In this week’s sports roundup: The start of NFL playoffs, the fate of running back Joe Mixon, who was caught on video punching a woman in 2014, and a 105-year-old Frenchman still on his bike.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

And it’s time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SIMON: It’s less than a month until the Super Bowl. And the NFL playoffs begin today. NPR’s Tom Goldman joins us now for the first time in 2017. Good morning, Tom.

TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Well, good morning. And Happy New Year.

SIMON: And Happy New Year to you, my friend. Now, I know you’re deeply opposed to making predictions, which just makes you smart compared to the rest of us.

GOLDMAN: (Laughter).

SIMON: But what will you be watching for in these playoffs?

GOLDMAN: Well, OK. Number one – can a team lose its star quarterback to injury and still win with a third-string rookie making his first NFL start in a playoff game? That would be Oakland, which lost Derek Carr, its starting quarterback, to a broken leg – then the second-stringer to a shoulder injury. Next man up is Connor Cook, starting against Houston in today’s first game. Now, history says it’ll be a tough day for the rookie. But his coach liked the way Cook looked when he came in last week and threw 21 passes in a loss to Denver. But, of course, that wasn’t a playoff game.

And then tomorrow, when two hot teams meet in frigid temperatures, who stays hot? That would be the New York Giants against the Green Bay Packers in Green Bay, where weather is supposed to be around 13 degrees at game time – makes me cold just to say that. The Packers have won six straight with the best quarterback in the NFL right now, Aaron Rodgers, leading the way. The Giants are playing well. We’ve seen this before, Scott, with the Giants. In 2007, 2011, they caught fire late. They beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl both times. But I’m not sure they can…

SIMON: And some guy just catches a pass next to his helmet – is what happens – the Giants, yeah.

GOLDMAN: That’s all it takes, yeah. But I’m not sure they can do that again this time unless their offense plays better and unless they find a wide receiver who can catch a ball with his head.

SIMON: (Laughter) Yeah. That’s quite a – they work on that in training camp now.

GOLDMAN: Yeah.

SIMON: Joe Mixon of the Oklahoma Sooners wants to go pro. Videos made public – that’s utterly ugly to watch. Is it going to make it difficult for him to go pro?

GOLDMAN: Well, you know, we won’t know that until late April when the NFL draft happens. Mixon is a very good running back. But in 2014, he was suspended the entire freshman season after an argument at an Oklahoma restaurant ended with him punching a woman in the head. And that resulted in several fractures in her face. At the time, Mixon was charged with a misdemeanor and ordered to do community service and counseling.

But as you mentioned, a surveillance video showing the incident didn’t emerge until last month. And when it did, it created a national outcry. Mixon publicly apologized. And his head coach was criticized for saying if the incident happened now with the heightened awareness of violence against women, Mixon would’ve been kicked off the team.

SIMON: Yeah. I can’t let the week go by without noting that Robert Marchand – I believe that’s how you would pronounce his name…

GOLDMAN: Wait.

SIMON: …Set a new record for cycling. Oh, we use it. I’m sorry. He cycled 92 laps around a velodrome near Paris in an hour, set a new world record. He is 105 and says, I’m now waiting for arrival, which, Tom, I think, is a clear taunt at both of us. Don’t you?

GOLDMAN: It’s a clear taunt, obviously. And are we up to it, Scott? He’s got the heart to back it up, though. It’s apparently a very big, strong heart that beats slowly. His coach says Marchand has the heart of a 60-year-old.

SIMON: (Laughter).

GOLDMAN: So 60 must be the new 40 when it comes to healthy hearts. I don’t know. But yeah, 92 laps – that translates to 14 miles in one hour. That’s quite impressive.

SIMON: And he didn’t take up cycling until he was 68. Can you imagine that?

GOLDMAN: Yeah. He wanted to do something in his youth.

SIMON: (Laughter).

GOLDMAN: He took it up with a vengeance, though. He bikes between six and 12 miles a day on a stationary bike. So no excuses. It’s 2017. Let’s get out there.

SIMON: All right. NPR’s Tom Goldman, thanks so much.

GOLDMAN: Thank you.

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Nuala Moore always has her bathing suit with her in January and other winter months. She is participating in the second International Ice Swimming Association World Championships.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

So if you happen to visit Bavaria in January, you might not think of packing a bathing suit. Then again, you might be Nuala Moore from Dingle, Ireland.

NUALA MOORE: One should always have their bathing suit in the winter.

GREENE: Moore travelled to Burghausen, Germany, to compete in the 2nd International Ice Swimming Association World Championships being held today. Yes, you heard that right – ice swimming.

MOORE: It’s like putting your entire body into your freezer (unintelligible). It’s extremely painful.

GREENE: Yeah, that just doesn’t sound fun. So this eight-lane competition pool has actually been carved out of the frozen Salzach River. That’s near Austria. It sits at the foot of a hulking stone castle. And the water hovers just above 32 degrees. Competition organizers promise no icebergs in the pool. Moore, who is swimming the 1-kilometer event, says she was terrified the first time she took a dip in frosty waters.

MOORE: Absolutely terrified, and I think that’s one of the most amazing things. You get to see how fragile you actually are – that moment where you really are not everything that you believe you are.

GREENE: So it took Moore two years to warm up to the cold, so to speak, to stay in for the 20-some minutes it takes to swim a kilometer. To get started, she devised a curious training method – dunking in buckets of ice at a local fish factory. OK. Since then, she has swum in Siberian pools carved out of the ice with chainsaws. She’s paddled across the Bering Strait and also circumnavigated Ireland on a relay.

MOORE: For me, my journey has not been about racing or getting quicker. My journey has just been about understanding the body and how we can achieve these amazing things and what we as individuals need to do to present 100 percent each time.

GREENE: When Moore is not dog paddling with polar bears, she runs her own bed linens shop in Ireland. More power to her for not spending her time there and forgetting these icy waters. So she probably spends a lot of time buried beneath blankets after races, I would imagine.

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

USA coaches surprised Russia by using Troy Terry 3 times in shootout, which means they probably never mentioned that plan on email. #WJC2017

— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) January 4, 2017

Man, that sucks for Russia, who will have to look for North American wins elsewhere

— Bruce Arthur (@bruce_arthur) January 4, 2017

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Greece native Jennie Fagen, who graduated from the University of Rochester, wrote a parody of “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” from The Sound of Music. The Bills haven’t made the playoffs in 17 years.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning, I’m David Greene. I’m going to spare the Cleveland Browns today because this happened.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

JENNIE FAGEN: (Singing) Bills are 16 going on 17 years out of the playoffs.

GREENE: Buffalo Bills fan Jennie Fagen made a video about her team missing the playoffs again. It’s a sports version of a “Sound Of Music” song.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

FAGEN: (Singing) But we can tailgate better in upstate and willingly, we Bill-ieve (ph).

GREENE: Bill-ieve it, get it? It’s MORNING EDITION.

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Filmmaker Molly Schiot documents the paths of women who led the way in various sports in the book Game Changers: The Unsung Heroines of Sports History.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

And now we’re going to hear about another kind of big break. There’s a new book out that puts a spotlight on the long-forgotten stories of dozens of women who fought to break through the glass ceiling of sports. The book is called “Game Changers: The Unsung Heroines Of Sports History.” NPR’s Shereen Marisol Meraji has more.

SHEREEN MARISOL MERAJI, BYLINE: This book is dedicated to all the women who were forever told no. That’s how filmmaker Molly Schiot opens her book “Game Changers,” a book inspired by her own battles with no.

MOLLY SCHIOT: So I was pitching stories to a major sports network.

MERAJI: Stories she wanted to make into documentaries for that sports network.

SCHIOT: They were all about women. And I was just told this one isn’t interesting enough or this one doesn’t really resonate with us or try something else.

MERAJI: Molly put the rejections in a folder…

SCHIOT: That was called failed pitches to a major sports network.

MERAJI: …And got angry. That anger compelled her to collect even more of these stories. And she found them hidden in dusty old books at the Los Angeles Public Library.

SCHIOT: Books that, like, nobody’s ever opened in – like, since the ’60s.

MERAJI: She scanned the photos she found and posted them to Instagram with long captions, dusting off these old stories for a new generation under the handle @theunsungheroines. That eventually became this coffee table book. On page 224, you’ll meet Linda Jefferson, a running back for the 1975 Toledo Troopers and one of only four women inducted into the American Football Association’s Hall of Fame. Or get acquainted with Florence Barnes on page 150. She convinced a World War I vet to teach her to fly and in 1930 took Amelia Earhart’s title as fastest woman on earth. And on page 280, say hello to the women who made all this possible.

SCHIOT: The spring pad to the Instagram feed, which later became the book, was the first story that I ever pitched. And it’s based off of the Wake-Robin Golf Club.

PAULETTE SAVOY: Well, any time you’re in a book and somebody says you were the inspiration for the book, well, I mean, you know, that’s just fabulous.

MERAJI: Paulette Savoy’s been a member of the Wake-Robin Golf Club since 1985, but it was founded about 50 years prior by wives tired of staying at home while their husbands teed up on the weekends. Wake-Robin is the first black women’s golf club in the United States.

WINNIE STANFORD: The white golfers, they weren’t used to seeing black women play golf. And a lot of times they used to hit the ball into our foursome.

MERAJI: Ninety-three-year-old Winnie Stanford is one of Wake-Robin’s oldest members.

STANFORD: You had to make up your mind if you were going to play golf. You were – just had to put up with it as long as no one got hurt.

MERAJI: The club fought to desegregate the D.C. public golf courses. And in those early years, they put up with overt racism and sexism. And while they were fighting for integration, they played at the Langston Golf Course, an old dump the city set aside for black golfers in 1939.

SAVOY: When people were playing, sometimes they had to move junk out of the way in order to hit the ball. But at least it was our golf course and we weren’t bothered.

MERAJI: That’s Paulette again. She and Jean Miller, one of Wake-Robin’s most decorated golfers, say things changed a lot by the time they stepped onto the green. They didn’t experience the same kind of harassment Winnie dealt with early on. But then again, they’re a couple decades younger.

SAVOY: Well, Winnie and I will tell you the truth. You’ll never get an age out of Jean (laughter).

MERAJI: Jean’s in four different clubs. She travels the world playing golf and considers herself a fierce competitor. But she says there’s nothing like Wake-Robin.

JEAN MILLER: It’s like coming home. Yeah, there’s a whole lot of history behind this club. I’m just so grateful that they accepted me in the group.

MERAJI: Molly Schiot’s the first to agree there’s a whole lot of history there. And it deserves more than a page in her book.

SCHIOT: My whole pipe dream from the start was to bring their story to life.

MERAJI: And she’s not taking no for an answer. Shereen Marisol Meraji, NPR News.

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Was this the year of the activist athlete? NPR’s Scott Simon looks back on the year in sports with Howard Bryant of ESPN.com.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

I think I’ve waited all year to say it’s time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SIMON: It’s the last day of 2016, the greatest year in the history of sports since, oh, 1908. Howard Bryant of ESPN and espn.com joins us. Hi there, Howard. How are you?

HOWARD BRYANT: Goodness gracious, Scott. What happened in 1908? Were you there?

SIMON: (Laughter) No, I wasn’t, but – no and neither was any other Cub fan. What do you think 2016 will be remembered for?

BRYANT: Well, obviously, 2016 will be remembered for…

SIMON: And don’t skip the obvious, OK?

BRYANT: And don’t skip the obvious. Maybe we’ll save the best for last. How about that? 2016 was a tremendous year obviously, when you look at it in terms of protest. Colin Kaepernick stole the year in terms of making the link between the American ideal and what was happening in the African-American community with regards to police brutality. You have LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul at the ESPY’s talking about protests and the soccer player Megan Rapinoe as well, standing with the protests. So you have this year, once again, where activism in sports come together. And I think you’re going to see more of that in 2017.

However, I think one of the great things about this sport, about this industry is that the game on the field once again always seems to rise to the top. It always saves it from the people who play it and run it and sometimes the people who watch it. It’s almost like we had two different years. You started the year with Peyton Manning winning the Super Bowl and going out on top, and you had Chris Jenkins with Villanova winning the national championship on a 30-foot buzzer beater which was tremendous. And you’re thinking that the year couldn’t get any better than that, and then it was really a one-story year with the Golden State Warriors winning 73 games and pretty much turning the NBA into the junior varsity. And then, of course, they had a spectacular rise and a spectacular fall. And then…

SIMON: Cleveland rocks.

BRYANT: …LeBron James wins the championship.

SIMON: Yeah.

BRYANT: And Cleveland wins, and Scott Simon is very happy about that. So it’s great. On the one hand, you thought that the year was going to go one way and then it went another. And then, of course, culminating with the Olympics and Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky and Simone Biles and so many things happened, obviously, leading up into the World Series.

And you and I had this conversation all year about the Chicago Cubs finally being the best team in baseball. And all they had to do was go out and play to their capabilities, and they were going to end this streak of a hundred years of not winning.

SIMON: A hundred and eight years, Howard.

BRYANT: Hundred and eight years. Oh, I don’t want to short anybody those eight years. And it looked as though that this was going to be inevitable, but that postseason was one of the greatest postseasons any of us had ever seen. They were on the verge of going out every round. They could have lost to the Giants in the first round. They went out to California. They were down 2-1 to the Dodgers and came back. They were down 3-1 in the World Series which was one of the great World Series culminating in one of the greatest games sevens ever. So we had a really phenomenal full year on the field and off the field.

SIMON: What do you see ahead for 2017?

BRYANT: I think you’re going to see, well, obviously, you never know what’s going to happen on the field. You have to wait, as we say. When people say to me, hey, Howard, who’s going to win? I don’t know. That’s why they play, and so we wait and see what’s going to happen. We’re going to be surprised, no question about that. But I definitely think in terms of social movements, I think you’re going to see more of athletes showing their power, revealing how much power and how much influence they actually have, these college athletes recognizing now that eventually this system has to fall apart where you have to pay these guys.

At some point, if you have the best players in college football choosing not to play in the most important games in the bowl games because they want to save themselves for the NFL draft and for their future, their financial future, at some point, the college system is going down. There’s no way that this thing can can sustain itself if – the networks are not going to pay to watch Alabama play the second string.

SIMON: Howard Bryant of espn.com. Talk to you next year, my friend. Take care.

BRYANT: Happy New Year, Scott.

SIMON: Happy New Year to you.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Muhammad Ali was among the great lives that ended in 2016. The self-proclaimed “greatest” boxer-turned-activist left a profound social and political legacy.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Muhammad Ali was outspoken about everything – his boxing skills…

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MUHAMMAD ALI: I am the greatest.

(CHEERING)

SIEGEL: …His Muslim faith and why he changed his name…

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ALI: Cassius Clay was my slave name. I’m no longer a slave.

SIEGEL: …His opposition to the Vietnam War and his refusal to serve in the military.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ALI: You won’t even stand up for me in America for my religious beliefs. And you want me to go somewhere and fight, but you won’t even stand up for me here at home.

SIEGEL: Muhammad Ali is just one of the many notable people who died this year, a personality so electric it’s impossible to capture in just one soundbite. And after news coverage of his death and funeral last June, you might think that you’ve heard all of Ali’s best clips in any case. Well, you probably didn’t hear this.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “I AM THE GREATEST: THE ADVENTURES OF MUHAMMAD ALI”)

ALI: Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee.

SIEGEL: That is a Saturday morning cartoon from 1977. “I Am The Greatest: The Adventures Of Muhammad Ali” aired for just 13 episodes. It turns out even his immense personality couldn’t save what were essentially rehashed Scooby-Doo plots. But at the end of the show after Ali had saved the day, he sometimes spoke directly to his young audience.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “I AM THE GREATEST: THE ADVENTURES OF MUHAMMAD ALI”)

ALI: Now, this may sound strange, but I haven’t always been the heavyweight champion of the world. At one time, I was a contender, and I didn’t always win. Yup, that’s right. Nobody does. The first time I fought Joe Frazier, I got whipped, but I didn’t quit. I just kept on until I got better. I trained even harder, and the next time we fought I won.

A little disappointment shouldn’t get you down. It should make you stronger for the final round. Take it from the champion of the world.

UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Chanting) Ali, Ali, Ali, Ali…

SIEGEL: Words to live by from a man who lived more than most, Muhammad Ali. He died in June at the age of 74.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Going into the last weekend of the NFL’s regular season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have the longest of odds to make the playoffs. Seven different things need to go right for them.

(SOUNDBITE OF SAM SPENCE SONG, “THE EQUALIZER”)

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

We’re heading into the last weekend of the NFL’s regular season, and there’s just one wildcard playoff spot still up for grabs. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are still mathematically eligible.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Technically, but to say they’re longshots is putting it mildly. Seven different things need to go their way on Sunday if they’re going to make it to the postseason.

SIEGEL: First of all, Tampa needs to beat the Carolina Panthers – fair enough. That’s within their control.

SHAPIRO: Then it gets ridiculous. The Bucs need to sit back and pray that Green Bay and Houston and Jacksonville and Philadelphia and Seattle all lose their games.

SIEGEL: And amazingly, that’s not all. Washington and the New York Giants need to tie at the end of their game. No one can win. No one can lose. They must tie, which almost never happens in the NFL these days.

SHAPIRO: Still, mathematically, there is a chance. Given the long odds, the Bucs might have a few extra fans watching this weekend, folks who love rooting for the ultimate underdog and perhaps a few mathematicians as well.

(SOUNDBITE OF SAM SPENCE SONG, “THE EQUALIZER”)

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.