Pageantry of college football lives here. This is the Paul fine bomb show, our Ford podcast. We've had quite an afternoon here, celebrating 50 years of title 9 and we end up death that is a natural wood. So we've talked to Ashley many times in the past and the former editor of the crimson and white. She's now the editor in chief of 1956 magazine at the university of Alabama and Ashley, it has been too long. First of all, how are you? And what's going on in your life? Good afternoon. Hi, Paul. How are you? We are doing great. We have spent today talking about this momentous occasion, and I'm curious. 30 years, maybe 20 years, the youngest guest we've had, so I'm particularly interested in you living in a different world and tameka and Hannah storm, who grew up in the 60s and 70s in our first guest who played ball in the 60s and 70s. What does this mean to you? The celebration and I think we'd all be interested in what you have to say. Yeah, so I was born a little bit after title 9 was first enacted, but I think my wife especially being a woman in sports would be a whole heck of a lot different. If it didn't exist and I am just grateful for the women that came before me, that made it possible. For us to have a place in sports and I'm just excited to be a part of the new ways to continue with the charge to have a better future and create more opportunities for women in sports. And I think I would like to ask you about because there are so many things different today, but just having been the editor of a newspaper, a big sports fan, obviously, how would you juxtapose this moment in time and especially in terms of what's left, because nobody ever wants to say, I'm satisfied with where we are. People innovators creative people are always pushing, pushing The Rock uphill. Where do you think we need to go from here? I think from here, we need to just continue to create opportunities for women. We've done a great job so far, but there are still areas of inequality between events, sports and women's sports data that needs to be fixed. And I just think right now, it's a great stepping stone. 15 years in power lines when it could have been easily could be more years of fighting for women to get a place in the sport. So I think we've done a good job so far right now, but I think there's still a whole heck of a lot more to be done to create true equality and equity throughout sports. Ashley, as the editor of the campus newspaper, a campus, we all know what the dominant sports is. But how did you go about trying to maintain a balance to your readers? Who are students primarily interested in all things? Yeah, so that was kind of one of my goals when I first got hired as sports editors. Even when I was assistant sports editors back in the beginning part of 2021, I wanted to create a space for wherever students could see themselves in the paper and see themselves in the fort, not everyone likes football at the university of Albany on the concrete. Not everyone likes basketball, but there are people that are like, oh, look, this is what I like softball. And they deserve the coverage. That the other sports may get and I just made that admission. And part of my own just having that passion kind of to create to equal the playing field of how we publish work at the university because we have a unique student journalist who we have a unique opportunity that we're connected on campus because we live, we go to class, some of us work on campus outside of this. So we have a lot of ins and outs. So we know what the students want. And we kind of bring that and try to make our coverage as equal as possible. And I know for a fact that there were people that were interested in this basketball when I started covering it back in 2020 and I knew that that was the soul spot for The CW. And just one of the sports in general, that was kind of a sore spot. And I just wanted to make it known that I wanted to increase our coverage. It's not own woman's sport. So all of their sports on campus and I think I did a pretty good job of that or my team did a pretty good job of that. I wouldn't have been able to do it by myself. I had a really good team of writers that understood my vision and helped me kind of put that into fruition. Can I actually, it is dramatically different than it was because many, many years ahead of you and even in my own college sports days. You did it, but there was no enthusiasm for it because of the time. I'm sure there is always resistance, but it doesn't sound like you, you found much. It sounds like people listen to you and wanted to enact the coverage that was necessary and inequitable as opposed to we're just doing this to do it. Well, not everybody listens. But I'm loud enough to where I can drown them out. So I just kept pushing. You know, there were a lot of mainly people that I worked with, but kind of spend a lot of them of course questioning why we didn't care about it. And I'm like, listen, it's a sport at the university. I am the sports editor and it's my responsibility to cover the sport as I would do football as I was doing basketball as I would be baseball. You know, this is a sport that deserves to get covered. I don't care if they law school days in a row, we will cover Alabama when we are available in a row. So they deserve the coverage and I just kind of, you know, the resistance that I got just made me want to cover the sport even more because I knew those people at the top that were screaming like don't do this. Why do we care why should we care? Why are you talking about Alabama women's basketball? There are people out there that genuinely care. In January, we're interested in what we were doing. And that is more important than what anybody can say on social media about not doing this at all. Actually, I mentioned your position with the 1956 magazine having lived in Alabama. I'm pretty sure I know exactly what that's symbolizes, but to those who don't, can you explain the purpose of the magazine to all of us? Yeah, for sure. So in 1956 magazine started in 2020. By piano Kate, she has graduated. She was younger than she before me. Her vision for the magazine came during the protest to the Black Lives Matter protests and she wanted to create a space for black students at the university to have a voice and share some experiences in their lifestyle on campus and that's kind of what the magazine is dedicated to black lifestyle and culture at UA but also across the country in 1956 is the year that often we see fosters first integrated universities. So that's why it's called 1956. But yeah, I've been working with them since the start of the magazine. I started as a contributor. As a writer, and then I moved up to teachers and experiences editor last year and now I'm in charge now. So it's been a great time. It's been really fun to work with him because I get the right stories that I don't typically write. And I was just been grateful to get this opportunity to continue this project into the future. Well, actually, we continue from a distance. I might add to be very proud of your success. It's always great to interact and we will be on campus not too far away and we certainly hope to see you. Thanks for making time and come back always. We look forward to it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ashley, joining us from Tuscaloosa and we will take a short break..