Scot Pollard: The NBA, Survivor, and a Heart Transplant
KEY MOMENTS
0:00 – Intro: former NBA player Scot Pollard
1:08 – The James Bond video and comedian Chris Porter
3:21 – The small, tight-knit NBA family
5:32 – Skipping celebrity parties and Jimmy Goldstein
7:06 – Fame and temptation for young pro athletes
11:06 – Why so few players last 10 years in the NBA
12:37 – Being 7 feet tall and what it takes to make the NBA
16:00 – Michael Jordan, Jon Jones, and competitive drive
18:08 – Heart of Pearl and losing his dad at 16
20:24 – Pearls of Life and educating people on organ donation
23:12 – A heart transplant a year and a half later
25:29 – Survivor's guilt and meeting his donor's family
30:51 – Finding a heart big enough for a 7-footer
32:49 – Heart failure runs in his family
35:44 – Anti-rejection drugs and skin cancer risk
36:41 – Daily life, diet, and no more sushi
40:14 – Bulking up after retirement and his cardiologist
42:18 – Playing Survivor in Cambodia
46:06 – Alone and watching people starve
47:16 – Living with a donor heart and a pacemaker
51:32 – Bryan Johnson and rapamycin
55:32 – Ben Askren and lung transplants
58:58 – Pig hearts and the future of transplants
1:02:11 – Wrap-up
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
NBA veteran Scot Pollard, a survivor of both the reality show Survivor (season 32) and a heart transplant, joins Lou to talk about the near impossibility of finding a heart big enough for someone his size, meeting the family of his heart donor, and the temptations thrown at professional athletes.
We also get into the ESPN documentary Heart of Pearl, his volunteer work with Pearls of Life advocating for organ donation, being 6'11" (7' in heels), how Bryan Johnson biohacked his body to look like Data from Star Trek, and Scot becoming Lou's second friend with a heart transplant.