Episodes

In this episode, host Justin Hong interviews former college football player Pranav Iyer about his football journey, sports journalism career, and media company AMAZN HQ, which covers and highlights Asian American athletes. During the interview, Pranav talks about his family’s background, growing up in the Bay Area, and how he first discovered football (2:50), the early days of his football career (5:45), and his high school football experience, including his training program, playing a variety ...

On this episode, host Justin Hong interviews former world champion baton twirler Monica Lee. During her illustrious career, Monica competed for years on national and international stages and became a world champion baton twirler. In this episode, Monica talks about her childhood and how she got started with baton twirling (2:10) and educates us about baton twirling as a sport, including what baton twirlers do during competitions, the athletic skills that baton twirlers utilize, how baton twirli...

On this episode, host Justin Hong interviews tech executive, business leader, and former competitive tennis player Anand Tharanathan. During the interview, Anand talks about his backstory and how he got started playing tennis (2:23), his tennis career, training routine, diet & nutrition, and more (4:12), coming to the precipice of a pro tennis career before ultimately choosing not to pursue that route (8:30). He also reflects back on the decision not to pursue a pro career (17:15) and shares l...

On this episode, host Justin Hong is joined by Asian Canadians Balraj Jutla and Sukh Sidhu to discuss sports in Canada, Asian Canadian athletes, the growing sports culture in South Asian communities, and more. During this episode, Balraj and Sukh talk about Jeremy Lin and the impact of Linsanity on Asian Canadians (4:33), their own backstories growing up on opposite coasts in Canada, how they started following and playing sports, and the impact of sports on their lives (11:08), and the most pop...

On this episode, host Justin Hong interviews world champion powerlifter Newton Cheng about his powerlifting story and his journey to becoming a mental health advocate. In his powerlifting career, Newton has set multiple world, US, and California state records and is a world-and 4-time US national champion. He's also currently the Director of Health & Performance at Google - where he’s spent 14 years developing, launching, and scaling global programs aimed at helping Google employees thrive. Du...

On this episode, host Justin Hong interviews former D1 college track & field athlete and cross country runner Bismillah Alidost about his athletic journey. During his athletic career, Bismillah was a D1 collegiate athlete at Virginia Commonwealth University (also known as VCU) where he was on the track & field and cross country teams. In track & field, he competed in events such as the 800-meter run, 1000-meter run, 1500-meter run, mile run, 4x400 relay, and more. In cross country, he competed ...

On this episode, host Justin Hong interviews competitive disc golfer Kathryn Tang. Kathryn has played in 8 disc golf events so far at the pro level, highlighted by a 2nd place finish this year at the Canadian National Championships event. In this interview, Kathryn talks about her background playing sports and how she got started playing disc golf (2:00), disc golf basics - rules and objective of the sport, where tournaments take place, the biggest disc golf events, etc. (4:25), and how to get ...

In this episode, co-hosts Justin Hong and Patrick Pratumrat interview former professional football player Emmanuel Moody about his athletic career. During the interview, Emmanuel shares how he first got started playing football and his experience playing football during his childhood (3:55), his breakout game in high school that put him on the recruiting map and set up his football career - and how his life changed after this game (15:35), and his training regimen in high school (22:20). H...

On this episode, host Justin Hong interviews former professional badminton player Brittney Tam. During her illustrious career, Brittney achieved a #2 ranking in Canada and #40 worldwide ranking for women’s singles & mixed doubles. She was selected as 1 of 10 athletes to compete for Team Canada’s National Badminton Team, and she won 7 national titles and 16 international titles, playing in high-profile tournaments like the Pan Am Championships and Commonwealth Games. She also played professional ...

On this episode, Justin Hong is joined by AAPI and business leader Dennis Yu to talk about his love of basketball, the new Jeremy Lin documentary 38 at the Garden (which was recently released on HBO), and the impact and legacy of Linsanity. During this episode, Dennis shares his backstory and why basketball was so important to him while he was growing up (2:45), when he first heard of Jeremy Lin and the emotions that he felt watching Jeremy play early in his NBA career (8:55), Jeremy’s incred...

In this episode, host Justin Hong interviews former professional baseball player Danny Oh about his baseball career. During the interview, Danny talks about his childhood and playing sports at an early age (3:10), how playing tennis as a kid helped him develop as a baseball player later on (4:30), the start of his baseball career and making his local Little League team (6:45), his practice & training routines as a kid (9:55), and hitting 32 home runs as a 12-year old in Little League and startin...

On this episode, host Justin Hong interviews dragon boat athlete Fiona Chan. Fiona paddled for Western University in Canada and is now competing at the Premier Level of dragon boating with her team, the Outer Harbor Warriors. Her team recently won silver at the 2022 Canadian Dragon Boat Championships. In this episode, Fiona shares her background and how playing sports helped her develop self-confidence (2:18), dragon boating basics, such as how many paddlers are on a team, where races take pl...

On this episode, host Justin Hong interviews Eddie Hsieh who was a power-hitting catcher for Cal during his illustrious baseball career; he was also the captain of the team his senior season. Prior to playing at Cal, he was a first-team junior college All-American at San Jose City College and 4X first-team all-league selection at Pioneer High School in San Jose. He is now an eCommerce technology entrepreneur. During this episode, Eddie talks about when he first started playing sports (4:20...

Host Justin Hong is joined by Patrick Pratumrat on this first edition of “Prospect Watch,” which aims to provide visibility to up-and-coming Asian American athletes. On this episode, they shine the spotlight on 11 electrifying, young baseball, basketball, and football players they’re excited about: high school baseball players MJ & Minjae Seo (4:03), college football quarterbacks Tyler Buchner (8:15) and Jameson Wang (11:05), college basketball players Kayleigh & Kaylynne Truong (12:57), pro ...

In this introduction to The Asian American Athlete, host Justin Hong shares his own journey as an Asian American athlete (1:45) and does a deep dive into the reasons why he doesn’t think he reached his potential as an athlete - including a lack of skill development despite a strong work ethic (4:45), not having the institutional knowledge of how to get to the next level (5:50), and not feeling empowered as an athlete due to lack of support, low confidence, and emotional baggage. (6:55). He al...