Brian Ler on WNYC.

To end the show today, very happy to have Jay McManus back with us, and today in her very special role this holiday season as editor of this year's edition of the annual collection of the year's best sports writing.

It's called the Year's Best Sports Writing, 2024.

Good title, considering what's in the book.

Some of you know Jane McManus from her work on ESPN, where she largely covered the NFL, among other things, and was a columnist for ESPNW,

or from her various pieces in the New York Times and elsewhere, maybe you've been one of her

sports writing students.

She is a professor at the Preston-Rober Tish Institute for Global Sport at NYU.

Maybe you've seen that she has a forthcoming book called The Fast Track inside the

surging business of women's sports, or maybe as her LinkedIn page reminds us, you watch

Jane McBanis when she skated with a suburbia roller derby under the pseudonym Leslie E. Vicerati

for seven years retiring in 2014. But now, again, she's here as editor of the year's best sports writing, 2024. Jane, always great to have you. Welcome back to WNYC. Wow, really appreciate it. And that's quite an intro, Brian. I really love that. Thank you very much. Gets to everything. You know, I don't think I've ever asked you about your roller derby career. How does a kid get into

roller derby, of all things, enough to become a professional at it? What's the basic appeal of the

sport as a participant? Well, I mean, I love full contact sports. I played basketball, pick up

basketball around New York City when I was growing up. And I loved, you know, I, I just love full

contact sports. I love a contact of sports. And it's kind of why I became a sports writer to begin

with. So when I ended up covering, there was a roller derby bout. And my assignment editor was like,

hey, you should go cover this. And I went. And I was like, this is my next thing. These are my people.

So I joined. They start the league started in Yonkers and I joined and I played for seven years.

And I didn't know you had a pseudonym in that league. Why was that and why the name Leslie Eviserati,

if I'm even saying that right? It was Leslie Eviserate.

Oh.

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