Sports

The sport of snowboarding was admitted into the Olympics for the first time this year. Jake Burton is one of founders of the sport. He began making snowboards 20 years ago in his Vermont garage, experimenting with design and materials until he got the kind of board he envisioned. His company is Burton Snowboards (in Burlington, Vermont).

Basketball expert and playground legend Pee Wee Kirkland. Professor at Long Island University and basketball coach in Manhattan, Kirkland wrote the introduction to John Huet's photography book, "Soul of the Game" (Melcher Media/Workman pub.). It's about the impact playground basketball has on the sport. Kirkland also acted in and served as the Technical Basketball Advisor for the 1994 movie "Above the Rim."

Tara VanDerveer coached the Olympic gold medal-winning U.S. Women’s basketball team. The team’s performance drew large crowds and secured the formation of two professional U.S. women’s leagues: the WNBA and the ABL. VanDerveer has written a book about her own experience as a woman in sports. Its called “Shooting from the Outside: How a Coach and her Olympic Team Transformed Women’s Basketball.” (Avon Books) VanDerveer now coaches the Stanford University Women’s basketball team. (Interview by Barbara Bogaev)

Aquatics director Jim Spiers with Aerobics West, a fitness club in New York City's Upper West Side. Spiers specializes in teaching children and infants how to swim. His students can be as young as six months old. Though the Red Cross maintains that children under five can not be taught to swim, Spiers disagrees, and considers it a safety measure to teach toddlers how to swim. (An article in the New York Times, July 31, 1997, edition profiles Spiers). (Interview by Barbara Bogaev)

Former major league baseball scout John Young. He is special assistant to the general manager of the Chicago Cubs. In 1988 he began a program in south central Los Angeles to get inner city kids playing baseball. Known as RBI ("Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities"), the program has since expanded to include 51 cities and 40,000 youth. (For information about RBI contact: Tom Brasuell, Baseball Office of the Commissioner, 350 Park Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022, phone 212-339-7844) (REBROADCAST from 4/29/97) (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

The sport of boxing has been in the news since boxer Mike Tyson bit the ear of his opponent, Evander Holyfield. Photographer Larry Fink has captured many images of boxing which have been collected in his book, "Boxing" (Powerhouse Books). And sports writer Bert Sugar has written numerous works on sports and has served as senior vice-president of "The Ring" magazine, a magazine on boxing. He wrote the essay included in Fink's book. They'll talk about the often maligned sport. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

This month National Geographic "Explorer" will broadcast a behind-the-scenes documentary about NFL films, whose innovative presentation of football has helped make the sport as popular as it is today. The show, which is called "Inside NFL Films: The Idol Makers," will air on August 17th at 7 PM (ET) on TBS Superstations. Marty Moss-Coane talks with Steve Sabol, the president of NFL films, who also directs many of the NFL films.

Former major baseball league scout John Young. He is currently special assistant to the general manager of the Chicago Cubs. In 1988 he began a program in south central Los Angeles to get inner city kids playing baseball. Known as RBI ("Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities"), the program has since expanded to include 51 cities and 40,000 youth.

Athlete and freelance journalist Anna Seaton Huntington. She won the women's pair rowing bronze medal in the 1992 Olympics and was a member of the 1995 women's team in the America's Cup competition. In her new book "Making Waves," she writes of her experience training for and competing in a traditionally male-dominated sport of sailing.

This past spring in Philadelphia, in a well publicized match, Kasparov beat IBM's Deep Blue, which was considered the most competitive chess computer to date. Kasparov recently has been promoting chess as a learning tool in schools. He made a new chess computer game called "Talking Coach Kasparov" by Saitek. It has the unique feature of having an electronic chess tutor talk to you when you're in trouble. Kasparov was born in Moscow and was an outspoken critic of communism during the Cold War.