April 6, 2017 8:57 pm

What Makes a Great Athlete? Neil deGrasse Tyson Finds out Friday, with Hope Solo

StarTalk Radio is headed for the playing field when Neil deGrasse Tyson sits down with soccer goalkeeper and 2x Olympic gold medalist Hope Solo to discuss the science and psychology of sports. Neil is joined in the Hall of the Universe at the American Museum of Natural History by comic co-host Chuck Nice and sport psychologist Dr. Brent Walker.

The interview with Hope Solo is one you won’t want to miss. She is one of the best goalkeepers to ever play the game and a fierce competitor, and it was a thrill to hear her on StarTalk. She is full of interesting stories, including her early failures as a child rocket scientist, her hometown connection to the Manhattan Project, her insight into the key to being a great goalkeeper and a serious athlete, her contributions to the rise of women’s soccer, and how she deals with pain, gender inequality, and maintaining confidence. And there’s plenty more!

You’ll discover the benefits of playing multiple sports early on, instead of specializing in just one. You’ll also hear about some of the psychological battles athletes must go through to succeed like pain disassociation.

Mark McClusky, Digital Editor of Sports Illustrated, calls in to discuss enhancing an athlete’s performance through science and the tools that might help do that best. We explore how data analytics can track a baseball player’s eye movements and make it easier to weed out the bad players from the good, but our panel also muses over the idea that too much interference of science and technology in sports could be a bad thing.

Neil answers Cosmic Queries about the physics of soccer, data journalist Mona Chalabi stops by to share data on participation in high school sports, and Bill Nye is out on the pitch to prove that the key to being a great goalkeeper is being a great scientist.

As a former college soccer player and amateur golfer, episodes like these not only help me further understand things about my life, but further my understanding that science is everywhere and involved in everything. When that happens, I know StarTalk is doing its job.

If you want to get in the game, tune in and, as Bill Nye is fond of saying, “Turn it up loud!” Join us tomorrow night for The Science of Sports, with Hope Solo at 7pm EDT right here on our website, as well as on iTunes Podcasts, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and TuneIn. And if you’re an All-Access subscriber, you can watch or listen to this episode ad-free at 7pm, too, as well as Neil’s full extended interview with Hope. (And, if you don’t want to wait until tomorrow, you can hear even more with Neil and Hope right now in our Playing with Science episode, Soccer: The Art of Goalkeeping, with Hope Solo.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
–Ian Mullen