As commissioner of the National Basketball Association (NBA), Adam Silver is one of the most influential people in the sports industry. In his current position, Silver presides over a global sports and media empire built around four professional sports leagues…
Although born in New York City, Timothy Geithner spent most of his childhood living abroad, including in Africa, India, and Thailand, where he attended high school at the International School of Bangkok. Though not an economist, Geithner served as the 75th Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury from 2009 to 2013…
For years, actor Paul Giamatti has wowed audiences with his idiosyncratic portrayals of depressives, neurotics, curmudgeons, and even some bureaucrats. However, despite his undeniable talent for playing the “loser” on TV and film, in real life Giamatti is the exact opposite…
In 1994, Lisa Loeb made history when she became the first person to ever top the American music charts without a recording contract. At the time, she was still an unsigned musician when a neighbor, Ethan Hawke, got her acoustic number “Stay (I Missed You)” included on the soundtrack album for his new film “Reality Bites”…
From 1990 to 2009, David Souter was an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, where he was especially known for championing the protection of First Amendment values. Nominated to the Court by Republican President George H. W. Bush, Justice Souter surprised everyone when he started to move…
Born in 1949, Ashraf Ghani is an Afghan politician, academic, and economist who served as the president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from 2014-2021. As with many Afghans, foreign invasion and civil war led to the persecution of Ghani’s family and forced him to remain in exile much of his life…
TV legend Regis Philbin was often called “the hardest working man in show business,” and for good reason. After college, Philbin served in the U.S. Navy and got his TV start serving as a lowly page for “The Tonight Show” in the 1950s. For the next six decades, he hosted numerous TV shows with his trademark high energy…
Born in 1959, Keith Olbermann is best known for being one of cable TV’s foremost commentators who attained a large left-wing viewership because of his clever news reportage and penetrating analyses of current affairs. However, what many people may not know is that Olbermann started in sports journalism, where he spent the first 20 years of his career…
Julie Foudy is one of the most accomplished female soccer players in the world. As a midfielder who helped control the flow of the game, Foudy’s talents on the soccer field were evident from an early age. By 16 she’d become a member of the U.S. Women’s National Team. Three years later, in 1991, she was selected co-captain and wore the captain’s armband until she retired in 2004…
In 1966, George Takei got his big break when he was cast as Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu on the science-fiction series “Star Trek.” While the show only lasted three seasons, Takei soon became one of the most popular actors of Asian descent in Hollywood. With a career that now spans 5 decades, he’s been prominently involved in hundreds of TV shows and more than 40 feature films…
