The Show for Sept. 3, 2026: Domestic violence and the Suns; Chase field repairs and more

When the Suns traded for Miles Bridges this offseason, his behavior off the court was as much a part of the conversation as his play on it. What the research says about gender-based violence in sports. Plus, the new head of the Maricopa County Stadium District on fixing up Chase Field.

Transcript

ANNOUNCER: KJZZ’s original production The Show is supported by Banner Health, Arizona’s largest nonprofit healthcare system. Last year, Banner reinvested more than $1.1 billion in community health and charity care. Banner Health, nonprofit for Arizona. bannerhealth.com/nonprofitforaz.

MARK BRODIE: Hi, I’m Mark Brodie, co-host of The Show, an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday, we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here’s today’s episode.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, the new head of the Maricopa County Stadium District on fixing up Chase Field and trying to find agreement with the D-backs on a deal to stay. And how an offseason trade by the Phoenix Suns has led to renewed conversations about gender-based violence in sports.

But first, temperatures are expected to be in the low to mid-100s for the next week or so as we move through September. And as my first guest this morning reports, this has been the second-hottest summer on record in Phoenix. Over June, July, and August, the average temperature was 97 degrees. KJZZ’s Katherine Davis-Young has been reporting on the Valley’s summer heat and the impact it’s had. She’s here now to talk about what she’s found. Good morning, Katie.

KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Good morning.

MARK BRODIE: So, I think it feels like kind of a distant memory at this point, but May wasn’t so bad here. A lot of people were thinking, "Oh, maybe the summer is going to be the summer we can actually spend outside." Not so.

KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Yeah, like you said, this actually turned out to be the second-hottest summer on record here. Meteorologists define summer as June, July and August. And the way they get those averages is you take the low temperature each day and the high temperature each day, add them together, divide by two, and that gives you an average. So the average for the whole season was 97 degrees. That ties with 2023 as the second-hottest summer average ever. Only 2024 was hotter.

And like you said, maybe it didn’t feel so bad to you this summer, maybe it didn’t feel so intense. Part of the reason for that is that a lot of the actual record heat that we had this summer happened overnight. So we set seven daily high temperature records throughout the summer, but 16 nights this summer had record-hot low temperatures. So that pushes up those averages. That’s part of the reason that we had this higher average this year.

One of the things, though, that really stands out about this year is how long this heat season has been. You mentioned May was kind of pleasant, but think back to March when we had this unprecedented heat wave. We hit 100 degrees earlier than we ever have in Phoenix before. So this second-hottest summer on record now, that immediately follows our hottest spring on record and our hottest winter on record. So 2026 is on track now to be probably the hottest year-round average for Phoenix ever.

MARK BRODIE: I was trying to put that March span out of my mind, so thank you for bringing it back up. But obviously, these extremely hot temperatures come with major public health consequences. We’ve seen, and you’ve reported, that heat-related deaths have been moving downward over the past few years in Maricopa County. What are we hearing about this year?

KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Yeah, there was that positive trend for a couple of years there. And unfortunately, those numbers are now moving in the wrong direction again this year. We have 136 heat-related deaths in Maricopa County confirmed so far, which is about double where we were at the same point last year. And there are more than 600 potentially heat-related deaths still under investigation. So I spoke with the Maricopa County medical examiner yesterday, and he told me that we may not see the all-time record high for heat-related deaths this year, but he expects it could be probably close.

MARK BRODIE: Any indication as to why that is? Why heat-related deaths are back to going up?

KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: It’s still pretty early to be trying to draw conclusions about why it’s so much higher this year. But high temperatures are obviously part of the picture. ... Especially because we did have this really early start to the heat season. We talked about this really intense March heat wave we had. So there were at least nine heat-related deaths in the month of March, which is unprecedented. I’ve gone back through several years of records in Maricopa County. There’s only ever been like one heat-related death in March before. So that was a big change this year.

Another factor that experts say makes heat more deadly is when you have these really long periods of intense heat and it never cools off at night. So you think about 115 during the day, 95 at night. Those kind of temperatures, day in and day out, especially for unsheltered people who can’t escape the heat, that becomes really dangerous.

So you might think back to the summer of 2023. We had this extreme heat warning in effect basically the whole month of July. That was a record 29-day long extreme heat warning from the National Weather Service. Well, this summer we actually had the second-longest extreme heat warning ever, which was 18 days from the end of July into early August. So when I spoke to the medical examiner, he tells me his office saw a similar surge in deaths during those two events in 2023 ... and this summer. And it’s worth noting that climate change is making these longer and more intense heat waves much more likely. So climate scientists say that Phoenix can expect a lot more of that, unfortunately, in the future.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so a lot of cities and the county have put a lot of investment into trying to reduce heat deaths and keep people safe, cooling centers, things like that. Do we have a sense of whether or not those services are being used and to what extent?

KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Yeah, so data from the city of Phoenix is showing that the city’s extended hour cooling centers have had more than 45,000 visits this summer, which is more than twice what they had seen around the same time last year. And other charitable organizations I’ve talked to are also reporting that they’ve stayed really busy. So that shows the demand is definitely there with these hotter temperatures.

There may also be higher levels of need this year. We know there have been cuts to the SNAP program, gas prices are much higher, energy costs are higher this year. So these really low-income families are feeling the financial pinch more potentially this year. We do know that a lot of heat-related deaths happen when you have, say, someone who can’t afford to run their air conditioner all day, or someone who can’t afford to fix it when it breaks. So that may be part of the issue as well.

MARK BRODIE: OK, so Katie, before I let you go, I mentioned it’s finally September. We all know temperatures in the low to mid-100s. Any sense of when we’re going to get some relief from these high temperatures?

KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Typically, Phoenix’s last 100-degree day is Oct. 5. In recent years, it’s been later October. Long-range forecasts right now from the National Weather Service are showing Arizona’s leaning toward above-normal temperatures for fall.

MARK BRODIE: All right. Something to not look forward to, I suppose. That is KJZZ’s Katherine Davis-Young. Katie, thanks so much.

KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Thank you.

MARK BRODIE: As the Diamondbacks chase a playoff spot during the final weeks of the season, the team and a newly reconstituted board are trying to finalize a deal to keep the D-backs at Chase Field. That’s the first step in unlocking hundreds of millions of public dollars that would be used for maintenance on the stadium. Axios Phoenix reports the team’s president has called the lease talks between the entities, quote, "nonproductive to date," which he says is costing everyone time to be making needed repairs to Chase Field.

Last year, state lawmakers approved and Gov. Hobbs signed a bill that allows for up to $500 million of sales and income tax money generated at and around the ballpark to be diverted to a fund to pay for repairs and maintenance. But before that happens, the team needs to agree that it’s staying at Chase Field into the future.

Mark Winkleman is the new executive director of the Maricopa County Stadium District, which is the entity working with the team on all this. He came by the studio earlier, before the D-backs team president was quoted, to talk about where things stand. And we started with whether he’s started coming up with a priority list, maybe with the team, about what needs to be done at the stadium and the order in which those things need to be done.

MARK WINKLEMAN: Yeah, we have. And the team has taken the lead on this because they operate the stadium. It’s their business. And so they’ve hired a national group to come in and assess the stadium and talk about ideas on what needs to be done. Obviously, we’ve got to make our own judgment and we’ve got to be good stewards of the public money. But it just makes sense for the team to take the lead on that since it is where they operate their business.

MARK BRODIE: So they come up with a list, and then you and the board go through it and say yay or nay and come up with like the bids to actually do the projects? Is that how that works?

MARK WINKLEMAN: Ultimately, I don’t think it’s a yay or nay. I think it’ll be a collaboration with the team as to what needs to be done. And honestly, it’s a lot of money, but the work is not very sexy. The stadium is 30 years old, and it needs, like any 30-year-old project, it needs some capital improvements and repairs.

So a lot of what the money’s going to be going for is fixing concrete, fixing air conditioning system, replacing the roof, the plumbing system. I keep getting people sending me videos of leaks in the bowels of the stadium, or not always the bowels, in the stadium. So there’s no question. Also had some friends that were at the concert, I think it was less than two weeks ago, talking about it was rather warm in the stadium. And so, yeah, there’s no question that some of this work needs to be done.

And so we’ll work cooperatively, or we intend to work cooperatively and solve out what needs to be done, the prioritization, how it’s going to get done, who the contractors are, that sort of thing.

MARK BRODIE: Do you feel like the amount of money that will be involved here will be enough to cover the repairs that need to be done?

MARK WINKLEMAN: Well, I don’t know the answer to that. I suppose anybody that wants to fix up a stadium like this could probably spend as much money as exists. It’s a significant amount of money. I hope it’s enough to do the job. I assume that that topic was debated in the Legislature as they determined how much money they were willing to put up.

And I’ve yet to hear anybody say that it’s inadequate in any significant way. But I’ve also heard the D-backs, as they go through their own prioritization, talking about things that maybe they wish could be done, but there just won’t be money. So it will not be a pristine stadium. This will be a modern, hopefully as best state-of-the-art as can be done. But it will still be a 30-year-old facility, and we can’t just start from scratch and build new stadiums like, the A’s are doing in Las Vegas, or in football, the Tennessee Titans are doing in Nashville.

MARK BRODIE: I imagine also that the actual amount of money that you’ll have to work with is a little bit in flux, right? There are estimates, but in large part, it depends on like how much sales tax revenue, for example, is generated in that stadium and nearby buildings that you get. Like if more money is spent there, that’s more revenue for you. If less is spent, less for you.

MARK WINKLEMAN: You’re absolutely right. It’s up to the revenues that we get. And we’ve estimated that that’s somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million a year, which, by the way, is not enough to do the repairs that need to be done soon. And so we will have to come up with some sort of financing mechanism to pledge or use this stream of revenues that will happen over the next 30 years to acquire enough money to do the improvements that need to be done in a three- to five- or six-year horizon. So that is one of the things, one of the challenges that we’ll be addressing.

MARK BRODIE: How challenging is that to try to come up with some kind of debt financing or something else like that?

MARK WINKLEMAN: Well, governments do bonds all the time, whether it’s school districts or improvement districts or whatnot. So there are underwriters that do this, there’s techniques, there’s laws. And so it can be done. They’re obviously always complex to a large extent, and there may be other sources of funding that will be available. We’re looking at different options at this point, but it will be necessary because there won’t be a big pot of money there right at the beginning that is sufficient to do the repairs that need to be done sooner rather than later.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah. So let’s talk about the timeline here. Like when do you anticipate starting to say, "OK, here are the top X number of projects that we need to get going and we’re going to start them right now"?

MARK WINKLEMAN: Well, the team would like to start tomorrow. I think we’re all united in we’d like to get going as quickly as possible. But the first order of business is to finalize a new agreement to have the team stay for another 30-plus years. And so we’re working on that document right now. And so we need a mutual commitment before anybody’s going to spend any significant money. So that’s the first order of business. But once we get that agreement in place, then we’ll move the work along as quickly as possible.

This is a bit of an unusual situation because you can only do the substantial work during the off season. So it’ll be roughly six months of time to do things, and six months where you can’t do much because the season’s going on. And so that adds a complexity that most construction projects don’t have.

MARK BRODIE: Do you have reason to think that the team won’t sign a new lease extension with the county?

MARK WINKLEMAN: I don’t think so. I mean, they’re working in good faith. We’re working in good faith. I think the fact that the legislation got passed last year and that the district was reformed and Derrick Hall is a member of the board, he’s a nonvoting member of the board, but he’s a member of the board. So at this point, it’s a very cooperative relationship.

I think a level of trust needs to be reestablished that was lost maybe during the days of litigation and turmoil. But I’m sure that the effort to pass the legislation last year wouldn’t have been done unless the team intended to stay here. So it’s our hope that an agreement can be done relatively soon. We’ll certainly make that aware to the public.

And that’s something that we’ll be doing throughout is we represent the public’s interest. So there’s got to be transparency so that the public can understand what’s going on and feel comfortable and know that we’re taking care of their money and it’s in accordance with the legislation that was passed.

MARK BRODIE: There was, of course, some controversy when this bill was going through the Legislature that, you know, there’s a concern of public money being used for, you know, essentially a private entity, even though the county owns the stadium, the Diamondbacks are not a public organization.

I’m curious what you make of that debate and how that maybe plays into what it is that you’re trying to do and how you’re going to be spending that public money. You talked about transparency and making sure the public knows what’s going on. Is some of that to try to alleviate the concerns of tax money, literal tax money, being used on a private sports team?

MARK WINKLEMAN: Well, that policy debate took place, and the Legislature ultimately concluded that this was worth doing, and they passed the law. And so it’s not my place to say whether that’s right or wrong. I’m a sports fan, but I understand there’s a lot of people that say we shouldn’t be subsidizing stadiums and teams. But that debate has occurred. The law was passed. We’re going to respect the law. And even some of the board members were at some level of opposition to the concept.

But I will say, I’ve not been in this job for very long, but I’ve met individually with all the board members, and I haven’t sensed any attitude with anybody that, "Well, we’re going to somehow undo this." I think everybody’s moving collectively to get the job done, come up with a stadium that will work for the team, continue the energy that’s going on in downtown, and be something that where the public funds were used appropriately to upgrade that facility.

MARK BRODIE: All right. That is Mark Winkleman, the new executive director of the Maricopa County Stadium District. Mark, thanks so much for coming in.

MARK WINKLEMAN: Very welcome. My pleasure.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5, I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, when a professional athlete commits an act of violence off the court, what responsibility does the league have to hold them accountable?

But first, Lani Cupchoy wears many hats. She’s a public historian, an artist, a filmmaker, as well as an assistant professor at Cal State University in Los Angeles. Most recently, she directed a documentary about the displacement and repatriation of Pacific Islanders’ remains called “Ocean Bones.” And next up on her list of forthcoming projects is her latest book, “Curandereando.” It explores the history, present, and future of healing practices in Indigenous Chicana culture. Cupchoy herself comes from a long and very mixed cultural heritage that truly combines East and West. She spoke with my co-host Lauren Gilger about that, the new book, and how those healing practices surface in her own life.

LANI CUPCHOY: “Curandereando,” which is the book title, it’s a verb. [LAUGHTER] Let’s start with that. It is a verb.

LAUREN GILGER: OK.

LANI CUPCHOY: I specifically chose “Curandereando” because it embodies this notion of healing. It’s not something we study, it’s something we practice. And so the title itself reflects healing as an ongoing way of living, remembering, caring for each other, for community, and pretty much remaining in relationship.

For me, we call it Madre Tierra, which is the Earth. So it’s how we maintain these relationships with the Earth, and we’re talking about sustainability. So “Curandereando” is like the act of it, right? The practice of it, of curanderismo, which is also, you know, forms of different what we would say otros saberes, other forms of knowing, Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous practice.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, OK. So it sounds like they are broad, but also probably impact and infiltrate all aspects of your life if you’re really practicing them, which you do, right?

LANI CUPCHOY: Yes, I’m definitely, I would say, a practitioner. And I think, you know, on a very basic level, I think each and every one of us practice forms of curanderismo, especially when we think about our bodies, our relationships to ourselves, you know, what we eat, you know, working out, you know, what we see, you know, what we observe, our perceptions, what we hear, what we listen to, music, right? All of these forms, they affect our body, right?

And I say like our physical body, but also like our emotional body as well, our mental body as well. And so this work is really looking at all the different ways historically, you know, that we maintain relation, I say we as in the royal we of people, humanity. The way in which humanity, humans have actually maintained relationships with themselves.

LAUREN GILGER: So what does this look like, this practice in your life? Like, like how do you practice curanderismo in your life?

LANI CUPCHOY: Yeah, I think for me personally, I mean, I grew up with it, right? I say, you know, my, you know, I grew up in Southern California. I came from a multicultural family. Healing was simply a part of everyday life. And I say this, you know, I like to make jokes about it, but really it’s like my mother, my abuelas, you know, the way in which they use herbs, traditional remedies, you know, knowledge, right?

Of how to use these herbs, you know, when you’re sick, for example, you know, if you have a sore throat, right? You’re going to grab some lemon and then use the skin, right, from the lemon and some garlic and, you know, some honey and maybe, you know, make something and you drink it and then it like helps to soothe it, right? So there’s, there’s all this kind of knowledge, you know, that I think growing up, I just every it’s just part of our everyday life, if that makes sense.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, that’s really interesting. So you call yourself a curandera of history. What does that mean?

LANI CUPCHOY: Yes, I think for me, you know, I grew up, I’m not going to say I coined it because it actually came from, from ... right? She talks about how, you know, we, many of us as a as practitioners of storytelling, of histories, you know, the way in which we gather this knowledge, whether it’s from archives or oral history, testimonios, right? The way in which that we connect all of these histories together, right? That’s part of it.

But the other part is the healing aspect, that sometimes, many times as historians, we are dealing with very traumatic events: war, violence, on different communities, you know, thinking like even in the, for example, like the civil rights in the U.S., right? There was a lot of violence that was happening at the time.

And so our communities are trying to, you know, even this is what, 2026? Our communities are trying to heal, you know, from a lot of the trauma that has been inflicted from, you know, what we would say like colonial violence, right? Coming back, you know, hundreds of years. And so part of our work, I say I’m a curandera of history because it’s like bringing all of these different knowledges to hopefully help connect with readers, and maybe they might find forms of understanding, not just trauma, but processing it and healing as well.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So tell us about your own heritage, because it’s very diverse, like East and West, right?

LANI CUPCHOY: Definitely East and West. So let’s see. Dad was a Kānaka Maoli, so that’s Native Hawaiian, and also Chinese. And then, and then Mom, Mom is actually a Mexicana, but part of the Mexicana is we are, we say Afro-Indigenous because we have African roots and also Indigenous roots, right?

So, you know, I had a great-great-great-great-grandmother who was Purépecha, spoke Tarascan, or do we say Tarascan, right, the, they’re the only group that wasn’t conquered by the by the Mexica or the Aztecs, right? [LAUGHTER] Just a quick historical fact.

And yes, so that’s one of the tribes, but we’re also part Mexica as well, you know, part Aztec, traditionally, that’s the language. And Mexicana, right? So, you know, from Mexico.

So I have all of this. And then Chicana, you know, I was technically, you know, born and raised in the United States. So I have all of these, how do we say, like multicultural identities, right, that are fluid through me.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Well, and that seems to be reflected in in in this practice, right, of curanderismo, because you’ve got tthis impact on Western medicine. You talked about this in a really interesting way and that it’s not like this conflict of traditional healing and how Western medicine approaches healing, which is how I think we would normally frame it.

It’s more like one led to the other?

LANI CUPCHOY: Yes, I think well, it’s it’s a couple things. I think, see, I personally, I don’t see curanderismo and modern medicine as opposites. That’s just me, right? I think there’s a lot of debate and a lot of opinions about it, right?

My own little humble perspective, you know, I think many medicines and healing practices have roots in Indigenous knowledge, traditional healing systems. If you take it back, we’re going world history, I mean, you know, a lot of a lot of modern medicine evolved from Indigenous knowledge. You go back to like, for example, uh, you know, Greeks and Romans who used to use rosemary, for example, as a form of an antiseptic before they did any forms of surgeries, right? Or if you even go back to like ancient China, you know, and the way in which they also used different kinds of herbalism that is used today, right?

And again, this is Indigenous knowledge, right? So, I think what’s happened, though, is over time, these healing systems were refined over generations, right? And it looks like or is couched as this modern medicine in quotes, right? But in reality, yes, you know, modern medicine has, you know, extraordinary advances in treating, you know, disease, saving lives. I get that.

But there’s also this connection that curanderismo adds another dimension, you know, by asking how we restore balance, not only in body, spirit, I use that word a lot, right? Community, our relationship to the Earth. So I believe that these approaches complement one another rather than compete.

LAUREN GILGER: All right. Well, maybe a hopeful note then to end on. Lani Cupchoy, thank you so much for coming on The Show to tell us about this book, and congratulations on the book. Appreciate it very much.

LANI CUPCHOY: Thank you. Thank you so much, Lauren.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5, I’m Mark Brodie.

The Phoenix Suns start training camp for their upcoming season later this month. It has been an eventful offseason for the Suns after their surprise trip to the NBA playoffs last season. And one of the most talked about moves was for a player named Miles Bridges.

The Suns traded for him from the Charlotte Hornets, giving up Grayson Allen, Royce O’Neale, and a 2033 first-round draft pick. But for many fans, the conversation about Bridges was less about his scoring and rebounding and more about his off-the-court behavior.

Bridges was arrested in 2022 after he allegedly assaulted his former girlfriend in front of their two children. Bridges was later charged with three felonies for which he received three years of probation after pleading no contest. In 2023, the NBA suspended Bridges for 30 games. He ultimately served 10 after the league said he’d already served the other 20 the previous season when he wasn’t with a team. Later that year, an arrest warrant was issued for Bridges in North Carolina stemming from a violation of a protective order. He ultimately turned himself in.

At the press conference the Suns held to introduce Bridges, General Manager Brian Gregory said Bridges’ past was part of the conversation before making the trade.

BRIAN GREGORY: Those questions are part of his story. He’s dealt with them before, and we’ll deal with them today as well. And I think those questions we are aware of and knew about, and that’s also why uh we took this decision so seriously during the process and when we made it. Miles has taken responsibility for his action. He’s shown remorse for those actions.

MARK BRODIE: At that same press conference, Bridges acknowledged the conflicting emotions some Suns fans are having with him on the team.

MILES BRIDGES: Like BG said, it is mixed feelings about me being here. But, you know, I take full responsibility, you know, in my actions. You know, I’ve been to counseling, I’ve been to therapy. Um, and right now, I’m just prioritizing, just like BG said, just being better as a man every day on and off the court, mainly off the court, um, and just being a great father and earning the trust of this fan base and this community.

MARK BRODIE: But that can be easier said than done, according to my next guests. Earl Smith is a professor and sociologist at the University of Delaware and a research scientist at the Center for the Study and Prevention of Gender-Based Violence there. Angie Hattery is a professor of Women and Gender Studies and co-director of that center. And when I spoke with them earlier, I asked Earl why these kinds of cases are not that uncommon in the world of sports.

EARL SMITH: We used to think it was based on the type of games that people play and preparation and how violent or not violent those games are. So you take a sport like golf, I think we all would agree that it’s not a violent sport.

MARK BRODIE: Mm-hmm.

EARL SMITH: But inside of golf, we have similar kinds of incidents of gender-based violence, sexual assaults, etc. — just as much as we have them deep inside the National Football League.

So it can’t be the type of sport that someone is playing, and this is the type of question that keeps us up at night, trying to figure out what the heck is going on. So we really don’t know. We can’t answer that question, why.

MARK BRODIE: Mm, interesting. Angie, in terms of the leagues themselves — I mean, Earl mentioned that, you know, obviously the PGA is different than the NFL, than the NBA, than MLB versus any other league. But are there sort of trends that you see in terms of how sports leagues try to handle players in them that are accused or have actually been adjudicated to have committed these kinds of crimes?

ANGIE HATTERY: I want to start by just also noting that although we have a lens on all of these cases of gender-based violence in sports, the rates are not actually higher than in the general population for men of the same age.

So the leagues, this is such a wonderful question. And I want to answer it or address it by pointing to, um, a really unique database that we developed called, well, it’s the Gender-Based Violence in Sport Database housed at the University of Delaware. There are currently over 500 cases in the database.

But because of the database, we’re able to actually provide some analysis around the leagues. And one of the things that I find interesting about the research from the database is that when we look at all of the leagues combined, in just about half of the cases, there’s no action taken in allegations of gender-based violence. And no action means no suspension by the league, no disciplinary action by the league nor anything in the criminal legal system.

When we drill down and look a little bit farther, we find that in fact, the personal conduct policies of the league do make a difference in terms of the kinds of sanctions that are distributed by a league. But at the end of the day, 83% of people who were credibly accused, charged and/or convicted of an act of gender-based violence in any sport, 83% continue to play or coach.

In the NBA, 87% continued to play after a conviction. So even in leagues like the NFL, which has a pretty robust personal conduct policy when it comes to these kinds of crimes — and the NBA doesn’t — whether there’s a policy or not, doesn’t for the most part affect whether players are then allowed to play after the conclusion of the case.

MARK BRODIE: Earl, what does that mean for not only those players, but I guess what does it maybe say about the leagues and maybe what kind of message does that send to society?

EARL SMITH: Well, it sends a big message. Here’s what it says: If you can run, hoop, dunk, hit a home run, you’re good to play regardless of your, quote, “off-the-field behavior.”

The case that we started our preparation to talk with you today, Miles Bridges, what we found striking in that case was there was credible evidence from the survivor. And this guy is still being allowed to play. And the woman who he abused said that he committed this violence in front of their kids.

And that takes us into a whole other area. But the fact that he’ll go out on a basketball court at the start of the next season after committing this violence — and doing it again. He broke parole. He broke his protection order to commit more violence against this woman, and still nothing was done.

MARK BRODIE: So Angie, what should teams and leagues do differently than what they’re doing now? Because it seems as though even for those leagues that have personal conduct policies or policies in place to deal with this kind of behavior, they’re not always following them in practice. So what should those organizations be doing differently?

ANGIE HATTERY: This is such a great question, and I appreciate it in part because one of the things I want to remind people of — and I talk about this not just with regards to sports but also sexual violence on college campuses, for example — that playing in the NBA or in the NFL or going to college is a privilege. It’s not a right.

And so organizations can in fact hold people accountable even without a criminal legal process, right? And people can sue back and forth. But the fear that these organizations seem to have, whether it’s a college campus or the NBA, “Oh, you know, we don’t want to harm someone’s career. Oh, we don’t, you know, this stuff.”

The truth is working is a privilege. It’s not No one has a right to play in the NBA, right?

And so part of it, I think, is just beginning to shift the power discussion a little bit. But what can they do? We write in in a couple of articles that have been published in the last couple years: Be brave. Be courageous. Um, try to set a different tone. Um, don’t be bullied into, as as happens in all of these cases — and Ray Rice is a great example, Greg Hardy is a great example. Sue, sue, sue, sue, sue and pretty soon you walk back the suspension, you walk back what it says in your policy.

So part of it is stick with your policy. The NBA should borrow one. But they should have some teeth instead of just constantly being willing to acquiesce when a lawyer gets in the room.

I also think we have a role to play. So sort of like, a lot of political pundits are talking about “If you want to change things, go out and vote.” If you want to change things, vote with your feet, vote with your pocketbook.

And there’s a lot of good data on this. The reason leagues don’t hold players accountable is because they are still money machines. People will still buy a ticket, buy a jersey and pay to see someone play.

If we stopped doing that and it stopped being lucrative, I can virtually guarantee that teams would start to hold people accountable because it would be in their financial best interest to do that.

MARK BRODIE: Angie, I want to ask you about the idea of, quote unquote, “letting the criminal justice system play out,” that process versus leagues taking action. Because it seems as though when these kinds of things happen, one of the reactions you often hear from team officials, league officials, whomever is, “We’re going to let the criminal justice system, we’re going to let the legal process play out and then we’ll figure out what we’re going to do as a result of that.”

I’m curious what you make of that response, and how should teams and leagues deal with the idea that there might be legal repercussions for the action in addition to whatever it is that they want to do with their player?

ANGIE HATTERY: This is part of what I meant when I said a few minutes ago that it’s a privilege, not a right. The criminal legal system is about rights, right? And if someone is convicted of a crime, we take away some of their legal rights, their civil rights, we take away human rights. We lock people up, we put them on probation, we make them wear ankle bracelets. And that requires a very strict standard of evidence because we are removing people’s rights.

Suspending someone from their job — often with pay — is a is a privilege. It’s not a right, right?

So basically, I think when league owners and coaches say, “Oh, we’re going to wait and see what happens,” they’re just kicking the can down the road. And they’re hoping that nothing will happen in the criminal legal system and then they won’t have to do anything.

As opposed to what happens in lots of other cases in lots of other jobs. I were facing criminal charges, the University of Delaware might put me on administrative leave before there’s any action, and then correct it if it turns out that I was innocent, or it couldn’t be proven that I had done whatever I was being accused of.

Sports works in the opposite direction. So I think it’s a moment for courage on the part of leagues who have the right to suspend a player.

MARK BRODIE: Angie Hattery is a professor of women and gender studies and co-director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Gender-Based Violence at the University of Delaware. Earl Smith is a professor and sociologist at the University of Delaware and a research scientist at the Center.

And you are listening to The Show.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5, I’m Mark Brodie.

In more than 15 years, Joshua Johnson has counseled clients through a lot of complex emotions. But now, more than ever, the Valley therapist says nearly all of his clients are expressing some version of political anxiety. It’s a subsect encompassing all kinds of external uncertainties causing strife and, in many cases, depression. Earlier this year, Johnson told my co-host Lauren Gilger that whether it’s gas prices and economic uncertainty or the immediate danger of deportation, a lot of these feelings stem from the fact that our politics are now one and one with our identity.

JOSHUA JOHNSON: It’s actually becoming quite common, especially since the last election. You know, we saw a lot of it prior to, so this is when households were splitting versus like who you’re voting for, such as if you’re voting for Kamala or you’re voting for Trump. You know, when that happened, that divide happened, I started seeing clients coming in with different fears about, "Well, what do I do with my family member now that they’re voting for Trump and I don’t want to support them," right? Or on the other side of it, "Oh, they’re voting for Kamala, like and I don’t want to I don’t support that." You know, so that became the first divide. So I I kind of call this as like a phase one, right?

And then phase two started happening where I noticed where after Trump took office, people were worried about, "Oh my god, they’re going to activate all these rules, Project 2025, like all these things are going to happen like overnight." And so people started kind of started freaking out. Some people were celebrating because, again, that’s who they voted for and that’s what they wanted was change. And then on the other side, you start seeing people feeling like, "OK, well my goals are already struggling. Now I don’t see them happening at all." So people are starting to regress almost, becoming more afraid to be outside, especially now that we’re seeing ICE more present in, you know, public areas such as schools, airports, grocery stores, you know, stuff like that.

LAUREN GILGER: What’s phase three?

JOSHUA JOHNSON: [sighs] Phase three is what we’re currently in, which is, you know, isolation, fear of the unknown, as well as when you see that your friends have changed. You know, they’re like, "Well, what do I do with this? Because I I I love them. I’ve been I’ve had this friend for like 20, 30-plus years for some people, or 10-plus years. And now I’m noticing that this person doesn’t support me as a person, whether it’s because I’m a part of the L-G-B, as I joke around, the LMNOP community," [laughter] "because it’s changed so much over the years," [laughter] "rather if it’s from the color of my skin, rather if it’s even my educational background, you know. Um, those things I’m noticing as well that is happening. Do you feel safe? Do you feel that the person that you’re just even standing next to supports the same morals and causes that you do? And that’s becoming, you know, a problem too for most clients I’m seeing."

LAUREN GILGER: So it’s hitting relationships, and it’s almost this like existential question of like politics being linked to identity, it sounds like.

JOSHUA JOHNSON: Yep. Yep, yep, yep, yep. That’s something too that I’m noticing where a lot of people are feeling as if like, you know, who I am has to be labeled by: I’m Black first, I’m a Christian first, maybe I’m then gay, then I’m a, you know, a a Republican voter, you know, or it gets flipped around where I’m a Republican voter first, then I’m a Black man, then I’m a Christian, then I identify as, you know, whatever my sexual orientation is. So...

LAUREN GILGER: It sounds like a lot of what people are telling you is is in reaction to this flood of change, right? Like traditional kind of norms being broken, and and the sort of political upheaval that we’ve seen, and the divisiveness.

JOSHUA JOHNSON: Right, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, and I think a lot of that has to go with, you know, hey, we used to have a rule book pretty much America had, and, you know, things had to go in this certain order, and now, you know, things are getting bypassed, you know? So when that has occurred, it is hard to just feel safe in your own backyard. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

LAUREN GILGER: So in some ways, my reaction to hearing all of this is like, yes, that makes sense. And in some ways, I was thinking like, you know, life has always been hard. Like it’s not like life was easy for our great-grandparents or the grandparents before them, right? Like, is it new in that sense, or is it just the way that we receive this information has changed a lot as well?

JOSHUA JOHNSON: I think it’s a mixture of both. I think that now things are just so uncensored. It is scary uncensoredness. Like, you know, I remember the days when politics were boring.

LAUREN GILGER: [laughter] Yeah, me too.

JOSHUA JOHNSON: Like [laughter] Like you heard like one or two things on the news once in a blue moon.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

JOSHUA JOHNSON: But like every day just feels like we’re in like an episode like an ongoing episode of "Scandal." [laughter]

LAUREN GILGER: It feels like there’s upheaval to people. I mean, do you think a lot of this has to do with not just the political change, like the the pace of political change that we’ve seen, which has been rapid, but the rapid pace at which we receive it, like the the kind of onslaught of notifications and dings and updates and alerts and headlines, and they may or may not be true, right?

JOSHUA JOHNSON: Yep. And some things, you know, especially with um certain devices, so like I remember Apple when I first um upgraded my phone and the new Apple News app, you know, it was like, well, you know, it automatically started giving me random alerts on certain things. I said, "No, I didn’t ask for this."

LAUREN GILGER: "I cannot have this," yeah. [laughter]

JOSHUA JOHNSON: So I have I have changed those notifications, which goes into like what people can have control of. You know, and I think that’s something that people have to start kind of like diving deeper into themselves of what do I have control right now in this moment, rather if it’s about like what I see on the internet, rather how I receive those messages. And the other piece about it is is that I think it’s important to also talk about is that we’re in a loneliness epidemic. And with that is people are not really connecting with people anymore because they we’ve been taught now that people are scary, but like...

LAUREN GILGER: You mean like pandemic-taught?

JOSHUA JOHNSON: Yep, yep. Pandemic-taught, yep. I love the way you worded that because, again, the reality of it is that we became attached to these screens when the pandemic happened.

LAUREN GILGER: So it sounds like you hear a lot of fear from people. I mean, I wonder how how different is this from regular depression? Like if you’re looking at political depression, is it just the source that’s changed?

JOSHUA JOHNSON: Yeah, a mixture of it is definitely the source that’s changed. A lot of the components are still there, such as, you know, being very tired, drained, right, emotional. Um, and then of course everyone’s depression is different.

LAUREN GILGER: So what can we do, Joshua? Like, I mean, what do you advise clients to do who come to you with this kind of political anxiety, political depression, that feels very motivated by or driven by these sort of things that are out of their control? Like we can’t control, you know, what the president’s doing, we can’t control what’s happening in the news. How do you cope with that?

JOSHUA JOHNSON: So you have to start really paying attention to what you have control of. What can I restructure in my life, whether if it’s my finances, whether if it is being mindful about not doomscrolling.

LAUREN GILGER: Should we kind of log off? Should we not read every headline? Should we kind of disconnect from some of this constant political news in a way?

JOSHUA JOHNSON: Mhm. I think it’s important to understand your capacity on things, right? You know, um one of the biggest things that I know I’ve recognized about myself is that I know I can go to the party, but I can’t do the after-party. [laughter] Because if I do the after-party, I know how my body’s going to feel, I know how my mind is going to feel, and I’m always about giving and serving the best version of myself to everyone, including myself first, right? And so with that is understanding that, "You know what? I’m hitting my limit, and I need to just step back." And I think a lot of people have to practice that and be more in tune with themselves regarding that. Understanding your capacity helps save you from a lot of unnecessary drama that you don’t want to incur in your life.

LAUREN GILGER: Is that the line between sort of disconnecting in a healthy way and disconnecting entirely, just being ignorant of what’s happening?

JOSHUA JOHNSON: Well, I think that it’s about, again, understanding what is meaningful for you. At the end of the day, even in relationships how I even teach when I work with couples, you have to put yourself first, even in your relationship. There’s respectful ways of doing that. Maybe right now, watching Fox News isn’t what’s best for me. Uh the other day, it was a lot of No King protests, right? I know me, and I’m not one to go out there and protest, right? But I am one to still provide healthy information. That’s that’s what I have control of, right? Me doing this segment is providing healthy information. Everyone’s view of healthy healthy looks different, and I think everyone, just like someone right now is doing yoga somewhere, or someone is doing weightlifting, right? Both of them are exercises, but that person is doing what they feel like is best for them in that moment.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Maybe we need to turn it inward a little bit here. All right, we’ll leave it there. Joshua Johnson, licensed social worker and therapist here in the Valley, joining us to talk about political anxiety, political depression. Joshua, thank you very much. I feel better.

JOSHUA JOHNSON: [laughter] Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. I hope this helped.

MARK BRODIE: Thanks for listening to The Show’s podcast. The Show is produced by Sativa Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah, and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by Jon Hoban. Our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of The Show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram @kjzztheshow.