MEET THE FAB FIVE

Shireen Ahmed

is a shouty Brown woman. She is an award-winning sports activist, multi-platform sports journalist, public speaker, and diversity and inclusion consultant. Her work focuses on Muslim women, and the intersections of racism and misogyny in sports. Shireen teaches Sports Journalism and Sports Media at X University in Toronto, Canada. Her work and commentary are regularly featured and discussed in major media outlets. When she isn’t watching Netflix, she drinks coffee as a tool of resistance. Shireen is currently working on her first book. She is on several advisory committees of organizations that work in anti-racism and inclusion in sports including FARENet, Hijabi Ballers, and Black Girl Hockey Club. She lives in Mississauga with her family and her amazing cat, Sitara.

Amira Rose Davis 

is an Assistant Professor of History and African American Studies at Penn State University where she specializes in 20th Century American History with an emphasis on race, gender, sports and politics. She is the author of the forthcoming book, “Can’t Eat a Medal”: The Lives and Labors of Black Women Athletes in the Age of Jim Crow (UNC Press). Her work has appeared in scholarly journals as well as popular outlets such as Washington Post. Additionally, Davis provides sports commentary for public venues such as NPR, ESPN, and BBC. Davis has served as a diversity and inclusion consultant for collegiate and professional teams, conferences, and leagues. She also serves on the advisory board of the Jackie Robinson Museum and the Arthur Ashe Legacy Foundation.

Brenda Elsey 

is an Associate Professor of History at Hofstra University and lives in the Hudson Valley. Her research focuses on the intersection of gender, politics, and sports – especially in Latin America. She is the author of Citizens and Sportsmen: Fútbol and Politics in Twentieth-Century Chile and the forthcoming Futbolera: Women, Sports, and Sexuality in Latin America (with Josh Nadel). Her patronus is the Eastern Cottontail rabbit.

Lindsay Gibbs

is a sports reporter formerly at ThinkProgress and creator of the no-BS newsletter about sexism in sports, Power Plays. Her writing has also appeared in Sports on Earth, Bleacher Report, Vice Sports, USA Today, Tennis magazine, Tennis.com, The Cauldron, FanSided, and The Classical, among others. Lindsay is the author of the historical fiction novel Titanic: The Tennis Story and the co-founder of the tennis blog The Changeover. She attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied film and television production.

Jessica Luther

is a freelance journalist living in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared in ESPN Magazine, New York Times Magazine, and the Texas Observer, and at the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, BuzzFeed, and Texas Monthly. Over the last few years, she has written extensively on the intersection of sports and violence off the field, especially college football and sexual assault, most notably about Baylor and LSU. She has written two books: Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape, which was published by Akashic Books in 2016; and Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back: Dilemmas of the Modern Sports Fan, which she co-authored with Kavitha Davidson for the University of Texas Press, published in 2020. She loves romance novels, making and eating baked goods, and drinking coffee.

Photos thanks to Michael T. Davis

back of house

BURN IT ALL DOWN Emeritus

Martin Kessler

is an audio producer and reporter who grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After working at NPR’s sports show, Only A Game, from 2013 - 2020, Martin now produces Burn It All Down. He hopes to try spoon cake someday. And despite Shireen’s claims, he loves all five co-hosts equally.