Drake Hills is a journalism lecturer at San Diego State University. Before returning to his hometown, Drake deployed his reporter talents in local newsrooms across the USA TODAY Network, covering American soccer, the NFL, MLB, college men’s basketball and high school sports, sending Drake to Chicago, Phoenix, Nashville, Ghana, England, Spain and Mexico to tell stories that live at the intersection of sports, race and culture. Naturally, Drake’s interests led him to discovering sports diplomacy and international relations through sport. One of his favorite stories he’s written was how Major League Soccer’s $25 million loan with a Black-owned bank syndicate in 2022 paid more than lip service — it drove change, starting with a loan from a Black bank to local housing redevelopers in Birmingham, Alabama, rehabilitating dilapidated units in predominantly-Black neighborhoods.
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