“You always appreciate, in a humble way, that this place is is magical,” Hélio Castroneves told For The Win.
For many race car drivers, the Indianapolis 500 is the most monumental and life-changing event they could win. It’s one of the biggest races in the world, and some spend their entire careers chasing that elusive checkered flag.
More emphasis, more pressure, more preparation and more practice are involved, along with an intensified risk factor from the dangers of racing around Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.5-mile oval at 200-plus miles per hour. And even if a driver and their team have a near-perfect race, a competitor could be an inch closer to perfection. So, of course, the winner needs a little luck too.
Ahead of Sunday’s 106th running of the Indy 500, we’re looking back at the most recent races through the eyes of the last five winners — five of the eight champions competing in the 2022 race.
Alexander Rossi, 2016 Indy 500 champion: By the final few laps of the 200-lap race, Rossi, then a rookie, was out front and in a great position to win. He and his team gambled on fuel, and his car coasted on fumes across the finish line ahead of Carlos Muñoz.
Takuma Sato, 2017, 2020 Indy 500 champion: After trading the lead with Hélio Castroneves in the final laps, Sato put up some brilliant defense the final time he took the lead and won in 2017. He won the 2020 Indy 500 — held in August with empty grandstands because of COVID-19 – under caution ahead of Scott Dixon.
Will Power, 2018 Indy 500 champion: Power had a huge, 40-car length lead over Ed Carpenter going into the final lap, and he just had to hold on and not crash in the suspenseful final two miles to take the checkered flag.
Simon Pagenaud, 2019 Indy 500 champion: In one of the most thrilling Indy 500 finishes, Pagenaud battled with Rossi, trading the lead in the final laps. Pagenaud stole the lead from Rossi with a little more than a lap to go, and his masterful defense kept him out front for the win.
Hélio Castroneves, 2001, 2002, 2009, 2021 Indy 500 champion: Now in a four-way tie for most Indy 500 wins ever, Castroneves relied on his ample experience to get the best of Alex Palou in the 2021 race while working through traffic on the final lap. He was 26 years old when he won his first and 46 when he won his fourth.
The average lifespan of an NBA coach is seemingly as short as a 24-second shot clock these days. Stalwarts like Gregg Popovich, Erik Spoelstra and Steve Kerr are outliers in this volatile profession.
After the regular season, the Lakers, Kings and Hornets all made coaching changes with the hope of improving next season. And that’s even though Frank Vogel, despite a disappointing season, won a championship just two seasons ago, and James Borrego won 10 more games each of the past two seasons.
“Everyone’s gonna love you, and then everyone’s going to hate you,” as one former NBA coach told HoopsHype.
So how do those firings happen behind the scenes? HoopsHype spoke with five NBA executives, three coaching agents and a former NBA coach to learn the answers.
Brad Keselowski is embracing the challenges of being a NASCAR driver-owner with RFK Racing.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Brad Keselowski thinks we need to get off this planet.
Or, at a minimum, humans need to find a way to inhabit a second one. And relatively quickly.
He doesn’t say this to create panic but out of concern for the future of the human race and its continuation “beyond our own existence.” He describes it as “true altruism” and says it’s all about perpetuating life on a millennia scale and diversifying where it can exist.
“I don’t think the average American understands how important space is right now,” he says. “If we get space right, it’ll be great for humankind. If we don’t get space right, we’ll pretty much fail to exist in the next few centuries as a species.”
Keselowski — a 38-year-old NASCAR driver and owner with a manufacturing company that focuses primarily on aerospace — sees a shrinking window. He says we need to establish people living on Mars with the moon as a base. He thinks we’ll need a space station with the ability “to 3D print organs and other medical items for humans to survive.” We’ll need to mine asteroids for rare Earth metals. And it all needs to happen within the next century — “maybe sooner.”
He wouldn’t point directly to climate change as the reason behind his theory, despite the abundance of scientific evidence that the planet is slowly dying thanks to human-induced damage, some of which is contributing to an influx of natural disasters. For him, it’s more about the universe’s history where “planets come, planets go.”
“Something’s gonna take down Earth, whether it’s a meteor, whether it’s the sun,” he says. “It’s more likely a volcano than any of those things, but it’s not a climate-driven discussion, although it could be. It’s just inevitable that it will happen.”
Keselowski at Talladega Superspeedway in 2017. (Brynn Anderson, AP Photo)
****
This is the conundrum of Brad Keselowski. He’s one of NASCAR’s most intriguing drivers not simply because he has such obscure outside interests but because he tends to be bold and contrarian, and it is difficult to tell if he does this entirely on purpose or does not realize he’s even doing it.
At this point, it’s probably just a genuine reflection of how his mind actually works.
He refers to himself as a “bit of an enigma” but that’s not exactly precise; anyone who’s asked him a question before knows that even the simplest request can elicit a 10-minute monologue that ranges over multiple topics. It’s more like Keselowski exists to short-circuit preconceived notions — about himself, about racing, about anything.
He insists that reading and research and comprehension of complex data is essential to personal development and professional success, but distrusts academia — which, of course, is the pursuit of knowledge through rigorous study.
He says he’s always all in and never hedges based on the idea that he might fail. He’s turned the end of one project into a new opportunity several times.
He says he never dreamed he’d get this far in racing, 13 full-time seasons at NASCAR’s top level, but in so many ways, his life was always leading him to this point.
This point, he has said, is perhaps the most important year of his career. With a new car debuting in Sunday’s Daytona 500, Keselowski left one of the most stable and well-run teams in all of racing, Team Penske, to help take over and re-energize the 34-year-old Cup Series team, Roush Fenway Racing (now known as Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing, or RFK).
We’ve set high expectations for ourselves, but I think that’s what will make us great. This is just the beginning for @RFKracing. pic.twitter.com/I7qvBxwWlM
He’s not new to ownership but hasn’t been involved at the highest level before, and he’s already embracing progressive ideas about how to win races and run a more modern business. In this way he’s fulfilling the family mission, the big dreams of his father, who passed away in December.
But Bob Keselowski scraped by on grit and gumption and his love of fixing up his car and making it work with whatever he had.
Brad Keselowski has done it his own way, even as he strains, daily, to refine what his own way is.
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Twenty years ago, a teenaged Brad Keselowski could often be found fiddling around on a computer. He admired the work ethic of his father running the family’s NASCAR Truck Series team. But as a gangly kid, he wasn’t usually doing the literal heavy lifting when it came to trying to make the team better. So he’d turn to technology for possible answers.
“‘You’ll never get anywhere in racing on that computer,’” Keselowski recalls his father, Bob, saying. “I knew that was wrong then, and it’s very wrong now.”
His father was a “wrenches guy” who loathed the idea of motor sports trending toward enhanced technology and the digital age. But that sentiment didn’t dissuade Keselowski from pushing forward.
When the family team struggled, he’d think to himself, “Oh God, let me see if I can figure something out.” He studied his father’s team, learned what worked and what didn’t. And when the team ultimately folded, Keselowski, in his early 20s, felt tremendous personal guilt. He wasn’t the one running the team or making all the decisions, but felt he should have done more to keep the team afloat.
“I learned some really tough and critical lessons from that that I was able to apply that made me feel more confident to be a businessman,” he says. “My businesses might fail too. I don’t know. I don’t think they will, but they could. So hopefully, I’m a better businessman.”
My dad will always be my hero. He was quiet and understated, but that didn’t change the impact he had on me or that I watched him have on everyone who knew him. I am forever grateful for what I learned from this man, and I will remember him every day. https://t.co/NiG822YfpDpic.twitter.com/eUZWkPtUEG
That early failure may explain Keselowski’s singular focus on self improvement. He reads everything he can, during flights to races or back home, on slow Saturdays at tracks, when he’s supposed to be on vacation.
All NASCAR drivers are steadfast and intense, but his fervor for gathering information sticks out. All the while, Keselowski strives to be authentic and believes his fans “generally appreciate some of [his] quirkiness.”
“I’m probably a nerd by most people’s definition,” he says. “A successful nerd in the sense that I love to read. I love to study. I love data. I love making good decisions with data and beating people by outsmarting them.”
It makes some sense: Keselowski watched his father work tirelessly to outwork everybody and also saw all the ways it did not succeed.
So often, his father pushed forward with grim determination; after his lone win in the then-fledgling third-tier Truck Series, in 1997, he said, “Boy, I needed this one bad. We are just starting to get all the big haulers and the shop and everything. I don’t want to lose it now. It took me 40-something years to get to this point.”
Bob would fight through physical pain to keep racing before exiting the driver’s seat and focusing on his ownership role. But ultimately it folded.
He died in December, three days before Christmas, at age 70 after being diagnosed with cancer two years ago. Though they didn’t always see eye-to-eye, Keselowski called his father his “hero.”
Keselowski thought he was prepared for his father’s death because he had time to process it, but soon realized he was wrong. He compared it to the expectant parents who read every book and ask every question and are still, inevitably, caught off guard, by actually having a baby to care for.
“You’ll never be ready,” he says.
Keselowski pledged, in the days after his father’s death, to “remember him every day.” And of course he does. How could he not? He is still his father’s son, always searching for a better way.
****
Brad Keselowski has already reached heights he never expected.
He didn’t grow up dreaming of winning in the NASCAR Cup Series, the sport’s highest level. He didn’t even dream of racing in it. The youngest of five, his childhood dreams were ambitious but humble, like his upbringing in Rochester Hills, Michigan.
Sure, he comes from a family of racers, but not from money and not from seven-time champions. No mansion, no frills. They drove an old motorhome to races and seldom flew. There was food on the dinner table and a roof over their heads, but the Keselowskis weren’t racing royalty like other NASCAR families.
Sweet photo find
My dad giving me a little assistance during my first driving attempt. circa 1990
Preparing for dad’s funeral Wednesday and things like this make it a little easier. So glad my family found this picture pic.twitter.com/BGEDTfLz3L
And everybody pitched in, in whatever way they could.
“Sometimes, you didn’t want him to hold a wrench; he would hurt himself more often than not,” his brother, Brian Keselowski, jokes. “Sometimes, he was more of the thinker.”
To save money, his dad’s team would only have the trash collected once a month, which meant Brad and Brian were charged with climbing into the dumpster and jumping on the garbage to smash it and make room for more before the pickup.
“We raced and made just enough money to race again,” Keselowski recalls.
His hopes were to replicate that, with more stability. He wanted to succeed on the path his father set forward. That meant piling up a few Truck Series wins and for the team to contend for championships. He says he didn’t allow himself to think any bigger than that, but he wasn’t interested in a backup plan either.
“I’m a burn the ships kind of guy,” Keselowski says, referencing 16th century Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés destroying his ships so his men could not retreat before ultimately annihilating the Aztec Empire and opening the door for Spain to colonize Mexico.
“I didn’t allow myself a lot of time to think about any other options because if I allowed there to be another option, I would always default back to thinking of it.”
He made his NASCAR debut in 2004, running eight Truck Series races for his family team with his dad as the crew chief. But after the team went broke, Keselowski bounced around to a few different rides, and at one point, he walked around the Milwaukee Mile Speedway garage basically begging for a job. Eventually, he got his big break in the summer of 2007 and was driving in the second-tier Xfinity Series for Dale Earnhardt Jr.
But it wasn’t until Keselowski won his first Xfinity race in 2008 at 24 years old that he began thinking bigger for himself. He got the feeling: “Oh, I think I can run around with these Cup guys.”
Keselowski celebrates after his first Xfinity Series win in 2008 at Nashville Superspeedway. (AP Photo/Frederick Breedon)
****
Keselowski acknowledges luck has been a large part of his life, like the timing of that phone call from Earnhardt, but he worked to make good on it, ultimately pushing his way to Team Penske’s No. 2 Ford and winning the 2012 Cup championship.
The idea of becoming an owner in NASCAR, following in his father’s steps, never moved to the back of his mind, though. He got there once with Brad Keselowski Racing, a truck team in NASCAR’s third-tier series that fielded current Cup drivers like Ryan Blaney, Tyler Reddick, Ross Chastain and Austin Cindric. But after 10 seasons, Keselowski elected to shut the team down following the 2017 season.
Materializing an opportunity after this closure, the next year, Keselowski started Keselowski Advanced Manufacturing, which uses resources like metal 3D printers to manufacture parts for the aerospace and defense industries. He set up shop in the building that once played home to BKR.
“He took a race shop and created a manufacturing facility out of it, and the amount of vision that it took to do that is astronomical,” Brian says. “Like, I can’t even imagine how he thought that this was the way he wanted to do things.”
Ryan Blaney and Keselowski in 2014. (Chris Trotman/Getty Images)
Keselowski also believes he puts himself in positions to get lucky or to extract a favorable outcome from a failure, like begging people in the garage for a job or making it known that Cup ownership was in his sights. And that’s where early talks began with what was then called Roush Fenway Racing.
“I’ve learned so much about people and culture and what a winning culture looks like, what a non-winning culture looks like,” Keselowski says. “I think about that literally every day, maybe 100 times.”
There wasn’t an “epiphany moment” where everything suddenly came together, RFK president Steve Newmark said. But if he had to pinpoint it, he recalled a conversation with Keselowski during the fall of 2020. In his 11th of 12 seasons driving for Team Penske in the Cup Series, Keselowski asked about Roush’s outlook for the future, Newmark said.
“That was when he first disclosed his long-term vision,” Newmark says. “Obviously, he had a long driving career that he still envisioned was ahead of him. But he kind of shared some of his, I guess, strategic plan. And so really, that just led to kind of further dialogue.”
At that point in 2020, Keselowski already had the kind of NASCAR career people only dream of — even if he didn’t initially. Through the 2020 season, he had 34 Cup wins, 33 plus the 2012 championship with Team Penske. His buzzed, post-championship interview with ESPN while holding a giant, foamy, wildly oversized glass of Miller Lite is legendary.
He added win No. 35 to his resume last season, which now ranks him 24th on the all-time list and the fourth-highest active driver headed into the 2022 season.
Keselowski after winning the 2012 NASCAR championship. (Jerry Lai-US PRESSWIRE)
But Keselowski said he’d do anything to win another championship, even if it meant leaving powerhouse Team Penske. So if he could make a change that he thought would increase his title chances and become a team owner in the process — especially with the reset offered by the Next Gen car’s debut this season — he was all in.
“The move to RFK is somewhat a reflection of that,” Keselowski says. “It’s a reflection of my own disappointment of not winning a championship [and] the realization that if I wanted different results, I needed to do something different. And here I am. And I’m not out seeking headlines for that. I’m not super proud of everything I did at Penske, and I’m not looking to bash anyone. I have no intent to do that. But I am willing to take risks and do things differently because I want to win. I want to win really bad.”
Bringing in Keselowski as an owner was also ideal timing for the team with founder and CEO Jack Roush turning 80 in April. While the driver tiptoed around a specific prediction for the future, Newmark said “there’s no doubt” Keselowski is in line to be Roush’s successor some day.
“Jack has really encouraged us to kind of build that foundation with Brad, and Jack has said many times that this really is the start of passing of the torch,” Newmark says. “The intent behind this is really to have Brad step in and be the future face of the organization.”
****
As Keselowski’s friend and former teammate, Joey Logano knows the two faces of the new No. 6 Ford driver — the vocal and “fierce competitor” on the track and the “real down to Earth, good person” away from it.
Joey Logano and Keselowski in 2018. (Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images)
The former teammates are similar like that, actually, but with their differing (and once complementary) approaches to racing, Logano said he and Team Penske will miss Keselowski’s wealth of racing knowledge and experience as a NASCAR champ. But he’s confident in Keselowski’s ability to succeed in his new driver-owner role.
“He’s too stubborn to fail,” Logano says. “So he’ll make it work — I know he will — and he’ll probably win a few [races] this year.”
Although Roush Fenway Racing has won 137 career Cup races, plus two championships, since it entered the circuit in 1988, it hasn’t won a race since the 2017 season and hasn’t been in serious championship contention in a decade. Keselowski hopes to reverse that course and aims to get both his car and teammate Chris Buescher’s into the 10-race playoffs in the fall.
Changing that starts with adjusting the team’s culture and returning to the aggressive and proactive approach it once had with a premium on on-track performance, Newmark said. Creative with a “very strong intellectual curiosity and insatiable drive to learn,” Keselowski brings ample experience behind the wheel, a vision of progression and vocal leadership with examples to follow. Newmark sees him as a mentor for Buescher.
“That’s a rare combination,” Newmark says.
Keselowski is gushing with enthusiasm and brings “a new energy” to the team, said Buescher, who’s in his seventh full-time Cup season and third behind the wheel of the No. 17 Ford. Buescher noted Keselowski is meticulous and exceptionally detail oriented while constantly multi-tasking.
Roush said his new co-owner is “better organized” and “more methodical” than he is.
Those attributes are noticeable as Keselowski inspects his No. 6 Ford, complete with the manufacturer’s mock Michigan license plate, in the garage before the first Daytona 500 practice Tuesday at Daytona International Speedway. As his crew members work on it, Keselowski examines what they’re doing underneath it while it’s jacked up, poking his head in the space where the left front tire would be and through the driver’s window to catch a glimpse of the cockpit. He consults with crew chief Matt McCall before downing a pre-practice banana and hitting the track.
Keselowski in the Daytona International Speedway garage Tuesday. (Mike Dinovo-USA TODAY Sports)
“I generally go right after the problem and work from there,” Roush says. “He comes at it from the other side, trying to get the meetings set up so that they’re structurally correct and you’ve got the right people involved with the decision making, rather than just swooping in, like I typically do.
Keselowski also runs, according to Buescher, a “spotless” shop.
“From the floors to the walls to the ceilings, everything is getting cleaned up,” Buescher says.
Reddick said what was once BKR “is still, by far, the most beautiful shop I’ve ever stepped foot in in my entire life.”
This, again, is that teenage boy with his head buried in the computer exerting his own control. The family’s shop had been, he’s said, “dirty.” So much effort went into getting to the next race; some details just couldn’t be dealt with.
Now, Keselowski wants to be involved in everything. He’s “relentless and measured,” Newmark noted. He wants to be cc’ed on just about every email, within reason. He wants to contribute in small ways as well as to the big picture while also learning more about the business of running a team at NASCAR’s highest level.
“It’s not to micromanage; it’s to micro understand,” Keselowski says.
Fresh paint, new floors… this new place is starting to feel like home
And he’s not shy about calling out shortcomings and methods for improvement.
He’ll cite lessons and anecdotes from books he’s read on leadership and winning, and he’ll share some titles with members of the team, like Debrief to Win, written by a former Air Force top gun, or Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time.
Never ebooks or audiobooks, Keselowski says he reads hard copies to highlight passages and make notes to compensate for being “a poor reader.”
“I hated reading in school,” he says. “In fact, for the most part, I hate reading today.”
But he tries to read as much as possible. He’s taken notes from Nick Saban and Jim Harbaugh about how to build successful organizations. He loves to study and learn, believing his approach to his education is more valuable than an engineering degree or an MBA, neither of which he has.
“I don’t particularly believe in higher education,” he says. “I think it’s a crutch for ethnography.”
You’ll seldom find him reading fiction. He says almost everything he reads is about personal or professional growth, how to be a better leader and how to find more success on the race track — but there’s a lot of history (especially World War II) scattered in there too. He cited President Harry Truman being an avid reader and using that as a tool to be a better decision maker.
With Keselowski’s head often buried in a book, Logano joked that his former teammate “has more useless knowledge than you’ll ever need in your life.” Keselowski, however, would disagree, and employs that knowledge to better himself and inspire his employees.
“Brad is very refreshing in that he is an eternal optimist, and I think that really rallies people around him,” Newmark says.
“I envision him on the weekends just kind of thinking at a very macro strategic level about what can we be doing to differentiate ourselves? And there are a lot of times that I may get a call from him on a Saturday or Sunday even late at night with, ‘Hey, have we thought about doing this?’”
Keselowski in his new ride during practice for the 2022 Daytona 500. (Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
For as knowledgeable and open as he is, one thing Keselowski wouldn’t disclose is his COVID-19 vaccination status, he says “because it’s become so politicized,” despite the government, medical experts and even NASCAR president Steve Phelps pushing for people to get vaccinated.
“People get very angry about whatever answer you give,” Keselowski says. “In that sense, I’ve made it a point to not answer that question publicly, which is very intentional because I do enough to make enemies as it is. I don’t need to make enemies over something like this.”
Whether it’s at RFK or during his days with Team Penske, Keselowski is known for some out-of-the-box ideas. Looking back on a few, he laughs at his own hubris. Some of Keselowski’s creative ideas never come to fruition or fail when they do, but Newark said the driver embraces the idea of failing forward.
He certainly hasn’t grown demure about pushing new ideas. Keselowski was the “driving force” behind RFK hiring David Smith as the team’s head of analytics. Smith was previously one of the top public motor sports analytics minds in the country, and several crew chiefs and drivers, like Denny Hamlin and William Byron, have referenced his data in the past.
“Jack was very open and has kind of given Brad license to bring these new ideas and bring these new perspectives,” Newark says.
****
Ever a contradiction, Keselowski says he appreciates the value in taking risks, but he doesn’t like taking chances — not when it comes to preparation. He’s a self-described perfectionist, recognizing it may be a flaw, but he can’t help it.
“I have lost sleep over races that I won because I didn’t do everything at the highest level,” he explains. “And I’ve slept very well in races where I haven’t won because I feel like I ran a perfect race and something happened completely out of my control.”
Keselowski after winning the 2020 Coca Cola 600. (Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
Uncontrollable moments are a given in NASCAR, but asserting control when you have it is something Keselowski says he embraces as a cornerstone of returning to a winning culture at RFK. While he can’t control his and his team’s luck on the track, he can try to control what’s done up until the engines are fired each week.
But that leads to sleepless nights as well, especially the night before a race. He’s up running through different race scenarios in his head or pondering additional suggestions for improving the quality of the car. He loathes the idea he might not be prepared for everything — especially the thought of a winning opportunity presenting itself and he’s not ready for it.
“It drives me crazy,” he says.
So when he’s up all night, he’ll reach out to some other night owls on his team to share his thoughts. His former Team Penske crew chief, Jeremy Bullins, is all too familiar with Keselowski’s 2 a.m. texts.
“He was always thinking; he was always looking for the next thing,” Bullins says. “It wasn’t necessarily about the car. It could be a strategy, a thought, or, ‘What if we pit the race like this?’ Or, ‘What if we do this?’ It could be stuff about the car. You never know, it could have been something about a car three weeks away.”
And Keselowski says he’s “already there” with his relationship with new crew chief McCall.
But Keselowski knows he’s not always the smartest person in the room. So whether it’s with RFK or his advanced manufacturing business, he says he pushes to surround himself with the most talented people and provide them with the necessary resources for success in a “safe and healthy” work environment. And then he watches them flourish.
He says one of his favorite benefits of being a business owner is seeing people advance toward success as professionals. He calls their growth a “recurring bucket list item.” He strives for himself and those around him to live up to their “professional max potential.” He loves what he does and has a hard time imagining a future decades from now where he’s not involved in motor sports.
“If I put great resources with great people and an expectation of great processes, we will win; it’s really that simple,” he says. “We might not win every race. We might even lose a lot of races with bad luck. But we’ll win a lot. And if we win a lot, the company will be successful.”
What to expect from NASCAR’s Next Gen car ahead of the 2022 Daytona 500 and season.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Retooled, revamped and with a new sound, NASCAR’s Next Gen car is about to make it’s official debut. As NASCAR likes to say, it’s a brand new car; only the steering wheel and driver’s seat stuck around.
Although the Next Gen car — the seventh generation of a NASCAR stock car — is the latest version, it will transport NASCAR fans back to an era when the cars on track more closely resemble what consumers buy at dealerships. And that’s because the sport is “returning back to stock car roots,” said Brandon Thomas, NASCAR’s managing director for vehicle systems.
That resemblance is one of many eye-catching differences fans will notice when the Next Gen car makes its official debut with the start of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season at the Daytona 500 on Feb. 20 — a year delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Teams and drivers will spend at least the early part of the season, if not the whole thing, navigating through the challenges of competing with a new vehicle.
“You change the way you race, you change the way you approach a race,” said Joey Logano, the 2018 NASCAR champion and No. 22 Team Penske Ford driver. “The strategy, your pit stops, the way you set up the car, the way we practice is now going to be different. … You just have to be a student of the sport.”
This NBA season has included constant updates about players entering COVID health and safety protocols and led to the return of some beloved veterans getting another shot to play in the league.
While the daily COVID carousel has affected numerous stars and decimated teams, it’s been a silver lining for players who thought their NBA journeys were over.
“I didn’t think this was possible, to be honest with you,” Celtics guard Joe Johnson told HoopsHype. “As you get older, you’re like a dinosaur. Nobody thinks you can play in your 40s.”
Yet, here we are. Johnson’s second stint with the Celtics comes 20 years after his first one, the longest gap for an NBA player in history.
Along with Johnson, HoopsHype spoke with Mavericks guard Brandon Knight and Hawks guard Lance Stephenson about how their 10-day hardship exception deals and NBA returns happened behind the scenes.
The NBA has seen superstars like James Harden and Zion Williamson begin the season out of shape, and it’s hurt their team performances.
Whether it’s a superstar, starter, or role player off the bench, addressing a player who’s out of shape can be an awkward conversation for an executive, coach, or training staff member.
So how do teams handle a player who is out of shape?
HoopsHype spoke with four NBA executives and one NBA agent to learn how front office members handle that situation.
Editor’s note: This story contains mentions of sexual assault.
AVONDALE, Ariz. — NASCAR president Steve Phelps addressed several topics — including the sport’s COVID-19 vaccination rate, schedule changes and the origins of “Let’s go, Brandon” — Friday at Phoenix Raceway during his annual state of the sport press conference.
The one-mile desert track is hosting NASCAR’s championship weekend for the second consecutive year, with the Truck Series race Friday, the Xfinity Series race Saturday and culminating in the Cup Series’ finale on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, NBC).
Here are six key takeaways from Phelps’ press conference ahead of the three championship races.
Examining how NASCAR has grown in the 18 months since Kyle Larson used a racist slur and where the sport can improve.
Mike Metcalf, one of the few Black men working on a NASCAR pit crew, knew what would come next. He saw how this would unfurl after Kyle Larson, then a driver on his Chip Ganassi Racing team, uttered the N-word during a live-streamed iRacing event in April 2020.
First, though, he felt the pain.
“It was a punch to the stomach, man,” Metcalf said. “Just lost your breath for a second.”
Larson lost his ride with Ganassi, NASCAR suspended him and his team’s championship hopes vanished — as Metcalf expected. NASCAR, a historically white, Southern sport, was suddenly forced to reckon with a culture that has often excluded drivers and fans of color.
“People on ESPN and Twitter and all that were like, ‘Oh, yeah, well, of course, I’m sure that’s how all those people talk,’ kind of referring to NASCAR,” Metcalf said.
“So when this Kyle thing happened, it kind of woke NASCAR up a little bit to say, ‘OK, we need to do more.’ … And so [it’s] trying to make the garage a better place that’s not just white, Southern male.”
Now, though, Larson is driving for the winningest Cup Series team ever, Hendrick Motorsports, and will be one of four drivers competing for the 2021 championship at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday. That raises obvious questions: Has anything actually changed in the last 18 months? Is NASCAR becoming more inclusive?
NASCAR and its leaders have said many of the right things and tout progress, but some people in the garage, fans and experts agree it still has a long way to go to back up that talk and generate real change.
Kyle Larson at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in August. (Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
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The most outwardly noticeable action NASCAR took — both after Larson’s transgression and amid a broader discussion of racism in the U.S. — was banning flying the Confederate flag at races and events.
While NASCAR president Steve Phelps recently called that “the proudest day” for him as a leader, the driver who spearheaded the effort, Bubba Wallace, still thinks the flags are too prevalent among fans of the sport, particularly outside of race tracks.
“I don’t know if there’s a way to police that since it’s not on their property,” Wallace said. “Just rolling in, people could be coming to the race for the first time, and they see that and they’re like, ‘Eh, we’re gonna keep driving.’ So trying to eliminate those sightings as much as we can leading into a race track is big.”
Change, Phelps and the rest of NASCAR are finding, comes slowly. He acknowledged that, prior to the national outcry over a Minneapolis police officer murdering George Floyd in May 2020, racism was not something that resonated with some in racing.
“I would suggest before June of 2020, our industry wasn’t ready, and that sounds awful,” Phelps said on the Champions of Change podcast, produced by RISE, which advocates for social justice in sports and partnered with NASCAR. “And I guess in some ways, I don’t feel great about that. … 18 months later now, it is the single most important decision we’ve made. And it’s working. We have a brand-new fan base that’s being welcomed by fans who have been fans of the sport for decades.”
Throughout the last 10 years, NASCAR’s fan base has become more diverse. In 2021, one out of four fans identifies as a person of color, compared with one out of five in 2011, according to research conducted by Nielsen Scarborough.
Brandon Thompson, who became NASCAR’s vice president of diversity and inclusion in June 2020, called the banning of Confederate flags “a seminal moment” because “there’s never a wrong time to do the right thing.” Other efforts at increasing inclusion and broadening the appeal of the sport — both for fans and young drivers and pit crew members — have been less visible and the results more nebulous.
Changing a Culture: NASCAR’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiatives (since May 2020)
Established an Employee Diversity Council and the Executive Ally Council, which collaborate on DE&I strategies, leadership and other ideas
Introduced employee resource groups focused on people of color, women and members of the LGBTQ+ community as forums for shared experiences and to foster a stronger community network among employees
Established the DE&I Committee, which identifies industry-wide collaborative opportunities while sharing best practices and key learnings. Representatives are from the sanctioning body, tracks, teams, drivers and official partners.
Aligned with advocacy organizations focusing on women, BIPOC and the LGBTQ+ community, including:
During the 2020-21 offseason, RISE conducted workshops for more than 1,500 NASCAR employees, drivers and other industry personnel about racism, anti-racism and unconscious biases. NASCAR is looking to expand it in 2022 to gender biases and sexual harassment.
The employee councils, Thompson said, were designed so NASCAR employees could “speak candidly in a safe space” in the aftermath of Larson’s racist slur, civil rights protests around the world and the FBI’s investigation into a suspected hate crime against Wallace after his team found a noose in its garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway in June of 2020. If NASCAR wants to lead the industry to be more diverse, inclusive and equitable, it needs to start with its own practices as an employer, Thompson said.
NASCAR has a “responsibility to make sure that the drivers are educated” about racism and social justice issues, Thompson added, and it engaged with RISE for those trainings in hopes it would help them see these issues in a new light.
“NASCAR is changing, and the people there are becoming more welcoming,” said Toni Breidinger, a 22-year-old ARCA driver of Lebanese descent who, this year, became the first Arab-American woman to compete in a NASCAR-sanctioned event.
“Society is evolving and becoming more inclusive, so definitely NASCAR is under pressure to do that, as well.”
On the competition side, Thompson pointed to the Drive for Diversity program, started in 2004, with Larson, Wallace and Daniel Suárez being the most prominent alums among about 70 total driver participants. Whether it’s recruiting potential drivers or pit crew members, Thompson noted the program is specifically targeting HBCUs, among other schools.
Bubba Wallace at Martinsville Speedway in June 2020. (Steve Helber/Pool Photo via USA TODAY Network)
Continuing expansion efforts, NASCAR announced in September its partnership with I AM ATHLETE, the athlete-led YouTube show founded by former NFL All-Pro Brandon Marshall. I AM ATHLETE – NASCAR explores the sport and its culture in 16 episodes, and Wallace, Suárez and Phelps were in the first three episodes, in addition to Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch, Breidinger and the NASCAR Drive for Diversity Pit Crew Development Program being featured in an I AM ATHLETE collaboration earlier this year.
NASCAR knows it can foster engagement with new fans if they see people like them represented in the sport. New, high-profile celebrities getting involved in NASCAR can help. Michael Jordan and Pitbull became team owners prior to this season and have announced educational programs aimed at minority students.
Others who have become NASCAR fans include Super Bowl champion Bernard Pollard, who took an interest in the sport after seeing Wallace on CNN with Don Lemon. He’s all in on NASCAR now, regularly expresses enthusiasm for racing (he got an iRacing rig last year) and was honored at the NASCAR Drive for Diversity Awards. Wallace said athletes and other celebrities getting involved in the sport is giving it a boost, as with New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara being named NASCAR’s first Growth and Engagement Advisor in June.
“Having him be a brand ambassador is big for our sport,” Wallace said of Kamara. “And you just get a lot of positive traction from the celebrity side of things, that [they] are talking about our sport. So it’s good.”
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For all that NASCAR has done, the fact remains that Wallace is the lone Black driver racing at the highest level. Thompson acknowledged the sport still has “got some ground to make up.”
Others are more blunt.
“NASCAR hasn’t had to really reckon with the fact that it shouldn’t be a Southern, white sport,” said Dr. Louis Moore, a sports historian and professor at Grand Valley State in Michigan.
“I think they got comfortable marketing to that, unlike other sports. … And I think that’s what separates NASCAR is that it’s taken so long for them to realize that we can’t just be the Southern, white sport.”
A Confederate flag in the infield before a NASCAR race at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina in 2015. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
Because of that, NASCAR is still building up a base of diverse fans and instituting policies and programs that can help it expand. But the pace can be frustrating for those involved in the sport.
“They are making an effort, and I do see some change,” Breidinger said. “Is it fast enough? No, I don’t think so. But I do see them doing things and trying to be more inclusive. … I feel like they’re a little bit behind, and it’s a little bit slow. But at least there’s some sort of effort.”
Specifically, NASCAR needs to do a better job of uplifting minorities in the sport, Breidinger said, with more exposure and financial backing to help overcome institutional racism. Upon learning she was the first Arab-American woman to compete in a NASCAR sanctioned race, she said she was shocked and disappointed no one had come before her.
Despite being celebrated at the NASCAR Drive for Diversity Awards in October, she said she previously applied twice for the Drive for Diversity program — which covers drivers’ expenses for competing — but was denied (NASCAR said the 2021 class has eight drivers in the program, but that number can changed each year “based on need.”) Breidinger grew frustrated that she “never received any sort of support” from the sanctioning body in terms of help securing funding, adding that the mere fact that NASCAR even has diversity awards shows how far the sanctioning body still has to go.
Breidinger said she continues struggling to find funding, which prevented her from running a full-time ARCA season and ultimately kept her from making her Truck Series debut.
Moore cited additional funding as one way to remove some economic barriers for women and people of color attempting to break into NASCAR upper echelon.
“They have a history of intentionally keeping people out,” Moore said. “So it’s all about what NASCAR wants to do. … You really have to be invested in this if this is how you want to grow, and if you have folks not on board, then you’ll just be stuck where you’re at.”
Whether it’s for those already competing or people with dreams of doing so, access to racing limits who can reach the sport’s top levels, he said. And he drew an analogy to Jackie Robinson.
“Jackie breaks in, but there’s a whole lot of other Black players that are there waiting,” Moore said. “If you’re a minority driver, the barrier was set up against you, but you’re really coming from a small pool [compared with all the players in the baseball’s Negro League], right? So I think the challenge is a lot harder, and it might be designed that way to limit access, to limit opportunities.”
Providing educational opportunities for drivers and fans on local Black history, like when NASCAR goes to Daytona or Talladega, would be one way to help grow the sport with new fans, Moore suggested. He also said drivers could take notes from someone like DeAndre Hopkins, the Arizona Cardinals wide receiver who wore a helmet sticker with Denmark Vesey’s name on it, prompting people to Google the man who was enslaved, bought his freedom in 1799 and plotted a rebellion.
Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota on pit road at Talladega in June 2020. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Similarly, in 2020, Denny Hamlin — a driver who will compete against Larson for a title on Sunday and co-owner of Wallace’s 23XI Racing team with Jordan — raced with a National Civil Rights Museum paint scheme after visiting the museum. NASCAR needs more sponsors, like FedEx, willing to paint these messages on their cars, Moore said, along with more forward-thinking team owners and leaders who push beyond a “shut up and race or shut up and dribble” mentality.
Moore also suggested some kind of reparations program with a clear goal of NASCAR compensating for some of its past sins. One recent example of the sport doing exactly that came at Daytona International Speedway in August when NASCAR presented Wendell Scott’s family with a trophy honoring his 1963 victory — the first for a Black driver at the sport’s highest level. At the time, NASCAR declared runner-up Buck Baker the winner; track officials acknowledged hours later that Scott had lapped the field twice. Still, Scott — who died in 1990 and was posthumously inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2015 — wasn’t credited with the victory for another two years, but it wasn’t until August that his family got an official celebration.
Metcalf said amends like that make him “really proud to be a part of the NASCAR community.”
“It’s so hard to win races and to be robbed of that moment,” he added. “But then to see at Daytona last month that trophy given to his son, it’s like, OK, we’re doing something. I don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re making progress. We’re thinking about things. We’re trying to go back and look and see where we missed it and trying to fix it and at least bring awareness to it.”
Steve Phelps and Bubba Wallace with the family of NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Wendell Scott at Daytona International Speedway in August. (Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
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When it comes to appealing to and attracting new, young and diverse fans and NASCAR-hopefuls, exposure is at the top of the list for Thompson. But priorities and timely execution are two different things.
For fans like Phil Spain — a 31-year-old lifelong fan from Maryland who is Black — NASCAR is trending in the right direction, and while he thinks Larson using a racist slur never should have happened, the incident ignited some necessary changes in NASCAR’s approach. But he said the sport’s success with those efforts “still remains to be seen, honestly.”
“I want to see more young African American men and women; I want to see more Latinx people involved,” Spain said.
Instead of celebrating people only during Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month or LGBT History Month, as examples, Spain hopes to see more year-round efforts from NASCAR showing pride in its diversity. Beyond lip service and hashtags, he said NASCAR needs to “practice what they’re preaching” to have a meaningful impact. It’s all about outreach in his eyes, and he said while he knows there’s no overnight solution, he thinks holding more clinics or demonstrations in predominantly Black communities would help attract fans and potential competitors. And once they’re already at race tracks, Spain said areas in the fan zones dedicated to Black history or The Trevor Project or another advocacy group could help with education.
To that point, NASCAR and RISE said they’re planning to have a joint fan experience for 2022.
“NASCAR is doing the right thing,” Spain said. “They are promoting it outside, but change has to come from within the fan base.”
NASCAR is proud to support the important work of @TrevorProject this month and all year long.
In the last year and a half, Spain said he’s connected on Twitter with several Black NASCAR fans, and he hopes to see Black racing fans specifically targeted with ad campaigns and promotions. But he said it has to be a genuine effort because “we can tell within two seconds of something happening where it looks like we’re being pandered to.”
In addition to building career pipelines for people of color, Thompson said NASCAR has contracted a marketing agency to consult “on what our Black consumer strategy should be” while still trying to be authentic. And some things can’t be manufactured, he said, like when “the true character of the NASCAR industry” was on display as the whole Talladega garage rallied around Wallace when it was thought he might have been a victim of a hate crime.
“I honestly think that NASCAR knows what they have,” Moore said. “They know that Black people like NASCAR, and they need to figure out and be honest with themselves if they really want those fans, right? … Do you really want those fans? Are you tapping into that or not? And if so, then go full out.”
Of course, there is a vocal opposition to every stride NASCAR has made, performative or otherwise. Some still incorrectly believe the noose found at Talladega was a hoax orchestrated by Wallace. Those Confederate flags are still seen outside of race tracks. Some would prefer drivers just shut up and race. And the latest reminder NASCAR still has a way to go to be fully inclusive was Kyle Busch using an ableist slur Sunday after the Martinsville Speedway race.
NASCAR is hardly the only sport struggling to deal with fans whose viewpoints don’t align with where the sport wants to move.
“Racist fandom is part of American sports, traditionally,” Moore said. “It’s always been there in every sport. But there’s ways to deal with it. And I think the NBA recently is starting to kick fans out, right? Just take away their tickets. We see soccer in Europe dealing with this all the time where you’re gonna stop letting fans come in. And so NASCAR has to figure out what they want to do, and it has to be [a] no-nonsense approach.”
Metcalf is encouraged every time he hears about someone in the NASCAR garage calling out racist behaviors or language, but he said he hasn’t forgotten the times fans in the grandstands hurled insults at him and made him feel unwelcome. He can guess what someone with a Confederate flag tattoo thinks of him.
People have made comments about Breidinger’s skin color, she recalled, and every time she races, she hears sexist comments directed at her.
“I definitely do hope that we get to that point where we’re all just equal and there’s no need for labels,” Breidinger said. “For me, people ask, like, ‘All these headlines have you saying, ‘Arab-American female.’ If you want to be equal, why are you mentioning it?’ Because we’re not equal yet.”
(Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
At Talladega in October, Wallace won his first Cup race and became just the second Black driver, following Scott, to win at NASCAR’s highest level. But Wallace is still often booed — second in boos behind Busch, he suspects — and said his haters have actually gotten louder since 2020.
“It’s definitely taken a turn for the worse as far as fan interaction,” Wallace said. “That’s them. They’re the ones who have to lay down at night and realize what’s going on. … Some just may not like me as a driver, which is fine. But it’s just ironic that the boos have gotten louder and more consistent ever since last year. And so it’s just, I guess, quite the timing.”
However, the majority of NASCAR fans have been supportive of the sport’s anti-racism and inclusion efforts, Thompson said, noting that the governing body works to not let a vocal minority determine the narrative about the sport.
“No one’s in the business, particularly nowadays, of firing their customers,” Thompson said. “But we also know and understand that true NASCAR fans are going to continue to be supportive about this, and if lifelong fans decide that this is not for them anymore because they’re opposed to the sport being more inclusive, then unfortunately, we’re OK with continuing to move on.”
Danica Patrick will cross off a bucket-list item with her first 26.2-mile race, the Boston Marathon.
Among the 20,000 Boston Marathon runners in this year’s race, Danica Patrick probably won’t stand out right away. But the number adorning her bib during Monday’s race might catch people’s attention, if they’re looking closely.
For her first 26.2-miler, Patrick will wear bib No. 500 in the prestigious marathon. Referencing her 14-year career at the highest levels of motor sports, the number is a nod to her achievements in the Indianapolis 500 and Daytona 500 from the Boston Athletic Association, the event organizer.
And when she crosses the finish line — she hopes near the four-hour mark — she’ll check off a lifelong goal.
“The only bucket list item I have is to run a marathon,” Patrick told For The Win recently.
“And I hope that it will be fun because the focuses have been train, be prepared, feel good, have fun.”
Since retiring from racing in NASCAR and IndyCar in 2018, Patrick has only slowed down in the literal sense. She’s been part of NBC’s Indy 500 broadcasts; last year, she launched Danica Rosé, sourced from Provence, France, and still has her Napa Valley-based wine brand, Somnium; and she hosts a weekly podcast called, Pretty Intense. And, of course, she’s still a fitness expert who regularly posts her workouts and motivational messages to her hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers.
But marathon training is totally different from something like CrossFit or a tough workout Patrick writes for herself. Luckily, she’s not doing it alone.
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Patrick, 39, expects this to be her only marathon. And she’ll be joined by her “ride or die fitness crew” and two training partners: her sister, Brooke Selman, 37, and their friend, Erin Buntin, 43. They’re all fitness buffs who do CrossFit and push each other, and Monday, they’ll all run their first 26.2-miler together in the 125th Boston Marathon.
Typically, runners have to qualify for the Boston Marathon, so they’ve completed at least one 26.2-mile race before. But Patrick, Selman and Buntin are able to run Boston without qualifying because they’re running to support a charity, the Light Foundation, started by former New England Patriot Matt Light. Patrick is the honorary captain for Team Speed of Light. The three have collectively raised about $48,000, Buntin said.
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“When you’re like, ‘I’m running Boston,’ [people are] like, ‘Oh, where do you qualify?’ And they almost discredit you a little bit,” Selman said. “And I’m like, screw that. … What we’re doing is really neat because we’re running with a purpose.”
The trio have been training for the Boston Marathon since about Memorial Day, but most of the time, they’re not physically together with Patrick based in Scottsdale, Selman in Indianapolis and Buntin in Green Bay.
All three agreed Patrick is the most natural runner among them, and the retired race car driver said that goes back to when she was growing up and would run with her mom early in the mornings — even in the winters. She said while running long distances isn’t part of her typical workout routines, it always feels comfortable and familiar.
In part because of that, Patrick said she went into her marathon training confident. Perhaps too confident, as she focused more on the longer runs than the shorter ones in between. So “as the mileage got cranking,” there was a bit of a reality check.
“[Arizona] has been so nuclear hot,” Patrick said about her training this summer. “And so I think my 16- and 18-mile runs really made me realize, ‘Holy crap, I better dial this in because I feel terrible right now.'”
So she adjusted her training and focus. But she said because “the nature of the sport is really hard on the body” — and in very different way than NASCAR and IndyCar were — she’s gained a greater perspective about the importance of recovery, like dry needling, and refueling. From electrolytes and sodium to energy gel products recommended by Selman, Patrick said she’s learned how to sustain her body properly for a feat like the marathon.
And as she ran from wherever her schedule allowed — like desert training at home in Arizona and “punishing” altitude runs in Telluride, Colorado — hydration has been everything.
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Patrick noted she’s also learned to play the “mental game” of distance running. Thinking about what hurts and what feels good during a long run, the mind games she plays with herself help her push past the pain — or, as she recently wrote on Instagram, when “[expletive] gets real after about 12” miles.
“‘I’m gonna take a UCAN Edge [energy gel] at mile 14, I just gotta get to mile 14,'” Patrick said she tells herself.
“‘OK, I know every mile, I’m going to take a big drink of my electrolytes. That’s gonna feel really good.’ And so you just start making mini goals. But the body is really giving you the big middle finger, saying, ‘This hurts. This is hard. I’m dehydrated.'”
And if Patrick, Selman or Buntin need help or an extra push, there’s a group chat for that. Patrick said she and Buntin — who met at a CrossFit gym in Green Bay a few years ago — have built a “strong foundation” for their friendship rooted in working out, which quickly included Selman.
“We talk every single day about either how your runs are going or fueling,” Selman said. “What are you doing and drinking and hydration and all that stuff. We are constantly talking, and it is a topic that we talk about literally every day.”
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Although the three soon-to-be marathoners live in different cities across the country, they’ve still found a handful of times to run together, like they will in Boston. Buntin said she and Selman ran together in Madison this summer, and more recently, Patrick and Buntin completed their final long training run, a 16-miler, in Chicago early last week and have since been in taper mode.
But as a group, the only time the three of them have trained for the marathon together was their longest training run, a 20-miler in Napa in September. And they treated it — like they have been with several of their longer runs — as a dress rehearsal for Boston, wearing the same clothes they intend to wear on race day down to the socks and coming prepared with supplies to limit chafing or blisters.
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“This whole thing has really proven to be a growth for us mentally, physically, emotionally [and], I would say, even spiritually,” Buntin said. “And so those are the motivations, right? So if somebody is in a mental block or has a [expletive] run, you have two people going, ‘We’ll break it down,’ and, ‘What were your shining moments in it?’ Or ‘[Where] physically you’re having a hard time?'”
For some people attempting a marathon for the first time, the goal can simply be to finish. As a self-described “non-runner,” Buntin’s goals for Boston were more focused on having a strong training program and enjoying it and being injury-free on race day. Selman is aiming to have the kind of race where she feels good — or as good as one could expect — by the end.
For Patrick, as she was building up her mileage early on in training, she was running about 8:15-minute miles and initially thought an 8:40 pace for Boston would be attainable. But after learning more about her body through training, plus weather potentially playing a role, she and her group have a more realistic goal of a four-hour marathon – or a little higher than a nine-minute mile pace.
But Patrick outlined tiers of goals for her first marathon, ranging from breaking four hours to a 9:30-minute mile pace to finishing the race. And running and staying together through all 26.2 miles will “make a really big difference,” she said.
“It will help be really distracting to just be running with your friends and being able to run together,” Patrick said. “It’s like, y’all just kind of pull each other along.
“And it’s supposed to be fun! I’m not going to set some world record. I’m not going to go win the race; that’s not going to happen. And so the point is that it’s something that I wanted to do.”
Still, the Boston Marathon course is a daunting one that includes the infamous Heartbreak Hill — the final in a series of hills with a steep half-mile incline at mile 20 when runners’ legs are anything but fresh. But Patrick renamed it, Buntin said, to something more positive because once the hill is completed, there are only about six miles left.
“We felt like the name Heartbreak Hill had such a fearful word tied to it that we’ve actually referred to as Home Free Hill,” Buntin said. “Because once we get beyond that, we are literally home free.”
‘Simone vs Herself’ offers an inside look at the GOAT’s challenges and triumphs at the Tokyo Olympics.
Simone Biles sobs. Speaking to a camera from her hotel room at the Tokyo Olympics, she pauses to catch her breath as she struggles to detail something she says she doesn’t even understand fully.
It’s July 27, the day of the women’s gymnastics team final, which she withdrew from before missing most of the remaining competition. Biles is trying to explain the “mental block” that’s creating an extraordinary amount of fear when she’s about to do a skill, endangering her even more than what’s already guaranteed in a gravity-defying sport. As her voice cracks, you can hear how scared and devastated she’s feeling as she struggles with the “twisties” at the year-delayed Games.
This heartbreaking moment for the greatest gymnast in the world opens the two-part finale of Simone vs Herself, a seven-episode Facebook Watch documentary about Biles’ life in the year leading up to the Tokyo Games and everything that transpired during them.
“I’m getting lost in my skills,” she emotionally explains.
“I’m so prepared that I don’t know if I’m over-thinking,” she continues. “It’s getting to the point where it’s becoming dangerous. It’s like, it could happen at any other time. I don’t get why it happens at the Olympics. In gym, we call it the ‘twisties.’ Should be a forbidden word because it sucks to have them, for anybody.”
Biles breaks down crying, unable to comprehend why something so detrimental is happening to her on the biggest stage ahead of a competition for which she’s been waiting for five years, since the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Episode 6 of Simone vs Herself (@vsonwatch) is streaming now on @facebookwatch. I hope that by showing you all my journey, you’ll see the pressure on athletes and how at the end of the day, we’re just human. Click the link in my bio to watch! #SimoneVsHerselfpic.twitter.com/0pkKQQzSAe
“I’m starting to get mental blocks where I don’t want go for the skill because I’m afraid I’m going to get hurt because I’m not doing the correct flip. And it’s like, at this point, I don’t know what to do because it’s too dangerous to do. We can’t change the routines, so I’m just gonna have to see. Trying to keep it together, but like, I don’t know. I’m so confused.”
This opening scene is one of many agonizing moments captured in the sixth and seventh episodes of Simone vs Herself. The first five episodes carried viewers through her training journey leading up to the Olympics, including the challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic and her first competitions back.
But much of the final two were shot during and after the Olympics and capture a nearly day-by-day account of how Biles felt and what she was experiencing while sidelined with the “twisties.”
Director Gotham Chopra told For The Win in June the docuseries would be raw and highlight the human side of the GOAT gymnast, but the two-part series finale shows Biles’ vulnerable side and one not many have ever seen. And it’s difficult to watch, even if the viewers’ discomfort pales in comparison to the internal battle Biles describes.
Flashing back to weeks before the Games, the sixth episode focuses largely on the U.S. Olympic trials, and Biles’ coaches, Cecile and Laurent Landi, say the pressure to make Team USA is heavier than at the actual Games because of the elite-level competition.
The first part of the finale ends with Biles explaining her emotions after qualifying for a second Olympics with an added year of training. But that extra year took a toll on her body, she says, and speaks consistently throughout the episode about how much physical pain she is in.
“I’m just proud of how far I’ve come — no matter really what happens over there,” Biles says. “I still did it.”
The seventh and final episode of Simone vs Herself is a near day-by-day account of what Biles felt and experienced at the Olympic Games. Viewers hear and see her frustration while practicing, her confusion about why she’s plagued by the “twisties” in this moment and the heartbreaking phone call she made to her mother to say she’s pulling out of the team competition after her vault.
Biles, at one point, says she’s in denial about what’s happening, partly because she usually needs about two weeks to recover from the “twisties,” and she thought her Olympics were over.
“People were like, ‘Oh, she had a bad turn, she quit,'” Biles says reflecting on the Games. “But it’s like, no, that’s not it. I’ve done gymnastics on broken ribs, my two broken big toes — or shattered, because they’re not just broken; they’re shattered in pieces — kidney stones, I’ve been through sexual abuse, I came back to the sport. There’re so many barriers that I’ve gotten past, and so to say I just had a bad turn and quit, like if you look at all of those, you can see I’m not a quitter. I’m a fighter.”
“I feel like I had a lot of courage. I know a lot of people look down upon it, but I gave the team the best chance at medaling,” Biles continues, while starting to tear up. “And it’s like, five years and I just — I put myself first for once, and I don’t think they realize that. It’s like, how do you work five years to go to a meet and then tell your coach you can’t finish? It doesn’t happen every year, and so I feel like that was really hard for me to relay to people.”
After being confused, she says her emotions shifted to anxious and scared. Then annoyed and angry. But eventually, she says she came to accept that this was supposed to happen, she doesn’t have to explain herself to anyone and “life will move on.”
Still, she says she couldn’t move past wanting to compete at the Olympics just one more time — something that had been her dream for the last five years. So she went with her balance beam routine in the last women’s final because she felt, with a changed dismount, she could safely complete it.
Not expecting to medal, Biles won bronze, in addition to her silver medal for the team competition.
“This bronze feels like a gold to me, I don’t care what y’all say,” she says.
“If you would have told me like a year ago I’m only walking out of 2020 Olympics with two medals, I would have cried,” Biles explains. “But now I’m just — I’m happy. I walked away with two medals I didn’t think we would get, and in one piece, so I’m not mad.”
