From Corona, California to the world. After playing division one basketball at Stanford from 2005-2009, Anthony Goods decided to take his professional career overseas. Anthony played professional basketball in nine different countries over the span of 10 years. This opened a new perspective to his perception of the game, thus influencing his career.

Today Anthony is one of the founders of Swish Cultures, a platform dedicated to promoting and sharing world-wide coverage of basketball. Anthony also hosts two podcasts, roleplayermedia, A storytelling podcast that features a behind the scenes global hoops picture and the vets moves podcast, A podcast featuring former athletes, how they transition into new professions.

Anthony Goods's transition from the world of collegiate athletics to his professional journey in the basketball world is a story worth being heard. Anthony's hard work and driven mentality have helped him establish himself in both his former athletic career and former basketball career.

Disclaimer: This is a modified Transcript.

Interview by Olivia Cleary.

You earned the opportunity to play basketball in a Power 5 conference at Stanford, where you experienced a lot of success. How did your experience at Stanford provide you with the tools you needed to be successful in your career?

Social media is a huge part of my career. Stanford was a unique place because it's right in the heart of Silicon Valley, so innovation was everywhere. Social media was new when I was in school, and it just continued to grow. That's something I noticed even when my career wasn't in social media yet, and I was still playing basketball professionally.

I always had an interest in media, which is one of the main reasons I majored in communications at Stanford. Stanford has a very good communications program, and I was able to learn a lot from my professors and through my classes. On top of my classes about communication and the media, I often found myself noticing the growth of various forms of media on my own. Social media was one aspect that really caught my attention. I think a large part of why it was so captivating for me was because I was at Stanford and in Silicon Valley, where many of these social media platforms began and really started to take off.

Media is very different now than it was back then, but my interest in the media was always there despite the changes. I always had a love for media, and I was lucky to be able to tie in my other passion, basketball, with that.

One of the platforms you helped found, Swish Cultures, has gained a lot of popularity. What have you learned from founding Swish Cultures, and what was your inspiration for founding it?

After playing at Stanford, I was drafted to play overseas. I spent a lot of time overseas and had the opportunity to play in 9 different countries, which was a super unique experience. I really got to experience a lot of different cultures and a lot of different varieties of the game of basketball.

There are so many talented basketball players overseas, and so many great games. So my inspiration for Swish Cultures was essentially my experience overseas and giving various communities and different athletes worldwide exposure and a platform. Exposure is so important, especially in the world of athletics. Exposure brings attention and opportunities to people and games that might not get those opportunities without their content being shared with a worldwide audience. So that was my goal with Swish Cultures, to shine a worldwide light on the game of basketball.

As for the things I've learned, a lot of what I've learned has come from the technical side of content creation and video editing. My background was in communication. My education didn't really include learning how to make graphics or edit highlights, etc. So I had to study and practice and teach myself those things.

I had to learn how to be flexible and embrace the flexibility of being willing to learn different software and skills. It's not always easy. There were sometimes when I would spend hours looking at my computer screen trying to edit a video or post in a specific way. It wasn't always fun, but that's something I think my background in basketball kind of prepared me for. In basketball, you have to have a growth mindset and be driven and persistent, so I had to apply that mentality to my career and learning new skills to help me with my career. So, through the founding of Swish Cultures, I learned to be flexible.

On top of the work you do on Swish Cultures, you also host two different podcasts. Can you talk to me about the work you do on those?

Before I even had Swish Cultures, I had a podcast where I was interviewing OG basketball players about their careers. Then, when Swish Cultures got going, I got super busy because I was still playing. That was three years prior to my retirement. But after I stopped playing, I had a little more time to get back into podcasting.

Jordan Taylor, who also has a background as a basketball player and whom I have known and played basketball against, had a podcast. One night I was having a conversation with him, and I decided to join his podcast, and we just grew it from there, the Role Player Media podcast.

The other podcast I started is the Veteran Moves podcast. The inspiration for that was during the pandemic, a lot of players were hitting me up asking about possibly having to transition because nobody knew if basketball was ever going to return. People started thinking about life outside of basketball and started thinking about making connections or ideas or other business ventures, things like that. Then I thought it would be dope to have a podcast interviewing athletes about how they transitioned into different industries. So that was the thought behind the Veteran Moves podcast, to interview players and talk to them about their journey after their sports career.

How have your podcasts and, specifically, your work on Swish Cultures influenced you?

It definitely helped me as an entrepreneur, you know. Now that we've grown and have a sizable audience, and we're involved in various plans and partnerships, it has forced me to learn. It was necessary because, initially, we were just trying to build this platform out of love. Then, we had an opportunity to start making money from it. So, I believe it has helped me and also influenced me to stay connected with overseas basketball. I've been able to give back and assist other players, which has always been our goal. I think we've filled a special need in the basketball world. Back when we first started, nobody was really creating highlights for overseas basketball players on multiple pages. Our goal was always to provide exposure to players and create a new perspective, not seeing other pages as competition but as a beautiful addition. There are other pages out there that also deserve recognition.