Antisemitism on the Field

Antisemitism on the Field

1pm PDT

Geoff Schwartz, eight year NFL veteran, talks with Rich Potter, Assistant Professor and Chair of the Media Arts department and President Jeffrey Herbst about being a Jewish football player, recent antisemitic Twitter posts from Philadelphia Eagle superstar DeSean Jackson, and the response from NFL teams and players.

From his pre-Bar Mitzvah stuttering days to being drafted 241st (out of 252) in the 2008 NFL draft, Geoff Schwartz has overcome adversity to exceed all expectations and impressively succeed in life. His eight-year career included stints with the Carolina Panthers, Minnesota Vikings, Kansas City Chiefs and New York Giants, where he signed a 4-year deal to become a starting guard on the Eli Manning-led team. Unfortunately, injuries derailed Geoff’s career and caused his retirement from the NFL in February 2017.

Before his retirement Geoff began a seamless transition to a career in media.  He can be heard daily on Sirius XM Radio 373 hosting PAC-12 Today, was a co-host this past NFL season on EPSN Radio’s weekly Countdown to Kickoff and is a frequent stand in on ESPN Radio and Fox Sports Radio. He regularly writes  for websites such as SB Nation, where he posted over 400 articles, and hosts his own podcast, Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You, where Geoff makes the average football fan smarter. He appears routinely on sports radio talk shows and podcasts throughout the country offering his insights on football, other sports  plus a wide variety of  non-sports related topics.

Along with his brother Mitchell, starting right tackle of the Kansas City Chiefs, Geoff co-authored Eat My Schwartz, a book chronicling their lives from early childhood to their tenure in the NFL, discussing NFL football, food, family and their faith.

Rich Potter grew up in South Florida, attended the University of Florida, and spent time in Paris, New York, and Central America before earning a doctorate at the University of Illinois. During the five years he lived in Panama, Rich worked as an independent video producer on variety of commercial, non-profit, and artistic projects, including a micro-budget feature film based on Nikolai Gogol’s classic short story, Diary of a Madman. His academic research focuses on community media, especially in Latin America, as a basis for envisioning democratic organizational models for media production and circulation.

In the summer of 2014, prior to joining the AJU faculty, Rich returned to Panama to produce an independent feature film. His academic research focuses on community media, especially in Latin America, and public sphere theory as a basis for envisioning democratic organizational models for media production and circulation. Rich continues to pursue both academic and artistic goals. He received a co-producer credit on Diciembres (Decembers), an independent Panamian-Colombian co-production that premiered at the 2018 Panama International Film Festival.

Dr. Jeffrey Herbst is the fourth president of American Jewish University. Prior to joining AJU, Dr. Herbst was president and CEO of the Newseum and the Newseum Institute in Washington, DC. From 2010 to 2015, he was president of Colgate University, where among other accomplishments he is credited with helping the university complete its nearly half billion-dollar fundraising campaign, leading the development and initial implementation of a university-wide strategic plan, and increasing the diversity and academic caliber of its educational programming.

Additionally, Dr. Herbst was a Senior Fellow at the Brenthurst Foundation, was a two-time Fulbright Scholar, and is currently a trustee of Freedom House. He has also served as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and as professor of political science at Miami University in Ohio, and taught at Princeton University for almost two decades.

Dr. Herbst earned his bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from Princeton University, and a master’s degree and doctorate in political science from Yale University. He is the author of the award-winning “States and Power in Africa” and, with several co-authors, the just-published “Making Africa Work.” In addition to many books and articles, he has been published in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and many other digital and print publications around the world. UCLA School of Law.