The death of 'stick to sports': The power of college football in the South

Football is religion in the South, to borrow the cliche. And a certain sect of fans and the establishment have always tried to separate that religion from politics. But that’s a tall order in 2020. When politics affect whether games can be safely played. When players and coaches wrestle with systemic racism and police brutality. When the president of the United States uses sports as… well a political football. And when a former football coach is pursuing a seat in the United States Senate. This week, we're speak with John Talty, Senior Sports Editor for AL.com and head of their SEC Insider, and Kiese Laymon, author of the highly acclaimed memoir Heavy and an English professor at the University of Mississippi. 

Show Notes

0:00 Nick Saban, Alabama Crimson Tide

2:17 John Talty, Senior sports editor and SEC Insider, @JTalty

2:34 Covering sports during a pandemic

3:40 Is it possible to ‘stick to sports?’

6:13 Is the NCAA really committed to racial justice?

8:29 Players and the league fighting for power

10:26 Mississippi athletes and the Confederate flag

12:18 The Covid-19 information war

15:01 What’s at stake for college towns?

17:17 Tommy Tuberville’s run for senate

23:10 Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy, @KieseLaymon

23:51 Life in Oxford, MS, during a pandemic

25:58 The cat’s out of the bag on ‘amateurism’

28:25 The burden students are carrying

29:58 Everyone else is making money in sports

32:22 The myths of living in Mississippi

38:54 The change that comes through sports

42:11 What do NFL owners really think?

4653 White people in Mississippi

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