Not by the Playbook

Brady Kramer always dreamed of scoring the winning goal in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup. And he got closer than most when he was drafted to the NHL by the Montreal Canadiens. But the challenges he faced off the ice caused his life to go in a very different direction. Challenges he's happy to share, in the hope he can help others. Brady excelled on the ice from a young age and earned himself a place at Providence College and a top tier, Division I hockey career. However, adapting to life away from his family was difficult, and he soon fell into bad habits. Despite Brady's unhealthy relationship with alcohol, his ability on the ice got him to Draft day in the NHL, but after a brief, unhappy spell in the Minor Leagues, Brady hung up his skates and faced his biggest challenge to date, life after hockey. He now spends his days helping those who also suffer with addiction, whilst continuing to navigate through his own difficulties.
No one has represented England at rugby union more than Ben Youngs, and yet of his achievement he said "People are patting you on the back and telling you how great you are. And you’re thinking: ‘But I don’t feel that.’" Playing professional sport was sometimes something of a contradiction for him. He also said he "felt guilty playing for England after family tragedy", both his brother and sister lost their partners to illness. Now retired Ben has had some time to look back on his long career and evaluate when playing helped him off the pitch and when it was a struggle. Evaluating this balance is something he's carried on in his post playing career as a businessman and podcaster.
When former Dutch boxing champion Barry Groenteman used to visit his grandmother at her retirement home, he would often see an older man shadow-boxing. "He showed me his ring with the Star of David on it. And my grandmother would whisper: 'That's Ben Bril.'" This is the story of a Jewish boxer from Amsterdam who had his life transformed by invasion, violence and anti-Semitism. A champion forced into hiding, then captured and sent to the Nazi concentration camps - after being betrayed by a former Olympic teammate.
In 2015 and Nepalese runner Mira Rai who took the international "sky running" scene by storm, winning gold medals in ultra-endurance running events ranging from 50-150 kilometres. And behind Mira's achievements was a personal story that shocked the ultra-running world. She been telling Not by the Playbook's Hunter Charlton about being a teenage combatant in the Nepalese civil war.
PHOTO: Ben Youngs of England acknowledges the fans whilst wearing his bronze medal following the team's victory during the Rugby World Cup 2023 Bronze Final match between Argentina and England (CREDIT: Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

The Commonwealth Games - known as the Friendly Games - are held every four years. They have a three word moto "Humanity - showing that sport brings people together. Equality - that sport is for everyone. And Destiny - that sport is just the beginning. It's the only sporting event that combines both able bodied and para athletes. And the Commonwealth Games are a chance for smaller nations to shine in the sporting spotlight
In 2014, Tonga had no national netball team, coach, squad, or training facilities. Determined to change that, former television news anchor Salote Sisifa became CEO of Tonga Netball and promised the board that within five years she would build a team capable of competing internationally and reaching the world’s top ten by 2025. If she failed, she would resign. Alongside, Head Coach Jaqua Pori-Makea-Simpson, Salote propelled Tonga from 42nd to 7th in the world rankings navigating national disaster, the Covid-19 pandemic, and restricted resources along the way. Sophia Hartley examines Tonga’s extraordinary journey and how they have become a formidable force on the international stage. Their next milestone is their Commonwealth Games debut in 2026.
In the pool Olympic Champion Freya Anderson is aiming add to her already impressive medal collection. But Freya doesn't just have the opposition to beat, she has a condition which causes chronic pain; especially tough given her gruelling training schedule. Three years ago she was diagnosed with Endometriosis. Now back to her competitive best, Freya is raising awareness of the condition through her charity " Fast and Female ".
Diminutive weight-lifter, Precious McKenzie was a prodigious talent. Apartheid prevented him from competing for his native South Africa. So Precious moved to the UK and worked in a shoe factory. While doing so, he finally achieved international success at the 1966 Commonwealth Games in Jamaica.
Photo: Tonga fan during the Netball World Cup 2023 (CREDIT: Shaun Roy/Gallo Images/Netball World Cup 2023 via Getty Images)

Australia's Emma McDonald is an acrobatic pilot for team "BeyondGravity", racing her plane at high speeds and low altitudes, weaving her way through a course set out in the sky competing in the Air Race X championship. Needing a remarkable mix of strength and agility, and a super focused mindset, those like Emma who succeed at this high octane sport are a rare breed. So how does anyone develop a career in acrobatic aviation? Emma has been revealing all the secrets.
Dutchman Bob Van De Burgt loves windsurfing, but it's a demanding physical activity that needs more than a little help from mother nature. It's why races tend to be short, sharp and exciting. Bob excels in all of that, but what he really loves is endurance windsurfing. And it turns out he's pretty good at that too. A few weeks ago he took to a lake near his home in the Netherlands and didn't get off his board again for a full twenty four hours! In that time he broke all sorts of world records and raised money for charity along the way :
We send ten billion of them every day! Emoji's have become a very common way of communicating because sometimes words just aren't enough and an emoji can says it all! When elite climber Sasha DiGiulian told us on a previous show that the climbing emoji was based on her, we wanted to know a little bit more. Turns out we live in a world with an official "chief emoji officer" so we tracked them down. Welcome to the wonderful world of emojis with former "Chief Emoji Officer" Jeremy Burge. Smiley face emoji
To celebrate his 90th birthday this year, Shaul Ladany went out for a walk near his home close to the city of Beer Sheva in southern Israel . A pretty LONG walk. 5 kilometres in fact. Not bad for a man of his age, but nothing compared to his heyday as a long-distance race-walker who set world records that stand to this day! But, even more remarkably, he survived a childhood in the Belsen concentration camp and then the terrorist attack on the Israeli team at the Munich Olympics in 1972.
(Photo: Matt Hall (top) and Emma McDonald of the Red Bull aerobatic team perform during the Australian International Airshow Aerospace and Defence Expo at Avalon Airport in Geelong, 3 March, 2023. Credit: Paul Crock/AFP)

"The World Cup is not just a great global sporting event, it is also inscribed with much deeper cultural and political importance". So said academic Martin Jacques, and so to mark the World Cup final we bring you stories from the very top echelons to the most basic grass roots of the game and everything in between.
When Isha Johansen returned to Sierra Leone after the brutal civil war there she was determined to help heal and rebuild her country. Her tools, football. She set up her own team and started laying the foundations for a career in the governance of the game. Firstly by being elected president of the Sierra Leone Football Association and then, by election, on to the FIFA Council. But despite her success Isha was exposed to some of the very worst aspects of power and influence and what people are prepared to do for it. Isha has recently charted her life and pioneering career in a new book called “The Uncommon Enemy: A True Story of Football, Power and Betrayal”.
Gundeep Anand is a bundle of energy. A man with more than a decade of community engagement and working with young people, you might have thought he had been jaded by the drudgery of life. But he's the opposite and it's this verve and vibe he brings to his annual street soccer tournament, The Last Stand. A busy man (not least because he was organising the tournament) we spoke to Gundeep as he travelled to his next meeting in a cab in Central London, and there's even a cameo from David Beckham!
The American Outlaws are the largest soccer supporters group in the world. Nearly 20 years on from their founding we hear from Trevin Wurm, who runs the Lincoln, Nebraska branch about his highs and lows from the World Cup and what he expects the legacy to be for soccer in the USA
Pickles the dog became an unlikely hero before the 1966 World Cup when he found the stolen Jules Rimet trophy on his daily walk. Stardom beckoned as he was honoured with a medal and a role in a film, even becoming part of England's celebrations when they won the tournament.
(Photo: A general interior view of Dallas Stadium in Dallas, United States, on June 27, 2026, ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026 Group J match between Jordan and Argentina. Credit: Ahmad Alameen/Getty Images)

It's nearly 20 years since Wimbledon decided to award equal prize money. The tennis world has come a long way since a group of women players known as "The Original 9" eventually forced the creation of a Women's tour. Billie Jean King was the most famous of the Original 9, but Julie Heldman was also one of the nine, and her mother, Gladys, also played a crucial role... I've been speaking to Julie about that and what life was like as a top female tennis player back in the later 1960's. But Julie's story is made all the more remarkable when you learn about what life was really like with Gladys Heldman as your mother behind closed doors... and I should warn you, I found much of what Julie had to say very hard to listen to.
 Before the original tournament was held in the States in 1994, there was no professional league, but the popularity of the world Cup spawned the MLS, one of its first stars was Paul Wright. A goal scoring machine Paul was a pioneer of the game and is still very much involved in his hometown of San Diego, from where he is nurturing the next generation of talent... In the US sports like basketball and American football have free school programmes, playing to a high standard without having to pay. Not so soccer, where you have to join a club in a "Pay to play" system and that can be expensive, anywhere up to $10,000 a year! In Europe that cost tends to be heavily subsidised by professional teams of national federations. It leaves American kids at the lower end of the socio-economic ladder unable to play the game... So, Paul decided to do something about that.
Tensions between the United Stated and Iran are not a new thing. Far from it, but could there be a place for football in the road to peace? The Iranian national football team left a note in its locker room at the Los Angeles Stadium after their game against Belgium earlier in the competition, thanking the people of Los Angeles for their hospitality during the World Cup. The note ended "We wish peace, respect, and friendship among all the nations of the world". Well, after the two countries met competitively at the 1998 World Cup in France, a couple of original thinkers organised a friendly match between the two nations. The US would host Iran before a proposed return fixture... This is the story of how that game at the Rose Bowl in California came to pass in the late 1990's
The remarkable story of tennis star Liesl Herbst who just after the second world war competed at Wimbledon with her daughter Dorli to play in the ladies' doubles. They remain the only mother and daughter who have competed together at Wimbledon. Felice Hardy, granddaughter of Liesl and daughter of Dorli, and author of "The Tennis Champion Who Escaped The Nazis", told their story to Not by the Playbook's Megan Jones.
PHOTO: Top female tennis players hold up their $1 bills which will make them contract pros and eligible to play for money instead of trophies in the Virginia Slims tournament at the Houston Racquet Club in defiance of the USLTA. The players are (standing, L-R) Valerie Ziegenfuss, Billie Jean King, Nancy Richey, Peaches Bartkowicz; (seated, L-R) Judy Tegart Dalton, Kerry Melville, Rosie Casals, manager Gladys Heldman, and Kristy Pigeon. The players breakaway from the tennis establishment eventually lead the way to the formation of the Women's Tennis Association. Not pictured: Julie Heldman. (CREDIT: Bela Ugrin/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)