If you have been paying attention and reading Posting & Toasting this offseason, then you must have stumbled upon some of our ongoing Knickslammed series covering the New York Knicks as they appeared in different printed issues of SLAM magazine.
If you have not, please do so.
One of the latest posts I wrote for the series, touched on Patrick Ewing’s 1997 season with the Knicks, one sandwiched between the NBA Finals the franchise reached in the mid and late ‘90s.
As fate had it, the writer of that issue’s Salamadamonth section discussing Pat’s dunk on Alonzo Mourning was also avid P&T reader Joe Grossberg, who worked for the SLAM during the first few years the magazine was around and trying to establish itself among the media landscape.
And hey, it cannot be argued that whatever Joe and the SLAM fam did worked with The Basketball Bible getting inducted into the Basketball HOF and receiving the 2024 Curt Gowdy Media Award.
Joe reached out to me to thank me for the post about Ewing and bringing back some memories from yesteryear, and he was kind enough to field a few questions about his time at SLAM.
Here’s our brief Q&A session with Joe. Thanks a ton, JG!
P&T: How did you land the gig at SLAM?
Joe Grossberg: I was in my junior year of college, and was an aspiring journalist. I was also a big basketball fan and enthusiastic reader of SLAM. So I applied for a summer intern job with them. After submitting my college-newspaper portfolio, and interviewing over the phone, I landed the job and worked there for two months, before returning to school.
P&T: How come they trusted you to write for the zine back then and what were you doing for SLAM those days?
Joe: While I work in tech now, back then my career aspirations were to be a journalist. I was not working on any IT stuff for Harris Publications/SLAM Magazine. In fact, they barely had a web presence, and there was no social media yet.
Rather, my internship at SLAM consisted mostly of helping out with things like proofreading, sending faxes (!), and transcribing interviews from their audio recordings.
Sometimes the task itself was tedious—listening to the same sentence over and over, in an attempt to decipher whether Stephon Marbury had said “He made history” or “He made his three” in that Brooklyn accent—but it was exciting to know that I was reading these stories and anecdotes before the general public had. It was like hearing a preview of a favorite artist’s songs before an album gets released.
Then, one afternoon, the editors in NYC—Tony Gervino, Anna Gebbie, and Russ Bengston—were discussing whose turn it was to write the Slamadamonth column. They were more interested in spending their time on lengthy, in-depth features instead of what is, essentially, a very descriptive photo caption. So, when I volunteered to write it (they had already chosen which dunk), they were receptive to the idea.
They were happy with the results, did some polishing, and it was my first byline!
P&T: How hectic was the early daily operation?
Joe: It was hectic, but in a good way—it felt energizing to be around. SLAM magazine felt like an early-stage startup, the way they had a shared vision and somehow accomplished things that would be hard for a team 10x that size.
There was this editorial core and creative director Don Morris in New York, and some other important folks like Scoop Jackson working remotely. Their writers were all over the country, in an era when email was considered a new technology.
P&T: How much did it take for y'all to start getting some real, legitimate traction and land interviews from NBA players, as well as an interest from them?
Joe: Honestly, I think that players appreciated SLAM from very early in its history. It was small compared to Sports Illustrated, but it wasn’t so boring and bland. It covered basketball and only basketball. And SLAM was aimed at a younger, more hip-hop audience—which overlapped with basketball player demographics.
For example, that summer (1997) SLAM was established enough for Tony and Russ to get a lengthy, exclusive interview with Michael Jordan during his prime.
P&T: How did SLAM get the NBA approval and license agreement considering the language and style? (Re: Not for kids) Did the League reach out to try and impose a change/language/direction at some point?
Joe: They definitely didn’t get NBA approval, and that was their big differentiator—this magazine felt different because it was so independent.
You have to consider it in the context of the 90’s, when the league wanted things to be squeaky-clean and family-friendly. In one case, I remember the editors musing that the league would be annoyed to see Stephon Marbury and Kevin Garnett wearing diamond jewelry on that “Showbiz & KG” cover. It was a different era, when almost nobody had tattoos and Allen Iverson’s braids were considered edgy. At a time when
P&T: As a Knicks community, do you have details or memories to share from the Mase & Beastie Boys piece from Ish 3 or anything similar?
Joe: Alas, that was before my time—but I think it’s a nice representation of SLAM during the mid-90s.
Obviously, we’ve got Tony Gervino’s writing and Don Morris’s iconic design work. But also the nods to hip-hop, pickup basketball, and giving coverage to a beloved Knicks backup forward.
Thanks to Joe for sharing some thoughts and memories from his days at SLAM with P&T. Greatly appreciate it!
