Greatly told story that needs to be heard

Title 9 didn’t pass until I was in college so I grew up with sports being male dominated. I went to a brand new high school which had labeled (on the building exteriors) a Girls’ Gym (contained a stage and used for concerts and plays, along with basketball backstops) and a Boys’ Gym (ordinary basketball gym with bleachers, etc). This school was built in Northern California in 1967. My girls’ basketball team was delegated to the outside blacktop because the 4 boys’ teams (Frosh, Sophomore, JV & Varsity) got the use of the 2 gyms. I didn’t experience any harm as a college female athlete in the early 1970’s but I also found it difficult to break into any male dominated sports (like cross country and cycling). I didn’t get an opportunity to run cross country until I went to a junior college outside of the USA in 1971-1972. Also, females didn’t have many rights in the 1970s, including obtaining a credit card in one’s own name. As recounted in this Counterattack podcast, I wonder how many of my teammates were harassed by males. At that time, if there was harassment, it was ALL the fault of the female—never the fault of the male. Have times really changed, even when depicted in current day films/movies?

I’m not even a sports fan and I loved this series. Great expose on women’s soccer (sports). A story that needed to be investigated along time ago. The actual victims speaking and investigated made the series so believable and valuable. Great production and team!

Season 4 is incredibly high quality reporting and storytelling, plus excellent narration by USWNT phenom alum Bri Scurry. I was moved to tears at season’s end. I will be listening to every episode a second time just to admire how the pod team wove together story layers so carefully, and to fully appreciate the team’s ability to build trust and safety with sources around hard subjects. This story isn’t just for soccer fans and players (though it should be required listening for anyone who follows any soccer league, youth to the national team) - the podcast will captivate any human who thinks at all about sports, equity, agency, power, mental health, mentorship, and more. We owe it to Sinead, Mana and so many others to listen to their stories, and to examine our organizations and ourselves toward re-shaping better, brighter paths in sports and elsewhere. Big gratitude to the players and pod team from this NC Courage fan.

I was 5 episodes in and loved this podcast. As a parent of a teenager it opened my eyes to just how big the hazing issue is. But in episode 5 when Iggy referenced the “don’t say gay bill” you lost me forever. Clearly Iggy just watches main stream media and doesn’t really do his research. FYI. The bill allows parents to be involved in what sexual content educators can teach in K-3. (Yes ages 5-8) i assume you support this so will no longer support any work you do

What an insightful and compelling podcast! It masters so many dimensions of this important topic with masterful storytelling. This is a must-listen!

Insightful and thought provoking! It brought me me back to my experiences over 35 years ago trying to recall what happened and were any lines crossed and was anyone hurt during my recollection of that time in college.

Fascinating reporting in the Roughhousing series. Thank you to host Iggy + team for bringing this story/topic to light

Fascinating insightful and a great story arc! And story telling/story tellers. Just great!

Incredible podcast.

This was a great episode, very hard to listen to. I thank God for the strength he has given these parents and this young man to relive this terrible ordeal. I admire his vulnerability and resilience. I also love the support and love of his parents. Thank you for shedding light on hazing and the damage it does not only physically, but emotionally.

This podcast addresses the issue of hazing in American sports - and it’s symptomatic of a larger problem of violence in America. This pod is well-researched, offers compelling interviews, and asks questions to which we may not have answers. Must Listen — especially if you were ever hazed.

Episode 1 was great. Messed up situation but it grabs your attention right away. Can’t wait for the rest of the season to come out

Crushed is Amazing!

Well researched. Unbiased. Seeks to hear from both sides. Highly recommend!

I’m not usually a sports fan, but this podcast is amazing and very informative!!

Loving False Idol ❤️

False Idol is well-researched with great placement of source material. This propels the story telling and adds an element of suspense. The podcast provides important insight into other critical aspects of this familiar tragedy.

I was a big fan of this podcast. I am not a big follower of the Olympics in any capacity but was intrigued by this story of Oscar Pistorius. Not only did I learn about his background, I learned a bit about the racist history of South Africa and the region’s abhorrent treatment of women. The host, Tim Rohan, could have had a better delivery when telling these stories, but did a good job overall in detailing the case.

Really good podcast... fast paced and very little filler... an excellent podcast to binge

learned lots of new info on this story that has been told again and again

Amazing story and very well told

I feel I’m being forced to see Reeva as an alphabet activist.

I love learning in a story … well done

can’t wait for the rest!

Who were the disabled editors for this?

Soooo good! The dog got a longer walk because I had to finish the second episode. Cannot wait for the whole story to be published!

Intriguing characters and story telling - it’s gripping! Can’t wait for next episode.

This is really one of the best podcasts I have listened to. It strikes me as a perfect balance of deft storytelling and a return to another era that should appeal to baseball devotees as well as many others. I couldn’t stop listening. It was riveting and professionally produced. Kudos to Religion of Sports and their producers for raising the bar. Every single episode so far (6) is first rate. It explores themes that extend beyond sports—and they do it such a engaging way. These are complex issues made beautifully accessible. Every episode is important and compelling.

Incredible story from an incredible reporter. Tim Rohan should host Jeopardy

I’ve always been interested in Oscar Pistorious, mostly around the injustice of Reeva Steenkamp’s murder. I’m enjoying the discussion of Pistorious by his Paralympic peers and have high hopes for a deeper discussion on the complexities of South African culture/politics that helped shape him. Tim Rohan is doing a great job!

Such a brilliant retelling of this story. Can’t recommend enough!!

This is an enthralling listen with a focus on people and the stories often forgotten around this tragic tale.

As a girl who also grew up during the 90’s loving baseball, I really related to the telling of this story. Joan and her team did a great job collecting data, interviews, and reporting on this era that still seems complicated, nevertheless nostalgic, for us fans.

Thank you for putting into words the feelings of so many fans!

I love this podcast so much. Joan is a great storyteller, interviewer, and researcher. I didn’t want this podcast to end. She does an incredible job of making you nostalgic for baseball and reigniting your love for the sport even amidst talking about PEDs. Incredible. Thank you!

Joan does a great job at being fair and balance throughout all the episodes of the Podcast

I give credit to the journalistic work that went into this podcast, but unfortunately I came away very disappointed for a few reasons. The first is the way it glosses over the health implications of steroid use. It sets up a straw man by rightfully acknowledging the scare tactics used to dissuade young people from using. But there is no balanced conversation here. At one point we are asked, “Have you ever heard of a professional athlete suffering a heart attack or stroke?” Well, I can name one off the top of my head: Tedy Bruschi, whose multiple strokes were never fully explained. Then there are the former athletes who were clearly steroid users and who have died early from cardiac-related issues, for instance wrestler Randy Savage who died in his 50s. Men *can* increase their testosterone levels moderately without acute and sudden health disasters, of course. But a more nuanced approach would have included asking the question, “What are the natural reasons for men’s testosterone levels to decline with age?” There is a huge literature on this and a wealth of scientific commentary and opinion. Also: what about women? Are we to believe steroid use in female athletes is just the next step in the evolution of training? The podcast avoids any real depth on these topics rings like an exercise in apologetics for the use of moderate testosterone boosting drug use. The other bone I have to pick with this podcast is that it seems to assume that the use of steroids and other PEDs in baseball and other pro sports somehow ended when MLB instituted more rigorous drug testing. In reality, we are very likely in the middle of a new steroid era, one in which the masking of doping has become much more sophisticated, and the leagues have purposefully fallen behind in the arms race when it comes to their testing procedures. These leagues have PED policies in place, but are now exhibiting the same type of greed-driven willful ignorance that created the original steroid crisis in baseball. Their testing regimes are a joke. Just look at the athletes’ bodies, their physical strength and speed, their top physical performance even at advanced ages, etc versus the late 1990s. There are a hundred pro baseball players now who looked like McGuire during his career. I can not say with any certainty that drug use in sports is worse now than it was in the age of McGuire, Sosa, and Bonds. I’m just saying a journalist’s job is to ponder the question.

Keeps me company when I cry myself to sleep at night.

Awesome!

Couldn’t have loved it more!!

Very well done. Takes you right back to the home run era, and listening now, with hindsight, is really interesting.

From the first episode to the last, host Joan Niesen perfectly captures the bittersweet emotions of the ‘98 home run race and all that fallowed. With insightful interviews and personal anecdotes, this podcast is not only entertaining, it’s also informative. Inspired to reflect on your own fan experience you’ll wrestle with the same questions as Niesen...where do we draw the line between advancement and cheating? (Hasn’t cheating always been part of the game?) Who’s to blame, the players or the league? (Someone needs to be held responsible, right?) How do images and memories from that season make us feel? (How are we *supposed* to feel?) Crushed deftly touches all the bases in an effort to answer these and many other questions. As far as podcasts go, “[it’s] a winner!”

Crushed was a very well structured and remarkably interestingpodcast. Personally, I am extremely interested in the steroid era of baseball and how it affected the game of baseball. This podcast covered that and went way beyond my previous knowledge of baseball in the 90s. I saw an ad for this podcast on ESPN and always thought it was worth listening to. I do not listen to many podcasts. However, if I can find more like this I will most definitely listen to podcast more often. The way that the podcast was structured was exceptionally good. When the girl in the story gives her whole back story of how much she loves the game and how much she followed the game of baseball, it makes you know that you can trust what she is saying and that she is very informed when it comes to the game of baseball. The use of statistics and other numbers was a tremendous help in understanding how much the steroid era impacted baseball. The podcast is very well laid out and easy to understand. The speaker does this by not talking to fast and she always explains what she is saying in depth to make sure the listener/ reader always understands her. The information presented in the podcast is interesting. If you love baseball as much as I do then you would love listening to this podcast. The podcast covers a very dark but also a very bright era of baseball. The podcast explains how baseball had the most fans it had ever had before during the steroid era. However, when the word started getting out that these players were taking steroids to enhance performance it made many people mad and felt like they had been betrayed by the game and the players. The narrator of the podcast really makes you feel this when she talks about her love for Mark Mcgwire and the homerun race, he was in. Mark was an all-time great baseball player and had gotten respect and had fans from all over the country. When she explains how she felt when she found out about Mcgwire taking steroids, you could tell there was a sense of distraught and she was devastated. The podcast was great, and I would really advise people who are interested in baseball to listen to it.

Im glad we’re able to hear from players who used and played during the era. The creators do a commendable job of tackling wider issues connected to the era and the history of the sport. Each episode builds off of the last and will sustain the listeners interest. Recommended for causal baseball fans.

This is an absolutely fantastic podcast. Great storytelling and highly informative.

That guy is still messing with sports, boxing now. I’m sure there was some pressure from above, but it did make a difference leaving Conte’s name out If you’re a kid of the 90s, especially from Cards or Cubs nation this will resonate

Terrific series. Yeah, you know a lot of this already, but holding it up to the light of all of us as people was absolute genius, and done so well. Again, terrific series.

JN has created an enthralling mix of her personal story, a snapshot of a transformative era and an overall sense of the importance baseball has and perhaps will continue to have, in American culture. I’m not even a “fan” (though now I might grow into one) and I wanted to binge listen. Great podcast.

Great job. Interesting story with great small stories throughout.