AllSportsInsider.com

Check out our Q&A session with Jeremy Carroll of Fundamental Fashion, Inc. and D-Wil of AllSportsInsider.com

Fundamental:
Tell us about your background in sports and athletics.

ASI:
I grew up with sports. My father was a swimmer in college, and my uncle played football in college. As a kiddy kid, I played, or tried, every sport I could; baseball football, basketball, hockey, golf, skiing ? everything.

One day I tried tennis and I was hooked. I realized it was just me against another person. If I win or lose it's on me and nobody else. Because I liked that one-on-one activity, I decided tennis was going to be my sport.

I played well enough into college to feel like I should turn pro. I embarked on that journey, playing Satellite tournaments ? that's like the minor leagues, or the NBDL - for two and-a- half years before injuries and a lack of funding forced me off the tour.

After leaving the tour I wrote sports for an east coast newspaper and taught tennis in the United States Tennis Association's Minority Development Program in San Francisco and Minneapolis.

Fundamental:
What is the concept behind AllSportsInsider.com and what made you want to come out with a web site dedicated to sports?

ASI:
I was tired of watching games and hearing analyses that differed so much from what I was seeing. I was tired of pundits who'd never played a sport in their lives say so-and-so was finished, or so-and-so' should play with his separated shoulder, or so-and-so choked.

As a former athlete and coach of nationally-ranked junior tennis players, it was appalling to hear these non-athletes talk smack about athletes, defend at all costs the leagues the athletes play in, and abuse their power by saying things like, "He should just be quiet and play and not challenge the media. Doesn't he know the media always wins?"

It's hard to get the truth about an athlete, hard to get the truth about a potential scandal. The big sports news services are beholden to leagues, commissioners, owners, and the wants of their parent companies.

So, I left my job with archaeology consulting firm in July 2003 and began plotting how I could use the Internet and all its attendant technological advances to provide people with the best sports news possible. Finally, on December 14, 2003, AllSportsInsider was born.

What I found while plotting was that the best way to get to the heart of sports news is to get the news from the writers who reside in the city where an item originates; local papers, local writers, columnists and feature writers. Those are the people who have their fingers on the pulse of the sports in their cities. AllSportsInsider compiles their words from around the world and delivers them to you. The site doesn't provide every Associated Press release updating each player's injury status, it just gives you to the best-written, most insightful sports articles on the Internet ? the real.

ASI, at its core, is about the search for truth.

Sports news shouldn't be shaped to fit a predetermined opinion, and then force fed on you. I believe that if you have a solid view of all sides of the sports news of the day ? you can form own opinions and viewpoints ? and have something different and real to add to conversations with your friends.

Fundamental:
What is your take on professional sports as a whole in today's society?

ASIsports:
The athletes today are better than ever before, so something fantastic can, and does happen every day. On the other hand, there's such a huge commercial machine that has become intertwined with sports and athletes, it's like the soul is missing, or it's been stolen from the majority of athletes.

Too many pro athletes are after dollars and not enough of them are after excellence ? except in pro football. In the NFL you gotta get all the cheddar you can as quickly as you can, because the career-span of the average pro football player is only about four years.

It's also becoming more and more apparent that the vast majority of college athletes aren't getting much of an education. Watch some of the old NFL films shows from the late-60s and early 70s, and listen to the old NBA ballers ? a lot of those players were serious thinkers and headed toward crazy-bright futures after their time in the limelight was up. You don't see that kind of athlete-as-thinker personality much at all today.

Fundamental:
Are there any professional athletes or organizations that you truly root for and have a lot of respect for?


ASIsports:
Yeah, I have much respect for Barry Bonds, AI (Allen Iverson), Phil Jackson, and Jim Brown.

Barry knows the media and knows how reporters quote athletes out of context to fit their story, or their agenda. And he lets them know what snakes they can be. AI is much the same way, plus he's the quintessential hip-hop athlete; you know, don't let the image fool ya as to what the real man is like.

I like Phil Jackson for the way he borrows from other cultures, particularly Native American culture, to help his teams understand
basketball and life ? and basketball as a metaphor for how to live life.

Jim Brown is straight old school. He's one of the thinking athletes from the 60s. First, the work he does in urban areas is phenomenal. Second, he pulls no punches when he speaks. I just saw him on the NFL Network when the whole Kellen Winslow II wrecking his motorcycle thing broke in the media. He straight out said that the treatment of Winslow II by the press was straight racist. Then he went about comparing press statements about Winslow II to statements about white athletes who found themselves in similar predicaments. It was deep ? and so is Jim Brown.

Fundamental:
What's on the plate for AllSportsInsider.com in the future?

ASIsports:
Oh man, the future! I'm just tryin' to get through today! No, really I'm pushing for AllSportsInsider, or ASI for all you heads out there, to bust out in the coming months. I'm setting up CoreSportsInsider as we speak. It's going to be the first semi-independent ASI conglomerate site. It's going to deal with "action sports."

It's called CoreSportsInsider (CSI) because Core Sports is a much more representative name for what are now called action sports. Besides, you gotta be 'core to get your thing on in any of those activities.

CSI will also be about music, politics ? actually, poli-tricks, gadgets and games. The sports part will be full of articles, images of athletes performing, and interviews with core sport athletes.

With music, we're going to be up in the local mix as well as the current national and international scene. Plus, we'll throw in some 'in the day' tastes, just to keep bringin' back sweet memories' as Talib Kweli would say.

In our politics section, we're gonna let you know how laws are affecting youth in America, and be tracing the past to let heads know about how we got to where we are now, while we keep an eye on the future of our society and world as a whole.

The gadgets and games section ? well, everybody gotta play sometime!

All in all, ASI will keep growin' ? and hopefully it'll blow up and be the main Internet sports spot for a whole generation of heads.