Producer Nancy Updike talks to her friend Mary Conway about the strangest-looking trophy she got in her years playing basketball.

Chicago playwright David Isaacson, on hating the Bulls.Then, Nancy Updike presents a sound portrait of a Philadelphia woman and her basketball trophies.

Finding happiness is serious business. At least, for most us, it requires an act of will.

Sarah Koenig attended last weekend's Penn State game, the last home game of the season, with Michael Winereb and his parents. Weinreb grew up in State College, and has written several widely circulated columns for the website Grantland about his reactions to the recent scandal.

Pierre, a ten year old who boxes in an amateur team on Chicago's south side, and what Muhammad Ali had to do to psych up to win a fight.

Chicago playwright Beau O'Reilly goes with Ira to the Scottie Pippen Dodge Store.Then, singer/songwriter/playwright Jeff Dorchen on Niketown.

Daniel Alarcón’s dad was obsessed with soccer when he was growing up, but he was only average at soccer. But those who can’t do...find something else to do.

You can't do a program about middlemen without a story about business. In this act, we hear from a man who made his living buying low and selling high...incredibly high, sometimes at mark-ups of up to 1,000 percent.

Daniel Alarcón’s dad was obsessed with soccer when he was growing up, but he was only average at soccer. But those who can’t do...find something else to do.

Some adventures you seek out on purpose, and others hunt you down. Producer Alex Blumberg tells this story, about the experience a guy had in China...which started out as first kind of adventure, then quickly turned into the second kind.

Ben Karlin talks about how a foreign language can come in handy when it comes to smoothing over potentially ugly misunderstandings. When he was a student in Italy, he signed up to coach basketball in hopes of making friends with some Italians.

Wilt Chamberlain - easily one of the best basketball players of all time - was a terrible free throw shooter. Except for one season when he changed technique and scored more free throws in one game than anyone ever has.

Earlier this year, a cheerleader named Lacy T filed a lawsuit against the Oakland Raiders for failing to pay her minimum wage. NFL cheerleaders did the same right after... cheerleaders generally make about $1,500 for the entire season.

We hear excerpts from our 2009 episode that was recorded at Penn State. Though the focus of that episode was student drinking and partying, we hear how much of the culture of the school is organized around football and how deeply people loved the team and Coach Joe Paterno.

Professor Glenn Loury from Boston University and John Simpkins on basketball, hockey, and what makes a real black person.

Cyclist Mike Friedman said something to cyclist Ian Dille in the middle of a race that ate at both of them for years. Jared Marcelle tells the story.

An excerpt from Spalding Gray's monologue It's a Slippery Slope. Gray has been called "America's premiere storyteller." His monologue Swimming To Cambodia was made into a feature film.

A man finds himself sucked into an intense head-to-head running competition against a perfect rival – all for free burritos from Chipotle. (18 minutes)

Samantha Martin trains raccoons to play basketball and rats to bowl. She says that what we want from animals is for them to imitate humans.

Adam Gopnik reads a story from his book Paris to the Moon, about living in Paris with his family and wanting his son to be a bit more American. He tells him a bedtime story about the most American thing he can think of: baseball.

Samantha Martin trains raccoons to play basketball and rats to bowl. She says that what we want from animals is for them to imitate humans.

Guest host Emmanuel Dzotsi talks to Leroy Smith about how one high school basketball tryout forever changed Leroy’s relationship to a childhood friend. (7 minutes)

Sometimes criminals return to the scene of their misdeeds — to try to make things right, to try to undo the past. Katie Davis reports on her neighbor Bobby, who returned to the scene where he robbed people and conned people. This time, he came to coach little league.

A story about someone with a complicated relationship with the sport she loves, from Meema Spadola.