My Father's Basketball

Well, Barkley always calls it like he sees it. And when he mentions the players who have won titles with Houston Rockets, the three who get the most significant minutes are chem Olajuan Clyde, Drexler, and Mary o Ellie. But Barkley saying flat out that those players, at least one of them, we don't know which one is providing a lackadaisical effort.

That was me, Hannah Storm way back in nineteen ninety seven hosting the NBA on NBC. If you've worked as long as I have, you definitely have a few defining moments. And little did I realize this was one of those moments for me because of the response from one of the NBA's biggest stars.

Second, I wish they would print what I said and not what they think of me, because y'all got not that goddamn smart.

You know, you got to have a sense of urgency because I know I don't want this end. And you know, they tried to say I was talking about the Ticlar guys. I wasn't talking about the Ticlar guys.

Before off camera, Barkley told reporters this, and I quote, I'm really upset about what NBC. Did you tell Dick eversol, I don't appreciate what they did. I don't have to go to work for them, even though I told them I would. It doesn't surprise me though, because it was Hannah Storm. Women shouldn't be announcing men's sports anyway.

Barkley gets called for the foul work the.

Art heat of the moment comments for sure, but they expressed an all too common sentiment, especially at the time. This particular incident happened during the Western Conference Finals. Barkley's Rockets were down two games to one to the Utah Jazz. This was the quote that sparked at all, which we had shared on the NBA on NBC.

A lot of guys on our team accomplish things that they want to and they kind of lack a daisical at times and until you realize how it's significant and important as is. And that's probably the only thing that disappoints me about our team. You know, we have a lot of vegan guys who have accomplished what they want to accomplish, and they don't feel that since the urgency that I feel.

In questioning who Charles was talking about, I was doing my job as our NBA host. One can only imagine today the headlines that would have generated on sports debate shows as a broadcaster. Now, Charles would have DipEd right in, I'm sure, but back then, well, his was often a de facto response. Obviously Charles doesn't feel this way now. But this story illustrates the type of comments that I've heard throughout my career, which began back in nineteen eighty three.

Welcome back to Showtime, everybody again. The final of from Oakland is Portland one thirteen, Golden State ninety six.

I heard it when I was trying to break into the business. My audience won't accept a woman doing sports, My sports director won't work with a woman. I'll hire a woman over my dead body.

Yeah.

That was a good one. And there's always the standard, which I've heard many times, believe it or not, as recently as when I took an NFL play by play job for Amazon, and that's go back to the kitchen where you belong. In terms of this incident, I was already fifteen years into my career, a familiar, credible presence on CNN and then NBC, and yet I had to wonder, will I ever get past this. Who else truly believes I don't belong here? Fortunately, this story has a pretty

Is the Prutential Halftime Report brought you.

Game five of the NBA Finals. I was hosting from Salt Lake City, the Jazz having beaten the Rockets, and we were planning to announce the formation of the WNBA.

Halftime of Game five in Utah, with the Jazz leading the ball fifty three to forty nine, Chicago trailed by as much as six.

As it happened, Charles Barkley was the guest analyst on set that day. Given the circumstances, Ebersall felt that he you should apologize, and he did on air during the finals.

Hi, everyone had a storm back in Salt Lake City. I'm joined by Charles Barkley of the Houston Rockets, and Charles, let's rite off the bat here, clear something up and address some sexist comments that you made during the course of the Western Conference finals, one of them being that women should not announce men's sporting events.

You know, that was something that was number one, that was second and stupid, but it was something that was said in Jess. Now, I want to a person apologize to you and all the other women out there who do men's sports, and I want you to keep up the good work. But it was just some said and Jeff that was taking away out of contact, but it was still stupid.

Now, last night we both had the opportunity to attend a preseason women's NBA game in Houston.

Now, as a.

Man, do you feel that you're qualified a comment on the new league?

Well, you know what I'll tell you.

I have to admit that felt really good and better. Yet Charles grew to become a supportive friend and the WNBA became a very very important chapter in my career, just as the NBA was and before that, the American Basketball Association. One of the questions I am asked the most is how did you get into this business? It wasn't really a career option for women. Well, I always felt that I belonged. That comes from literally growing up in basketball.

Less than two minutes gone in the ballgame and it's four to three, Kentucky has the lead, and you can almost feel the incestity in this game filbo.

For as long as I can remember, my dad, Mike Storren, was a sports executive, and we followed him around the country from city to city and team to team. Today, of course, the NBA is a global sports and entertainment giant. Players are multi millionaires and cultural icons.

The rant, oh, padafoul, bing a dollar, a cry back.

Take a doll, oh fuck like change.

Where did all that come from? Well, in part because of a band of entrepreneurs and visionaries who ended up changing the game forever and defining the course of my career. As a young girl, I fell in love with the fun and excitement of basketball, making sports my dream. Even though not everyone shared my vision, basketball has been central to my life, and this podcast weaves through our entwined

It gets it back again. McDaniel's favorite good numbers Kentucky, the lanes are full right wing, Lois shops and puffs.

He's got it.

The basketball of my childhood is something that few have actually seen. It exists today through stories passed down through the years, an oral history of a league that went largely untelevised into cities like Denver, Indianapolis, San Antonio, Louisville, Saint Louis and Memphis. It was high flying, wide open, flashy, and to a kid, pure magic.

Two fires one at that time.

Are there?

My dad, Mike Storren, was right there at the epicenter of the upstart league. His favorite part of his decades long career. His highlight reel is pretty epic. He helped found the Indiana Pacers and was general manager of three professional teams, including the Atlanta Hawks. He was the fifth commissioner of the American Basketball Association, which existed from nineteen sixty seven to nineteen seventy six, and Dad loved to tell stories about it.

Just tell a lot of lies, right, Star is a lot better belly. No, I'm just easy.

That's my dad. Sadly we lost him in twenty twenty, but I'm grateful that he was interviewed extensively by the folks at the NBA, so you'll hear my dad throughout this series. He was super creative and I'm proud that many of his ideas are part of the game today.

Wouldn't it be great one day if we really had television and more than one game a week on Sunday afternoon. Wouldn't it be great if we were able to make and incorporate internationally basketball and tap into and take advantage of the great players in the world. And wouldn't it be great if everybody could wear San Antonio Spurs jacket? And wouldn't it be great if we could acknowledge women's role in basketball.

Now you can see where I got my ability to think outside the box. Of course, back then, I was just a little kid along for the wild ride that was my dad's career, alongside my two younger brothers, Mark and Duke Storn. Here's Duke.

We moved around every four years or so. We went from Indianapolis to Louisville, to Memphis, to Atlanta to Houston. Always had interesting people over to the house, sometimes athletes, sometimes just characters from my dad's sports world.

Since we moved around a lot, my dad's teams were more like extended families that come for Thanksgiving or Christmas parties.

Artist gets it again, I got you back.

I remember players like Bob MADELECKI Melt Daniels, Artist Gilmore, dan Issel hanging out at the house.

That's probably my earliest memory. I mean, I've got a great picture of sitting on artist Gilmore's lap. I was, you know, three years old or something, and you know, I like he could actually hold me in his hand.

Probably, Oh my gosh, I need that picture. You got to send me the picture.

Because he was you know, seven too. But as you know, the froze were so great back in the late sixties early seventies.

Yeah, he had another He had like.

Another six inches, you know, going with his cool hair.

Feel more setting up low inside Roberts.

You got to go to a lot of good games and felt like sports royalty, getting a sick courtside and yell at the refs and do all the things that my Dad would do well.

Actually, it was Mom who yelled at the referees because Mom played basketball in college, and so she was constantly yelling at the refs. And what I remember was she'd be like, goshoo, he walked, blah blah blah, blah blah. I remember knowing the names of all the referees almost better than the players, because Mom would yell at them right mark.

Half the fun was going there knowing we were just going to scream at some adults and we could get away with it, and it was It was totally acceptable. I also remember sitting around the dinner table right commenting on teams and players by hate say now, but probably particularly by me, was like, oh, you don't know, you know, hen,

Those dinner table debates were great for me, especially as I tried to prove to my dad how much I knew. I even remember when I was little sitting with him at our kitchen table in Indianapolis and drawing up the Pacers colors and team low go, that's so funny. What sticks with you? Years later?

I remember dan Issel taking his teeth out, I think Kentucky Colonel's right, taking his front two teeth out before every game, and he would walk over and he'd scowl at the bench of the opposing team, you know, missing these teeth in front, and like I'm like, what's he doing? And David always laughing, like it's just trying to intimidate those guys, And of course he usually did on.

The bookles all over the place tonight twenty four point.

Something else that I remember vividly the style women dressed to the nines for the games. My mom had an entire closet of wigs and cool outfits like hot pants. The glamorous women at the games, like C. C. Daniels and Turquoise Irving. They were like movie stars to me.

I had a chetam taine for William.

Of course, on the court, it also was all about stuck the playground moves, the pace of the game, the three pointers, the slam dunks, all of it would eventually become a cornerstone of basketball as we know it today, and at the center of all of it was the face of the abat doctor j It's so great to talk to you and great to see you a face that's so familiar. I've known you since I was a little girl. I don't know, wondering how old. My dad always said, I guess I met you, and I was probably eight.

Yeah.

Julius Irving was the ABA long before he helped lead the Sixers to an NBA title in nineteen eighty three. He played hoops at Roosevelt High School on Long Island and had a few early iterationations of that famous nickname.

Harry come Doctor looks.

For Daylight with me, and they took that to the.

I had a nickname that I had gotten like in ninth grade from my friend the professor. He called me the Doctor. So when they started calling me different names, the Claude he called me, and that was pretending to be in like Connie Hawkins being called the claw because I could pick the ball up in one hand, and I.

Was like, I don't want to be clawed.

It doesn't have the same ring.

I don't want to be you know. I don't think it turned out that well.

For me, I'm not mistaken.

And then doctor Julius, which truly doesn't have the same ring as doctor J. Right, doctor J. It's just perfect.

Well, I told him the doctor because that was what Leon gave me. He gave me the doctor, and I gave him the professor. And so they took to the doctor and they said doctor, the doctor. Doctor. That first year, and when I went to training camp to the team, positions were called doc and doctor, and our trainer said, well, you got to be doctor J, because you know doctor Mason is doctor M. So I became doctor J.

Doctor J was twenty one when he began his ABA career, having left after his junior year at UMass. That's something you could not do in the NBA at the time. He played for the Virginia Squires and later the New York Nets and helped take the street style of Harlem's famed Rooker Park to the pro.

Doctor J under unbelievable Doctor J with us back to the basket. So they get to and they moved it with the play.

It was.

It was kind of like a coming out party for me because I had played two years at UMass's varsity player in one year as a freshman, and during that time, you know, the dunk was taken out of the game.

He had limited it my sophomore year because you could dunk in the warm ups, so when you're warming up and you loosen it up, you can dunk basketball. And then by junior year, they just took it out all together because they were trying to slow down Blue el center. I think they were.

I think it was aimed at him, That's what I.

Was, Okay.

I didn't realize that.

Okay, not that he dunkeed the ball a whole lot, but it made him develop that skyhook that nobody was able to taste.

What a big pressure shot.

So I think it was aimed to him.

And in your first season in the ABA, you averaged twenty seven points fifteen rebounds for assists, your second team All ABA, a runner up for Rookie of the Year behind artist Gilmore. How was the top talent of the ABA, Well, I.

Think the cream of the crop, you know, which was artists and Danis or George McInnis, Melo Daniels, Roger Brown, Willie White as Zimobati. The competition was great. I had a guy named Joe Calwell who was really a thought on my side. I think I averaged twenty seven points against the rest of the league in about twenty one or twenty two against him, and I always have my shorts turned around after the game. No, I had nothing

And of course the NBA position was they play a undisciplined brand of basketball, they don't know how to play defense, and they certainly couldn't compete against the wonderful level of talent that we have in the NBA. On the other side, we said, NBA doesn't know what they're talking about. Our players are just as good as theirs, if not better, our teams are as good as theirs, if not better, And we are every bit as good and entertaining and more entertaining in the NBA.

From day one, the ABA intended to disrupt the League's founders had watched the American Football League merge with the NFL, and in nineteen sixty seven they created the ABA in hopes of a merger with the NBA. At the time, that's where my dad was in the NBA with the Cincinnati Royals, but he jumped at the chance to create a team in the new League in his home state of Indiana.

As a business manager for the Cincinnati Royals and as a former Marine, I believed that I could run a basketball team as well as anybody. All that, of course, would be subject to question, but certainly not in my mind. When the ABA began its formation, a contemporary and best friend of mine from the Marine Corps was an attorney in Indianapolis, Indiana. His name was Dick Tinkham, and Dick put together a group that was interested in joining the

Dad grew up in Michigan City, Indiana, and went to Notre Dame, playing one year of football there, just as he did following college when he served in the Marine Corps. Then he decided to try and make sports a career. As we were living in Chicago, where I had been born.

And so I wrote every sports team in the United States and said that I was coming out of the Marine Corps and I was looking for a job, and I received somewhere around two hundred rejection letters, and as a result, I thought, well, let's see it doesn't work by sending anybody a letter. So I read in the Chicago Tribune that the then Chicago Zephyr's professional basketball team

My dad was unafraid to put himself out there a trait my brothers and I would inherit.

Was it Chicago, where he would open the back door and let in everybody, so that would look like that the stadium was filled up for that Baltimore.

I bet he did that in numerous cities too.

Well.

I mean, I think he always looked at another way to solve a problem. You know, he would do that. He would extend that like to everyday life, Like he always found a parking space even if it was illegal, like right, it's an entrant, or if there was a line for tickets, you know. I remember Mark tells a story he was going to see I don't know, Star Wars or something.

Non Living Dead midnight movie along.

My living dad and they were one hundred people back and Dad would say, I'll be back in a minute, and he would like come back with the ticket. Yeah, the rules didn't always apply to Dad, and I think he was really proud of that. And I think that that type of example inspired us all to maybe think differently and not just accept the status quo of the

I just remember that we really kind of had a sports culture that we grew up in, right, So it's so not surprising handed that, you know, you've broken down a lot of those walls and stuff to be you know, a woman broadcaster in sports, and that dad, you know, made a career out of it. Every house we lived in, the first thing that happened we moved to a new house. Who gets put up right?

Yep?

In the driveway, Samannada, we always had a ping pong table. Yeah, there was just constantly this, oh, let's go play this, you know, where there was a game or sports doing the football or whatever. There was just constantly this culture of competing in sports that was going on all the time.

Right.

Yeah.

You also got rid of a bunch of my boyfriends that way. So every time I would date somebody, oh my god, every time I would date somebody, Mark and Duke would take him out on the hoops court and Dad too, egging the whole thing. And then like if the guy like wasn't like a decent hoops player, you can tell the story, but you can't say name's Mark.

Yes, we did get rid of several boyfriends starting to high school, I think right like Hannah would kind of get serious and then definitely in college and afterwards, and when it started to you know, turn the corner hand, it would go from you know, it was a fun day to you know, a little twickle in her eye to come up it was like, okay, we have to take this person out, and it would be too unto So often it was Dad and I against Duke and Hannah's boyfriend, and the whole thing was we don't really

Never complained once spoiler alert, I married Dan. But enough of that, let's get back to the story of my dad. He saw an opportunity with the ABA, and he wasn't afraid to take it.

The exciting part of my going to Indiana and going into the ABA is that I started in Indianapolis, Indiana, with a yellow legal pad and a pencil. Starting from scratch was a wonderful opportunity for me. That meant I had total control and I could implement and do everything the way that I thought it should be done.

There were no assistant GMS, scouting directors, presidents of basketball operations. When my dad went to Indiana, he made all the basketball decisions. He brought in three future Hall of famers, hired Slick Leonard to coach, traded for superstar Mel Daniels and sign the man that many have called the best player to never play in the NBA, Roger Brown. My dad's decisions would become the foundation of a team that

One of the articles said, if you don't like what mister Starrn has done, go to the games and boo him, and two call him and tell them what you think. Well, I've never had an unlisted phone, and a lot of people called. I must say that my wife became a little upset with the results, not particularly happy when some people dumb garbage on my front lawn. And so, to make a long story short, I had my wife and kids go to Disneyland for a week while things cooled off.

Here's my brother Mark.

I know that Dad would orchestrate trades on behalf of the team, and a lot of times people be protesting Dan's moves. And here's one picture, this guy holding the sign saying trade storing for schubin it. Yeah, Pacers, right, So I remember not everyone always being happy about decisions that might have been made that impacted the team. But also I remember the react, you know, Dan's reaction, which is, you know, you know what, we don't need to worry

I vividly remember being in Memphis and people putting for sale signs in our.

Yard though oh really, oh really.

Yeah, I do remember that. And then I remember being in high school with the Atlanta Hawks. Dad was only with the Hawks for a couple of months before he made a move that Ted Turner didn't like. And I remember being in high school and dad had just gotten the job with the Atlanta Hawks and then he was like fired almost immediately, like months later, and I remember that that was super embarrassing and like sad as a high school kid, you mean, yeah, yeah, you know, you

Or should get Blowing's side being jam Bombers command the Breen.

Going off there.

My dad was intent on proving to the NBA that the ABA was legit.

I was able to put together the first exhibition games between the leagues, so we were able to bring in in one exhibition game the Milwaukee Bucks, who at the time had a guy named Oscar Robison playing that's center, whose name was the Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and we of course had Dan Essel and artist Gilmore and Louis Dampier, one of the great shooters of all time. I don't even remember who won. I guess I would suggest we did, but I can remember the building was sold out and

Kentucky was a springboard to my dad's next gig where he could really wield some influence as the fifth Commissioner of the ABA in nineteen seventy three. It was really exciting for my family. We got to fly to New York City for the announcement. Here's Duke.

My early first limo ride I think I ever went on. I just remember this incredible trip. I mean it was I was young, but I still still remember it.

We went to the twenty one Club. I remember like coming to New York and being like, oh, this is my dream man, I want to live here one day. And I would many years later working for NBC Sports, which is where I first met legendary broadcaster Bob Costas.

The two craziest experiences of my life were the first two at twenty one in the Eastern Hockey League and then at twenty two in the ABA. And you know from your own experience and your dad's that the ABA was both ridiculous.

And subloc Bob also got his start in the ABA long before he became a star with NBC. He left Syracuse University in nineteen seventy four twelve credits shy of graduation to become the play by play announcer for the Saint Louis Spirits. And you were twenty two years old, right.

Yeah, I was twenty two. I looked like host fifteen.

Okay, I believe that, because right now you look like you're I don't know, forty. Maybe you know, for the purposes this is a podcast, our audience will just have to take my word for it.

Edel File Circle lukas Plait by Barnes looks inside for Gildore, finds him in the lane for the hook that has gone.

You know, I think that the ABA wanted to distinguish itself in various ways from the NBA. The Red White and Blue ball was part of that. The encouraging of individualism, provisational play, again which the old timers scoffed at, But when you look at David Thompson, or you look at Doctor j who was the greatest of all of them,

The league's free wheeling style and offensive rules were different. The iconic Red White and Blue basketball, the concept of cheerleaders, crazy halftime entertainment. All of it was designed to sell tickets because there was no revenue from a national television contract.

You know, do you think of one of the best remembered plays Doctor j in nineteen eighty against the Lakers, that deal where he went under the basket and came back out the other side, or the rock the Baby dunk where he came diagonally and just went over every I think.

You might have gone over way rock the baby.

That's way when slam dunk swung that baby way.

Those moves, which were widely appreciated because they were on national television with the NBA. I saw moves like that in games that were not on TV, in front of the crowds of.

Five thousand in Saint Louis and elsewhere.

And I think one of the things about the ABA, and I'm sure you talked about this with your dad and other people, it might be the last major American sports enterprise that has a real element of legend, because a lot of the stories come across as apocryphal. Well, this is what I saw that night at Freedom Hall.

Now I don't know. I was on the other side of the court. I saw it differently.

You know, say anything you want about Michael Jordan and as great as he was, or Lebron or whomever you want to name, everything they did is fully documented from ten different angles.

What about you as a broadcaster, you know, getting that assignment at such a young age and having that be, as you said, just your second assignment. Ever, I don't know what did you learn during all those crazy years or with this renegade league. You know, all these fascinating individuals just winging it, you know, making it up as they went along.

There was enough absurdity that I could latch onto that you also have to remember this. I'm a contemporary of all the players, guys like the late wonderful Steve Snapper Jones.

He was a veteran.

He was like, you know, thirty one, thirty two years old, so he's the wise man of the team. I was roughly the same age as most of the other guys on the team. We hung around together, Maurice Lucas, Marvin Barnes, Gus Gerard Fly Williams, who was as crazy as.

It came, the famous Marvin Barnes or infamous Marvin Barnes. So share with their audience, who exactly Marvin Barnes was.

Marvin Barnes was an All American in Providence team that went to the Final Four. At one point, he was selected second in both the NBA and ABA drafts, right behind Bill Walton. So it tells you how highly regarded he was. And he and Moses Malone were rookies at the same time, same year in the ABA, and Marvin was the ABA Rookie of the Year. Moses goes on to the Hall of Fame, wins three MVPs in the NBA. That's how good Marvin Barnes was. There were nights when

That was my dad's team.

Yeah, of course, so you know, teams didn't travel by charter then, certainly not in the AVA where everybody was on.

A shoe string budget. Louisville is four and a half five hour drive from Saint Louis, but it's in the Eastern time zone.

So we lose as we usually did at Freedom Hall, and we gathered the next day at the airport and the trainer, who double as the traveling secretary, he passes out the itinerary and it says TWA flight three oh five depart Louisville.

Eight am.

Arrived Saint Louis was seven fifty six and Marvin Barnes beckons me over, drapes an arm around my shoulder, and from more than a foot above me, he says, bro, do you see this. I said yes. He says, well, I don't know about you, but as for me, I am not getting on any time machine now. Some people thought that meant that Marvin was dumb, but he wasn't dumb. He was smart and he knew that was funny. But he also knew I was more likely to get it than let's say, Fly Williams, so he decided.

To drop the line on me.

I always picture Marvin bad News Barns in his floor length mink coat, and then there was Darnell, doctor dunk Hillman with his massive afro. And picture this Larry Brown sporting overalls on the sideline. Everything was looser in the ABA.

The first thing I decided was, well, I guess afros were okay. So one of the the rules I relaxed was you didn't have to have your hair closely trimmed, but no facial hair. And then as we were looking at drafting players, I looked at and I said, you know, one of the players were really interested in as a guy named Artist Gilmore. And Artist really has a lot of facial hair. So in anticipation of what was to come, one of the rules I changed was you could go ahead and have facial hair.

The ABA didn't want any obstacles when it came to convincing players to come to their league, and to that end, my father also helped to craft something they called the hardship rule that enabled players to turn professional before finishing four years of college, something they could not do in the NBA. Just part of my dad's legacy. He left his post as ABA commissioner after a year to take part ownership of the Memphis Sounds, having set the foundation for an eventual merger with the NBA.

I mean, every player we signed could have signed in the NBA. And so when you looked at people like Julius Irving and the artist Gilmour and Dan Issel and Mel Daniels and Freddie Lewis and on and on and on, every single player cast his lot with our belief in our vision and in what we said we're going to do. And so as I look back, that was, you know, a wonderful experience.

Those times are part of my family's folklore. Here's Bob costas doctor.

J of the ABA is like factual page of the Negro Leads or something.

You know, it's all word about pretty much.

And there was so much mystery and fascination surrounding him when he came to the NBA with the seventy six ers and a lot of skeptic we'll see how good this guy is.

And then I found out how what he was described to somebody, how special it was because you know, it wasn't on TV. It's just one of the reasons why they went overboard to make it so entertaining to see in person, right, because they didn't have a television contract, so they had to deal with the revenue that was there in front of the fans. What would you tell the people that they missed, just.

How much crazy fun it was and how to this day it's a fraternity. You know, I've been lucky enough to do a lot of things, But if I bumped into somebody who's associated with the ABA in their mind first and foremost, I'm an ABA guy. That's how hub Brown remembers me. Hubie Brown's a Yeah. I looked over and there was this kid there. I thought he was the ball boy. He looked like he was twelve. Then

There that DNA right of the ABA, like the energy and the flash and district entertainment value really pursued when the two leagues merge. Right, If you look at the NBA today, I would say it's much more like the ABA of those old days than how the NBA used to be.

Right.

That DNA and the ABA really has filtered into the NBA, and it's now a big part of how we look at the NBA.

Right, and we're all still like huge fans. Is there something that I didn't consider including in this conversation, or maybe a thought or two that you that you want to add.

Let me think about that for a minute.

Yeah, okay, Mark.

I think we should probably talk a little bit more about your sports upbringing, you know, and the days of Hannah Storm being molded into the sports cash that she is today, because you were pretty athletic, even though you didn't pursue it hard. I think that's a little bit. Do you think that there's a little bit of a mission there in terms of, you know, how Hane it got to be where she is now.

I don't know if I was like athlet I mean it was really before Title nine, right, so it's like

And you know, the resiliency. I mean, let's face it, we moved every four years, not because we are moving to every new great opportunity, you know, we are moving because we had to right to the next one. Maybe maybe not the commissioner job, but all the others. But that's resiliency, you know, and modeled resiliency. Coupling that with enthusiasm and hard work and intelligence. You know, those are all lessons that we absorbed growing up. And you've been

Room, yeah, I remember.

That was like a lot.

Yeah, controversy and so many misogyny and the doubts about having, you know, a woman to be a sportscaster. That's another part of our upbringing that really is part of your DNA, part of all of our DNAs that really helped you succeed and break through, you know, and just having confidence in yourself I think has been It's been really fun for Mark and I to watch and really inspiring, you know.

So hey, it's part of our DNA. I love you guys so much. Next time.

On NBA DNA, every year there was a competition for players leaving college and having to make a choice between the NBA and the ABA.

And when we look back on it and think about what even the least the players makes now, it all seems so trivial, but these guys had to fight for the right to have free agency and the right to have some sort of control over their own lives and careers.

You know, if you got a check, you ran to the bank real quick admitted deposit just to make sure.

It held up.

NBA DNA with Hannah Storm is a production of iHeart Podcasts, the NBA and Brainstorman Productions. The show is written and executive produced by me Hannah Storm, along with Julia Weaver and Alex French. Our lead producer and showrunner is Julia Weaver. Our senior producers are Peter Kouder, Alex French, and Brandon Reese. Editing and sound design by Kurt Garn and Julia Weaver. The show's executive producers are Carmen Belmont, Jason English, Sean ty Tone, Steve Weintraub, and Jason Weikelt.