In this episode, THE MENTORS RADIO Host Dan Hesse talks with Jimmy Roberts, a 15-time Emmy Award-winning sports reporter and writer for ESPN and ABC Sports, about how athletes break out of slumps. Jimmy Roberts has had what most people would think of as an interesting run. During a 30-year career in network television, he has spoken at the United Nations, and interviewed a convicted murderer behind the walls of Attica State Penitentiary. He has traveled with the heavyweight boxing champion to meetings with Nelson Mandela in Soweto and the Pope at the Vatican … and had dinner at the White House with the president of the United States. That said, he is primarily known as a sports reporter who has chronicled 19 Olympic Games, the Super Bowl, the World Series, the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the NBA Finals, Wimbledon, and, of course golf, where he has covered more than 70 major championships, 15 Ryder Cups, and since 2012 has been the signature voice of Augusta National’s acclaimed digital platform MASTERS.COM.

Roberts has earned numerous distinctions, including a Golf Writers Association of America award, The Metropolitan Golf Association Distinguished Service Award, and the Lincoln Werden Journalism medal.

He is also a prolific writer. For two decades Roberts has been the featured back page columnist for Met Golfer (NY) Magazine. His most recent book, the bestseller “NO ONE WINS ALONE” (Simon & Schuster,) written in 2021 with hockey legend Mark Messier, discusses motivation and performance lessons from one of professional sports greatest leaders.

In 2009, Harper Collins published his first book, Breaking the Slump, which tells the story of how some of the best golfers to ever play the game – as well as one former president and one Olympic gold medalist – dug themselves out of career-threatening dry spells. The book was critically praised in Newsweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Sports Illustrated.

“Jimmy Roberts has always been a wonderful storyteller, touching the hearts and challenging the minds of viewers,” said legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus.

Roberts often speaks about the book, which he understands has a universality to it: “As golfers, we’re all really the same. There are two types of us in this world; those who’ve had a slump, and those who are going to have (at least) one. And it’s a matter of degree. When Jack Nicklaus struggles, he loses the ball to the left. When I struggle, I just… lose the ball.” Roberts also came to realize in writing this book – ostensibly about golf – that it really was something that had nothing to do with the game; it was a book about how successful people handled adversity. For the last 24 years, Roberts has been a fixture on NBC, where this summer he will report from the Paris Olympic Games. Listen to the show broadcast on Salem Radio in San Francisco, via live-streaming on iHeart Radio worldwide or anytime, on ANY podcast platform, including Apple Podcast, Spotify, iTunes, TuneIN, Stitcher, Google Play and all the others. Sign up for the podcast here.

JIMMY ROBERTS:

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• BIO:
  
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  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Roberts
    
  • Metropolitan Golf Writers Association Honors Jimmy Roberts with the 2023 Lincoln Werden Golf Journalism Award
    
  
  
  
• BOOKS:
  
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  • No One Wins Alone, by Mark Messier and Jimmy Roberts
    
  • Breaking the Slump: How Great Players Survived Their Darkest Moments in Golf and What You Can Learn from Them, by Jimmy Roberts