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Playlist: O'Dark 30 episode 182 (4-26)

Compiled By: KUT

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KUT's O’Dark 30 features the very best from the world of independent radio that we can find here on PRX and elsewhere. Sunday nights at 10 on Austin's KUT 90.5 we present 3 hours of a bit of everything from the big wide world of independent radio production.

Episode 182 (4-26) includes 99% Invisible #77- Game Changer...Invisible Ink: For Love...Staying in the Driver's Seat...KUT's Views and Brews Remix: Dueling Organs--the Hammond B-3...Stories from the Heart of the Land I - Portraits in Landscapes...KUT's Liner Notes: Clifford Brown

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99% Invisible #77- Game Changer

From Roman Mars | Part of the 99% Invisible (Director's Cut) series | 11:46

The two tweaks to basketball that made it the sports juggernaut it is today.

Playing
99% Invisible #77- Game Changer
From
Roman Mars

99invisible-logo-square-for_prx_medium_small

Regardless of how you feel about basketball, you’ve got to appreciate the way it can bring groups of strangers together to share moments of pure adulation and collective defeat. 
Case in point: the buzzer beater:

 

You know this moment: time is running out, the team is down by one, a player arcs the ball from downtown just as the buzzer sounds—and sinks it.  it’s exhilarating. It’s heart breaking. And most of all, it’s good design. But it’s not the way basketball was originally designed.  
The invention of basketball is credited to James Naismith, a phys ed instructor who had the idea to mount peach baskets to a the walls of a Springfield, Massachusetts gymnasium, and have his students attempt to throw a leather ball through them.  
After points were earned, the game was put on hold until someone could retrieve the ball with a ladder.
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(The first basketball court at what is now Springfield College)
Eventually, the bottomless basket became the standard, and early 20th Century basketball became a speedier game than in the 1890s.  But watch any game from as late as the 1950s and it still seems dreadfully slow compared with how the game looks today.

 

Here’s what’s missing from the basketball of yore:  the shot clock.
During pro basketball’s infancy in the 1950s, nothing forced a player to shoot the ball.  If a team was winning, and they wanted to keep their lead, the team could literally hold on to the ball for ten minutes and run the clock out.
The game may not have seemed slow to the players, but it wasn’t a particularly compelling spectator sport. Especially when you had games like the November 22, 1950 bout between the Ft. Wayne Pistons and the Minneapolis Lakers, which had a final score of 19-18.
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Fast forward to 1954. Enter Danny Biasone, owner the Syracuse Nationals. Biasone had crunched some numbers, and he believed that some simple arithmetic could save basketball.
By this point, an exciting game of pro ball would have teams scoring 80 or more points—a score that Biasone figured was high enough to retain the audience’s interest. Biasone started tracking how many shots a team needed to make to score the requisite 80-something points, and he found that each team needed to take an average of 60 shots per game.
So given… 
60 shots per game x 2 teams = 120 total shots per game
And…
One game = 48 minutes = 2880 seconds
Thus, divide the number of shots needed by the length of the game…
2880 seconds per game / 120 shots
And you get…
24 seconds per shot
Therefore, Biasone reasoned, an exciting game of basketball needed a team to take shot every 24 seconds. To hold players to that standard, Biasone instituted a 24-second shot clock, and a new rule to go with it—if a team doesn’t take a shot by the time that clock runs out, it’s a violation and they lose possession of the ball. No more running the clock for minutes at a time.
There’s any number of reasons a basketball fan can love the sport—the pace, the intensity, the sheer athleticism of the players—but it just might be that they all take root in that tiny, nearly invisible 24 second shot clock.
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(Credit: gorbould)
Danny Biasone was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000. Basketball legend Dolph Schayes, who played under Biasone’s leadership on the Syracuse Nationals, offered a tribute at the ceremony.
 
Reporter Eric Mennel spoke with Dolph Schayes—who played pro basketball both before and after the advent of the shot clock—about how Biasone’s contribution to the game shaped basketball into what it has become today.
A different version of this story aired previously on BackStory with the American History Guys, where Eric is a staff producer.

99% Invisible #77- Game Changer | 11:46

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Staying in the Driver's Seat

From Sean Rasmussen | Part of the Radio Docs series | 11:46

Will Ted, an 82-year-old man keep his license -- or will be be stuck in his suburban home with nothing to do and nowhere to go? The subject is also the producer's father -- adding a personal touch, and a bittersweet ending.

Playing
Staying in the Driver's Seat
From
Sean Rasmussen

Dad_small This doc follows Ted, an 82-year-old man (and the producer's father) as he tries to renew his license. He's been driving for 66 years and the automobile is central to his lifestyle. He'll be isolated, and trapped in his suburban home without his car. Will he pass the driver's tests? He does, but shortly after has a stroke which takes him off the road for good.

Ted's not alone -- pretty soon seniors will be 40% of the population. What will these millions do when they can't drive? Our cities aren't set up properly for them.

Ted tells stories of the old-days -- his first car was a Model-T. I contextualize Ted's plight with the larger issue of Elderly mobility. Hear from Gil Penelosa, executive director of 8-80 Cities, a non-profit organization that promotes pedestrian friendly cities and mobility rights for the young, old and poor.

Staying in the Driver's Seat | 11:46

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Stories from the Heart of the Land I - Portraits in Landscapes

From Atlantic Public Media | Part of the Stories from the Heart of the Land series | 55:30

Hour-long programs about the intersection of people and the natural world

Playing
Stories from the Heart of the Land I - Portraits ...
From
Atlantic Public Media

Shllogo_small You may have noticed that every time you print from your computer, you are faced with a choice: Portrait or Landscape. That can represent a way of looking at the world. One or the other: The head and shoulders of the human form vs. the broad spread of the world we occupy. Or maybe not. Maybe we actually find ourselves, each of us, as portraits within landscapes. Pieces by Elizabeth Arnold, Jonathan Goldstein, The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva), Chris Brookes, Kelly McEvers, Jesikah Maria Ross 1. Out in the Great Bear Rainforest, Elizabeth Arnold discovers that, though she may be ready for the "Great", and for the "Rainforest", she is not so ready for the "Bear." 2. Armed only with a tent, a pack of hot dogs, and a twelve-year old, Jonathan Goldstein confronts his fear of the woods. 3. The Kitchen Sisters' portrait of activist Mark DuBois and his dramatic effort to save a wild river in the west. 4. What is it like to be exiled from a landscape that you can see from your window? When his legs fail him, Chris Brookes finds out. 5. The story of one man's prairie, and his work to let it flourish, even after he dies. Kelly McEvers visits Bob's Prairie in Illinois. 6. Through every season, 97-year-old rancher Attilio Genasci tends to his cattle and his alpine valley in California. A portrait of a man in his landscape by Jesikah Maria Ross. Original Music for the series was composed and performed by Bill Frisell NB: ALL PROMOS INTERCHANGEABLE (even those with titles) you can pick and choose. :15 promos need "...Join host Jay Allison for Stories from the heart of the Land" tag. Funding: Supported by The Nature Conservancy and Visa. Contact: Deborah Blakeley - blakeley@pclink.com 612-377-1207

Stories from the Heart of the Land I - Portraits ... | 55:30

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Clifford Brown

From KUT | Part of the KUTX Liner Notes series | 02:35

Jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown is known for his precise and captivatingly smooth technique yet his life was tragically cut short in a car accident when he was only 25.

Playing
Clifford Brown
From
KUT

Clifford-brownprx_small Brown recorded most notably with drummer Max Roach and saxophonist Sonny Rollins, and his compositions Joy Spring and Daahoud are jazz standards to this day. His lasting impact on the jazz cannon is profound. In this short feature Rabbi Neil Blumofe discusses what Brown's legacy teaches us about the strength and importance of following ones own path in spite of contradictory expectations.

Clifford Brown | 02:35

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