Some of the most influential women in sports tell their stories of courage, adversity, and triumph to trailblazer Bonnie-Jill Laflin, the first and only female NBA scout with the Los Angeles Lakers, in her new book, In A League of Her Own: Celebrating Female Firsts in Sports. A half-century after Title IX legislation leveled the playing field for women and girls, the time has come to celebrate the lives and careers of some of the most notable groundbreaking women in sports, while also encouraging future generations to make history of their own. In a League of Her Own: Celebrating Female Firsts in Sports shares the stories of nineteen impactful women, including Billie Jean King, Rachel Balkovec, Danica Patrick, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Laila Ali, Jeanie Buss, and Mary Lou Retton and gives them a voice to share their experiences across the sports industry. These iconic women open up to Bonnie-Jill Laflin, herself a trailblazer as the first and only female NBA scout, about the sobering realities females face in the sports world and the many obstacles they had to overcome. But they also celebrate the amazing support they received from colleagues, friends, family, and the women who came before them, and impart their own desires to inspire young women through their stories. They discuss such issues as the pressures of social media, the sexism that still exists in boardrooms and locker rooms, and their hopes for closer equality in the sports space. Their journeys are each unique, but together, they have changed the face of sports and culture forever. She is also the founder of Hounds and Heroes and Horses, a non-profit that pairs rescue dogs as service and therapy dogs with wounded warriors and veterans, as well as rescue horses as equine therapy for our recuperating service members. Working to improve the lives of veterans, she has traveled to military bases across the country and abroad on 19 USO tours, including visits to bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-like-it-s-live--4113802/support.

In the tradition of the New York Times bestseller Empire of the Summer Moon comes a spellbinding account of a forgotten chapter in American history: the deadly confrontation between Native Americans and colonists in Massachusetts in 1704 and the tragic saga that unfolded, written by acclaimed historian James Swanson.Once it was one of the most famous events in early American history. Today, it has been nearly forgotten.In an obscure, two-hundred-year-old museum in a little village in western Massachusetts, there lies what once was the most revered but now totally forgotten relic from the history of early New England—the massive, tomahawk-scarred door that came to symbolize the notorious Deerfield Massacre. This impregnable barricade—known to early Americans as “The Old Indian Door”—constructed from double-thick planks of Massachusetts oak and studded with hand-wrought iron nails to repel the flailing tomahawk blades of several attacking native tribes, is the sole surviving artifact from the most dramatic moment in colonial American history: Leap Year, February 29, 1704, a cold, snowy night when hundreds of native Americans and their French allies swept down upon an isolated frontier outpost and ruthlessly slaughtered its inhabitants.The sacking of Deerfield led to one of the greatest sagas of adventure, survival, sacrifice, family, honor, and faith ever told in North America. 112 survivors, including their fearless minister, the Reverand John Williams, were captured and led on a 300-mile forced march north, into enemy territory in Canada. Any captive who faltered or became too weak to continue the journey—including Williams’s own wife and one of his children—fell under the knife or tomahawk.Survivors of the march willed themselves to live and endured captivity. Ransomed by the King of England’s royal governor of Massachusetts, the captives later returned home to Deerfield, rebuilt their town and, for the rest of their lives, told the incredible tale. The memoir of Rev. Williams, The Redeemed Captive, became the first bestselling book in American history and published a few years after his liberation, it remains a literary classic. The old Indian door is a touchstone that conjures up one of the most dramatic and inspiring stories of colonial America—and now, finally, this legendary event is brought to vivid life by popular historian James Swanson.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-like-it-s-live--4113802/support.