Chris Ballard is an author, teacher, and Contributing Writer at Sports Illustrated. He opened up about his “Out of Bounds” podcast series.
Ballard has a new six-part Audible original podcast series taking a deep dive into money in college sports – with a special emphasis on NIL – produced by XG Productions
He has written four books, including One Shot at Forever and The Art of a Beautiful Game, and contributed to The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, and numerous other publications.
Ballard has written for Sports Illustrated since 2000, penning features, narratives, profiles, and columns. Six of his stories have been optioned for film and seven have been reprinted in the Best American Sports Writing anthology. He was a finalist for a National Magazine Award, appeared in The Best American Magazine Writing, and won the 2018 Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting, given annually to the best feature story in the country.
Since 2016, he has taught courses on narrative writing and sports reporting at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
Once upon a time, Ballard played college sports himself, if not especially well, and now invests his energy in coaching his daughters in basketball – at least when they let him.
How did your “Out of Bound” podcast come about?
The idea came from Spencer Gordon and Peter McDonnell at XG Productions. They were looking for a way to get at the overlap of sports, law, power, and crime and this seemed like a natural topic.
The NCAA maintained a staggering amount of control over athletes for a long time, and we wanted to tell the story of the struggle to wrest that control away. Inherently, you had narrative elements: rich characters, high stakes, and big money – in this case, tens of billions of dollars. We knew we’d have to do some heavy lifting when it came to explaining and contextualizing it but that, once you get a sense of the history, you could unspool all these personal stories.
Did you learn anything about yourself while doing this podcast?
I was a DIII athlete in college, back in the 1990s and I’ve covered sports much of the time since. But in reporting out the podcast I realized not only how little I knew about how the NCAA system really worked but also how little I’d actively thought about it. For me, sports were a bonus to college.
I was gaining from the experience and, I suppose, the school was gaining something from me but, realistically, very little. Out of Bounds forced me to examine this system from different perspectives. I wish I’d done that sooner.
What motivates you each day as a journalist?
That you have an opportunity, with each story, to have an impact. Maybe you change how someone thinks, even just a little bit. Maybe you bring to light a story that deserves it, and that has ripple effects.
On a personal level, it’s the fact that you’re always learning. You’re talking to people who are really smart, or really good at what they do, or play an important role in a larger conversation we’re having as a society. That part is great.
The hard part is translating and distilling all you learn in a way that resonates with someone who may know nothing about the subject. You spend a fair amount of time feeling like you’ll never pull it off and then you do your best and hope it works. But you’re always putting yourself out of your comfort zone and, to me, that’s the best way to grow, both personally and professionally.
How does it feel to be a writer, journalist, and podcaster in the digital age? (now with streaming and technology being so prevalent)
The underlying skill set is still the same. Yes, you have to acquire new technical skills but in the end, you’re asking questions, researching, and finding narratives to carry that reporting. That’s no different whether it’s books, magazines, podcasts, or any other format.
What has changed is the sheer volume of content out there. The window for any story or podcast to find an audience is so small and the quality of the competition just gets better and better. That’s great as a listener/reader but daunting if you’re the one producing the work.
What is your advice for young and aspiring writers, journalists, and podcasters?
When I teach at journalism school, I advise students to always find the humanity in your story. Because, in the end, every story is about people, whether it’s business, tech, sports, or politics.
That’s how readers/listeners relate. Michael Lewis is incredible at this – he’ll take a dense, complicated subject, embed it in the plight or quest of one interesting character, and suddenly you’re learning about shorting stocks, governmental bureaucracy, or analytics.
Were there any moments in your career that helped define you?
This may not be what you’re going for here but having kids had a huge effect. I have two girls, who are now 15 and 13, and I can look back at the work I did before and after they were born and see a contrast.
It’s not exactly a revelation but having kids forces you to see the world through the eyes of someone else not just for a moment, or a day, but pretty much all the time. And that shift is a powerful one if you’re a reporter. For example, I wrote this story four years after the birth of our first daughter and there’s no way I could have related to the interview subjects, or generated the same type of specific empathy, if I weren’t a parent.
What does the word success mean to you? (My favorite question)
Wow, that’s a tough question. I know that in basketball, I like the idea of measuring success by the fulfillment of potential. Take someone like Shaquille O’Neal. He dominated the game and won titles and is rightfully considered one of the best to ever play. But he also never really developed his game like some of his peers, and didn’t always take training or preparation all that seriously.
He didn’t max out his potential or, really, come that close. Then you take someone like Pat Beverley – or if you’re looking for a higher-profile example, Steph Curry. Both those guys are pretty close to the ceiling of who they can be as a player and teammates. In general, that seems a decent way of measuring success for most endeavors: Did I do the best I could?
What would you like to tell our readers about your “Out of Bound” podcast? (What’s the one thing you want them to get out of it)
That a lot of young people were exploited by the NCAA machine for a long time and, for the most part, the rest of us didn’t realize it was happening. That’s a big, amorphous concept so what we did in the podcast was get specific about it, focusing on six athletes, past and present.
They range from current collegiate stars, like Aliyah Boston, who just won an NCAA title in basketball, to big names from the past like USWNT legend Kristine Lilly and Ray Jackson (the only member of the Fab Five not to go to the NBA)
It’s through the stories of these people – and in particular women and young men of color – that we can see a larger narrative about how our country has evolved over the last half-century. We can also see how these athletes helped change a broken system and are now carving their own path into the future.
To learn more about his “Out of Bounds” podcast series, click here.
