“I had dreams of playing basketball then going to law school and doing what Perry Mason did.” Those dreams came true. The Knicks. Harvard Law. The Brooklyn DA’s office. And now he teaches at Columbia’s School of Professional Studies, a co-producer of this episode. (I had dreams that I could fly. I can’t.) Photo: Lou Rocco. Continue reading »
Category Archives: Sports
Episode 161: George Vecsey
The brilliant editor Maxwell Perkins carved Thomas Wolfe’s crate of pages – 333,000 words! – into Look Homeward, Angel. George Vecsey, much admired former sports columnist for the Times, thinks Perkins cut too much, by 100,000 words. Most readers side with Perkins. (And by “most readers,” I mean me.) Plus, he describes the men’s … Continue reading »
Episode 149: Evelyn Stevens
2016 was a big year: she won three stages of the Giro Rosa, the most acclaimed race in women’s cycling; she rode on the US Olympic team at Rio; she set the one-hour time trial record, and at year’s end she retired from pro racing. She is a rational person, but during the one race when … Continue reading »
Episode 20: Philippe Petit
Philippe Petit entered the consciousness of many New Yorkers on August 7, 1974, when he walked—danced!—on a high wire he’d secretly strung between the towers of the World Trade Center, an incredible feat revisited in the 2008 documentary Man on Wire. Philippe joins Randy to talk about his passion for knots, also captured in his … Continue reading »
Episode 6: Sir Roger Bannister
A neurologist, he kept a phrenology head in his office as a reminder of human folly. “The human mind is filled with instances of ridiculous ideas which have taken hold.” And by the way, in the spring of 1954, he became the first man to run a four-minute mile. A conversation from our vault, refurbished … Continue reading »
Episode 4: Dave Cowens
Dave Cowens was born in Newport, Kentucky, and played college basketball at Florida State. Many people believed him to be too small, at 6’9″, to play center in the pros, but in 1970 he was drafted by the Boston Celtics on the recommendation of the great Bill Russell, the start of a long and glorious … Continue reading »