Eight Years in Exile: Bo Belanger on "Connie and Jack"

Kareem and Wilt talked about Connie Hawkins the way you'd talk about the best you ever saw. Most fans under 45 have never heard the name.

Bo Belanger is a writer with a passion for basketball. He found Connie's story in 2019, tracked down Connie's grandson Shawn a year later, and has been working to get it into the world ever since. "Connie and Jack: A Rigged Game" is the payoff, a nine-episode dual biography of Connie Hawkins, the New York playground legend blackballed at 19 over a fixing scandal he wasn't part of, and Jack Molinas, the Columbia star who ran it and kept landing on his feet. Bo calls it part podcast, part audiobook. He's right, and it's the best basketball story you've never heard.

We get into how Dave Wolf's Life Magazine piece rewrote Connie's public story, why the pressure put on a broke teenager in 1961 hasn't gone anywhere, and what it means that the NBA now shares a revenue stream with the sportsbooks.

LISTEN TO CONNIE AND JACK: A RIGGED GAME
All nine episodes are streaming now.
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/connie-jack-a-rigged-game/id1880488679
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ZCTp53nZ1YkR62krTO6fX
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxnqbrlzP4L55Gn9fR6co1NxBADkBaHh9
Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/05e0c818-3637-48a2-b50d-481be453b5f1/connie-jack-a-rigged-game

FOLLOW BO
https://www.connieandjackpod.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/connieandjackpod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@connieandjackpod
Email: ConnieAndJackPodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

Oh, I'm, I'm pumped. I'm, I'm only halfway through, uh, but re- really enjoying it. Super high quality. Thank you. You know, I know, I know who Connie Hawkins knew the name- Yeah, I figured, I figured you did, yeah ... but, but just not the, not the level of detail though that, that the episodes have, and it was just, like, so...
You know, you really get im- immersed into the world, . Well, well, let's get started here. I wanna know a little bit, just starting out, how did you fall into this story? 'Cause again, and I don't know your exact age, but just looking on screen wouldn't necessarily clock you as a immediate Connie Hawkins fan, being that it's the '60s and '50s, a little bit out of the, the generation.
Yeah, totally. Um, it's- The, the folks who know him are definitely older than we are. Yeah. Who know him well. The, the people who remember him from, from hearing his name growing up. , Like you, Aaron, I'm just a basketball junkie. So I've always been drawn to the history of the game, and was actually helping some friends develop a TV show about the ABA, and I came across a book about Connie called Foul, which is Foul, , by Dave Wolt- Wolf, and it's excellent.
And the story just sort of stayed with me. As, you know, you've, you've started listening to the podcast, it's an incredible, , story. He's such a, it's just like sort of a classic underdog story., And it, and it's sort of Shakespearean almost with how tragic it is. Um- Yeah. We'll- So- We'll get into it a, a bit too.