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 life 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.

I was living a life that so many sports fans, me included, would die for. But part of me felt a little hollow inside. Before heading to ESPN, I had been in graduate school studying law and conflict resolution. I wanted to make a difference in a divided, messed-up world.

Then 9-11 happened, shortly after we were acquired by ESPN. I knew that while I might be living the life, it wasn’t the life I should be living.

After a trip to South Africa in 2005, I left my full-time work at ESPN to start a peacebuilding program at BYU-Hawaii, my undergraduate alma mater. After four amazing years at ESPN, I felt it was time to start doing something to give back to the increasingly divided world that surrounded me.

BYU-Hawaii held a special place in my heart. With 3,000 students from over 80 countries, it was one of the most diverse campuses in the world, with a mission to produce women and men who will be influences toward the establishment of peace internationally.

But on the side, I continued writing, meaning that for the next decade, I led multiple lives as…

• 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.

My peacebuilding work has always been what defines me.

So, when the news came about the ESPN layoffs in 2017, I was 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

I’ve also started a weekly Dangerous Love podcast that explores ways of transforming conflict in our lives — both inner conflict as well as conflict at home, at work and in our communities.  And there’s a popular Facebook community, Loving Dangerously, where you can interact with a number of other people trying to find a way out of their conflicts.  We also have a cool Instagram page with daily tips and helpful ideas to transform our conflicts.

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 why we see 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 NBA Draft coverage, I haven’t walked away. I recently launched a new draft podcast Chad Ford’s NBA BIG Board on the LockedOn Network where I and guests like Bill Simmons, John Hollinger, Marc Stein, Kevin O’Connor and others break down both the current draft as well as past drafts. And a new NBA Draft website is coming soon!