This is Sports Spectrum, the intersection of sports and faith, where we bring Jesus back into the conversation.

Here's your host, Jason Romano.

And welcome everybody to Sports Spectrum. I am Jason Romano. This is one of my favorite episodes that we get to do every quarter here on the show because we get to bring in our managing editor, John Ackerman. Hi, John. Hello, buddy. How's going to see you? Good to talk to you. I can't wait to see you soon in person, which will be fun. But I get to bring in John and we get to have a conversation about our latest edition of Sports Spectrums magazine. And I am excited about this magazine. It is a very special magazine. And we say that about all the issues that we've done. I think the last four or five that we've done, John, we've said this is the best magazine that we've ever produced. And that's a good feeling.

But we keep, I feel like we keep topping ourselves or God keeps blessing us in such amazing ways is

probably a better way to say it. Because this one, our winter 2021 issue that's going to be

in people's mailboxes very soon, is really a special magazine. And I'm just going to say that Monty Williams, the Phoenix Sun's head coach, is on the cover. He is our cover story. But I'm going to bring in John just to share a little bit about why Monty's on the cover, how it came about. And I know the answer to this, but it's nice to hear it from John because he is the managing editor. He's in charge of all things, sportspectrum.com and sports spectrum, the magazine. And so, uh, yeah, John, this is cool, man. Monty Williams on the cover. By the way, Phoenix suns are red hot, which is nice. They went on a nice, long winning streak. Um, so it's kind of timely in that respect. They are the Western Conference, reigning Western Conference champions.

But why Monty and how So it's kind of timely in that respect. They are the Western Conference, reigning Western Conference champions.

But why Monty and having him on the cover was pretty special?

Well, part of the reason that you just alluded to was just the suns are hot.

I mean, he took him to the NBA finals last year.

And so when I was looking ahead to this issue, you know, I wanted to feature, you know, somebody in the NBA that was not only playing well, but on fire for the Lord. And it's,

it's easy to then immediately think of Monty Williams and just how he leads the Sons,

how he leads his life. Like I said, the Sons made a great turnaround last season, went all the way

to the NBA finals. And then when you think of, you know, people in the NBA who are on fire for

the Lord, Monty Williams has got to be at the top of the list. And so it was, yeah, I mean, in one of our staff meetings, we started discussing ideas of who we wanted to feature and who we wanted to go on the cover.

And Monty Williams was the name that just kind of kept popping to the top of our list.

And not long thereafter, you set up an interview with them you did

the did a podcast interview with moni um got the wheels turning and then for the story i wanted to kind

to go a little bit a little bit deeper into moni's story or just know a little bit more about

monty and um in your interview with him he talked about a spiritual mentor of his, Pastor Bill

Gepphard.

So I was like, all right, we're reaching out to Pastor Bill and we're going to talk to

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