The Ringer by Mirin Fader
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ROSALIE fish wants to be the face of change

Before every race, Rosalie Fish stares at her reflection in the mirror. She pauses a few minutes and thinks of Indigenous women. Women who have gone missing, who have been murdered. Those whose names she knows, those whose names she’ll never know. Aunts, cousins, neighbors, classmates. Women who had families, who had ambitions. Who had children, friends, dreams, desires. She paints a giant red hand across her mouth, stretching across her cheeks. Red is the color that spirits, that ancestors, can see, according to some Native traditions. The hand over her mouth is meant to represent and honor the Indigenous women who have been silenced through violence—sexual violence, physical violence, psychological violence—an epidemic that receives little national attention. “I had always known I was a target,” Fish says.

The Ringer by Mirin Fader
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INSIDE THE PAIN CAVE

When she feels as if she is running on shards of glass, when her legs feel like they are about to split open, when she thinks she can’t possibly run one more mile, Courtney Dauwalter starts visualizing the pain cave. It’s a place she constructs in her mind with elaborate detail. She conjures every crevice of the cave’s architecture: a large space with different tunnels inside. The cavernous paths in her mind can be wide or narrow, depending on the length and duration of the race. But with Courtney, they’re usually impossibly long. Dauwalter, 37, is considered the world’s best female ultramarathon runner. She might just be the greatest ultrarunner of all time, period. She races astonishing distances of 100- and 200-plus miles, even once attempting a 486-mile course. She is often on her feet for a mind-bending 24 or 48 straight hours, in the harshest environments imaginable, from steep terrain and high elevation to extreme weather.
Each race, she intends to go into the pain cave. She almost craves it. She warns herself, standing at the start line right before the gun goes off, that she is about to embark on another uncomfortable journey to the cave. “It’s not always going to feel great,” she tells herself. “But that’s going to make us better. We’re going to get better from visiting it.”

The Ringer by Mirin Fader
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AUSTIN REAVES’S PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF WITH UNEXPECTED LAKERS ROLE

Austin Reaves took his customary seat in the back row of the Lakers’ meeting room while the team reviewed film from the previous night’s game against Oklahoma City. Lakers coach Frank Vogel paused the tape on a clip of Reaves defending Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who had the ball on the right wing. “Should we double? What do y’all think?” Vogel asked the group. Essentially, Vogel was asking if Reaves would need help—or if he would be able to handle the assignment by himself. LeBron James was the first to speak up, according to Reaves, asserting that he could take SGA by himself. A chorus of agreement poured in, with multiple players saying: “No, he can guard him.” Then Trevor Ariza chimed in: “This motherfucker can guard him,” Reaves remembers Ariza saying. “We don’t need to [double].”

The Ringer by Mirin Fader
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The Future of U.S. Women’s Soccer Is Here

Alex Morgan waited her turn. Before she morphed into one of the greatest footballers of all time, she was just a 22-year-old hopeful making her World Cup debut for the U.S. women’s national team. It was 2011, and Team USA was playing in its first match at the World Cup. Excitement hummed inside the team’s youngest player, as she tried to navigate the delicate balance between fitting in and standing out.

The Ringer by Mirin Fader
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THE FUTURE IS SCOOT

Scoot Henderson dribbles an imaginary basketball between his legs. He pump-fakes, one, two, three times, as if he were in a real game, and pulls up for a jumper at the elbow. But he isn’t on the hardwood. He’s standing in the middle of an empty parking lot outside of a high school in Henderson, Nevada. It’s cold and windy on this November morning. He and his G League Ignite teammates are waiting outside the gym for another team to finish practicing.

The Ringer by Mirin Fader
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THE BURDEN OF BEING BIJAN ROBINSON

Bijan Robinson almost always has a football in his hands. It’s his comfort, his connection to home. The moment practice ends at the Atlanta Falcons facility, he rushes to the on-site barber, squeezing in a quick haircut. He smiles, on this December afternoon, recalling a story passed down by his family: He carried a football with him to his first haircut. Unable to sit still, 1-year-old Bijan kept finding targets in the barbershop. “I was throwing the football with everybody I saw,” he says. Robinson even regularly sneaked his football into church as a young boy, deviating from his duties as a drummer for the congregation. “Bijan! Put down that football!” his grandparents Cleo and Gerri Robinson would say.

The Ringer by Mirin Fader
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BREANNA STEWART FINDS NEW PERSPECTIVE ATOP THE WORLD

Dozens of young girl hoopers logged on to their computers, hoping to virtually meet their idol. Usually they’d be lining a tunnel in Seattle, watching Breanna Stewart as she runs onto the court. No matter. The girls were just excited to see her on their screens. Watch her. Maybe even talk to her. The girls were wearing muscle tanks, shorts. They looked ready to compete. They looked like her. Stewart started setting up video calls with young girls’ teams across the country last spring, during the height of quarantine, hoping to inspire the next generation of players while gyms were still closed. She wanted to tell them how to challenge themselves (she has to make 100 3s before she leaves the gym, 10 in a row at each spot). And she wanted to tell them about the voice in her head. The one that pushes her, the one that chases perfection. I have to be the best. I have to be the best.

The Ringer by Mirin Fader
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“YOU CAN’T TAKE A DAY OFF”

A couple more drives, a couple more minutes. Rewind, fast-forward. Rewind, fast-forward. There are hours of game film to dissect. It’s late at night in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and the young man who shoulders the city’s dreams is not asleep. He’s mesmerized by the movements on the screen. Bryce Young needs to catch one last glimpse of film before he shuts his eyes. Never mind that no one has asked him to. Or that he has already watched plenty throughout the day, with his teammates, with his coaches; he wants more. He is attentive to detail when he watches film, same as when he plays. On the field, Young approaches the line of scrimmage almost knowing what’s about to happen, based on his initial look. He can see the play before the play—his mind moves quicker than his feet.

The Ringer by Mirin Fader
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There’s no prospect like evan mobley

Evan Mobley’s family had a fish tank, filled mostly with oscar and African cichlids variations. One afternoon, his father Eric returned home and went to feed them. As he was facing the tank and preparing the fish flakes, a loud noise startled him. “WHOOP!”
He craned his neck and saw a pair of long legs whiz behind him. Eric realized those legs belonged to his youngest son. Evan, then a sixth grader and already taller than 6 feet, had performed a backflip over the marble floor in their house, shaking the ground upon landing on his feet. It could have been his head. Evan was thrilled. Eric was terrified.“Did you just do a backflip?!” Eric said. “Yeah, Dad!” Evan squealed. “Please don’t ever do that again,” Eric said, trying to maintain composure. “That is not safe.” Eric knew then: His son was different.

Bleacher Report by Mirin Fader
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THE RISE OF THE NEXT ANTETOKOUNMPO

Giannis Antetokounmpo leans against a table at the Bucks practice facility in downtown Milwaukee and watches a boy dribble. The boy’s legs turn into scissors as he slices a basketball between them. A white band that says “God is here” dangles from the boy’s wrist, seeming to further lengthen his 7’2″ wingspan. He is 6’7″ and crafty. Energetic. Probably because he knows Giannis is watching. He yearns to impress Giannis, and Giannis in turn sees in him a younger version of himself. A slimmer version of himself. The boy starts toward the hoop from the three-point line and softly lays the ball in. Too softly. Giannis’ eyes narrow. His shoulders stiffen. There’s a sense of urgency. Always is when he watches 17-year-old Alex Antetokounmpo, his youngest brother, the one he nurtures, protects and mentors, almost like a father would. “I get more nervous going to watch Alex play in a high school game than playing in the Eastern Conference Finals,” Giannis says.