Two-and-a-half years ago, my 16-year run as a writer and editor for ESPN.com ended. While it 
felt like, for a short-while, my world would end. It didn’t. 
Life always goes on.

My time at ESPN was bittersweet. When I started the website sportsTALK.com with my friend 
Jason Peery in 1996, our dream was to someday put together a sports information site that
rivaled ESPN. When ESPN bought our company in 2001, I literally ran down a hallway in an 
office building fist bumping the sky.

Within a year I made my first appearance on SportsCenter, met Michael Jordan and Larry Bird, 
was working with legends like David Aldridge and Stuart Scott and was flying around the 
country and the world writing about the sport I loved.

I made lifelong friends in the NBA, worked with some of the greatest people you could ever
work with like Marc Stein, Royce Webb, Chris Ramsay, Bill Simmons, Ryan Russillo, John
Hollinger, Ramona Shelburne and a host of other talented people across the league. I was living a life that so many sports fans, not just me, would die for. But there was another 
part of me that felt a little hollow inside. Before ESPN I was in graduate school studying law 
and conflict resolution. I wanted to make a difference in a divided, messed up world. 9-11 
happened just a few months after we were acquired by ESPN. There was part of me that felt 
like while I was living the life, but it wasn’t the life I should be living.

After a trip to South Africa with Dikembe Mutumbo in 2005, I left my full-time work at ESPN to 
start a peacebuilding program at BYU-Hawaii, my undergraduate alma mater. BYU-Hawaii had 
a special place in my heart. With 3000 students from over 80 countries, it was one of the most 
diverse campuses in the world and had a mission to produce women and men who will be 
influences toward the establishment of peace internationally. After four beautiful years at 
ESPN, I felt it was time to start doing something to give back to the increasingly divided world 
that surrounded me.

For the decade and a half, I lived multiple lives.

An international conflict mediator.

A college professor.

A senior consultant and facilitator for the Arbinger Institute.

An executive board member for PeacePlayers.

And a writer covering the NBA Draft for ESPN.

While most of you know me for my work at ESPN, being a basketball analyst and writer was 
actually my side-gig for over a decade.

My peacebuilding work has and will always be what defines me.

So, when the news came about the ESPN’s layoffs in 2017, I was both hurt to lose an important 
part of my life, but also relieved. My contract stipulated that I couldn’t write, do podcasts or 
even tweet about the NBA until November of 2019.

That time away from the game gave me a chance to work on a project that I’ve been wanting to
complete for years – a book about how to transform conflict in our lives at home, at work and 
in the world.

I finished the book this Fall and Berrett-Kohler will publish it in June, 2020. The book is called 
Dangerous Love: Transforming Fear and Conflict at Home, at Work and in the World.
The book Dangerous Love weaves my experiences from those five lives into a deeply personal 
exploration of how we transform fear and conflict. My work with young people in the 
classroom, athletes on the basketball court, struggling families in the living room, executives in 
the boardroom, and divided communities in some of the most challenging conflicts in the world 
gave me some insights into the conflicts that plague our families, our organizations and the 
world.

The goal of Dangerous Love? By the end, you’ll have the ability to see conflict, specifically your
conflict, in a completely different light. And once you see it differently, you’ll have the tools
and the courage to change.

As you’ll read toward the end of the book, even making small progress toward one person can 
have a big impact on our personal relationships, our teams at work and our communities.
I gave an advanced copy of the book to several people in the NBA that I really admire and 
here’s what they wrote in response.

“We are living in a time where the world seems complicated, divided and possibly beyond repair.
It’s important to remember that there is hope, and hope lies in humanity. In ‘Dangerous Love’
Chad Ford reminds us that humanity lies within all of us, and although conflict is everywhere in
today’s world, we have the tools we need to overcome obstacles and to thrive. This is a
fantastic, timely book that I highly recommend.” 

-Steve Kerr: Head coach of the three-time NBA World Champion Golden State Warriors

“Dangerous Love provides a clear and compelling path to bridging seemingly impossible divides in our personal and professional lives and in our world. I’ve witnessed the impact of Chad’s principles firsthand and his systems have been life changing for people around the world.”

-R.C. Buford: President and General Manager of the five-time NBA World Champion San Antonio Spurs

“Professor, basketball savant, conflict resolution negotiator extraordinaire, world class author
and friend, Chad Ford, provides a must-read exploration of relationships in Dangerous Love; and
in doing so, provides a roadmap for all of us to forge our path to peace through our
relationships with others. I invite you to read Dangerous Love with the foremost aim to
challenge yourself to engage in all the relationships in your life with confidence, optimism,
curiosity and vulnerability”

-Scott O’Neil: 
CEO of the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils

Dangerous Love explains why we struggle with conflict. How we disconnect from the people at 
the very time we need to be most connected to them and the predictable patterns of 
justification and escalation that ensue. Most importantly, it gives us a path to practice 
dangerous love in the conflicts that matter most to us.
The world may not get better. But we can be. And us being better might just be the thing that 
actually changes the world.
I hope you’ll give it a chance.

Warmly, 

Chad

PS. Despite my two-and-a-half-year absence from the NBA Draft, I haven’t walked away. I’ve 
been working the past month on some cool draft content, including a podcast, mock drafts, 
draft boards and more that I will be announcing in a few weeks. If Dangerous Love isn’t for you, 
stay tuned. More NBA Draft info will be dropping soon.