Why They Banned Dunking (1968) w/ Mike Sielski
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's February 19th. This day in 1967, the NCAA has decided to ban dunking in the college game -- a move largely seen as a response to Lew Alcindor (soon known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and other Black players using the move.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Mike Sielski of The Philadelphia Inquirer to talk about the larger political and racial context of the dunk ban, and what the dunk has meant to the game of basketball over the years.
Mike's new book is "Magic In The Air: The Myth, the Mystery and the Soul of the Slam Dunk"
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:10.0 | This day, 1967, the UCLA Bruins are on their way to an undefeated season, a national championship, absolute dominance of college basketball throughout that era. |
| 0:20.3 | This was for a few reasons, |
| 0:21.6 | but one of the big ones was Lou Alcindar, who would soon change his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. |
| 0:26.9 | A dominant force like basketball had never really seen before, seven-foot-two, setting, scoring |
| 0:31.7 | records and changing the game from the moment he arrived on campus, still just a teenager. |
| 0:37.1 | Alcindar did a lot of things that no one else |
| 0:38.9 | could, and one of those that he did regularly was dunk. It was a relatively novel move at the time, |
| 0:44.5 | and now it is a signature part of basketball the dunk, but at the time, people freaked the heck out, |
| 0:50.7 | especially old white people. The old guard of college basketball, in fact, banned |
| 0:55.4 | the dunk after Alcinders started using it. There is larger context here, of course, 1967. |
| 1:01.3 | Such a heated time in politics, race relations, society in general, we've done tons of episodes |
| 1:06.4 | about 1967, 1968. So it is impossible to see this story of the dunk ban as anything but a political one. |
| 1:13.8 | So let's talk about it through that lens. We are going to call this our March Madness episode, |
| 1:18.2 | because we are indeed hurtling towards this year's college basketball tournament. So this counts as |
| 1:23.0 | our sports episode. But here, as always, to discuss Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter |
| 1:28.4 | Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there. Hello, Jody. Hey there. And our special guest for this |
| 1:34.6 | episode is Mike Sealski, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, who has written a number of books |
| 1:39.6 | about basketball. And the new one is called Magic in the air the myth the mystery and the soul of the |
| 1:46.2 | slam dunk mike welcome to the show thanks for joining us thank you for having me guys i appreciate it |
| 1:52.3 | and we should get this out of the way i am a philly sports fan my dad grew up in philadelphia |
| 1:55.8 | so i've read your work for a long time and uh still living in the glow of the eagles championship |
... |
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