Top-tier black college athletes should take their talents to historically black institutions. That’s the argument that Jemele Hill is making in a new piece for the Atlantic. She says that doing so could benefit both the colleges and the communities around them.

The piece, It’s Time for Black Athletes to Leave White Colleges, argues that when highly-ranked black athletes even look at HBCUs, it “threatens to crack the foundation on which the moneymaking edifice of college sports rests” — that foundation being black athletes drawing acclaim, attention, and money to primarily white institutions.

It’s an argument that has drawn some criticism — Hill says she’s been called a “segregationist” for even suggesting the idea. To that, she says, “those people don’t know very much about HBCUs.” (Of course, Hill is no stranger to that kind of critique. She famously drew the ire of President Trump and his supporters after referring to him as a white supremacist on Twitter.)

Hill spoke to All Things Considered about the piece.

Interview Highlights

On the history of student athletes at HBCUs

That was exclusively where [black students] could go, and as a result you had a lot of the top talent. At that point in time you had a college like Grambling State University, which was basically considered to be what would be today’s version of the University of Alabama, because they were that talented, putting so many players in the NFL over the course of their history. But obviously once there was desegregation, a lot of these black athletes began to go all over. HBCUs in the major revenue sports — talking about basketball and football — began to lose, or not have as much of a foothold.

If you look at the college landscape now, everybody pretty much knows [it] has become a billion dollar industry, given the television contracts, the money, the interest, the marketing, shoe deals, all of that. But black athletes in general are being exploited, because they’re not being paid, and they’re clearly the backbone of a lot of these universities, of which their labor has helped them become these huge powerhouses. You’re looking at schools like Texas and Alabama who have a 200 million dollar athletic budget — not a school budget, just the athletic budget. All that is built on the backs of black athletes.

HBCUs generally speaking do not have large endowments, nothing that could equal any of some of the universities like Harvard. Why not take your talent to these HBCUs that once were the only place that you could go, and help to reimagine those universities from a financial standpoint the communities around them and to some degree kind of rebuild these historic institutions.

On what it would take for this to work

You would need a group, frankly, a whole exodus of athletes who would think really really really big picture in order for this to happen.

It can’t be one or two, because one or two is not enough. There have been individual cases of a top-tier black talent going to these schools. But they need a wave of a conscientious effort on behalf of these athletes to do that, to help to rebuild these schools, the communities around them. And I think it will be a trickle down effect into strengthening essentially a huge base in the black community, which has always been kind of the black middle class. When you look at the number of lawyers, doctors, professionals that have come from HBCUs, I mean Kamala Harris is running for president. She went to Howard University. So when you look at the level of output that most black colleges have in general, to strengthen that even more with a very solvent, steady, stable financial base I think is just a huge benefit all around.

On the precedent for this kind of movement in athletics

We see this happen a lot in college football and college basketball, where you have athletes who have been playing together in high school, maybe on the same team. Because a lot of these guys play on the same AAU teams, two or three of them will go to one university, because they all want to play together.

One of the more famous examples is [University of Michigan’s] Fab Five: Jalen Rose and Chris Webber both are from Detroit, both had a relationship, and they got to know the other members — Juwan Howard, Ray Jackson and Jimmy King. And five freshmen went to the University of Michigan and changed college basketball.

I don’t see why that couldn’t happen for an HBCU. I mean look, we’ve seen a lot of these athletes. They have chosen to go to smaller schools or be walk ons sometimes at some of these bigger schools. My thing is like, why be a walk somewhere? Go to an HBCU.

I know I was speaking from a standpoint of utter utopia. It’s a little bit more more challenging than that. But I do think it’s possible. I think some of it has to be a concerted push, and some of this has to come from their own homes.

When I was making my college decision, no one talked to me about going to an HBCU. I’m from Detroit, and that’s a black city, right? I knew other people who had gone, but nobody said, “Hey, did you ever think about going here now?” Two HBCUs wound up being on my final list of colleges, and I owe that to the Cosby Show and A Different World.

On the exposure athletes get at larger schools

As we’ve seen always has been the case in sports, and really virtually anything entertainment based, is exposure goes where the talent is. So the exposure would be, to me, the least of the issues, because again, there are players in the NFL and NBA who went to black colleges and they were found. And I think that’s part of what I got at in this piece is the mentality that some of these young athletes have. They think the schools make them.

Now I’m not going to pretend that if you go to a black college there are things you have to prove that say, somebody who goes to Oregon or Florida State doesn’t have to prove. That being said, teams want to get better, and they want to go where the talent is, and it’s the same with television networks. They follow where the audience goes and where the talent is.

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Embattled Patriots wide receiver Antonio Brown is expected to practice with the team on Wednesday, a day after Brown’s former trainer accused him of rape in a federal lawsuit.

In a combative press conference, Patriots coach Bill Belichick said the accusations “are what they are” and that “I won’t be entering into a discussion about that right now,” adding that the team is taking the latest controversy involving Brown “one day at a time.”

Brown’s future was thrown further into question on Wednesday after news reports that the NFL is considering whether to place the star wide-receiver on leave in light of the lawsuit. The Washington Post first reported that the NFL is giving “serious condition” to making Brown ineligible to play.

Brown has not been charged with any crime.

His lawyer, Darren Heitner, released a statement denying the accusations against his client. “Mr. Brown denies each and every allegation in the lawsuit. He will pursue all legal remedies to not only clear his name, but to also protect other professional athletes against false accusations,” Heitner said.

On Tuesday, a former trainer accused Brown of sexual assault and rape in a federal lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, where Brown resides.

In the suit, Britney Taylor, 28, says she met Brown when they both attended Central Michigan University and were bible study partners. Brown transferred to Louisiana State University, but the two kept in communication.

According to the suit, Brown messaged Taylor, who runs a gymnastics training center in Memphis, on Facebook and asked her to assist him with “improving flexibility and strength in his ankles and fast twist muscles,” and that she agreed to help.

In June 2017, when the two were in one of Brown’s houses in the Pittsburgh area, Brown exposed himself to Taylor and then forcibly kissed her, according to the lawsuit. Taylor “willed herself to brush off the episode,” her lawyers say in the complaint.

The suit describes a subsequent episode when the two were streaming a church service at Brown’s home in Miami and the all-star wide receiver allegedly masturbated behind Taylor without her knowing. The suit contains degrading messages allegedly sent by Brown bragging about the incident.

The suit says Taylor ended contact with Brown but that he reached out months later, apologizing for his actions and asking her to train him again during off-season weekends. She agreed under the conditions that he not make advances on her and that he provide her with a private hotel room.

In May 2018, the lawsuit says, Brown invited her to a club in Miami with friends. Afterward, Taylor drove Brown and a friend back to Brown’s house and went to use the restroom. Brown allegedly then pulled her into his bedroom and raped her. The suit says Taylor pleaded with him to stop, saying “no” and “stop,” but that Brown refused.

Taylor talked about the alleged rape and the two other incidents with her mother, Brown’s chef and a member of her church, according to the lawsuit.

“Brown preyed on Ms. Taylor’s kindness and her religious devotion, casting himself as a person equally dedicated to his religious faith and someone she could trust. In reality, he used manipulation and false promises to lure her into his world, and once there, he sexually assaulted and raped her,” wrote Taylor’s lawyer, David Haas.

Brown said through his attorney that the relationship with Taylor was consensual.

“Mr. Brown, whose hard work and dedication to his craft has allowed him to rise to the top of his profession, refuses to be the victim of what he believes to be a money grab,” Heitner says.

Heitner says that prior to the alleged rape, Taylor reached out to Brown about a $1.6 million investment in a business project and that Brown turned it down.

A spokesman for the NFL declined to comment on the lawsuit. The Patriots said in a statement Wednesday that the team takes the allegations “very seriously,” saying the NFL has told them league officials will be investigating.

Brown is no stranger to controversy. He clashed with the NFL over regulations that would not allow him to use his preferred helmet.

Just last week, when he was with the Oakland Raiders, Brown recorded a conversation with coach Jon Gruden and posted it on YouTube. On Saturday, the Raiders voided a multimillion-dollar contract with the wide receiver and released him.

He was snapped up by the New England Patriots days later. He has yet to play a game with the Patriots.

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The roar of the crowd, the boom of the sound system, the flash of fireworks — all part of the thrill for many fans who flock to NFL games, but for others, including those on the autism spectrum with sensory issues, the experience can be too much.

Now a growing number of teams are including “sensory inclusive spaces” within their arenas to accommodate them.

The Philadelphia Eagles, the Seattle Seahawks and the Minnesota Vikings have all opened rooms that provide a refuge for those who need to step away from the clamor. The spaces come equipped with dim lighting, sound-protected walls and sensory activities, including toys and games, with the goal of providing a reset.

And Julian Maha, co-founder of KultureCity, the nonprofit that worked with the Vikings and the Eagles to design the rooms, told NPR that there are many people who may need that reset.

“One in six people in the U.S. have a sensory need,” said Maha, who is also a medical doctor. That can include individuals not only with autism, but also Down syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder and dementia; all challenges that Maha said may not be visibly apparent but come with “a freedom barrier.”

“The lights, the noises, the crowd can be not only overwhelming from a sensory aspect but also physically painful to them,” he said.

Valerie Paradiz, vice president of services and supports at Autism Speaks, who was diagnosed with autism as an adult, told NPR that for people on the autism spectrum, public sports events can be especially difficult to process. “By creating a calm space, these NFL stadiums encourage inclusion and enable people with autism, their families and friends to attend events together,” she said in an email.

Tami Hedrick, the Vikings’ director of women’s initiatives, worked to create the sensory inclusive space at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

She told NPR that the Brundidge family — whose three out of four children have been diagnosed with autism-spectrum disorders — were the first people to use the room when it opened during the August preseason. Hedrick said the room was a game changer for the family, as they would have been unable to attend without it.

The room comes with two trained therapists and has so far averaged around 15 people per game, Hedrick said. Attendance is capped at four people at a time, and they are asked to stay for no longer than twenty minutes, although accommodations could be made as needed.

“We want to be able to have that privacy and to have that quiet,” he said. “All of them were only in there for about five minutes. They didn’t really need a lot more time.”

Several arenas, including the Denver Broncos’ Mile High Stadium, the New York Giants and Jets’ MetLife Stadium and the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Heinz Field, are also accommodating fans with special needs by offering tool kits with noise-cancelling headphones and sensory toys — known as fidget tools.

The kits come with a badge letting staff know that a fan can leave the arena and come back in.

KultureCity works with franchises to train staff to recognize what sensory needs look like. The training, Maha said, includes “the awareness and freedom you’re giving to this population to come into your facility without fear of judgement.”

Maha knows the feeling. His 11-year-old son was diagnosed with autism and is non-speaking.

He also adores basketball.

At one time, the family only got to enjoy a few minutes of an Atlanta Hawks’ game before having to leave. Now several NBA teams have added sensory rooms to their arenas, including the Hawks. Now, Maha said, his son can stick it out for an entire game, occasionally using the sensory room — and the kit — to decompress.

“It’s been transformative,” Maha said. “At the core, it gives families and individuals the freedom to re-engage with communities again.”

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It started with a wrong turn while driving in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park.

That was how 8-year-old Shariah Harris and her mother found the stables of an equestrian program called “Work to Ride.” Growing up in a West Philadelphia neighborhood where crime rates are high and graduation rates are low, Harris never dreamed of playing polo.

“Polo wasn’t something that was in the cards for me,” she says. “I couldn’t afford riding lessons, or a horse for that matter. I never even thought about riding horses until I got lost in the park that day,” she says.

But after finding the barn, Harris was hooked. Within days she was mucking stalls and grooming horses. By the age of 12, she was competing against some of the most elite polo teams. Being the only players of color on the field was tough at first.

“I was only around black people as a kid and then traveling out to games we were the only black people, so it was weird, we were kind of sticking out,” says Harris, who became the first black woman to play top-tier polo at the age of 19. The team eventually gained acceptance she says, especially when they started winning.

But earning the privilege to ride takes work. Each morning the players wake up at dawn and get to work cleaning the barn, bathing, grooming and exercising the horses. If they show up late, they don’t play, says Lezlie Hiner, founder and coach of Work to Ride.

“It’s a progression with the kids,” Hiner says. “I’m very funky about being on time. That’s one of my big things in life, so I battle with the kids about that all of the time and if they really want to do something their behinds will be here.”

In 1994, she got frustrated with her desk job and quit to figure out a way to combine her two passions: her deep love for horses and helping at-risk youth. What she came up with was a program that gives low-income, inner city kids the chance to play polo for free in exchange for taking care of the ponies.

To stay on the team the players must maintain at least a C average in school. If they don’t, they’re demoted to barn chores until they get their grades up. That was the case for 14-year-old Mosiah Gravesande, who was sidelined last year for a bad report card.

“I felt bad because I was missing out on a lot and I just wanted to play, but I couldn’t because I was playing around and not paying attention to my school work,” Gravesande says.

In communities where the high school dropout rates are high, Hiner says she’s not surprised that some kids don’t make it.

“My main goal is to make sure that the kids graduate high school. Sometimes we have to provide them with tutors or interface with their schools, especially if there is no parental involvement,” she says.

Many of the players are raised in single-parent households that often lack structure and discipline. Lyzette Rosser enrolled her two sons in the program when they were in elementary school, and says Hiner has been a lifesaver over the years.

“She kept my kids from off the streets, I struggled to raise them and I couldn’t have done it without Miss Lez,” Rosser says.

Her son Kareem captained the Work to Ride team in 2011 when it became the first all-black squad to win the National Interscholastic Polo championship.

“It was a time that we made history,” says Kareem, who went on to graduate from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. Now at 26, he works as a financial analyst in Philadelphia. “It took us so long to get to that point, there was a lot of falling, broken mallets and tears, but just over the years being a resilient group we finally accomplished a long-term goal of ours.”

Clinching that title was also the moment when the polo establishment started to take notice.

“She’s changing lives,” says John Gobin, former captain of the U.S. polo team. “What she has done in Philly, people are trying to duplicate around the country and she’s raised those guys as gentlemen and fantastic polo players,”

Gobin says Hiner’s tough-love approach has gone a long way in helping the kids stay on track.

“Working with the horses teaches these kids to get out of bed in the morning. They have a lot of responsibility to get to the barn in the morning, feed the horses and make sure they have water, exercise, brush them. And they can’t get into trouble because they are in the barn 12 hours a day,” Gobin says.

But Work to Ride hasn’t been able to help all of the kids. Sometimes the players drop out of school or get into trouble with the law, a few have ended up in prison. Other times they’re lost to more tragic circumstances. In 2003, one of the team’s most promising players was murdered in her West Philadelphia home in a drug deal gone bad. Hiner thinks back to the last time she saw 14-year-old Mecca Harris.

“Mecca was our only female player at the time. We had just dropped her off that night after practice and then we got the call the next morning,” Hiner says.

Mecca’s picture now hangs above the door in the tack-room of Work to Ride.

For the last 25 years, Hiner has worked tirelessly to teach the kids life skills and responsibility, but education remains her top priority. She estimates that about 65 percent of those who sign up for Work to Ride will graduate from the program. She says it’s a good number, but not good enough.

But for the most part, the program has succeeded in keeping the kids off the streets, in school and on the polo field.

On a recent day, Shariah Harris and the Work to Ride team are in Central New York preparing to compete in the Amateur Cup, one of the biggest polo matchups of the summer.

On the sidelines of the Preble Valley Polo Club, Harris fastens a yellow do-rag around her head and tightens the reins on Easy Ed, a shiny, black thoroughbred. She says at first, the former racing horse had no interest in playing polo.

“He was a problem child at first,” Harris says. “He would bite me and some of the other horses, but over time we got used to each other and now he’s OK, he’s easier.”

Harris says learning how to establish a relationship with a horse was one of the biggest challenges she faced while learning to ride.

The horn blows signaling the last 30 seconds of the game and the team is down 7 to 1. Harris looks disappointed as she walks Easy Ed back to his trailer.

“I hate to lose more than I love to win. But losing helps you become a better player and you can’t learn if you always win,” she says.

The 21-year-old captains the polo team at Cornell University and will graduate next year with a degree in animal science. She’s also helping to expand Work to Ride by raising funds for an indoor arena – which is set to open in 2021.

But for now, Harris shakes off today’s loss and walks off the field wearing a bright, pink t-shirt that reads, “Polo: the sport of millionaires, royalty and homeboys.”

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Rafael Nadal enjoys a well-earned reputation as tennis’ long-reigning king of clay — but on Sunday, Nadal reminded the world he’s anything but a one-surface wonder. The 33-year-old Spaniard reasserted his mastery of the hard court, as well, claiming his fourth career U.S. Open title over an opponent roughly a decade his junior.

Nadal defeated Daniil Medvedev in a five-set humdinger in New York City, 7-5, 6-3, 5-7, 4-6, 6-4. To do it, he had to fend off a furious rally by the 23-year-old Russian, who, after ceding the first two sets to Nadal, stormed back to push his celebrated opponent to the brink — and extend the marathon match’s final running time to nearly five hours.

But Nadal ultimately steadied his course, breaking Medvedev’s serve twice in the final to seal the victory and buttress his position in the record books. The win makes for his second Grand Slam title of the year, after he won the French Open — yet again — in June. It also gives him his 19th career Grand Slam, placing him just one title behind arch-rival Roger Federer, who currently owns the men’s singles record.

After the match, Nadal wept as the stadium in Flushing Meadows played a string of highlights from his career. He called it “one of the most emotional nights of my tennis career.”

“The last three hours of the match have been very, very intense, no?” Nadal said. “Very tough mentally and physically, too.”

No kidding.

For all the history Nadal brought to Sunday’s match, and all the edge in experience he had over Medvedev — a newcomer to the U.S. Open final — Nadal’s win did not come easily. Despite clinching the first two sets, the Spaniard saw the next two slip away on broken serves. What looked early on like a possible cruise to triumph ended up taking about 4 hours, 50 minutes, in what became one of the longest matches of Nadal’s considerable career.

“The way that he was able to fight, to change the rhythm of the match, was just incredible,” Nadal acknowledged afterward.

Medvedev, for his part, made clear that the respect was mutual.

“What you’ve done for tennis in general,” he told Nadal at the trophy ceremony, calling his career Grand Slam total simply “outrageous.” “I mean, I think 100 million kids watching you play want to play tennis, and it’s amazing for our sport.”

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A line stretches down the hall, up the stairs, and out the door at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. The voice of an event organizer echoes throughout space: “No fakes! We catch you selling fakes, you’re getting kicked out!” he warns. “Embarrassment!”

It’s Sneaker Con. Organizers say they are expecting about 10,000 people to converge at the convention center over the weekend for this stop of the global tour.

Sneaker Con is exactly what it sounds like.

“Everybody’s out here buying sneakers, trading sneakers. Every sneaker you can imagine,” describes Tamika Jeter.

She’s a stylish Baltimore native wearing a pair of black and white checkered Commes Des Garcon x Nike Cortez Platform sneakers that retail for $390.

It’s her first time at Sneaker Con but, a self-proclaimed sneakerhead, Jeter’s excited by what she sees. “Exclusives, some [sneakers] that you haven’t seen in years,” she says. “Everything’s here. For the sneaker fan, this is the place to be.” She has her eyes out for a good deal on some Yeezy 700s, a collaboration between Adidas and Kanye West.

People come from all over the country to buy, sell, and trade sneakers, at this event. Organizers say that it’s one of the few places where people can still physically gather together to talk sneakers. These days more and more people RSVP for new shoes online and wait for a digital drop rather than waiting in lines wrapped around a Footlocker for hours.

The event started in 2009 in New York to celebrate sneaker culture, and has since evolved to include a digital marketplace, an app, and has even developed an authentication process that includes tagging shoes with microchips to indicate that they’re real. It helps keep fake shoes out of the marketplace.

Fakes can create problems in a peer-to-peer marketplace like this. Organizers say that’s just part of what happens when an item is popular or valuable. But, attendees like 20-year-old Yusuf Lewis, say the biggest issue is an over saturation of resellers.

Lewis flew to D.C. for Sneaker Con from Atlanta, Ga. He’s the first person in line at the event and even though he says he loves sneakers, that’s not really what the event is about for him anymore. “It’s becoming more of a resellers playground instead of a person who’s passionate about sneakers,” he says. “It’s not their playground anymore.”

For many people, reselling shoes makes them a lot of money. And Lewis has done pretty well for himself too. He says he travels to almost every Sneaker Con using the money he makes from buying and selling shoes. But for many other attendees the prevalence of resellers makes it hard to participate in the sneaker culture.

Comte Momo of Washington, D.C., says he doesn’t like all of the reselling and it’s hard for him as someone who actually wants to wear the shoes to find the ones he wants at a reasonable price. “It just hurts when I watch somebody buy a size 12 in the new ones that dropped. And I just know that they’re gonna go resell instead of a person like me loving and cherishing the shoe” he says. “But, get your bread. I can’t be mad.”

Yuming Wu, one of the co-founders of Sneaker Con says he isn’t worried about the balance between resellers and buyers.

“This show is not about buying, selling and trading,” he explains. “Obviously, there is a lot of commerce happening here. But for us, we’re really about putting together a great vibe for for people who are interested in this subject to hang out with other people.”

There are plenty of other things to do at the convention like a watch a basketball game of 1-on-1 knockout, or interact with artists creating shoe- related artwork and doing customizations, or attend panels featuring people in the shoe industry.

Wu says, as the convention moves into its tenth year, he wants to incorporate much more programming and turn the convention into more a festival.

Buying, selling, and trading may not be entirely what the show is about, but it is the central activity at Sneaker Con. At least here in Washington, D.C.

Much of the space is taken up by more than 200 vendors who have set up tables and brought hundreds of pairs of shoes to try and sell. Some people just walk around with a couple pairs in hand looking to trade or sell to a willing buyer. But most of the action, the bargaining, haggling, and trading, is happening in the trading pit.

Anyone who wants to, can bring as many shoes as they like and create a space for themselves on the floor.

That’s where 18-year-old Lateef Amdali is set up.

“A goal for me is to definitely go home with a couple of sneakers that I’ve been wanting for a while,” he says. “And definitely sell some things I’m trying to get rid of in my collection to make a profit off of it.”

He says he started buying and reselling shoes when he was around 13 years old.

“I was asking my mom and dad to buy me sneakers [and] sometimes they’ll say ‘no,’ so I had to find a way to get them myself,” he says. When he figured out that he could resell his shoes for a profit, then buy more shoes, and resell those, he quickly turned his hobby into a business.

“I just got really into it and learning [that] I can make money from this I didn’t have to have a job necessarily,” he says as he sells pair of shoes for $280 dollars cash.

Children as young as 10 years old like Theo Galpert of Chevy Chase, Md., were in the trading pit too getting in on the action. He says he learned about buying and reselling from his older brother 13-year-old Bennett. Their father, Josh Galpert, says that he’s impressed by what his sons are doing. “I think it teaches a lot about how to build a business and what goes into building a business,” he says. “And that’s been fascinating to watch how they price things, how they negotiate, how they keep track of their inventory, which is a challenging thing to do when you’re you know, 13, 10, and 7.”

Co-founder Wu says it’s a mixture of everything; the commerce, the artistry, the fashion, that makes sneaker culture attractive around the world.

“A sneakerhead in Melbourne, Australia, they’re as interested in Nikes, Jordans, [and] Yeezys as much as the kid in in Phoenix, Arizona.” Or here in Washington D.C.

Meantime, back in the trading pit, Amdali says even though his goal is to make a profit, it’s not just about money. “I definitely have my own sneaker collection. My [Jordan] ones collection goes crazy — 18 pairs right now,” he says. “I love the game.”

For Amdali, and Sneaker Con, the games continues year-round.

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Athletes’ bodies are on display constantly. Whether they’re running, climbing, jumping, throwing, skating, hitting or engaging in any other motion, we’re watching them. But how often do we stop to think about how varied those bodies are?

That is exactly what ESPN The Magazine set out to do with its Body Issue. The annual issue is meant to celebrate athletes from across the sporting world and across gender, from the superfamous to the less well-known, in carefully composed nude photographs.

Athletes including Serena Williams, Hope Solo, Prince Fielder, Gus Kenworthy, the U.S. women’s national hockey team, the Philadelphia Eagles’ offensive line and many other fan favorites have graced the multiple covers that each issue features. Along with the images showcasing all different types of athleticism, the magazine has included interviews with athletes talking about body image, discussing their struggles with it and portraying that many body types are capable of athletic feats.

This special feature has been a highlight for the past decade, but last week ESPN published its final print edition of the magazine after 21 years. ESPN announced in April that the September issue of the magazine would be its last. In a statement, the company said the work and features by journalists for the magazine would not end, but that based on consumer trends, the content would move entirely to the digital platform.

The company is expected to launch ESPN Cover Story this fall, bringing many of the “high-concept franchises born in ESPN The Magazine“ to a monthly digital presentation that showcases features on athletes.

To mark the moment and get a sense of how the idea for The Body Issue came to creation, NPR’s Michel Martin spoke with the magazine’s editor in chief, Alison Overholt, on All Things Considered.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview Highlights

On where the idea for The Body Issue came from

There were some conversations that came actually out of the action sports and X Games world, where some of the athletes had done an art project where they took nude photos. And they are actually very beautiful. I mean, you started to get a sense that body types were very different depending on the sport.

Then there was sort of perpetual conversation around training and fitness. And, you know, body has never actually gone so explicitly into that space. But this felt like a way for us to begin to talk about what do athletes do in order to make their bodies into the machines that they are?

On getting athletes to sign on at the beginning

My first year was crazy. We openly had conversation about how this might be completely impossible. We also knew that it would hinge on one or two influential people saying yes and that making other people feel safe. And it actually hinged on Serena Williams. Our editor in chief at the time approached her on the red carpet at the ESPYs and asked her if she would do this and had an elevator pitch ready and explained to her what he thought it could accomplish. She was a star, of course, but she was building her public image and her reach with fans beyond tennis.

She looked at him and, you know, asked him a couple of questions and then said, “Would you put me on the cover?” And he said yes. And she said, “I’m in.” She was our first Body cover. For her to do that made other athletes say, “You know, all right. This is something.”

On sensitivity and working conditions during photo shoots

We take a lot of special steps. One of the earliest conversations that we had specifically about Body was the need to bring it, you know, into focus around a mission statement that we developed that’s very simply “Everybody has a story.”

So every single piece that we did, every time we approached an athlete, we wanted to know, first, what’s your body story? You know, what is the story that they want to tell? Then we work with them to figure out what would be the creative expression visually of that story. And based on that, we’re pairing people with photographers who can bring that vision to life.

We’re talking to them about, you know, do you feel more comfortable with an open set or a closed set? Do you want to bring people with you who are going to make you feel more comfortable? They’re looking at images on-screen as they’re coming through, which is something that, you know, we don’t do at every single shoot. But for something like this, you need to be comfortable with the material.

On a special story in the last issue

There’s a young woman in the issue named Scout Bassett. And she is a Paralympic track and field athlete. She was born in China, and she was abandoned and an orphan and was actually caught in a terrible house fire at a very, very young age. As a result, she lost her leg. She wasn’t adopted by her American family until she was, you know, probably middle elementary school and didn’t begin running until she was into her teens. And she became an incredibly accomplished track and field athlete. She now competes at UCLA.

When she decided she wanted to do The Body Issue, she was very specific with us and said, “I want to make sure people can see my scars because I want them to understand that scars are part of what makes you who you are. And, you can have strength and beauty and power even after overcoming an experience like what I went through.”

NPR’s Robert Baldwin III and William Troop produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Wynne Davis produced it for Digital.

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