WEBCAST: Super Bowl Sunday with Brandon Chillar of the Green Bay Packers

[PLEASE SUPPORT SAJA: Help us meet our new $15,000 challenge grant:
http://saja.org/articles/saja-group-receives-prestigious-challenge-grant ]

Listen above to the webcast with Brandon Chillar of the Green Bay Packers; his agent, Jim Ivler; and Kevin Negandhi, ESPN anchor - or via the link below.

When I was a young kid in NYC, it was routine for various Indian associations - nothing "South Asian" existed back then - to have events on  Super Bowl Sunday. Part of the reason they could schedule whatever they wanted on what was the biggest TV watching day of the year was that very few of the desi adults then had any awareness of, or interest, in American football. Fast forward to this year and there are plenty of South Asian Super Bowl parties around the country and plenty of South Asians will be watching the show - for the game, or at least for the commercials [see last year's SAJAforum live-blogging  of the Super Bowl telecast; we will be live-blogging the 2009 Super Bowl telecast at this link].

I could never had predicted that any kids of South Asian origin would grow up to be NFL players, but three of them have, indeed, done so. The only one playing in the NFL right now is the next guest on the SAJA webcasts. Joining me to interview him will be an ESPN anchor who's a SAJA member - add that to the things I could never have predicted.  -- Sree Sreenivasan

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On Super Bowl Sunday, SAJA presents a live interview with Green Bay Packers linebacker Brandon Chillar, the only player of South Asian descent in the NFL (his father, Ram Chillar, was born in New Delhi, India). He'll talk about his career, life in the NFL, his thoughts about the Super Bowl and much more. Post your questions in the comments section below, or via e-mail: saja[at]columbia.edu (subject = webcast) or call in live.

His agent, Jim Ivler of Sportstars Inc, will be on the show as well. Ivler represents two dozen NFL players, including Liberian-born Tamba Hali of the Kansas City Chiefs (whom Ivler reunited with his mother after 12 years of being separated because of the strife in Liberia) and Robbie Gould of the Chicago Bears (the highest-paid place kicker in history).

More on Chillar, who was drafted in 2004 (after playing college football for UCLA) by the St. Louis Rams and signed a two-year $5.8-million contract with the Packers in 2008, via his NFL profile, Wikipedia and this profile in East-West Life & Style.

Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009
1-2 pm New York time
10-11 am California time - where Chillar will be calling in from
See local time around the world: http://snipurl.com/b247c

Listen live, or later to a recording:
(you can go and set an e-mail reminder for yourself)
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/saja/2009/02/01/Super-Bowl-Sunday-with-Brandon-Chillar-of-the-Green-Bay-Packers
or listen live via your phone by dialing this NYC number +1-347-324-5991

Co-hosts: Kevin Negandhi, ESPN anchor (read a profile and Q&A with him) & Sree Sreenivasan, SAJA co-founder and Columbia J-school professor

Send your questions/comments via e-mail to saja[at]columbia.edu (subject = webcast) or by posting them in comments section below. You can also use the chatroom that will be open at the link above to ask questions.

As always, you are welcome to quote from anything said during the
FREE, WORLDWIDE webcasts (50+) at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/saja

From an earlier post on SAJAforum, here are the only two other South Asian players to play for the NFL:

•   Sanjay Rajiv Beach, who played four years from 1989-1993 (for the NY Jets, Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers); he is in the record books for catching soon-to-be superstar Brett Favre's first proper completion, in 1992 (Favre's very first completion was a pass deflected to, and caught by, Favre himself).
•  Bobby Singh, St. Louis Rams (the only player, perhaps, to be on the teams to win an NFL Super Bowl, a Canadian Football League Grey Cup and an XFL championship)

See other SAJAforum sports items, including the story of two India-born players to sign with the minor-league team of the Pittsburgh Pirates (listen to a webcast with them; news of the 2008 Mumbai attacks broke during the show and the players talked about Mumbai and more).

Speaking of football, read this NYT profile of Ben Dogra, an India-born agent, who "helps oversee the most dominant player-representation agency in football."

[Coming soon: A live Oscar-night show on Sunday, Feb. 22, right after the awards telecast; details coming soon.]

As soon as the event is over, you will be able to access - at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/saja - a recording of the proceedings. This is also available as an downloadable MP3 file for your personal
collection. [If you want to subscribe to this as a podcast on iTunes, go to "Advanced" within iTunes, then select "Subscribe to podcast" and type http://www.blogtalkradio.com/saja/feed and hit OK.]

===> These webcasts and SAJAforum.org are just two of the many
activities of SAJA. If you'd like to support us, here are two two-minute ways you can do so:

1. CHALLENGE GRANT: Help us meet our new $15,000 challenge grant:
http://saja.org/articles/saja-group-receives-prestigious-challenge-grant

2. BECOME A PAID MEMBER, OR RENEW:

 $10/year for students;
 $20/year for journalists;
 $40/year for non-journalists

 Lifetime membership for journalists is just $250! Non-journalists: $400.

 SIGN UP OR RENEW TODAY: http://www.saja.org/membership

To those of you who are already members or have made a contribution,
many thanks for your continued support of SAJA!

As soon as the event is over, you will be able to access - at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/saja - a recording of the proceedings. This is also available as an downloadable MP3 file for your personal
collection. [If you want to subscribe to this as a podcast on iTunes, go to "Advanced" within iTunes, then select "Subscribe to podcast" and type http://www.blogtalkradio.com/saja/feed and hit OK.]

===> These webcasts and SAJAforum.org are just two of the many
activities of SAJA. If you'd like to support us, here are two two-minute ways you can do so:

1. CHALLENGE GRANT: Help us meet our new $15,000 challenge grant:
http://saja.org/articles/saja-group-receives-prestigious-challenge-grant

2. BECOME A PAID MEMBER, OR RENEW:

 $10/year for students;
 $20/year for journalists;
 $40/year for non-journalists

 Lifetime membership for journalists is just $250! Non-journalists: $400.

 SIGN UP OR RENEW TODAY: http://www.saja.org/membership

To those of you who are already members or have made a contribution,
many thanks for your continued support of SAJA!