and have faced a level of resistance that I have not. I'm not telling you I haven't faced any. I'm simply telling you that by the time I entered the business, it was different. So, those who would be the women ... Jackie MacMullan, because she is in basketball, and is so highly respected, is somebody that I have read, with great enjoyment, for years. I have watched in arenas as these coaches and players clearly respect the work that she does, and how she conducts herself as a person, as a professional. Robin Roberts begins in sports, but then skyrockets to incredible heights as a news anchor for ABC. And it's cool for me. It's cool.

And what excites me the most, perhaps, I look at a woman like Maria Taylor or Laura Rutledge, and I think, "Gosh, these women are gonna rule the world someday." It puts a smile on my face. And they're so much more composed and well-thought, at their respective ages, then I was at my career. So, I appreciate the people that went before me, and I am excited about the people who are coming after me.

Jessica: Yeah, that's such a good point. I was just yesterday, watching Maria Taylor when I was watching March Madness, and thinking she was doing such a fabulous job.

I wanted to ask about finding your voice. And I mean this in a very literal way. Women, in particular, are heavily policed by how they sound. And when I interviewed Mary Carillo last year for this show, she told me that she thought her deeper voice was probably an advantage, in the sense that people were less likely to criticize her for it. And you have this soothing, but authoritative voice, and I was wondering if that's something you worked at, or that came naturally to you. How did you find that voice?

Doris: No, I certainly didn't work at it. And I know that there are play-by-play men who have voice lessons, or ... and in particular, it's the play-by-play. And I'm not sure, I've never asked Beth Mullins if she's had to do this. Because when you work a certain number of games, obviously, your vocal cords can get tired. And so, I would tell you that no, I really have never had any professional media training. I did not go to a famous J school, Missouri, Syracuse. I happened into this business, to be perfectly honest with you. I left coaching in 1990, because I wanted to get married and have a family. And I didn't think I could be both a great coach, and stay at home, and do what I wanted to do with my children in their formative years. I happened into the business. That's the truth.

When I left coaching at Providence College, they put women's ... their games on radio. And the AD at the time, because I had played and coached in the program said, "Hey, why don't you give this a try?" And that was literally the formative stages. Maybe 10 to 15 games of Providence College, and then a TV game or two that year in New England. So I didn't have any formal training.

I will say, it's interesting, when you start, it almost sounds forced to you. You're not sure how your voice should sound. At some point, as a broadcaster, I think you become comfortable with ... oh my goodness. "I have to be me, because if I try to be anything else, the viewer is going to hear it, they're gonna feel it, they're gonna see it." And after a number of repetitions, and it takes some time, you do just simply settle in and say, "Okay, I'm gonna have to be me, and if that's okay, that's okay. And if it isn't, that's okay, too."

And the reality is this, Jessica. The job that I do, in terms of people evaluating it, it's a very subjective thing. You could be in the same room, hearing two people discuss one announcer, and their opinions could be 180 degrees from each other. And it's just the nature of things. For whatever reason, stylistically, one announcer can be more appealing to someone than another. And you can't please everybody.

Jessica: So in 2017, after you did the trophy presentation at the end of the NBA finals, which was a masterclass in how to handle that particularly chaotic moment, you said in an interview with Richard Deitsch, who was then at Sports Illustrated, that quote, "As a broadcaster, it took me a good 10 to 15 years to relax and allow myself to enjoy the job." And when I was reading this in preparation for this interview, I was wondering, how were you able to finally relax? Was it just it took time in the role? Or was there something that led you to finally breathe in the job?

Doris: Well, a couple of things. Certainly, again, the more you do a job, the more comfortable you become with it, the more in command you become. It took me years to learn that it takes, probably, more people than the viewer can conceive of, doing their job at a high level, to make a great telecast. And by that, the producer has got to have command of the ship, and adjust on the fly if a game doesn't turn out the way you had hoped, or the soundbite you acquired in the morning don't fit to what happens. You have two exceptional tape operators. If you are an analyst, and you're trying to make points, the tape has to understand what you're talking about, and be able to access that tape quickly. Play-by-play has got to get you where you want to go, if the play-by-play senses that an analyst is excited.

So, I would say, one, you learn what a good broadcast is. Repetition. And then, you have great people around you. Which because I've been at ESPN, obviously I have very passionate and knowledgeable sports fans almost across the board. So that, helps immensely. And then, there was actually one particular moment that made a difference for me. My son, at the time, he's 24, so it's probably longer ago than I think it is, but I just remember sitting, watching ... I believe it was an Olympics, but it could've been something different. It's so long now, I just remember what he said to me, which was ... we were sitting there. The announcers covering what we were watching were clearly having a good time with one another, and there was some laughter, and there was certainly joy in the announcers. And my son ... and my living room was quite small at the time, and so we were in close proximity to one another, and he said ... he just looked at me and he said, "Mom, what I don't think you understand is, when you're having a good time on the air, we're having a good time with you."

And I thought, "Man, you know what?" ... And one of my challenges, Jessica, in terms of relaxing and enjoying myself, and again, I'm going back so far in my career, but one of my challenges back then was I was doing men's college basketball, as an analyst. Could've been the Atlantic 10, could've been the Big East. And because I was one of the few, and I'm not sure if i was the only at the time, but there weren't many women, certainly, sitting in that chair, and I was thinking, "Oh god, I've got to prove to the audience that I know what I'm talking about," because I knew it was foreign to their ear, to hear me in that role, going back to your, "How do you find your voice?" Though, instead of just relaxing and enjoying the telecast, and these incredible athletes doing these things that I just enjoy watching, I was trying to prove myself, prove how smart I was. That was never a good thing on a telecast, because the viewer definitely doesn't wanna hear how smart you are. They wanna enjoy the game with you. You know what I mean?

Jessica: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I wanna ask about post-game interviews really quickly. My cohost, Shireen, she wants to know if you ever had a time, when you were doing a post-game interview with a player after a loss, where it was difficult for you because of the emotional impact on the player, but that it's your job to ask that person a question.

Doris: Well, we don't ever interview a player in a loss, typically speaking. I would say we interview coaches in a loss, and it's primarily in settings of tournaments. So, I mean ... and really, probably the only time I've had to do that is, I would say, a Pat Summit or a Geno Auriemma, where I'm covering the NCAA women's tournament. And it would've been, they were anticipated to go to the Final Four, or anticipated to go to the National Championship, or win everything. And I do recall both of those people, Geno and Pat, they're both such exceptional pros, and committed to the growth of the women's game, and understood the responsibility that comes up with that kind of setting.

Doris: And to be honest with you, in response to that question, and it's a great question, I think it's important, in both a loss, but also the euphoria of a win, that the person who's doing the interviewing have a certain tone anyway. And the tone would be slightly different in those two circumstances.

Jessica: Sure.

Doris: But I'll give you an example of where it's important to keep your composure. I remember doing an interview at Duke. It was when JJ Redick was playing there. I don't think I interviewed JJ, but long story, short, there was this incredible action late, where Duke turns it over on their own baseline, nearly cost themselves the game. And then, somehow recovers and then ends up winning the game. And as you can imagine, the Cameron Crazies were ecstatic. The energy in the building was incredible. But you still have to be able to say, "Okay, in the midst of this frenzied atmosphere, I've got to figure out what are the most important things to ask?" And I still remember asking my first question, it was something along the lines, "What did Coach K say to get your composure back in that huddle between the turnover, and the eventual getting the game back in your own command?" So, it's a great question, and I would just say it's important, as the interviewer, that you're not caught up in the emotion of either the devastation of a loss, or the euphoria of an incredible win.

Jessica: I wanted to ask about the job that you have now, and the breadth of knowledge that you have to have for every single game, about all the people on the court, the coaches on the sidelines, the teams, what's happened to them across the season. How do you prep to do that kind of in-game analysis? How much time goes into you preparing just for one game?

Doris: Well, I'd say the most important thing I do is, if I'm not working a game on a particular night, then I'm watching a lot of NBA basketball. That, to me, is the absolute key, because the more you're seeing a team, the more you're recognizing what the strengths and weaknesses of the individual players are, what the rations happen to be, which starters are playing with the second unit, or does a coach happen to substitute a wholesale substitution where his bench is deep enough that maybe he goes five, and then works starters back in.

You do a lot of reading as well. If I have ... so my next game, I actually have a nice little break in my schedule, which is beautiful, but Portland/Denver is my next game, and it's this coming Friday. So all of this week, I'll be on nba.com, and I'll be identifying the games that Portland and Denver have, and their games this week, will become appointment viewing for me.

The other thing is, I have incredible ... and it's an amazing thing to me now, compared to almost 30 years ago when I started. So, I have in my email each morning, one email that has the entirety of the NBA's clips. So, Denver's clips would be in this email.

Jessica: Wow.

Doris: Portland's clips would be in this email. So now, I can hone in one those two teams. And then, okay so ESPN provides me access to something called Second Spectrum. Which basically, I could, with a few clicks of a button, punch in Joel Embiid's name, and there's a little video icon that's attached to it, and I could say, "Okay, I wanna see all his pick and rolls," and click on that icon.

Jessica: Oh, wow.

Doris: Then up would pop all of that information. And then, ESPN has an incredible support staff, meaning we would get an email with the synopsis of each team's summaries, of which sometimes, is really helpful, because we have a news editor that has gone back, and he has kept up with things through the entirety of the season. So yeah, I mean, it's a lot of prep, but I would say to you, everybody does it in my business because the people I work with, their NBA fans.

Jessica: Right.

Doris: And it doesn't feel like work. Right? You're, "Oh boy, I have a tough day today. I have to read a little bit about NBA." Yesterday I went to my gym, and I listened to The Woj Pods. He had Doc Rivers on, and then he had Nick Nurse on. So, as I'm on the treadmill, that gets me through my workout. So, I mean, it's a process, but I'm a fan, right?

Jessica: Right.

Doris: I'm a fan, and I understand how incredibly lucky I am to have the job that I have, and so it doesn't necessarily feel like work. Some days it does, Jessica. Some days it happens.

Jessica: Of course.

Doris: I'm at the airport for six hours because I've had multiple delays, and sometimes the road, I'll sit in a hotel room. It's funny, I was talking to JJ Redick about this. And the aftermath of the Adam Silver coming out and discussing that he thinks some of his players are unhappy. I had a great discussion with JJ Redick about it. He said, "I definitely think there could be something to that." And these guys are on the road a lot. They're separated from their families a lot. There's incredible performance pressure on them nightly. And I know that they make a lot of money, and they're compensated well, but the vast majority of them, like all of them, like you and I, we have family, and we have things that go on in our personal world that you're trying to deal with every day. And so, it's an interesting lifestyle, that's for sure.

Jessica: So, I do ... I would be remiss to let you go without asking about this. About your rising popularity over the last few years. I mean it has been, as someone who really looks up to you and is inspired by you, it's been really fun to watch. For those who don't know, probably the best example, or at least the highest profile one, and I feel like you know exactly where I'm going, Doris. Drake wore a shirt to a Raptors game that had your face on it, and the words, "Woman Crush Every Day". Recently though, there's other stuff, like the U.S. Women's National team all chose to wear the last name of a woman who inspired them on the back of their jersey during a recent game, and Tobin Heath chose you. And yesterday, I bought a shirt from the site, Homage, that says, "My favorite broadcaster is Doris Burke," on it. I first saw that shirt when Rachel Nichols posted a picture of herself in it on Instagram. What do you make of all this? Could you have even imagined that this would be-

Doris: No.

Jessica: Your life, as you're forging a career, that almost no other woman has had?

Doris: No. And I will say this to you. I've said to my daughter a million times ... my daughter is 26, and I always say to her, "I love my job. I love my job. But I do miss coaching," because I felt like when I was coaching those Providence College student athletes for those two years, that I had an impact on their lives, that I could help them be more confident. I remember being that kid when I was 18 to 22, and didn't have a ton of confidence outside the lines of the basketball court. And so, I'm blown away by it. I will say, as you know, Jessica, or maybe you're not familiar, there was a very long period of time where Twitter was not kind. I would say for the first 10 years of Twitter's existence, there was some heavy objection to me. "I wish she looked like, so-and-so." I'm like, "Well, I wouldn't mind." Or, "I don't like her voice," or whatever the criticism might be.

And I would say, it was the Tobin Heath thing, and I actually tracked down her number and I called Tobin and I said, "I hope you know how," I just was so moved by that, Jessica. I couldn't begin to tell you how moved I was. And I will say, it's much nicer to be liked than to be disliked.

Jessica: Oh. I mean, I did wanna ask about the flip side of it was that, as you just said, you got a lot of shit over the years for being a woman who enters men's spaces, talks about men's sports. And you do it really well. How do you manage that part of your career? Do you have advice for the rest of us, coming up behind?

Doris: You mentioned Sarah Spain, and I have great admiration for Sarah on so many levels. I think she is tremendous, professional, exceptional at what she does. But I find it fascinating, Jessica, that she chooses, Sarah, to go back at people at Twitter. I don't generally engage. First of all, it's not a medium I use tremendously, except to root on my Providence College Friars. I will tell you that I don't listen to ... I didn't listen to the bad, right? I couldn't let that bad break me, or shake me, or have an effect on me. And I would say, I handle ... not that I don't appreciate, especially from my colleagues, from Sarah, which I saw her with that shirt, and Allie Clifton with another one, you don't let the good or the bad ... Here's what I would say to all of the young women in our business. You have to put your head down and focus on the job immediately in front of you. And there are a couple of ways you can evaluate the job that you're doing. One, you know every single day, the amount that you're putting into it. And if you are pouring your heart and soul, and you are working hard on it, then so be it. There is no job too big, no job too small.

Because I guarantee, when I was the radio announcer for Providence College women's basketball, and when I was the radio announcer for the New York Liberty, no one was listening. No one was. Right? The WNBA broadcast on radio, David Stern had the brilliant idea to put ... when you got put on hold in 1997 or 1998 at the NBA offices, you would hear our broadcasts. Okay? So those were my listeners. It didn't matter, because I was honing my skills. The good or the bad evaluations from people who are not directly either employing you or deciding what jobs you get, they don't really matter. You have to decide the job you're doing, and then your employers, those people who hire you will tell you the job you're doing by the assignments you get. And it's not easy. Believe me. I say that to you, and understand this. That I, when I felt it ... I'll give you one example.

I don't know how this happened, but this is years ago when I'm covering Big East men's basketball before the split with the American Conference. Somehow, this man decided ... I had covered Syracuse/Temple. He was a Syracuse fan. Temple upset Syracuse as a top 10 team. Somehow, this man's thoughts to me on Twitter, were coming into my email, and he basically said, "I am going to haunt you every day."

Jessica: Oh my.

Doris: And he would send the most vile, vicious things. And it wasn't until my daughter got on my phone and basically said, "This is how you block somebody, mom." I was like, "Oh, amen. There you go." Okay, and then, the only other thing, one time I got 15 photocopied pages of basically what was anti-women literature, the way fan mail makes it way to you is, it would be sent to ESPN, and when you had enough of it, they would put it in an envelope and come to you. And these 15 photocopied pages of anti-women lit, it was disturbing.

Jessica: Wow.

Doris: And I was like, "Ooh." And it's just, you have to put, somehow, and I'm not telling you it's easy 'cause I've been hurt by stuff. And I'm not telling you I haven't read any of it. I have. But you have to be able to put it aside, and put it in its appropriate box, and just say, "You know what? I love my job. There are good and bad pieces of it, and I'm just gonna keep plugging away." And you just keep plugging away. That's what I've done for 30 years, basically. Keep plugging away.

Jessica: Oh, thank you for that. I would like to finish up by doing a lightning round of questions, if that's okay with you.

Doris: My mind doesn't work very fast.

Jessica: That's fine. Do you have a favorite player that you enjoyed interviewing?

Doris: No. I'd say some of my most memorable moments were LeBron James.

Jessica: Okay, we love LeBron James on this show. Favorite coach to interview. And this is definitely a Shireen question.

Doris: Favorite coach. Oh man, that's a hard one. You know, the one I dread is Gregg Popovich, still to this day.

Jessica: Famously.

Doris: I'm sweating, I'm nervous, it's kept me up the night before. So he would be my least favorite. Probably my favorite is Doc Rivers.

Jessica: Oh okay. This is also a Shireen question. Do you, growing up in New Jersey, do you have a soft spot for the Knicks and the Liberty?

Doris: Total soft spot. Yes, of course.

Jessica: Very nice. What is your favorite pair of sneakers.

Doris: Oh boy. That is a great question. When I was a kid, I had a pair of black Puma Clyde's, low suede with a white stripe. They were bad ass sneakers.

Jessica: Right now in the game, who's the most underrated men's player in the NBA.

Doris: Oh gosh. Underrated. Geez. Maybe Domantas Sabonis.

Jessica: Okay, okay. I wanted to ask specifically about the NBA playoffs. They're starting a couple weeks, I think on April 14th. Are there under the radar players or teams? Those dark horses that our listeners should be paying attention to?

Doris: Yeah. I am fascinated to see what happens with the Utah Jazz, who have an absolutely brutal schedule out of the gates, were dangling toward the outside of the playoff picture, I believe, at one point, but have ... the schedule lightens, they pulled their defense together, so I'm really curious who Utah matches up with, and how far they can go.

Wait, under the radar players. The other thing that I really am curious about, because I think he's integral to the success of Milwaukee. Malcolm Brogdon. He's had a year where he's gone 50% field goal, 40% three point, 90% free throws. It is the absolute best indicator of somebody having an incredibly efficient year. And I'm just curious, can he get back and get healthy, because I think the east is formidable at the top, and Giannis is ... gosh, he's so close to an MVP award. Could Malcolm and Mirotić get back and get healthy? So I'm sorry, those are rapid fire, but I am long winded by nature, as you can tell.

Jessica: No, that was wonderful. I would listen to you talk all day. And just to remind us, your next assignment, or when we can hear you next.

Doris: It's Portland at Denver this coming Friday night. It would be 10:30 eastern tip.

Jessica: Awesome. Thank you so much, Doris Burke-

Doris: Oh.

Jessica: For being on Burn It All Down. This has been wonderful.

Doris: Jessica, my pleasure. My pleasure. You guys keep pluggin' away at this. I love it.

Lindsay: Thank you all for listening to this special best of 2019 edition of Burn It All Down. We will be back next week with our first brand-new episode of 2020, there’s gonna be tons to discuss. Can’t wait to talk to you all then. Remember, you can follow us on Twitter @BurnItDownPod, follow us on Facebook @burnitalldown, follow us on…What else am forgetting? There’s so many! Go to our website, burnitalldownpod.com, where you can find links to show notes, bios, everything you could possibly need. We’re on Instagram as well. Shelby, our social media guru, is doing a phenomenal job with our Instagram. And most importantly, if you want to give us a little gift to start off the 2020 season (besides subscribing to our Patreon): if you would go to iTunes and leave us a five star review and send us a love note that would be amazing, that really helps grow our podcast. Thanks again for listening and for supporting this labor of love. Let’s kick off this next decade in style.