Arizona In Focus

Gaming and esports continue their rapid growth. Christian Thurley speaks with ASU professor John Pierce, Chandos Culleen of the Culleen Agency, and Dani George and Donovan Parr, members of ASU’s esports teams, on the rising popularity of esports and gaming.

In this podcast, Nick Welter discovers what happens at Tempe Diablo Stadium, home of Los Angeles Angels spring training, after the big-leaguers have left for the regular season. Fifteen Major League Baseball teams play their spring training games in the Phoenix metropolitan area, but those teams are only here for fewer than two months. There’s a lot that happens during the other 10 months of the year.

As high school athletic programs lose funding around the nation, the positive influence sports bring to students is diminished. I took to Phoenix inner-city schools to talk with athletic directors and coaches about the impact they've seen athletics have on their students.

In this podcast, Christian Thurley discusses the relationship between high school and AAU basketball and whether or not the two can coexist peacefully. High school basketball programs and AAU basketball have been competing for the same athletes for the last decade and it has sometimes caused a rift among high schools, the AAU and colleges.

In this podcast, Jacob Lev will be exploring the stigma around mental health issues in college sports. For athletes, issues can arise from high expectations, injury, or just overall poor play. Expectations are high to perform well on a daily basis.

In the final episode of season three, we discover new technologies that incorporate sustainability to solve problems. We’ll watch a fashion show that features smart clothing made out of strange materials, visit Saguaro National Park to see why the National Park Service is putting microchips in cacti and play “Happy City,” a city planning game that helps people learn about sustainability issues.

In the fourth episode of season three, we meet people who are trying to make the urban environment of the Phoenix area more sustainable. We’ll ride along with a bike share company that allows subscribers to leave their bikes anywhere and meet some experts who are trying to find solutions to the brutal summer heat in Phoenix.

In the third episode of season three, we meet residents in Arizona who have made sustainability part of their lives and communities. We’ll meet a woman who owns a local garden with a passion for her community and healthy eating, a couple who write books that teach kids about environmental issues in the desert and residents of an ecovillage who have taken sustainable living to a new level.

In the second episode of season three, we meet animal conservationists who are taking steps to protect and conserve native species. We’ll ride along to southern Arizona with a wildlife manager who prevents poaching with Arizona Game & Fish, visit a raptor rescue center in Cave Creek that nurses owls and other birds back to health, take a hike near Tucson with the former president of the Arizona Bighorn Sheep Society and journey to Pinetop with Arizona Game & Fish to see what they are doing to ensure the survival of the state fish: the Apache trout.

In the first episode of season 3 of In Focus, we take a look at creative solutions people find to be more sustainable. We’ll meet local bee farmers who found a way to address killer bees without extermination, explore textile recycling plants that find new uses for old jeans and talk to a man who makes vinyl records out of unusual materials.