Dave Zirin

"Brother Dave Zirin is the finest, most important writer on sports and politics in America." – Dr. Cornel West

Named one of UTNE Reader’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Our World”, Dave Zirin writes about the politics of sports for the Nation Magazine. He is their first sports writer in 150 years of existence. He is, in addition, a columnist for SLAM Magazine and the Progressive.

Zirin hosts the popular weekly show, Edge of Sports Radio. He also co-hosts the radio program "The Collision: Sports and Politics with Etan Thomas & Dave Zirin."

Author of ten books on the politics of sports, he has been called “the best sportswriter in the United States,” by Robert Lipsyte, Zirin won the 2015 New York Press Club Award for Sports Journalism, the 2015 National Headliner Award for Online Magazine writing and Sport in Society and Northeastern University School of Journalism's 'Excellence in Sports Journalism' Award. He was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for his book The John Carlos Story: TheSports Moment that Changed the World, and the PEN American award for literary sports writing.

Zirin has brought his blend of sports and politics to multiple television programs including NBC’s Last Call with Carson Daly, FX’s Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, ESPN’s Outside the Lines, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, ESPN Classic, CNN, MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show,  C-SPAN’s BookTV, and Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman. He has also been on numerous national radio programs from sports radio to National Public Radio’s Tell Me More, Talk of the Nation, and All Things Considered.

His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, Vibe Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Source, and numerous other publications.

His latest book was co-authored with Michael Bennett, "Things That Make White People Uncomfortable" U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said of it, “It would be easy for Michael Bennett to remain silent, to play in the NFL and make his mark through accomplishments on the field. Instead Michael has chosen to use his voice and his platform to fight injustice.”

Zirin also wrote "Brazil's Dance with the Devil: The World Cup, the Olympics, and the Fight for Democracy" (Haymarket Books). Glenn Greenwald called it , "A remarkable mix of investigative sports journalism and insightful social history."

He has also written the acclaimed Game Over: How Politics Has Turned the Sports World Upside Down (The New Press.) which Christine Brennan of USA Today called "the perfect book for our time in sports." Sports Illustrated called the book “provocative”, writing, “It will make you think about what we're really seeing when we watch the games we love.”

Zirin is the co-author of the NAACP Image Award nominated The John Carlos Story: TheSports Moment that Changed the World, published by Haymarket Books in September 2011.

In 2010, Zirin published Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games We Love (Scribner). Shock Doctrine author Naomi Klein called Bad Sports “an original and scathing look at how America works.”

In addition he has written Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics, and Promise of Sports (Haymarket Books), with a foreword by the immortal Chuck D. Sports Illustrated wrote that Terrordome is “a provocative, sometimes chilling, look at sports and society right now.” His first book, What’s My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States (Haymarket Books) has entered its third printing.

Zirin is also the author of A People’s History of Sports in the United States, part of Howard Zinn’s People’s History Series for the New Press. A People’s History of Sports forms the basis of a documentary co-written and narrated by Zirin called Not Just A Game: Power, Politics and American Sports, produced by the Media Education Foundation. He has a second documentary produced with MEF called Race, Power, and Politics in American Sports.

For speaker inquiries email Sean Lawton at: slawton@kepplerspeakers.org