<p>Kevin Blackistone spotlights the power of sport as an institution to illuminate critical social and political issues and serve as a platform to ignite social change.</p><p>Kevin is an award-winning national sports columnist at <em>The Washington Post</em>, a panelist on ESPN’s <em>Around the Horn</em>, and a contributor to NPR. He is also a professor at the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism and co-author of <em>A Gift for Ron</em>, a memoir by former NFL star Everson Walls. Kevin co-produced and co-wrote the award-winning film <em>Imagining the Indian</em>, a 2021 documentary on the history of and fight against mascoting Native Americans.</p><p>Kevin started his journalism career as a city reporter at The Boston Globe before moving on to The Chicago Reporter. Later, he joined <em>The Dallas Morning News</em> as a general assignment reporter. After covering Nelson Mandela’s U.S. tour, he moved to the sports page where he covered such epic sporting events as the Summer Olympics, Super Bowl, Wimbledon, the World Cup, the Tour de France, the NBA, NFL, MLB and more.</p><p>Drawing on a storied journalism career that has spanned more than 30 years, Kevin shares his expert insights on issues relating to diversity in sports as well as contemporary and sometimes contentious topics, from Colin Kaepernick’s protest of the national anthem to the role of professional sports in social justice.</p>
Sports journalist, ESPN panelist, and University of Maryland journalism professor
<ul><li><strong>Race and Sport: Your Brain on Sports</strong></li><li> An address particularly about how young black men in college sports are pawns in a system that, ironically, they can control if only they exercised their collective power. </li><li><strong>Sport as a Social Institution: Don't Believe the Type</strong></li><li>As athletes and sport leagues around the country have been embroiled in controversy after athlete protests focusing on racial injustice, we've been reminded that sport as a social institution has the power to reflect the tenor of the time as well as serve as a platform to promote social change. </li></ul><p><br></p>