How Basketball Can Save the World

Welcome to our junior NBA conference. Thanks to our friends at Under Armour. We are really delighted to have so many of you here with us. I would like to now introduce David Hollander, the author of How Basketball Came to Save the World. He's an assistant dean and professor with NYU's Tisch Institute for Global Sport. He turned his popular NYU course into a bestseller. And here's a little insight into David's philosophy. Unlike other sports, basketball's a small space. It's intimate. It forces us to see each other. Other sports, big space. Baseball, a person may not even touch each other the entire game. Anybody can touch the ball. Anybody can do anything with the ball. There's never been a more anti-hierarchical structure intentionally created. So you enter this space in pickup with complete strangers. Complete strangers. It's the beauty of pickup basketball. It's why everybody says, oh, I can play it anywhere. Because you can. And at the onset of the pandemic, all over the world, people would not stop playing one thing, and that was basketball. It was a global issue that if they didn't take down the rims, people would not stop going to that intimate space. And when I leave that space, if I see somebody, anybody, who I was in that space with, and I could be in a laundromat in a deli, I'll look at them, and they'll look at me, and we'll be like, hey, hey. That's it. Because we know what we are to each other. It's like dancing. It's like singing. It's like a drum circle, except it's basketball. And for me, it's better. You can go to the next slide now if you want. Can you all hear me? It's really good to be in a room. You go to the next slide. Next slide. There you go. It's good to be in a room. This is a language I've been speaking since I was six years old, since my dad shocked my mom and took all her savings and dumped a bunch of asphalt in the yard and flattened it out and put a basket and made this space for me and my siblings to start speaking this language. And then my friends would come around, and my neighbors, and kids I didn't know. It's a language I spoke with my brother through his dyslexia, and he became a professional basketball player. It's the language me and my sister, maybe the one we still speak, and it was the one we spoke when we hustled those guys in Riverside Park a few years ago. It's the language I speak to myself, my self-enjoyment, my solitude, alone. It's the language that the old men in the playground after work would speak to me when I was 12, and they treated me like an equal. So I learned to speak that language correctly. And it's not a spoken language, a verbal language exactly, right? It's a language of eye contact, of peripheral vision, of making space, of sharing space, of understanding space, of being a body with other bodies. It's the way I walk in the street. It's the way I walk in the subway. It's the way I move in an airport. And still to this day, it's my sanctuary. It's the space that I go to where the rest of the world goes away, and I feel peace. I feel balance. I feel my whole self integrated. My relations with other people gets right. It's a place I can go where I don't know anybody, and immediately we start to find ways of knowing each other. And the funny thing is that when I talk to other people who go to that space, who play that game, they feel the same thing. They tell me it's the same thing for them. They speak the same language. And around 2015, 2016, when I saw the world going crazy, irreconcilable divisions, failing institutions, no trust, I said, could I take this language that I know and so many other people know, could I take this feeling that they have, and could I apply it to fix 21st century problems? Well, that's my job. I'm a professor. So I did the research. I looked into what basketball was intended to be, how it's operated in the world, what the world has told us it means, and I tried to give it language, actual words, structure, codification. And I created a course at NYU. And after four years of bringing in peacemakers, filmmakers, Pulitzer Prize winning journalists, leaders of First Nations, poets, opera singers, and some of the greatest basketball players you've ever heard of, we've enriched, enlivened, validated these principles. I won't go through all of them now. I want to leave time for questions, but you know this language. When I say cooperation, it's not like Detroit cooperation, like everybody talks about in third grade, oh, cooperate. This is basketball cooperation. This is what happens in a small space, intimate space, where you see each other. When you see each other, you actually humanize each other immediately, continuously, fluidly. And when you start to really humanize someone, you really see them, and you develop that superpower of empathy, which is the beginning of solving divisions, the beginning of ending wars. It's the root of beginning to think about the world in a very different way. And you start to say to yourself, well, how much of this is about me? And how much of this is about everybody else? The balance of individual and collective. It's a calculus that is just constant when you're playing basketball. And it's the beginning of somebody walking around in the world with a consciousness of saying, how can we solve wealth disparity? And other societal imbalances. Positionless, that's the state of basketball, right? It's saying to yourself, none of us is just one thing. I will be what I have to be as the situation changes on the ground. That's how you run the break. That's the future of work in a rapidly changing world, technologically, politically, legally. How do you adjust? You can't call time out. You have to be what you need to be in order to solve with other people. It's a 21st century mindset. And if none of us are just one thing, let me tell you, none of us can be what we were. This idea of human alchemy, people love to talk in sports about team chemistry. Team chemistry is basically like, he's like this, she's like that. You put them together on a team, him like this, her like that, and that'll be a good combination. There'll be a good team, that'll be good chemistry. Alchemy is what happens on a basketball court. Alchemy is like, he's like this, she's like that. You put them together on the same team, and they both become something else because of the effect that they've had on each other. They alchemize. Great basketball players don't just make each other better. They make each other something else, something different and thus better. I bet you all might have spent some time during the pandemic saying, when this is over, we're going to change things, right? We're going to reform, we're going to reset, we're going to reimagine. How do you do that when you are still the same? You look at great examples of alchemization when LeBron James in 2020 alchemized into a voting advocate, where he said, we could alchemize stadiums into voting booths. And Chef Jose Andres said, we could alchemize them into kitchens to feed people. And then they said, we could alchemize them into mass vaccination sites. The WNBA alchemized into a political force which alchemized the candidate in Atlanta, which alchemized the entire state of Georgia, which alchemized the entire Congress and Senate and the whole political construct of the United States. It's Gandhi saying, you need to be the change you wish to see. That's right, it's Maya Moore, right, who said, I can no longer be this anymore. I will be something else. We must change if we want the world to change. It's not about old institutions. Working with old institutions is about, I become something else, then the institutions become something else. And when the institutions become things else, we necessarily become something else to work with those institutions, and so it goes. That's how you get to all the social change that everybody loves to talk about, right? This is a game that was meant to be easy to play and easy to put on the ground and easy to walk into. No barrier to access. I don't know of a more free, open, inclusive space than the playground. Nobody checks your ID, nobody checks your citizenship. There's no credit check, there's no gatekeeper, there's no commissioner. The only rules in that space are those assented to by those who are present. Tell me where else that happens. And it's that principle of access that allow those who are denied access into the space to demonstrate their belonging, to demonstrate their inclusion. When this game was invented, it was trying to help new immigration. It was unprecedented immigration at that time in the United States, industrialization. They were cramped in city spaces. They weren't given access to the fields, to the clubs. Where could they go? Well, basketball became this space that welcomed them in, let them exercise their self-determination. You say, well, it was 1891, could that really work today? Go to Canada. Go to Canada, the country that takes pound for pound more immigrants than any other country in the world. And what has been the instrument of an intentional federal multicultural policy to knit together all these newcomers, all these new Canadians? It has been basketball. Canada is fulfilling the promise of this game, not just as an athletic institution, but a social institution. These are 21st century problems we're trying to solve. The urban and rural, that division, nobody seems to be able to solve it, and it's not just an American problem. But I know one thing that's equally beloved in Kentucky, Indiana, and Iowa, as it is in Washington Heights, and Compton, and Watts, loneliness. And maybe the next pandemic, it's certainly an epidemic. Where are the spaces that people can go to replace loneliness and isolation with imagination and belonging? All I know is that when they took those spaces away, they said socially isolate, people kept going to play basketball. They had to take down the rims. It's not just problems that are today, that's not enough. Basketball stands for more. Basketball stands for the fact that every great society can't just be solving the problems that are in front of their face. It's the sport with an elevated goal, which means we have to jump, we have to leave our feet, we have to defy gravity. Which by the way, we know we cannot do, but if a country, if a nation, if a world is going to be something it never has been before, then we have to dream to fly, or dare to fly, and that's a basketball dream. And the first thing you have to do is jump. I'll just end, because I'd love to take questions. I'll just end with one story of jumping that me and my class took last year. I don't know if you've heard the story of the saint of basketball. Around Christmastime 2021, I was reading the New York Times about a village in central Italy, and the Perretta Terme. And the village has a church that's been around since the 15th century. And in the church, there's a shrine to basketball. And people come from all over the country. They pray for a better season, a better jump shot, he'll meniscus. And the village was frustrated because they had made petition to the Vatican to have their local Madonna recognized as the first ever patron saint of basketball. I read this article, I'm like, oh my God, this is me, this is my class. So I call my TA, who's Italian. He just graduated, he's working at NBC Sports in New York. I'm like, Alessandro, can you believe this? He's like, yeah, I know. He's like, I'm home in Bologna for Christmas. The church isn't that far away. He drives to church, he grabs the priest. The priest, the first guest of my first class, first hour last year in how basketball saved the world. I'm like, Father, what can I do? How can I help you? He's like, I don't know. I'm like, class, 157 students in my class. Everybody send me one sentence, why does basketball deserve its own saint? And I put it together in this huge letter, like a declaration of independence. Because basketball has no borders, because basketball speaks no language, because basketball knows no. And I send it to the Pope. I'm like, okay, let's see what happens. Somehow, Italian media gets a hold of this, La Repubblica, which is like the New York Times of Italy, and they publish the letter in full. And they say, these NYU students, 157, this professor, this could be the thing that pushes this petition over the edge. That was March, 2022, on April 12th, good Friday, 2022. The Pope recognized the first ever patron saint of basketball. Now, here's the thing, why would the Pope do that? I want you to know that this is the first team sport to ever get its own saint. Not soccer, which is pretty popular in Italy. And I'm not Catholic, so I don't have any pull or anything like that. He did it because he knows it's time for something new. It's time for a new way of speaking. Look, think about who's been running the show for millennia, right? The same kinds of leaders, monarchs, military types, religious types, economic leaders, politicians, lawyers, captains of industry. And over time, these same kinds of leaders have come up with the same kinds of schools of thought, isms, right? To make our world more just, more productive, capitalism, socialism, communism, theism, theism, utilitarianism. And I guess what I want to know is over a millennia, the same kinds of leaders coming up with the same kinds of schools of thought, where has it gotten us exactly? Where has it taken us? Why are issues of race and gender and why are we not, these are unresolved issues, and how do we come together as a global world? These are unresolved issues. What I'm saying is it's time to look to a new source. When you look at those principles, if I didn't say, if I said this is not about basketball, these are ideas, these are values for the 21st century, these are things we need to solve. Is this a club you would join? Is this a candidate you would vote for? What I'm saying is it is basketball, and you, you are the teachers of this. Every student, every young person, every kid that you put in that space, that special space, and give them that ball, I believe you make a better person, which makes a better community, which makes a better world. This is our language, this is our ten commandments, this is our Bill of Rights, our Magna Carta, our Baha'i Gita. This, I believe, is how basketball can save the world. I'd love to take your questions. You can raise your hand, I'll call on you. Yes. And I've dedicated, hi, love everything you've shared with us. And I've dedicated most of my personal and professional life to reinforcing those values in youth basketball. But as we all know, there are some real obstacles and challenges in youth basketball programs. What do you see as the biggest challenges to keeping those principles strong? People ask me if there's one thing, one thing, right, we could do immediately. One thing we must do, so it's build more courts. It's create that space. The space has to exist. As I've traveled around on this book tour, it's the same thing. Everybody's like, there's not enough space. There's not enough places to play. But there's one other thing I would do, and it's to change the place of basketball in the national or global value system. Here's what I mean. You can get a degree, right? You can get a degree in music, art, dance, drama. And I think those are valid degrees. These are ancient forms that are portals to the human condition. You learn a lot about history, you learn a lot about human relationships. And part of those degrees, part of the class time, is the doing of the thing, right, you play music and you learn, you make sculpture, you learn. I don't understand why athletics is different. I don't understand how it's over there and not considered a valid academic subject. And I mean this from higher education all the way down to little kids. Recess matters. You know when they punish a kid? They're like, Johnny, you're missing recess, right? They're never like, Johnny, you were bad, you're gonna miss math. They don't do that. They need to create a different kind of equivalence for athletics, which will lead to more support, more understanding of what you already know, that the playing is learning. The playing is learning. It needs to be validated academically. Yes, sir? Well, first, I don't know if you're gonna run for office, but I think we'd all vote for you. I was, so I was inspired by your call for leadership with basketball as a tool, and you talked about the absence of leadership. You know, I think about Nelson Mandela and how he understood the power of sports. And that famous quote about the power of sports to change the world. And you gave the example in Canada of how they've integrated basketball as a tool. Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General yesterday, came out and declared this pandemic of loneliness, right? So I'm curious, what would be the policy that you think at the federal or state level that could help institutionalize the power of basketball as a tool? I think it would be to recognize that on a very basic level. So this is what basketball stands for, these principles, wherever they used to. This is what basketball stands for. This is a philosophy. Yes, the thing about playing basketball is that the space is smaller than most other sports. In its fullest elongation, you could play it alone and stuff like that. But the core of the principle is that we actually have to be in space with each other. A national policy has to be, we have to get together in space. We have to see each other. We have to be in rooms. That doesn't happen on Zoom. You can't do that on chat GPT. We have to start finding more ways of having human beings value being in space together. And I don't know if you've heard of the book called The Body Keeps the Score. It's a guy named Bessel van der Kolk. He wrote a book called The Body Keeps the Score. I think it's approaching 300 weeks on the bestseller list. He has transformed our understanding of trauma. He says it's more normal for most people than we realize. And the problem with people who have experienced trauma, post-traumatic stress, they walk around the world in a state of threat. Even though the trauma happened in the past, they have a hard time connecting. And so they're experiencing trauma as if it's happening now. And it's a searing sense of isolation. They just can't be with, they don't know how to. He says there's only four things, four group rhythmic activities. He says it in his book that can help these people process trauma. And begin to feel connected. Group sing, group dance, drum circle, and he explicitly says basketball. We need to institute these kinds of things. Was there another question? Yes. I know you mentioned about them taking down the rims during COVID. As a youth coach, I have a hard time with the kids just wanting to be inside and playing video games and Fortnite and all that good stuff. So how would you, what would you recommend to kind of encourage those kids that kind of missed out during that COVID lockdown and pretty much trying to encourage them back into being active and playing the game of basketball? Yeah, I mean, it goes around this wider conversation of understanding that athletics isn't just about being the best. Isn't just about elite development. Athletics, like every other thing that we're trying to give our young people, is about showing you how to be an entrepreneur. Showing you how to be creative. Showing you how to look each other in the eye. Showing you about the enjoyment of being here, because I'll tell you, I've seen some encouraging things. There's a group of kids in Brooklyn. They call themselves the Luddites. They're a club. Park Slope. And they go to Prospect Park. And to be in the club, there's only one requirement of membership. You can't bring your phone. Now these are the kids. These are teenagers. Remember, everybody's like, you gotta get these kids off the phone. They're just on TikTok all the time. They're smart. I have endless faith in young people. They know what's going on. They just need to, instead of be told not what to do, be shown how great what to do is. Yes. I wanna, I have two questions. First, what inspired you really to develop this curriculum? And any red tape, how did you get this curriculum together and able to be able to teach in the college? Yeah, so I've won every single award you could possibly win for teaching at NYU. I've done very well there. And when I came up with this course, I was like, listen, I wanna teach a course called How Basketball Can Save the World. It's gonna be a humanities course, and here it is. And I laid it all out for them. They're like, yeah, we're not gonna do that. That's crazy. That's not a course. So I had to fight deans, like 200 deans, even though I'm a dean, to pilot this course, like a summer pilot. The mere announcement of this course got international media attention. CBS called, Slam Magazine did a feature. It was picked up by outlets all over. So I knew, I knew that people like you know and then when we ran the course and we took them to West Forestry, we took them to Milbank, Dunleavy Center. The MBA got us into a suite at the Draft and Barclays Center, 2019. We had an outstanding experience. What drove me to make a course like this, because I teach sports business, right? Hardcore sports business, make money sports business. And the first thing I tell my students is the difference, the reason why we have a sports business degree and not just a business degree is the word sports. You need to understand what that is, what the real thing is underneath it. And this is my test of myself. Plus, it's time to save the world. Like it's time to change. It's time to change. And I believe this thing is the key. I believe what you're doing is the key. I believe these spaces are the key. I believe that as silly as it sounds, it's no sillier than like doing the thing that Einstein calls insanity, which is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This is something different. It's a provocation. Think differently. Give me the hook. Thank you very much.