NASHUA, NH – In the inaugural presentation for the 2024 Nashua Community Lecture Series, Professor David Hollander gave his presentation at the Nashua Center for the Arts. He is the author of “ HOW BASKETBALL CAN SAVE THE WORLD – 13 Guiding Principles for Reimagining What’s Possible,” which was the basis for his presentation.
Miami Heat forward Duncan Robinson was on hand to introduce Hollander. The current NBA player is a native of New Hampshire and knows the professor through his work and book. The speaker series is a production of Community Investments Global a local company organized to advance cultural and intellectual entertainment programs for the greater Nashua community.
As part of the night’s program, they awarded the 2024 Community Investments Service Award to Kaleb Johnson for his service work. He founded the Self Help Tour, an outreach and speaker program advocating for athletes and mental health.
Hollander is a lifelong hoop player and an Assistant Dean and clinical professor at the Tisch Institute for Global Sport at New York University. The origin of the book and lecture was a course he created of the same name for the NYU Humanities program.
For him, the book is the natural outcome of his primary pursuits. “There are two places I feel perfectly right and integrated. One is a basketball court and the other one is in the classroom teaching.”
In the face of rapidly changing, conflict-prone, and divisive times he conceived of the philosophy that underlies his premise. Hollander explores the global phenomena of basketball and how its values and structures can be a model to avoid and solve those problems.
The book’s premise and his Principles for Reimaging What’s Possible examine a basketball game’s operating systems and interactions. He breaks down the play structure and conventions of a pick-up game as a meeting of strangers with little to no familiarity with each other, who come together cooperatively and proceed toward success or failure as a group.
He also speaks of the universality of basketball referring to the “language” of the court and the space of the court as a common context. The game is played and known around the world with a limited barrier to entry and some common guiding principles.
He proposes that those principles of basketball could and should be applied to bigger societal structures like relationships between races, genders, and nations.
Beyond the book, he has advocated for the international recognition of the sport. With the help of his students, they successfully appealed to have the Vatican recognize the first patron Saint of basketball from the town of Poretta Torme in Italy. His direct appeal to the United Nations led to the establishment of International Basketball Day in 2023. Basketball is the only sport with a designated day. This December 21st will mark the second tear of that celebration
Professor Hollander lights up when he describes the play of basketball. It is hard not to imagine him at the local Y, rotating in on a pick-up game. For him, it is a joyful pursuit but also a very serious proposition. Perhaps basketball can save the world.
On October 17th the series will present one of America’s most trusted journalists, Jane Pauley, In addition to her current role as host of CBS Sunday Morning, she is known as a powerful advocate for mental health awareness, using her personal story to encourage and motivate others. Jane Pauley will be introduced by Nashua’s Mayor Jim Donchess.
On November 3rd the series will present Ambassador John Sullivan. Ambassador Sullivan has served both Republican and Democrat Administrations in positions including U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and Ambassador to the Russian Federation. He is the author of the new book “MIDNIGHT IN MOSCOW: A Memoir from the Front Lines of Russia’s War Against the West”
Tickets can be purchased online.
