Category Archives: Great Athletes from the Americas and Carribbean in Popular and Political Culture

Radio Appearance: KHSU Magazine, KHSU 90.5 FM Arcata, CA

 Sport in the Americas and the Caribbean and their connection to popular culture and politics: Contrasts and Paradoxes in Colombia

Friday, February 6, 2019 at 1:00  PM   

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Television and popular music aficionados in the United States are probably well aware of the popular Colombian television actress Sophia Vergara and the international music sensation Shakira, also from Colombia.  And though the highly popular Netflix series Narcos showed viewers the dark side of the international drug trade in Colombia from the late ’70s to the early ’90s, cities like Medellin and Cali now  enjoy positive images today due to their climates, highly improved infrastructure, sporting opportunities and rich cultural histories that attract many United States retirees.    

Join Danielle and Doc as they discuss some of the fascinating facts about Colombia and its complicated and passionate embrace sport of soccer as a barometer of the country’s economic, political and patriotic history.

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Radio Appearance: Humboldt Magazine, KHSU 90.5 FM Arcata, CA

 Sport in the Americas and Caribbean and their connection to popular culture and politics:  Cuba Embraces Soccer (football)!

Friday, August 3,  2018 at 1:00  PM  

Join Danielle and Doc as they talk about Doc’s recent trip to Havana, Cuba.   Cuba, already known for its passion and prominence in baseball, boxing and track and field as well as its outstanding athletic trainers and sports-medicine physicians is now accelerating a national push for excellence in soccer (football).  Cuban viewership and interest in the recent World Cup was at an all-time high.  Listen in for an insightful and spirited talk about Doc’s experiences and fascinating connections between Cuba and the United States irrespective of the perils of politics.

 







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Radio Appearance:  Humboldt Magazine, KHSU 90.5 FM Arcata, CA


				

			
				
			
					

			


		

		
 Friday, October 6,  2017 at 1:00  PM  –  KHSU Humboldt Magazine  Segment:  2017:  Puerto Rico, Sport and Identity


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Join Doc and host Danielle Orr for for their monthly feature on sport from the Americas and Caribbean and their connection to popular culture and politics.




The recent events in Puerto Rico with the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria has been a major news story with complex humanitarian and political overtones.  Puerto Ricans are American citizens, yet it has its own Olympic team and marches under the Puerto Rican flag.  United States citizens in Puerto Rico and citizens on the American mainland differ in their opinions as to whether Puerto Rico should be a state, an independent country, or remain in its status as a United States territory.  


 


And, as always, the intersection of sport and politics can be a fascinating illumination into many of these complex issues.


 


Puerto Rican players make up the fourth largest Latino group in Major League Baseball after the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Cuba. Puerto Rico has four players in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and there are five Puerto Ricans currently in the National Basketball Association (12 in its history). Puerto Rico’s defeat of the United States in the 2004 Olympic Games in basketball is considered one of the great upsets in the Olympic Games history and a source of great pride for Puerto Rico.  And, Puerto Rico produced some of boxing’s great champions.


 


We’ll talk about these issues today as well as the single finest example of an athlete who set the bar at the highest level in transcending sport – Puerto Rico’s Hall of Fame baseball player Roberto Clemente, who paid the ultimate price on behalf of the world community without borders almost a half a century ago.  




click to stream the interview 

			

	
	



				
					


	

		
Radio Appearance:  Humboldt Homepage, KHSU 90.5 FM Arcata, CA


				

			
				
			
					

			


		

		
 Friday, March 3,  2017 at 1:00  PM  –  KHSU Homepage Segment:  2017


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Join Doc and host Danielle Orr for for their monthly feature on sport from the Americas and Caribbean and their connection to popular culture and politics.


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With US -Mexico relations and border/immigration issues at a crisis point, there non-the-less exists the intertwining of huge financial interests on both sides of the border – exemplified in Mexico’s enormous fan interest in the National Football League (NFL).  The multi-billion dollar corporate entity, the NFL, is embroiled in it’s own existential crisis due to increasing demands to address concussion and brain injury lawsuits brought by former players as well as accusations of scientific cover-ups relating to the medical consequences of concussions, is seeking to expand television, radio and live-attendance markets outside the US with Mexico as a prime and willing market…a fascinating economic and political microcosm of our joint border economy in the wake of the current administration’s  complex and recently contentious relationship with Mexico.    




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Radio Appearance:  Humboldt Homepage, KHSU 90.5 FM Arcata, CA


				

			
				
			
					

			


		

		
 Friday, February 10,  2017 at 1:00  PM  –  KHSU Homepage Segment: Latinos in Sport in America and Border Culture Paradoxes  in the American Southwest


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Join Doc and host Danielle Orr for for their monthly feature on great athletes and sport from the Americas and Caribbean and their connection to popular culture and politics.


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The contribution of immigrants from Mexico, Central and South  America and the Caribbean to the history and development of sport in America is a rich and fascinating story.  Presently, with immigration as a divisive and multi-faceted issue in American politics, an interesting twist exists where  a Mexican-American chooses to play professional soccer in Mexico that brings to light many of the complicated economic, national, political and familial challenges and paradoxes  facing millions who live along the US/Mexico border.   Join Danielle and Doc for the Homepage this Friday at 1:00.


click to stream the interview 

			

	
	



				
					


	

		
Radio Appearance:  Humboldt Homepage, KHSU 90.5 FM Arcata, CA


				

			
				
			
					

			


		

		
 Friday, January 6,  2016 at 1:00  PM  –  KHSU Homepage Segment:  2017


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Join Doc and host Danielle Orr for for their monthly feature on great athletes and sport from the Americas and Caribbean and their connection to popular culture and politics.


 This week we’ll kick off a look at what is in store for 2017 – World Cup news, and an examination of one Cuba’s national athletic treasures, Javier Sotomayor, the only high-jumper ever to clear 8 feet, but found guilty of steroid/doping use that has implications not only for state sponsored sports programs like that in Russia (also implicated in massive state-sponsored doping scandal), but also for the world of sport in the United States and across the globe from youth sports in small communities to professional sports.


click to stream the interview 

			

	
	



				
					


	

		
Radio Appearance:  Humboldt Homepage, KHSU 90.5 FM Arcata, CA


				

			
				
			
					

			


		

		
 Friday, December 9,  2016 at 1:00  PM  –  KHSU Homepage Segment: The Sporting Legacy of Fidel Castro in Cuba


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Join Doc and host Danielle Orr for for their monthly feature on great athletes and sport from the Americas and Caribbean and their connection to popular culture and politics.


 


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This week Doc and Danielle will discuss the legacy of politics and sport in Cuba in the wake of the death of Fidel Castro – and, an update on the aftermath of the tragic plane crash in Columbia that claimed 71 lives including all but 3 of an entire Brazilian soccer team that was winning the hearts of the nation with their improbable success.


click to stream the interview 

			

	
	



				
					


	

		
Radio Appearance:  Humboldt Homepage, KHSU 90.5 FM Arcata, CA


				

			
				
			
					

			


		

		
 Friday, September 2,  2016 at 1:00  PM  –  KHSU Homepage Segment: Panama Al Brown


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Join Doc and host Danielle Orr for for their monthly feature on great athletes and sport from the Americas and Caribbean and their connection to popular culture and politics.


 


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This week we’ll kick off Hispanic Heritage Month with Panama Al Brown who is one of the most fascinating and yet seldom heard about  figures in sports.  A sporting and media sensation in the the early 20th century, Brown was boxing’s first Hispanic champion – but his unusual and often sensational connections to the popular culture of his day transcended boxing and sport. Panama Al Brown’s  story is fascinating commentary on many of the cultural complexities and contradictions  in today’s society including race, sexuality, the media and much more.


click to stream the interview 

			

	
	



				
					


	

		
Radio Appearance:  Humboldt Homepage, KHSU 90.5 FM Arcata, CA


				

			
				
			
					

			


		

		
Thursday, August 18,  2016 at 7:00  PM  –  KHSU’s  Thursday Night Talk 


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Join Doc and host Brenda Starr for a wide-ranging discussion on contemporary sport, politics and some timeless ancient Greek wisdom from the first Olympic Games (Funeral Games) from the 23rd chapter of Homer’s incomparable Iliad more than 2800 years ago.  The more things change…


 


 


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Radio Appearance:  Humboldt Homepage, KHSU 90.5 FM Arcata, CA


				

			
				
			
					

			


		

		
 Friday, August 5,  2016 at 1:00  PM  –  KHSU Homepage Segment: Teofilo Stevenson


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Join Doc and host Danielle Orr for for their monthly feature on great athletes and sport from the Americas and Caribbean and their connection to popular culture and politics.


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Three-time Olympic gold-medalist Teofilo Stevenson


Today we’ll be looking at one of the greatest  athletes in the history of the modern Olympics, and Cuba’s national sports hero, Teofilo Stevenson (1952 – 2012).  A boxer with size, quickness, ferocity, intelligence and durability, Stevenson won 3 gold medals in three different Olympics. Boxing promoters from the US tried to lure Stevenson with big money to leave Cuba after winning his second gold medal in the 1976 Montreal Olympics to fight heavyweight world champion , Muhammad Ali.  Stevenson, whose popularity rivaled Castro in Cuba, turned down the money, declaring his love for his Cuban countrymen and the Castro regime that held him up as the ultimate exemplar of Cuba’s aspirations. No one would ever know the result of what could truly have  been the “fight of the century.”


Former Cuban boxer Teofilo Stevenson (R), a three-time world amateur boxing champion, greets former world heavyweight champion US Muhammad Ali (L) on 18 January upon his arrival at the Jose Marti International Airport in Havana (615×409)


Two great champions who never fought; an aging Muhammad Ali (left) suffering from Parkinson’s Syndrome meeting with Cuban national sports hero, Teofilo Stevenson during Ali’s visit to Cuba in 1996.


 


 


click to hear the interview (starts around 7 minute mark)