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Wondery | Meadowlark

Sports Explains the World unveils some of the wildest and most surprising sports stories you’ve never heard. And they’re all true. From the unemployed history teacher turned CIA agent and Uganda national basketball coach, to the teenager who invented a mythical athlete…then watched him sign a million-dollar deal, these stories will amaze and move you at every turn. From award-winning journalists across the globe, Sports Explains the World reveals the human side of sports in provocative and unusual ways. Whether you’ve ever thrown a spiral or been in one, prepare to experience the action on and off the field from an unexpected – and sometimes shocking – vantage point.

Listen to Sports Explains the World on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/sports-explains-the-world/ now.

Sports Explains the World

In Evangelical homes across the United States, sex outside of marriage is a sin against God. So, when Abbi becomes pregnant at 16, her devout parents hide her away at the Liberty Godparent Home, a little-known facility for pregnant teens on the campus of Liberty University. The Home says it helps girls decide what comes next – whether that’s parenting their babies or placing them for adoption. But inside the facility, the girls hear a different message: God wants their babies to go to more “deserving” Christian couples. Some girls will find the strength to fight back. Others will have no choice but to give in. And some, like Abbi, will turn their grief into resistance – and take a stand against the system before more mothers lose their children to adoptions they never wanted. 

 

From Wondery, host and reporter T. J. Raphael tells a startling true story of young love, coercion, and defiance – and the dangerous resurgence of maternity homes in post-Roe America.

Listen to Liberty Lost: Wondery.fm/LibertyLost_

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Listen Now: Liberty Lost

Sports Explains the World unveils some of the wildest and most surprising sports stories you’ve never heard. And they’re all true. From the unemployed history teacher turned CIA agent and Uganda national basketball coach, to the teenager who invented a mythical athlete…then watched him sign a million-dollar deal, these stories will amaze and move you at every turn. From award-winning journalists across the globe, Sports Explains the World reveals the human side of athletics in provocative and unexpected ways. You’ll never view sports the same way again.

Wondery Plus subscribers can hear upcoming episodes of Sports Explains the World right now ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts. Get started with your free trial at wondery.com/plus.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Introducing: Sports Explains the World

As a kid, Kieran Morris, a cheeky lad from Liverpool, loved pulling pranks to fool the press. When England played Honduras in a friendly soccer match, he found a young player on the Honduran side, inflated his stats on Wikipedia to equal those of a young Messi and Ronaldo, and then dubbed the player the “Honduran Maradona.” Sky News, a top outlet, fell for the prank. But so did an MLS soccer team. They signed the “Honduran Maradona” and the story became the jokester’s go-to tale at the pub. But Kieran always held on to some low-grade guilt for tossing a player into a situation where he would no doubt fail. The Engineer is a comical and cautionary tale about fake news that takes us across continents, as Kieran Morris, now grown, sets about retracing his prank, culminating in a face-to-face meeting with the player whose life he altered: the "Honduran Maradona."

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1 | The Engineer

American Alpine skier Vladimir Peter Sabich became a sensation at the 1968 Winter Olympics. He had movie-star good looks, a famous girlfriend, and even a cool nickname—Spider. His ascent to the top of the skiing world matched the sport's own growth into the global spotlight. But at just age 31, Spider Sabich's life was cut short by a loaded .22, held in the hands of his girlfriend, the French actress Claudine Longet, who claimed it was an accident. Reporter Gloria Liu explores what was lost when skiing's bright young star was killed in his prime.

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2 | Spider's Web | Part I

In part two of Spider's Web, reporter Gloria Liu travels down the winding slopes of recollection and rumor to discover a decades-held secret about Spider Sabich that completely alters the skier's legacy.

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3 | Spider's Web | Part II

Long summer nights and baseball on the radio. Like many other Baltimore Orioles fans of his generation, host Sam Dingman grew up listening with his dad to Jon Miller, Chuck Thompson, and the voice of his childhood, Fred Manfra, calling play-by-play on the radio. The story of every Orioles game became the story of Sam learning how to communicate with the man who was otherwise a mystery—his dad. Sam embarks on a journey to revisit those sounds of summer magic, and understand more about his father in the process.

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4 | Good Company

In 1972, in the middle of the Cold War, the Soviet military sent a team of all-stars to Kampala to compete in three goodwill basketball games against Uganda’s top players. But the Soviets, who were hoping to curry favor with the leader of the new regime, Idi Amin, didn’t know that the Ugandan national team was being coached by an undercover American CIA operative named Jay Mullen. Sent to Uganda earlier that year to spy on the Soviets, the well-meaning history teacher from Oregon ends up courtside with one of the most notorious dictators in history. Reporter Shaun Raviv brings us close to the story in The Real Jay Mullen. 

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5 | The Real Jay Mullen | Part I

In part two of The Real Jay Mullen, CIA operative Jay Mullen finds himself in trouble when the ruler of Uganda launches a campaign to force Asians out of the country, resulting in a genocide that would kill an estimated 500,000 people. As Mullen tries to save family friends, he also has to coach the Ugandan National team against a team of Soviet professionals, recruit double agents who are up for turning against the USSR, and stay alive.

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6 | The Real Jay Mullen | Part II

When Lithuania broke off from the Soviet Union, they wanted revenge. Their players had led the USSR to gold medal glory. And now, ahead of the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, the Lithuanian men's basketball team had the chance to win for their own country. One problem? The country was broke and couldn’t afford to send them to the Olympic Games. The team started looking for benefactors. And so begins The Skullman Cometh, a tale involving a tie-dye T-shirt, large sums of cash, and the Grateful Dead. It goes from Vilnius, Lithuania to the Bay Area, and all the way to the set of Friends. It’s a long, strange trip. But it provides a window into understanding the current relationships that former Soviet-block countries have with Russia, and why skeletons are in the closet of streetwear enthusiasts. 

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7 | The Skullman Cometh

Girl meets river. River meets girl. The two hit it off. Girl falls in love. She moves to a town minutes from it. Her life revolves around the river. Life is perfect. But when a gnarly rapid on the river nearly kills her, she must rethink her relationship. Paddle back in, or leave it behind for good? In part one of Running on Water, Sarah Fox introduces us to a 5-foot-2 dragon slayer named Anna Wagner. Anna fell in love with creek boating at an early age, and found community amongst a group of athletes who seemingly duel death for daps, but are really in it for a completely different reason.

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8 | Running on Water | Part I

After budget cuts put the fate of the Quinnipiac University women’s volleyball team in jeopardy, the players dug in against an unlikely opponent: competitive cheerleading. The battle didn’t take place on a court, though. It took place IN one. In 2009, the volleyballers, along with the ACLU, sued to have cheerleading officially nixed as an NCAA sport. Their cause was backed by a major corporation that claimed to own cheerleading. In part two of Cheering For Themselves, Reporters Rose Eveleth and Lisa Pollak conclude the Title IX tale that continues to send ripples through cheerleading across the country.

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20 | Cheering for Themselves: The Rise of Competitive Cheerleading | Part II

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