In this age of social distancing, podcasts provide a much-needed respite from the loneliness and boredom that can arise from self-imposed isolation. Perhaps you’re feeling stir-crazy (in my case, stir-lazy) and craving some content to get your blood pumping (or just something to listen to during your at-home workouts). Might we suggest a winning combination, one that might add some variety to your usual true-crime cocktail? Sports and crime. If you’ve finished up season 1 of Dare Me and are craving more crime stories set within the cutthroat world of sports, look no further than these eleven podcasts.
Sports Illustrated True Crime, Seasons 1 & 2
(Sports Illustrated and Cadence13)
Whether or not you’re a sports fan, I dare you not to become utterly engrossed in this podcast’s blend of in-depth investigative reporting and criminal intrigue set within the high-stakes world of professional football. Each season tackles a different case, and the long-form approach allows a closer look at as-yet-unsolved mysteries.
In Season 1: Fall of a Titan, Sports Illustrated Staff Writer Tim Rohan dives deep into the 2009 death of former Tennessee Titans quarterback and one-time NFL MVP Steve McNair. On July 4, 2009, 36 year-old McNair and his 20 year-old mistress Sahel Kazemi were found dead in McNair’s Nashville condo. Four days later, Nashville police ruled McNair’s death a murder-suicide: Kazemi (who went by Jenni) had shot McNair in a fit of jealous rage and then killed herself.
An open-and-shut case? Or was it something else? Did Kazemi actually kill McNair in the first place?
Rohan, who spent 15 months digging into this case, interviewed dozens of sources, including McNair’s family members, friends, teammates, and a retired Nashville police officer who couldn’t let the case go and continued to work his own investigation nearly ten years after McNair’s death. What Rohan’s journalistic doggedness uncovers is a story that melds money, sex, power, and secrets.
If, like this reporter, you binge the entire season in one go, you’re in luck: a new season of SI True Crime drops later this year. In Season 2: Lateral Damage, Rohan passes the mic to award-winning SI senior writer S.L. Price, who explores the story of college-football legend turned alleged murderer Mariet Ford. In 1982, UC Berkeley’s Ford performed a key role in what is known in football lore as “The Play,” arguably the most famous play in college-football history. Fifteen years later, Ford was arrested for murdering his pregnant wife, three year-old son, and unborn child. Ford, who claims he is innocent, is currently serving a 45 years to life sentence in a maximum-security prison. His first parole hearing is three years away.
Price brings a unique perspective to this podcast: the veteran sportswriter first reported on the case in 1998, around the same time Ford’s murder trial began. Price wrote a feature-length piece on Ford for SI, but the piece never ran. In fact, it’s the only story of Price’s in his 25-year SI career that never made it to print. Now, a story more than 20 years in the making is coming to light for the first time. In Lateral Damage, Price tells two stories: his original reporting journey in 1998 and what happens when he revisits the case more than two decades later.
Carruth
(The Charlotte Observer/McClatchy Studios)
Carruth explores another case at the intersection of crime and football: the murder of Cherica Adams. In 1999, Adams was a successful real estate agent for a prominent Charlotte builder and eight months pregnant with her first child. The beautiful, high-achieving 24 year-old was in an on-again-off-again relationship with Rae Carruth, a Carolina Panthers wide receiver who’d been a first-round pick in the 1997 NFL Draft. On November 16, 1999, Adams was driving home from seeing a movie with Carruth when she was shot four times. Carruth was not the shooter (in fact, he was driving in a separate car from Adams), though he would eventually be tried and convicted of murder-for-hire. Amazingly, Adams survived for 28 days after the shooting, long enough for her to deliver her son (who is still alive today) and point the finger at Carruth. Like SI True Crime, Carruth dives deep into the twists and turns of a single case. Host Scott Fowler (a Charlotte Observer reporter who has been covering the story for the past 20 years) spent a year reexamining the case and digging up fresh leads. The shocking details that Fowler’s investigation uncovers shed new light on a two decade-old case.
Smoked
(Miami Herald/McClatchy Studios)
Sometimes, a career in professional sports provides the perfect cover for operating a massive criminal enterprise. Case in point: race car driver Randy Lanier, whose racing career was funded by his drug-smuggling exploits. In the 1980s, Lanier’s independent team was notable for beating out well-funded sponsored teams. Lanier himself won the Indy 500 Rookie of the Year in 1986. Lanier was leading three lives: up-and-coming racer, family man with two children, and drug smuggler. Between 1982 and 1986, Lanier ran a multimillion-dollar pot-smuggling enterprise with one of notorious mob boss Meyer Lansky’s grand-nephews. Lanier’s success (and the source of his income as an “independent” racer) began to raise suspicions and, in 1986, he was caught not long after smuggling in 165,000 lbs of weed. For his time as a major drug kingpin, Lanier was sentenced to life without parole in federal prison. To find out what became of Lanier (and whether he ever got behind the wheel of a race car again), you’ll have to listen to Smoked. Set against the backdrop of wild early ‘80s South Florida, Smoked examines The War on Drugs—and recent strides towards the full legalization—through the prism of one man’s experience.
Killing Lorenzen: Love | Basketball | Murder
(WREG)
How does a six-foot-eleven NBA player vanish in the middle of the night, never to be seen alive or heard from again? And how does his case remain unsolved for seven years—despite the fact that his murder was capture on a recorded 911 phone call?
Produced by Memphis-area CBS affiliate WREG, Killing Lorenzen tells the story of Lorenzen Wright, a stand-out NBA player whose thirteen-season career included spots on the LA Clippers, Atlanta Hawks, Memphis Grizzlies, and Atlanta Hawks. On July 18, 2010, Wright’s career came to an abrupt halt, when he disappeared from his home in the Memphis suburbs. His body was discovered ten days later in a wooded area. The 34 year-old had died of gunshot wounds.
A 911 dispatcher received a phone call from Wright’s cell phone the night that the NBA center disappeared, but the dispatcher did not report the call for eight days. That call—which contained the sound of eleven gunshots—forever documented the horrifying final moments of Wright’s life.
In Killing Lorenzen, the WREG team (who’ve covered Wright since his days on the University of Memphis basketball team) unravel a twisted, heartbreaking story whose implications are bound up with money, sex, power, religion, and love.
Sports Criminals
(Parcast Network)
If you’re in the mood for an anthology series as opposed to a single story told over the course of one season, might we suggest this Parcast Original? The cut-throat nature of sports produces top-tier athletes who will do anything to succeed. But could that same competitive ethos drive some athletes to commit the unthinkable? In Sports Criminals, hosts Carter Roy and Tim Johnson examine sports heroes and legends whose talent on the field is rivaled only by their criminal notoriety. The hosting pair have covered such felonious athletes as Tonya Harding, Michael Vick, Oscar Pistorious, Pete Rose, and they continue to churn out fresh, ripped-from-the-sidelines stories every Thursday.
Crime in Sports
(James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman)
For another anthologized take on sports-related true crime, check out Crime in Sports. On this podcast, comedians Pietragallo and Whisman examine legendary sports figures who have (in the hosts’ words) “lost big games—with the law!” The episodes are well-researched and long (each clocks in at around three hours!), so you’ll have plenty of content to keep you engaged. When it comes to this podcast, variety is the name of the game. From baseball, football, and basketball to figure skating, MMA fighting, and cricket, Crime in Sports runs the gamut in terms of the kinds of sports covered. Over the course of 200 episodes (and counting!), Crime in Sports unspools the most unbelievable tales from the criminal underbelly that lurks just beneath the world of professional sports.
Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez
(Wondery/The Boston Globe)
The saga of Aaron Hernandez has given rise to numerous media takes on the late-New-England-Patriot-turned-criminal (among them a 2020 Netflix docuseries and specials on Oxygen and Investigation Discovery). This six-part series, the result of a meticulous in-depth investigation by The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team, puts Hernandez’s life and choices under the microscope. Even if you’ve already watched Netflix’s Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez (if you haven’t, I’d recommend quaran-streaming it stat), Gladiator is 100% worth your ear-time.
The podcast traces Hernandez’s path, from his days as a high-school superstar in small-town Connecticut to his success and legal troubles at the University of Florida to his meteoric rise—and subsequent downfall—as a NFL player. Hosted by award-winning long-time Globe sports reporter Bob Hohler, Gladiator tries to answer the many questions swirling around the case, chief among them how Hernandez transformed from talented tight end to convicted murderer. The podcast also raises larger questions, ones that have implications beyond this case. What does the Aaron Hernandez story tell us about how “Football Inc” does business? Could certain interventions have prevented this situation—if so, whose responsibility was it to step in? What role, if any, did Aaron’s repeated injuries and rumors about his sexuality play in this case? Through exclusive interviews, documents, and audio recordings (many of which were not public until the podcast aired), Gladiator aims to bring some clarity to a case that continues to haunt the American public.
Confronting: O.J. Simpson with Kim Goldman
(GLASS/Wondery)
When it comes to criminal athletes, O.J. Simpson’s name is probably at the top of your list. In 1995, in what was dubbed the “Trial of the Century,” NFL Hall of Famer Simpson was acquitted of murdering former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. The case received an unprecedented amount of publicity and changed the landscape of American culture forever (some credit the case with ushering in the age of reality television). The O.J. Simpson case has been the subject of numerous media portrayals, both real and fictional, though Confronting offers a unique perspective of a familiar case. While most true-crime podcasts are told from an outsider perspective, Confronting tells the story of this case from an insider’s point of view. Host Kim Goldman, sister of victim Ron Goldman, reexamines the case that upended her life at the age of 22. Over the course of ten episodes, Goldman interviews prosecutors, investigators, witnesses, and jury members who decided to acquit Simpson. The result is an in-depth, searingly personal look at a notorious case.
Believed
(NPR/Michigan Radio)
For more than 20 years, Larry Nassar sexually abused over 250 gymnasts in his role as a doctor for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University. How did Nassar get away with his behavior for so long? What does it take for survivors to be believed? And what happens when survivors band together to fight back?
In Believed, award-winning hosts Kate Wells and Lindsey Smith of Michigan Radio examine how a serial predator perpetrated a decades-long pattern of abuse right under the noses of well-meaning parents, coaches, and gymnastics. Through survivors’ stories, firsthand interviews with parents and police, and Nassar’s own interrogation tapes, Wells and Smith unravel a story that points to deeper structural problems with how institutions deal with sexual abuse. Timely, moving, and well-researched, Believed is a testament to the bravery of survivors—and the need for profound systemic change.
Field of Screams
Rounding out our anthology trio is Field of Screams, a collaboration between comedians Michael Blank, Jason Voshall, and Jesse Schober that explores the seedier side of the sports world. If there’s one thing to say about this podcast, it’s that its three hosts aren’t afraid to “go there.” Field of Screams is a no-holds-barred approach to sports (and sports-adjacent) crime. From the 1990s Dallas “Cocaine Cowboys,” the Minnesota Vikings Party Sex Boat Scandal, bodybuilder-turned-murderess Sally “Killer” McNeil, and UK soccer hooliganism, Field of Screams explores the players, referees, and fans whose criminal exploits earned them a sport on this podcast. The show blends the best of anthology with longer-form storytelling: multipart episodes (among them a four-parter on O.J. Simpson and three on Larry Nassar) slow things down for stories that deserve a more in-depth look.
The Sneak
(USA Today Sports/For the Win/Wondery)
Disguises. Craigslist decoys. An inner tube.
What do these three props have in common? And how could they possibly be connected to a sports-related crime?
Meet Anthony Curcio, star athlete turned bank robber. In the late ‘90s, Curcio served as the captain of both his high-school football and basketball teams. A little more than ten years later, Curcio was serving time—six years in federal prison—for one of the most elaborate heists in American history.
How did this All-American boy—who achieved his childhood goal of playing Division I football for the University of Idaho Vandals—become a criminal mastermind? Was his September 2008 robbery of a Brink’s armored car—to the tune of $400,000!—a solo act? Or did Curcio have help? If so, why was he the only one to take the fall for the crime?
The Sneak is not just the story of one man’s transformation from athlete to criminal. It’s also about larger social, cultural, and economic forces at work (specifically the 2008 Financial Crisis and The Opioid Epidemic) and how these factors shape individual choices.
