New Season of REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBAL Kicks Off on HBO, Today

REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL, TV's most-honored sports journalism series, returns for its 23rd season with more enterprising features and reporting when the show's 238th edition debuts TUESDAY, JAN. 24(10:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO. REAL SPORTS is also available on HBO NOW, HBO GO, HBO On Demand and affiliate portals. For up-to-the-minute updates about REAL SPORTS, follow on Twitter at @RealSportsHBO or join the conversation using #RealSports.

Segments include:

*A Football Tragedy. Strong and fearless, former University of Alabama fullback Kevin Turner was an old-school football player who loved getting hit as much as he loved dishing it out. He spent eight years in the NFL with the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles, achieving the things he'd dreamed of as a boy. But after Turner left the game in 1999, those dreams turned to nightmares as he developed an addiction to painkillers, suffered from depression and was ultimately diagnosed with the terminal disease ALS in 2010.

Shortly after that diagnosis, REAL SPORTS correspondent Jon Frankel began documenting Turner's life as his body deteriorated and he came to grips with the fact that the game he loved had probably caused his ALS. Over six years of shooting, Turner also revealed how he wrestled with allowing his son, Nolan, to play football, and the comfort he received knowing he would do so under the guidance of former Alabama teammate Dabo Swinney, the Clemson University head coach who recently led his team to a national championship. Turner passed away last year at age 46.

Producer: Nick Dolin.

*Dreams Deferred. Marshall High on Chicago's West Side was one of the main settings of the iconic 1994 sports documentary "Hoop Dreams," which spotlighted inner-city poverty. At the time, Marshall players were unaffected by the gun violence that now ravages the city, because gangs treated athletes as a protected class. But today, more than 20 years later, some of Chicago's finest basketball players have become victims of shootings, just like other members of the community.

Host Bryant Gumbel travels to his hometown in the wake of one of the deadliest years Chicago has ever seen to meet Shawn Harrington, a former player and assistant coach at Marshall High, who details the violence he's witnessed and suffered first-hand. Gumbel also sits down with Arthur Agee, one of the stars of "Hoop Dreams," as well as a current Marshall player to explore why young star athletes are no longer shielded from the effects of guns.

Producer: Maggie Burbank.

*A Beautiful Mind. John Urschel holds bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics from Penn State, but his 6' 3," 300-pound-plus frame was made for football. By day, the 25-year-old is an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens; away from the gridiron, Urschel is pursuing a Ph.D. in mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Despite the seemingly sharp contrast between high-level thinking and violent, high-impact sports, Urschel believes many similarities exist between his two very different careers. REAL SPORTS correspondent Bernard Goldberg sits down with Urschel to discuss his road to the NFL, future in mathematics and decision to continue playing football, despite the increased risk of brain injury.

Producer: Beret Remak.

Premiering on HBO in April 1995, REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL has recently continued its celebrated run of excellence, BECOMING the first show in sports TV history to capture the three most coveted awards in broadcast journalism in a single year. In 2016, the series received the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, a George F. Peabody Award and a Sports Emmy® Award for Outstanding Journalism.

Follow REAL SPORTS updates on HBO.com/realsports andfacebook.com/realsports. Immediately following the debut of this month's show on Jan. 24, log on to HBO.com/realsports for a special overtime session hosted by Bryant Gumbel.

The executive producer of REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL is Rick Bernstein; Joe Perskie is senior producer.

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