At a latest celebration, members of SLAM journal’s employees, previous and current during the last 30-plus years, couldn’t imagine it.
The Corridor of Fame. Actually? SLAM within the Corridor of Fame?
Founder Dennis Web page and the publication have been honored by the James Naismith Memorial Basketball Corridor of Fame with the Curt Gowdy Transformative Media Award throughout a ceremony in August. To some, this appeared inconceivable again in Might 1994, when the primary situation — that includes Larry Johnson on the duvet — was launched.
Thirty years in the past, SLAM was not like something in trendy journalism. It didn’t play by conventional guidelines. Profanity in publication was not off-limits. The writers and editors didn’t faux to be neutral.
“‘Outcast’ is an efficient phrase for us,” mentioned Tony Gervino, the journal’s first editor-in-chief who now works at Tidal as government vp and editor-in-chief.
SLAM was a part of a tradition shift that personified a time when the NBA was altering, a time when hip-hop started crafting the model of many gamers. The shorts have been longer and baggier. Pregame music playlists have been extra prone to embrace Wu-Tang Clan or Snoop Dogg as a substitute of R&B crooners like Jeffrey Osborne or Luther Vandross. Tattoos grew to become as widespread as high-top footwear.
And there was SLAM, one thing of a disruptor itself by championing the voice of the fan. Impressed by hip-hop journal The Supply, SLAM’s vibrant pictures and elegance of storytelling related with a youthful viewers that cared in regards to the footwear gamers wore simply as a lot as the ultimate rating of video games.
The consequence? Greater than 300 million magazines have been bought since 1994. There have been 132 covers to characteristic a Corridor of Famer.
SLAM journal’s manufacturing stats are showcased on the thirtieth anniversary exhibit on the James Naismith Memorial Basketball Corridor of Fame. (Bob Blanchard / SLAM)
SLAM didn’t act like conventional media — nor did it need to be. It resonated a lot that others finally tried to emulate it. It was fairly the shift, contemplating early on the New York Metropolis publication had bother getting media credentials for NBA protection.
“We have been actually on the surface of the get together trying in, and we simply informed folks the get together sucked,” Gervino mentioned. “That’s why we have been on the surface. We bought into it, then we form of roughed it up a bit.”
Web page, along with being an enormous sports activities fan, has an enormous appreciation for music. He was the writer of Guitar World journal when he grew to become impressed at how The Supply had captured the eye of the hip-hop technology.
Web page believed the world didn’t want one other journal targeted on rap, as there have been a lot in the marketplace. What he hadn’t seen was a publication that merged tradition and sports activities.
“There have been folks all around the world, younger children that have been into hip-hop, into basketball,” Web page mentioned. “However Sports activities Illustrated, Road & Smith didn’t converse to them. After we got here out, we spoke to them.”
Followers accepted SLAM — after which the gamers grew to become followers. The journal covers grew to become in style. Whether or not it was Kevin Garnett and Stephon Marbury showcasing their lavish jewellery or Allen Iverson getting featured in his Sixers jersey together with his hair in an Afro moderately than his typical braids, SLAM struck a nerve.
“We have been simply dwelling it, and we wrote about basketball and referred to hip-hop music and lyrics. This was who we have been,” Web page mentioned. “We weren’t a company publishing home, so we have been simply writing the journal for ourselves.
“Actually, I had no concept there have been that many individuals on this planet that will perceive this and settle for it and actually recognize it.”
Thirty years after its introduction, SLAM was honored with certainly one of basketball’s most prestigious media awards. Success, nonetheless, may not have labored with out the liberty the employees was given. That meant nontraditional journalism ways comparable to giving area to the sneaker world, that includes participant diaries and serving as a way to attach basketball followers globally earlier than the web.
It led to partaking content material.
“To begin with, we didn’t know any higher,” mentioned former SLAM author and editor Lang Whitaker, who has labored for the NBA and GQ journal and at the moment works for the Memphis Grizzlies. “We have been simply making stuff that we thought was cool, and I believe that’s why it resonated.
“For higher or worse, there wasn’t a whole lot of oversight. No person was telling us what to be like. Dennis simply allow us to do our factor and allow us to sort of rock.”
No author personified the SLAM model in its early days greater than Robert “Scoop” Jackson.
“An important individual in SLAM historical past is Scoop,” Gervino mentioned. “He actually launched a technology of writers and children who mentioned, ‘I can do this now.’”
Robert “Scoop” Jackson was one of the vital revered journalists throughout SLAM’s early days. (David Zalubowski / Related Press)
Jackson’s distinctive model of reporting allowed him to attach with NBA gamers in a manner that was completely different but welcomed. The Chicago native was nearer to the gamers’ ages, and he had a watch for expertise and traits. He wrote about Iverson being the way forward for basketball earlier than he was within the NBA after watching Iverson play in a summer season league whereas nonetheless at Georgetown.
Jackson, who’s now a columnist for the Chicago Solar-Occasions, needed to inform in-depth tales. He needed to write down about Chicago’s Ben Wilson, the Simeon Excessive Faculty prospect thought to be the highest highschool participant in America who was shot and died in November 1984.
Editors at SLAM weren’t conversant in Wilson’s story. That gave Jackson extra urgency to inform it — even when it occurred almost 10 years after Wilson’s loss of life.
“We did a human curiosity story that was rooted within the tradition of basketball and what the way forward for basketball may have been,” Jackson mentioned. “However that way forward for basketball by no means bought an opportunity to dwell. To me, when you go there, that’s the muse of the way you’re going to cope with telling the story in regards to the tradition of basketball.”
Jackson was a staple at SLAM for 11 years. Although an NBA presence typically made the duvet of most points, tales like Wilson’s have been the soul of the publication.
“Tony and I checked out Dennis as that White man who actually understood Black tradition,” Jackson mentioned. “He understood the sport of basketball wasn’t simply in regards to the NBA.”
That mindset led SLAM to take an opportunity on writing about Iverson earlier than he made it to the NBA. It additionally allowed them to lean extra into writing in regards to the tradition and life-style of these in basketball, such because the story of streetball legend Rafer Alston, who, whereas at Fresno State, was featured within the journal as “The Finest Level Guard within the World.” It additionally meant discovering highschool standouts and profiling ladies who have been stars within the sport.
One story Jackson fondly recollects is a 1997 profile of Daybreak Staley, the previous star level guard at Virginia, six-time WNBA All-Star and three-time Olympic gold medalist who now’s the coach of the reigning ladies’s school basketball champion South Carolina Gamecocks. Jackson merely frolicked along with her in her native Philadelphia, visiting her outdated neighborhood and the courts she performed on whereas studying extra about her as an individual.
This piece wasn’t about Staley’s time with Group USA, and the WNBA hadn’t formally began (the primary WNBA sport happened June 21, 1997). As an alternative, the story was in regards to the males she performed towards rising up and what town of Philadelphia meant to her.
“It had nothing to do along with her skilled profession, nothing to do actually with what she did at Virginia,” Jackson mentioned. “We informed the ’hood story of Daybreak Staley.”
The significance of Iverson can’t be understated. Jackson mentioned he and Web page disagreed on what to do with Iverson. On the time, a non-NBA participant had not graced the duvet. Iverson nonetheless was at Georgetown however had gained Huge East Defensive Participant of the 12 months as a freshman whereas averaging 20.4 factors.
Plenty of basketball followers weren’t conversant in Iverson as a participant. Some had heard about him as a prep star who was arrested throughout a battle at a bowling alley. Jackson believed it was necessary to write down about who Iverson was and his basketball journey, not simply what had made headlines off the courtroom.
“A part of the muse of our duty was telling the cultural facet of basketball first, after which can it connect with the NBA second,” Jackson mentioned. “Nevertheless it wasn’t simply Iverson. Despite the fact that his identify gave it prominence, it was us doing the story.”
Jackson mentioned Michael Jordan was additionally necessary to SLAM. Web page needed Jordan to be on the duvet of the primary version, however he retired after the 1993 season. As an alternative, the duvet went to Johnson.
Jackson mentioned SLAM lined Jordan’s return to the league primarily based on what he meant to the tradition of basketball. It additionally helped that Jordan wasn’t keen on Sports activities Illustrated, which had famously used its cowl to inform him to surrender enjoying baseball.
Jordan opened as much as Ahmad Rashad from NBC, however the community was nonetheless a part of the NBA’s media machine.
“We have been informed Jordan tales in a different way than anyone else. None of our Jordan tales have been like something anyone else was writing,” Jackson mentioned. “We have been in a position to construct a relationship with him, and he felt snug with us in a manner that he didn’t really feel with anyone else.
“We talked to him about issues coping with simply his strategy to the sport of basketball and his contribution to the sport of basketball from a cultural perspective. So, I believe that carried as a lot weight as our journalistic relationship with Allen Iverson.”
Jordan’s first SLAM cowl was in July 1995. He ended up doing 13 covers within the journal’s 30 years — together with three of the primary 19 points.
Hip-hop was a little bit greater than 20 years outdated on the time, and by the Nineteen Nineties, it was enjoying by its personal guidelines. From trend to subject material, the music pushed a brand new tradition ahead.
The writers at SLAM did the identical. Web page credit Jackson for being an enormous a part of SLAM’s emergence. Jackson was a younger Black author in locker rooms, and for some gamers, that wasn’t the norm. Like lots of the gamers he lined, Jackson was part of a technology that grew up on hip-hop, and he was keen on telling gamers’ tales another way.
“He was a younger, nice author, and he understood (the gamers) as an individual,” Web page mentioned. “We have been inside out versus making an attempt to be goal, passing judgment, which journalism can do. We have been sort of certainly one of them. It’s actually not that sophisticated or that deep, trying again.”
SLAM’s tradition was heightened with the help of visuals.
The journal has produced among the most unforgettable cowl pictures in basketball. One cause the journal continues to be printed is the covers that develop into T-shirts. Web page mentioned SLAM had a cope with clothes model Mitchell & Ness that allowed it to make T-shirts out of sure journal covers.
The covers, many with hip-hop references, have been memorable for gamers. NBA Corridor of Famer Shaquille O’Neal mentioned he doesn’t bear in mind all of the SLAM covers he was featured in, however when proven a couple of, one caught his consideration.
“I do not forget that one,” he mentioned, figuring out the September 2000 situation that had “Victorious BIG” within the background. It celebrated O’Neal’s first championship with the Los Angeles Lakers.
The basketball connection is obvious, however the title is also a play off the identify of certainly one of O’Neal’s favourite rappers: The Infamous B.I.G.
“This one is my favourite,” he mentioned.
SLAM didn’t flip to conventional basketball photographers for its covers. It went to professionals like Atiba Jefferson, who has a background in skateboarding. It additionally went to Jonathan Mannion, who made his identify as a photographer within the music business.
Mannion has shot album covers for a number of hip-hop and R&B stars, together with Jay-Z, DMX, DJ Khaled, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, E-40 and Aaliyah. Working with SLAM was a brand new take a look at, however a welcomed one.
“So far as execution, they actually set me free,” Mannion mentioned. “I cherished working with this stage of athletes. … I all the time sort of loved (SLAM shoots), however I used to be there to inform an genuine story, too.”
A type of alternatives was taking pictures Chamique Holdsclaw when she was a star on the College of Tennessee. Holdsclaw was the primary lady to grace the duvet of SLAM.
Holdsclaw grew to become a fan of the journal as a preps star at Christ the King Excessive Faculty in New York. After she dominated the faculty circuit, SLAM requested her whether or not she can be the primary lady to play within the NBA.
The Tennessee standout then was informed to return to New York, the place Mannion — whom she dubbed “the Hip-Hop Photographer” — can be behind the digital camera.
Holdsclaw’s groundbreaking cowl — her carrying a New York Knicks uniform for SLAM’s September 1998 situation — is one she’s nonetheless requested to autograph.
“(When) I bought there, it was, like, the dopest picture shoot that I’ve ever achieved,” Holdsclaw mentioned. “Jonathan was simply developing with concepts. He was like, ‘They need you to put on this.’”
Holdsclaw’s cowl and picture shoot captured a lot that outlined SLAM. It was edgy and forward-thinking. Even her stance and equipment have been hip-hop in model.
“I checked out that Knicks jersey, and I used to be like, ‘Oh, that is good,’” she mentioned.
One among SLAM’s hottest covers is the Class of 1996 double cowl that featured rookies from the ’96 NBA Draft class. Future Corridor of Famers Kobe Bryant, Ray Allen and Steve Nash are a part of that crew, together with future All-Stars like Marbury and Shareef Abdur-Rahim.
Former Syracuse star John Wallace was a rookie with the Knicks throughout the 1996-97 NBA season. He mentioned that class, highlighted by Iverson and Bryant, introduced a hip-hop mindset to the NBA.
“You all the time hear this narrative: Rappers need to be basketball gamers; basketball gamers need to be rappers,” Wallace mentioned. “However that was due to us and our period, what we ushered in. They weren’t saying that in regards to the Michael Jordan (period) guys. They weren’t listening to rap and hip-hop like we have been.”
Ben Osborne labored at SLAM for greater than 18 years, the final 10 as editor-in-chief. He mentioned the significance of sneakers in SLAM’s endurance can’t be overstated. It’s now widespread for footwear to obtain media consideration. That wasn’t all the time the case.
Shoe firms acknowledged that, too. Their help by way of adverts helped hold issues afloat. Reebok and Foot Locker have been among the many early firms that supported with promoting.
SLAM finally would dedicate total points to footwear, KICKS. Now, some journalists solely cowl footwear.
“We knew the most important sneaker firms on this planet have been going to help a difficulty each single month,” Osborne mentioned. “That simply took a little bit little bit of weight off. They weren’t ranging from scratch each month to get folks to help it. I believe that, that made us cowl sneakers extra. Followers favored that much more as a result of we have been doing it in a different way than different locations.”
SLAM has developed within the social media period by persevering with to lean into tradition. Trend is an enormous a part of that. SLAM has an Instagram account, LeagueFits, which has greater than 1 million followers.
SLAM has seen vital development in its 30 years of existence. The Corridor of Fame exhibit serves as proof. (Bob Blanchard / SLAM)
Adam Figman began at SLAM as an intern in 2010. He’s now a former editor-in-chief and chief content material officer who took over as the corporate’s CEO in April. He mentioned the social media accounts and the duvet T-shirts have been key in holding the journal’s place within the basketball tradition.
Whilst gamers publish their very own pictures on social media, one thing nonetheless resonates with them a couple of cowl shoot for {a magazine}. For gamers like Holdsclaw, Cooper Flagg and Zion Williamson, showing in SLAM as prep phenoms is completely different.
“Everybody desires to be on a canopy, as a result of anybody can publish a photograph of themselves,” Figman mentioned. “Any basketball participant can say, ‘Right here’s what I appear to be. Right here’s a cool picture of me.’ However a canopy is a particular second. It’s a stamp, and a SLAM stamp, to me, is validation. We solely achieve this many covers, so it means one thing particular.”
SLAM’s recognition by the Corridor of Fame is an accomplishment for all who labored on the journal. It’s an honor that exhibits how impactful SLAM has been. All say the second stays surreal.
In the long run, the outcasts have been invited to the get together. And they are going to be acknowledged by partygoers on the Corridor of Fame without end.
(Prime picture: Bob Blanchard / SLAM)