watch cbs in bay area with the kpix 5 news app. captioning funded by cbs and ford. we go further, so you can. >> i wouldn't really call what's happened now an investigation. it's essentially a highly chaperoned, highly curated study tour. >> stahl: study tour? >> study tour. everybody around the world is imagining this is some kind of full investigation. it's not. this group of experts only saw what the chinese government wanted them to see. ( ticking ) >> so, here's a little bit of a jump. >> cooper: i mean, that's incredible. there's a lot of incredible things going on at boston dynamics, a cutting edge robotics company that "60 minutes" has been trying to get

inside of for years. >> this is inside atlas' brain, and it shows its perception system. it's going to use that vision to adjust itself as it goes running over these blocks. ( ticking ) >> wertheim: dave kindred is among the best ever to write about sport in america, and he's covered them all-- ali, tiger, martina and michael. then, after 50 years, he decided to repair to the bleachers and-- how's this for a headline?-- cover girl's high school hoops. >> kindred: i loved seeing them play. and why should they be ignored in high school athletics? and plus, they don't pout. they don't bitch. ( ticking ) >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bill whitaker. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm jon wertheim. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories and more, tonight, on "60 minutes."

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be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. >> lesley stahl: this past friday, a long anticipated and much-debated report by the world health organization was delayed again. it was supposed to be a kind of postmortem on a trip to china by a w.h.o.-led team of international scientists which took place earlier this year. the question: how did sars-cov- 2, the virus that causes covid- 19, originate? among the leading theories

examined: was it accidentally leaked from a lab in wuhan, or did it come from infected animals in a wet market there? the w.h.o. inquiry wa far from comprehensive because, as it has done since the beginning of the outbreak, the chinese government withheld information. >> metzl: i wouldn't really call what's happened now an investigation. it's essentially a highly- chaperoned, highly-curated study tour. >> stahl: study tour? >> metzl: study tour. everybody around the world is imagining this is some kind of full investigation. it's not. this group of experts only saw what the chinese government wanted them to see. >> stahl: jamie metzl, former n.s.c. official in the clinton administration and member of a w.h.o. advisory committee on genetic engineering, is one of more than two dozen experts, this calr o ina.rists, who

the letter says the w.h.o. team did not have the independence or access "to carry out a full and unrestricted investigation" specifically into a possible accidental leak from a laboratory at the wuhan institute of virology in the city where the first outbreak occurred. >> metzl: we would have to ask the question, "well, why in wuhan?" to quote humphrey bogart, "of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, why wuhan?" what wuhan does have is china's level four virology institute with probably the world's largest collection of bat viruses, including bat coronaviruses. >> stahl: i had seen that the world health organization team only spent three hours at the lab. >> metzl: while they were there, they didn't demand access to the records and samples and key

personnel. >> stahl: that's because of the ground rules china set with the w.h.o., which has never had the authority to make demands or enforce international protocols. >> metzl: it was agreed first that china would have veto power over-- over who even got to be on the mission. secondly... >> stahl: and w.h.o. agreed to that. >> metzl: w.h.o. agreed to that. on top of that, the w.h.o. agreed that in most instances, china would do the primary investigation and then just share its findings... >> stahl: no. >> metzl: ...with these international experts. so, these international experts weren't allowed to do their own primary investigation. >> stahl: wait, you're saying that china did the investigation and showed the results to the committee, and that was it? >> metzl: pretty much that... >> stahl: whoa. >> metzl: ...was it. not entirely, but pretty much that was it. imagine if we have asked the soviet union to do a co- investigation of chernobyl. it doesn't really make sense.

>> stahl: china had ruled out a lab accident long before the w.h.o. team arrived at the airport in wuhan on january 14 and were greeted by people in full p.p.e. gear. the team included some of the world's leading experts on how viruses are transmitted from animals to humans, but even though there have been accidental lab leaks of viruses in china in the past that have infected people and killed at least one, no one on the team was trained in how to formally investigate a lab leak.e r a ss n, but two of those weeks re snt holp tel in qraey h some tense exchanges with their counterparts, a team of chinese experts, over their refusal to provide raw data. >> reporter: are you getting the access you need? >> stahl: if the virus originated in animals, one of

the mysteries has been: how did it travel the thousand miles from the bat caves in southern china to wuhan? the w.h.o. team thinks it found the answer. >> peter daszak: what we found as part of this w.h.o. mission to china is that there is a pathway. >> stahl: peter daszak, a member of the w.h.o. team and an expert on how animal viruses jump to humans, has worked on previous viral outbreaks, including in china. he says the pathway leads not to the lab in wuhan but from wildlife farms in southern china directly to the wet market in wuhan, the huanan seafood market. >> daszak: the theory is that somehow that virus got from a bat into one of these wildlife farms, and then the animals were shipped into the market. and they contaminated people while they were handling them, chopping them up, killing them, whatever you do before you cook an animal. >> stahl: wild animals? >> daszak: yeah, these... >> stahl: like what?

>> daszak: they're a traditional food. civets, these are like ferrets. there's also an animal called a ferret badger. rabbits, which we know can carry the virus. those animals were coming into the market from farms over 1,000 miles away. >> stahl: were you able to test any of the animals found in the wuhan market for the virus? >> daszak: well, the china team had done that, and they found a few animals left in freezers. they tested them, they were negative. but the fact that those animals are there is the clue. >> stahl: but there's no direct evidence that any of those animals were actually infected with the bat virus? >> daszak: correct. now, what we've got to do is go to those farms and investigate, talk to the farmers, talk to their relatives, test them, see if there were spikes in virus there first. >> stahl: so, the team doesn't actually know if any of the farmers or the truckers were ever infected? >> daszak: no one knows yet. no one's been there. no one's asked them. no one's tested them. that's to be done. >> stahl: despite those unanswered questions, the w.h.o.

team and their chinese counterparts all agreed that this hypothesis of a pathway from bat caves to butcher shops like these is the most likely explanation. >> daszak: something like 75% of emerging diseases come from animals into people. we've seen it before. we've seen it in china with sars. >> stahl: is the lab leak theory any more or less speculative than the-- your pathway? >> daszak: for an accidental leak that-- that then led to covid to happen, the virus that causes covid would need to be in the lab. they never had any evidence of a virus like covid in the lab. >> stahl: they never had the covid-19 virus... >> daszak: not prior... >> stahl: ...in that lab? >> daszak: ...to the outbreak, no. absolutely. no evidence of that. >> stahl: jamie metzl begs to differ, pointing to the lab's own reports that it sent field researchers to the bat caves who brought back samples with

viruses. >> metzl: we know that among those viruses, one of them is the virus that is genetically most related to the sars-cov-2 virus. >> stahl: but "most related" isn't the same, right? >> metzl: yes, exactly. but we do know that there were nine viruses at least that were brought back, and it's extremely possible that among these viruses is a virus that's much more closely related to the sars-cov-2 virus.pieces together, i said, "hey, wait a second, this is a real possibility. we need to be exploring it." >> stahl: the pathway that peter daszak and the team have come up with, now that sounds plausible. >> metzl: oh, it's certainly plausible. >> stahl: very, seriously plausible. >> metzl: no, it is plausible. let's just say that that theory is correct. you would have had an outbreak perhaps in southern china, where they have those animal farms. you may have seen some kind of evidence of an outbreak along

the way. >> stahl: and there wasn't? >> metzl: there wasn't. >> stahl: but listen, your theory is also full of holes. >> metzl: i wouldn't say it's full of holes, but it's incomplete. that's why we need access to the data in order to prove one hypothesis for another. >> stahl: metzl says peter daszak has a conflict of interest because of his long- time collaboration with the wuhan lab. >> daszak: i'm on the w.h.o. team for a reason, and, you know, if you're going to work in china on coronaviruses and try and understand their origins, you should involve the people who know the most about that. and for better or for worse, i do. >> stahl: he says the team did look into the leak theory during a visit with lab scientists and deemed it "extremely unlikely." >> daszak: we met with them. we said, "do you audit the lab?" and they said, "annually." "did it you audit it after the outbreak?" "yes." "was anything found?" "no." "do you test your staff?"

"yes." no one was... >> stahl: but you're just taking their word for it. >> daszak: well, what else can we do? there's a limit to what you can do, and we went right up to that limit. we asked them tough questions. they weren't vetted in advance. and the answers they gave, we found to be believable, correct and convincing. >> stahl: but weren't the chinese engaged in a cover-up? they destroyed evidence, they punished scientists who were trying to give evidence on this very question of the origin. >> daszak: well, that wasn't our task, to find out if china had covered up the origin issue. >> stahl: no, i know. i'm just saying, doesn't that make you wonder? >> daszak: we didn't see any evidence of any false reporting or cover-up in the work that we did in china. >> stahl: were there chinese government minders in the room every time you were asking questions? >> daszak: there were ministry of foreign affairs staff in the room throughout our stay, absolutely. they were there to make sure everything went smoothly from the china side. >> stahl: or to make sure they weren't telling you the whole

truth and nothing but the truth. >> daszak: you sit in a room with people who are scientists and you know what a scientific statement is and you know what a political statement is. we had no problem distinguishing between the two. >> stahl: speaking of political statements: >> president trump: a thing called the "china virus." >> stahl: geopolitics loomed over the entire inquiry with some tit for tats. beijing said covid-19 originated in the u.s.; the trump administration accused china of a cover-up. >> matt pottinger: there was a direct order from beijing to destroy all viral samples, and they didn't volunteer to share the genetic sequences. >> stahl: matt pottinger, the then-deputy national security adviser, quoting from declassified intelligence information, says beijing also hid that several researchers at the wuhan lab had come down with covid-like symptoms and that the chinese military was working with the lab.

>> pottinger: there is a body of research that's been taking place conducted by the chinese military in collaboration with the wuhan institute of virology, which has not been acknowledged by the chinese government. we've seen the data. i've personally seen the data. >> stahl: why the military? why were they in that lab? >> pottinger: we don't know. it is a major lead that needs to be pursued by the press, certainly by the world health organization. beijing is simply not interested in allowing us to find thepanswt questions. >> stahl: what the u.s. government does know, he says, is that the wuhan lab director published studies about manipulating bat coronaviruses in a way that could make them more infectious to humans, and there were reports of lax safety standards at the lab. >> pottinger: they were doing research specifically on coronaviruses that attach to the ace 2 receptors in human lungs, just like the covid-19 virus. >> stahl: is that a smoking gun? >> pottinger: no, it's circumstantial evidence.

but it's a pretty potent bullet point when you consider that the place where this pandemic emerged was a few kilometers away from the wuhan institute of virology. >> stahl: the lack of transparency has led to widespread criticism of the w.h.o. for agreeing to china's demands. >> pottinger: the one thing that i wish the w.h.o. had done is to pick up their megaphone and start screaming through it to demand that china be more transparent, that it open its border to allow american c.d.c. officials and other experts from the w.h.o. and around the world to come investigate and to help. >> stahl: after 15 months and more than 2.7 million deaths worldwide, it was hoped the team would provide some clarity on the origin of covid-19, but the exercise ends with even more questions than it began with. ( ticking )

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>> anderson cooper: boston dynamics is a cutting-edge robotics company that's spent decades behind closed doors making robots that move in ways we've only seen in science fiction films. they occasionally release videos on youtube of their lifelike machines spinning, somersaulting or sprinting, which are greeted with fascination and fear. we've been trying without any luck to get into boston dynamics' workshop for years, and a few weeks ago they finally agreed to let us in. after working out strict covid protocols, we went to massachusetts to see how they make robots do the unimaginable. from the outside, boston dynamics headquarters looks pretty normal. inside, however it's anything but. if willy wonka made robots, his workshop might look something like this.

offices and kennels. they trot and dance and whirl, and the 200 or so human roboticists who build and often break them barely bat an eye. that is atlas, the most human- looking robot they've ever made. it's nearly five feet tall, 175 pounds, and is programmed to run, leap and spin like an automated acrobat. wow. marc raibert, the founder and chairman of boston dynamics, doesn't like to play favorites but definitely has a soft spot for atlas. >> raibert: so, here's a little bit of a jump. >> cooper: i mean, that's incredible. an bry hollingsworth is steering it with this remote control. but the robot's software allows it to make other key decisously. >> raibert: so, really, the robot is... >> cooper: that's incredible. >> raibert: ...you know, doing all its own balance, all its own control.

bryan's just steering it, telling it what speed and direction. its computers are adjusting how the legs are placed and what forces it's applying in order to keep it balanced. >> cooper: atlas balances with the help of sensors as well as a gyroscope and three onboard computers. it was definitely built to be pushed around. >> raibert: good. push it a little bit more. it's just trying to keep its balance, just like you will, if i push you. and you can push it in any direction. you can push it from the side. ( laughs ) >> cooper: making machines that can stay upright on their own and move through the world with the ease of an animal or human has been an obsession of marc raiberts' for 40 years. the space of time you've been working in is nothing compared to the time it's taken for animals and humans to develop. >> raibert: some people look at me and say, "oh, raibert, you've been stuck on this problem for 40 years." animals are amazingly good, and peat-- at at they do. you know, we're so agile. we're so versatile. we really haven't achieved what

humans can do yet, but i think-- i think we can. >> cooper: raibert isn't making it easy for himself. he's given most of his robots legs. why focus on-- on legs? i would think wheels would be easier. >> raibert: yeah, wheels and tracks are great if you have a prepared surface like a road or even a dirt road. but people and animals can go anywhere on earth using their legs. and, so, that, you know, that was the inspiration. >> ready? one, two... >> cooper: some of the first contraptions he built in the early 1980s bounced around on what looked like pogo sticks. they appeared in this documentary when raibert was a pioneering professor of robotics and computer science at carnegie mellon. he founded boston dynamics in 1992, and, with c.e.o. robert playter, has been working for decades to perfect how robots move. they developed this robot called big dog for the military as well as this larger pack mule that could carry 400 pounds on its rig li rot to

run nearly 30 miles an hour. none of these made it out of the prototype phase, but they did lead to this. it's called spot. boston dynamics made it not knowing exactly how it would be used, but the inspiration for it isn't hard to figure out. >> hannah rossi: so, spot is a omni-directional robot. so, i can go forwards and backwards. >> cooper: this is crazy. ( laughs ) >> rob playter: this is the real benefit of legs. legs give you that capability. >> cooper: that's robert playter, the c.e.o.; and hannah rossi, a technician who works on spot. >> rossi: i'm not doing anything special to let it walk over those rocks. there you go. >> cooper: the controls are easier to use than you might expect. does it have to come in, straight on? >> rossi: you don't have to be perfect about it. drive it close to wherever you want to go, and the robot will do the rest. >> cooper: wow. in some ways, it's like driving a very sophisticated remote control car.

what makes it different? >> playter: spot is really smart about its own locomotion. it deals with all the details about how to place my feet, what gait to use, how to manage my body so that all you have to tell it is the direction they go to. >> cooper: and, in some cases, you don't even have to do that. when signaled, spot can take itself off its charging station and go for a walk on its own as long as it's pre-programmed with the route. it uses five 3d cameras to map its surroundings and avoid obstacles. i mean, it is like something... atlas has a similar technology. while we were talking in front of atlas, this is how it saw us. >> raibert: this is inside atlas' brain, and it shows its perception system. so, what looks like a flashlight is really the data that's coming back from its cameras. and it-- you see the white-- rectangles? that means it's identifying a place that it could step. and then, once it identifies it, itacs the fosteps to

it, ay "okay, mechanics so that it actually hits those places when it's running. >> cooper: all of that happens in a matter of milliseconds. >> raibert: and so, it's going to use that vision to adjust itself as it goes running over these blocks. >> cooper: atlas cost tens of millions of dollars to develop, but it's not for sale. it's used purely for research and development. but spot is on the market. more than 400 are out in the world. they sell for about $75,000 apiece. accessories cost extra. some spots work at utility companies using mounted cameras to check on equipment. others monitor construction sites, and several police departments are trying them out to assist with investigations. let's talk about the-- the fear factor. when you post a video of atlas or spot doing something, a ton of people are amazed by it and think it's great, and there's a lot of people who think this is terrifying.

>> playter: the rogue robot story is a powerful story, and it's been told for 100 years. but it's fiction. robots don't have agency. they don't make up their own minds about what their tasks are. they operate within a narrow bound of their programming. >> cooper: it is easy to project human qualities onto these machines. >> playter: i think people do attribute to our robots much more than they should because, you know, they haven't seen machines move like this before. and so, they-- they want to project intelligence and emotion onto that in ways that are fiction. >> cooper: in other words, these robots still have a long way to go. i mean, it's not c-3po. it-- it's not a thinking... >> raibert: yeah. so, let me tell you... >> cooper: okay. >> raibert: ...about that. there's a cognitive intelligence and an athletic intelligence. you know, cognitive intelligence is making plans, making like that. >> cooper: it's not doing that?

>> raibert: it's mostly doing athletic intelligence... >> cooper: okay. >> raibert: ...which is managing its body, its posture, its energetics. if you told it to travel in a circle in the room, it can go through the sequence of steps. but if you ask it to go find me a soda, it's-- it's not doing anything like that. >> oh, no! >> cooper: just picking an item off the floor can sometimes be a struggle for spot. enabling it to open a door has taken years of programming and practice, and a human has to tell it where the hinges are. >> kevin blankespoor: each time we add some new capability and we feel like we've got it to a decent point, that's when you push it to failure to figure out, you know, how good of a jo. >>ooper: kevin blankespoor is one of the lead engineers here, but, at times, he prefers a very low-tech approach to testing robots. you're pretty tough on robots. >> blankespoor: we think of that as-- as just another way to push them out of the comfort zone. >> cooper: failure is a big part

of the process. when trying something new, robots, like humans, don't get it right every time. there might be dozens of crashes for every one success. how often do you break a robot? ( laughs ) >> raibert: we break them all the time. i mean, it's part of our culture. we have a motto, "build it, break it, fix it." >> cooper: to do that, boston dynamics has recruited roboticists with diverse backgrounds. there's plenty of phd's, but also bike builders and racecar mechanics. bill washburn is part of that pit crew. they all look pretty dinged up. >> washburn: yeah.pe oftedo the? >> washburn: the biggest kind of failures for me are, like, the bottom part of the robot breaks off of the top part of the robot. ( chuckle ) and it's like... >> cooper: that seems like a big, big failure. ( chuckle ) >> washburn: and the hydraulic hoses are the only thing holding it together. >> cooper: recently, raibert and his team decided to push their robots in a way they never had before. >> raibert: we spent at least six months, maybe eight, just

preparing for what we were going to do. and then, we started to get the technical teams working on the behavior. >> cooper: the behavior was dancing. l their robots got in on the act. ♪ the movements were cutting edge, but the music and the mashed potato were definitely old school. ♪ i can mashed potato. ♪ there are some people who see that and say, "that can't be real." >> raibert: nothing's more gratifying than hearing that. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ thmaed poto? >> raibert: this process of, you know, doing new things with the robots lets you generate new tools, new approaches, new understanding of the problem. that takes you forward, but, man, isn't it just fun? >> cooper: but, i mean, it's-- it costs a lot of money. it took 18 months of your time. >> raibert: i think it was worth it.

( laughter ) >> cooper: whether it'll be worth it to boston dynamics' new owners is less clear. >> raibert: a lot of detail. >> cooper: the south korean car maker, hyundai, has agreed to buy a majority stake for more than $1 billion. it'll be boston dynamics' third owner in eight years. there's pressure to turn their research into revenue, and boston dynamics hopes this new robot will help. it's called stretch, and it's due to go on sale next year. this is the first time they've shown it publicly. >> blankenspoor: warehouses is really the next frontier for robotics. >> cooper: stretch may not be that exciting to look at, but ind. buiita te it's got a seven-foot arm, and they say it can move 800 boxes anr 16 hurs oua bak. unlike many industrial robots that sit in one place, stretch is designed to move around. >> blankenspoor: you can drive it around with a joystick, and, at times, that's the easiest way to get it set up. but once it's ready to go in a truck and unload it, you hit go,

and from there on it's autonomous. and it'll keep finding boxes and moving them until it's all the way through. >> playter: this generation of robots is going to be different. they're going to work amongst us. they're going to work next to us in ways where we help them but they also take some of the burden from us. >> cooper: the more robots are integrated into the workforce, the more jobs would be taken away. >> playter: at the same time, you're creating a new industry. we envision a job we-- we-- we like to call the robot wrangler. he'll launch and manage five to ten robots at a time and sort of keep them all working. >> cooper: is there a robot you've always dreamt of making that you haven't been able to do yet? ( laughs ) >> raibert: a car with an active suspension, essentially legs like-- like a roller-skating robot. and a robot like that, you know, could go anywhere on earth. that's one thing that maybe we'll do at some point. but, you know, really, the sky's the limit. there's-- there's all kinds of things we can and will do.

♪ th so many things boston dynamics does, it's hard to imagine how that would work. but then again, who'd have thought a bunch of metal machines would one day show us all how to do the mashed potato. ♪ watch me now! ♪ ( ticking ) >> what could robots look like in the future? >> it won't be that long until you can talk to it like you talk to alexa. >> at 60minutesovertime.com.

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the 7pm news, weeknights on kpix 5. ( ticking ) >> jon wertheim: it's one of the guiding principles of journalism: the reporter should never become the story. every now and then, though, you find a reporter's story too good not to tell. in 2018, dave kindred received

the pen/espn lifetime achievement award for literary sports writing. it was intended as a final bit of punctuation on a gilded career. little did the presenters know, kindred was still churning out column after column, sweating deadlines, interviewing athletes after exhilarating wins and deflating losses. kindred, though, wasn't setting up shop as he had for 50 years at super bowls, world series games, olympics, and title fights. no, he was scribbling away three rows up the bleachers, inside high school gyms of central illinois, and it would make for some of the most fulfilling work of kindred's career. for more than a half century, dave kindred abided a simple sports writing rule: be a reporter firndsecond. on the sidelines or the back nine, he wanted to be there, find the story, and then paint a picture using words. >> wertheim: let's do the sportswriter equivalent of back- of-the-baseball card. give me the numbers here.

how many world series you been to? >> dave kindred: i became a columnist in '69, so went to a lot of-- almost all the world series after that. >> wertheim: how many super bowls have you been to? >> kindred: 40-something. >> wertheim: what about the masters? >> kindred: i've been to 52 masters. >> wertheim: man. >> kindred: first in 1967, and missed 1986 when nothing happened except jack nicklaus won. unlike the athletes and teams they cover, sports writers aren't ranked. there's no scoreboard or leaderboard. still, even in this subjective line of work, there are perennial all-stars and hall of famers, say "sports illustrated's" frank deford and red smith of the "new york times," whose sunday column would arrive by train near dave kindred's childhood home of atlanta, illinois, a speck alongside route 66. kindred would race to theof the newspaper, and read every word. >> kindred: i studied them. you know, one of the things i've learned about writing is find

out what you like, then figure out why you like it, and then do that. >> wertheim: so, why did you like it? >> kindred: i liked the rhythm of his words. red didn't use, you know, kind of sportswriter hackney words. he used words that had a music to them. >> wertheim: you're here in the middle of illinois, and you're reading these dispatches about sports, but from all over the world. >> kindred: yeah, it took me out of that second-floor bedroom, you know, and put me in the press box at wimbledon. >> wertheim: kindred wrote what he saw and became one of the most influential sports columnists and authors of a generation. name sports icons from the last half century, and rest assured dave kindred's covered them. to him, though, one athlete was the greatest. in 1966, kindred was a cub reporter at the "louisville courier journal," ordered by his boss to go find the outgoing, ascending local fighter. >> wertheim: you meet muhammad ali for the very first time. that seems like a pretty big pivot point in your career. how did you think of it at the

time? >> kindred: at the time, i just thought of it, "this is a good story." you know, "this is fun. guy's the heavyweight champion of the world." >> wertheim: it marked the first of more than 300 interviews with ali, who christened dave kindred "louisville," forever ali's hometown reporter. kindred followed ali's entire career-- an entomologist, as it were, writing about the butterfly and the bee, sometimes in the strangest of places. >> kindred: i was trying to do a column on his entourage. meanwhile, his suite, as always, was full of people. he waves at me, "louisville! come in here." so, i go in there, and i'm standing next to the bed. he raises up the corner of the sheets and says, "get in." ll, i don't know wyoo did, you oget in and one of us had on clothes. >> wertheim: he saved that anecdote for a 2006 duel biography he wrote abouthalimuam louisville to the "washingtonmm st," the "atlanta journal-

constitution" and the "sporting news." kindred became one those hall of famers; his writings are preserved in the library of his alma mater, illinois wesleyan university, where we unearthed this gem. after the death of the n.b.a. player, pete maravich, you wrote, "an inelegant collection of bones, the skinny, 6-foot-5 maravich flailed his way down court, elbows and knees, sharp angles rearranging themselves. an ichabod crane on the fast break, and you dared not blink." >> kindred: that's pretty good. >> wertheim: kindred wrote that line 33 years ago. where did you come up with that? >> kindred: no idea, other than that's what he looked like. you want the reader to see the moment the way you see it. >> wertheim: he would have kept at it but for the sad and steady decline of both print media and the role of the general columnist. in 2010, dave kindred and his wife cheryl, high school sweethearts in the '50s, figured it was time to return home to

the flat abs of america, central illinois. they'd sit by the pond outside their log cabin, read and watch sunsets. and when the cold whipped in winter, they, like a lot of folks downstate, would repair to the warmth of a local high school gym for entertainment-- in their case, it was in morton, illinois, next town over from peoria, to watch the lady potters. >> kindred: i went to a basketball game, and, like the old war horse, i couldn't sit there and not write about what i saw. >> wertheim: kindred and his wife sat in the bleachers, alongside parents, grandparents and high schoolers, and his professional instincts kicked in. he offered to cover the lady potters r s web site and post his accounts on facebook as well. but first, he wanted the

blessing of the team's coach. >> coach bob becker: he's, you know, muhammad ali and olympics and masters golf, and super bowls, and bobby knight. and here i am, a small-town girls' basketball coach. >> wertheim: bob becker has been head coach of the lady potters since 1999. after some apprehension-- who wants to get second-guessed by a hard-boiled journalist?-- he bought in. >> becker: you know, after that initial shock, getting to know who he really was, after a little bit of research, we've got the michael jordan of sports writing falls in our lap. >> wertheim: the scribe who once described an n.b.a. player as "ichabod crane on a fast break" now called his new subjects "the golden state warriors with ponytails." and there was something about girls' basketball that particularly enthralled kindred. >> kindred: i think i'd owed a little bit to title ix. the women athletes, you know, i loved seeing them play.

and why should they be ignored in high school athletics? the men's game is vertical, the girls' game is horizontal. they have to master the fundamentals, so it's much more fun to watch them. and plus, they don't pout. they don't bitch. >> wertheim: for now, covid has shrunk the season and the crowds in the potterdome, but kindred's there, his gaze fixed on the action, listening in on huddles. after the buzzer, he's outside the locker room for a quote. albeit self-imposed, there is a deadline, so, after driving home, he ends the day, as ever, in front of a keyboard. >> becker: people stay up after the game, waiting for that article to come out. they won't go to bed until they get to read it. so, he's got deadlines to meet. he's not getting paid anything, but, eventually, it turned into a box of milk duds. >> wertheim: you heard right. kindred's negotiated compensation...

>> kindred: i said, "look, i'm a professional sportswriter. i should be getting something for doing all this stuff for you." and he measured my talent and experience and good looks and said, "how about a box of milk duds every game?" and i said, "deal." >> wertheim: you drive a hard bargain, kindred. then, in 2015, well, you might say the milk duds would turn into lifesavers. apart from the sugar rush, what do you get out of this? >> kindred: well, the first five years, it was just the fun. then, things started happening, as-- as they do late in life. had a grandson who died. my mother died three months later. the next year, my wife had a catastrophic stroke that left her an invalid who cannot communicate, you know. so, even in the hospital, one of the player's mothers, i was debating whether i should leave

my wife in the hospital unconscious and go to a lady potters game. and the mother said, "you've got to go, you've got to go." and she was right, you know. i went, and i-- and what started as fun became life-affirming, you know? it's-- it's what i am. it's what i do. >> wertheim: you're someone who is precise with his words, and-- and you said, "this team saved me." >> kindred: this team did save me. this team became a community. it became my friends. my life had turned dark, you know. they were light. and i knew that that light was always going to be there, you know, two or three times a week. >> wertheim: in return, dave kindred would chronicle the lady potters' four recent state championships. first flex. let's see. state champs and lady potter alums josie becker, jacey wharram and courtney jones. when you guys were here playing, did you appreciate how cool a

story this was? >> becker: at the time, i didn't anything of it. now, looking back at it, it's actually really amazing that we've had this legendary writer come and capture all this special time that we've had in high school. >> wertheim: what was it like, getting interviewed by him? >> jones: i was so nervous. i literally didn't really know he was that famous of a writer. >> wharram: by the time i finally got interviewed, i was so excited. "this is my chance. i've finally done good enough. i get to talk about myself." >> wertheim: do you remember what you said? >> wharram: oh, no. i-- i think i blacked out, to be honest. >> wertheim: that's okay, since kindred keeps all his notes, including quotes, and turns it into a commemorative book he publishes most seasons. >> kindred: i've written more than 300 games, probably more than 500,000 words. i've written more about that girls' basketball team than i've written about anything, including ali. >> wertheim: dave kindred, going home and covering high school hoops, is something akin to his former "washington post" colleagues woodward and bernstein uncovering corruption of small-town zoning boards.

the morton players appreciate the expert journalism as well as his awareness of the stubborn inequality between male and female athletes, as witnessed at this year's n.c.a.a. basketball tournament. katie krupa, caitlin cowley, raquel frakes and maggie hobson are current potters. where are your banners? where's the big, hanging banner that you get when you win a state title? if the boys had won a state title... >> krupa: oh, it would be here, all over the gym. >> frakes: the town would literally celebrate for weeks. >> wertheim: do you guys all read his write-ups? >> oh, yeah. oh, yeah. definitely. >> krupa: i get a lot of texts from my grandparents and relatives, and it's always, "i read dave's article, heard you had a good game." or, "heard it was a physical game," or whatever. >> hobson: i think it's just-- it's so special that someone that is so good at what he does wants to be here and write about us. >> cowley: he's just kind of always there with us. he grows with us, especially this season. >> wertheim: why do you think he's doing this? >> frakes: i think it's just his passion, like basketball is our passion. >> krupa: i agree with raq. i think-- i think it's his

passion, you know? i think he wants to be doing it for as long as he possibly can, too. >> wertheim: she's right. dave kindred, now 79, knows that pitchers lose their fastball, basketball players lose a step, boxers-- not least ali-- lose their crispness. the life cycle of the writer is more generous. kindred recently finished a book that celebrated the life and mourned the death of his grandson, jared. when tiger woods was injured in a car accident last month, "golf digest" leaned on kindred for a column. then, there are his dispatches about the lady potters. i want to read you something we found that you wrote from the first game of this year that-- was-- moving to us. "we've lost so much that was so long familiar. then, the potters gave us a gift. they played a game." then, you wrote, "the joy that high school athletes feel when every trip down the court is a trip toward possibility-- joy in these days so long without joy." >> kindred: yeah. that's why i do it. that's why i do it.

>> wertheim: sports writing right there. >> kindred: writers write. ( ticking ) [ traffic passing by ] [ birds chirping ] mondays, right? what? i said mondays, right? [ chuckles ] what about 'em?

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>> cooper: now, an update of a story from last april called "outbreak science." bill whitaker looked at researchers harnessing artificial intelligence and other technology to detect and track infectious diseases before they become pandemics. dylan george, a scientist who tracked outbreaks for the bush and obama administrations, called for a government agency to forecast infectious outbreaks the way the national weather service forecasts storms.

>> george: we need to think broadly about how we can move these things forward. this kind of a center would help do that. >> cooper: this month, tucked within the $1.9 trillion american rescue plan is a provision establishing that forecasting agency. i'm anderson cooper. we'll be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes." ( ticking ) ♪ you've got the looks ♪ ♪ let's make lots of money ♪ ♪ you've got the brawn ♪ ♪ i've got the brains... ♪ with allstate, drivers who switched saved over $700 click or call to switch you're clearly someone who takes care of yourself. so why wait to screen for colon cancer? because when caught in early stages, it's more treatable.

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