Heart of Pearl Debuts Sunday, June 15, at 1 p.m. ET on ESPN; Extended Version Streaming Afterward on ESPN+

For Father’s Day, with unprecedented access, ESPN E60 tells the intensely personal story of former NBA and college basketball star Scot Pollard’s battle to live as he undergoes a heart transplant. As Pollard faced his own mortality, and contemplated the parallels with his father’s story, E60 was there by his side for the entirety of the journey.

Heart of Pearl, reported by Jeremy Schaap, debuts Sunday, June 15, at 1 p.m. ET on ESPN, streaming afterward on ESPN+.

On February 16, 2024, directly in front of an E60 camera, the heart Pollard was born with 49 years earlier took its last beat, after it was extracted from his chest cavity. Ten days prior, the 11-year NBA veteran, granted full access to E60 as he was admitted into Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s ICU with advanced heart failure. The task was to document a story to which nobody, not even Pollard’s doctors, knew the ending.

For months prior to that, Pollard had been waiting for a new heart. More than most people, Pollard and his family understood the process—and the stakes. When Pollard was 16, his father Pearl collapsed and died from heart failure—after waiting in vain on the transplant list. “Poison” Pearl had been a star basketball player himself, at the University of Utah—and, like his son, Pearl was a big man, nearly seven feet tall, which made finding a heart for him nearly impossible.

As Scot speaks openly about with Schaap, Pearl’s death was the defining moment in Scot’s life, filling him with anger and fueling his desire and fierceness on the court. At the University of Kansas and then in the NBA, he stood out for his competitive drive. Now, what he wanted most was to see history not repeat itself, to live, to be present for his wife and children.

In Heart of Pearl, Schaap also has extensive interviews with Scot’s wife Dawn, their son Ozzy and Scot’s sister Lyne Jorif. In addition, the program includes archival sound from his late parents, Pearl and Marilyn Pollard. Among others interviewed:

Dr. Ashish Shah – Vanderbilt heart surgeon

Dr. Jonathan Menachem – Vanderbilt cardiologist

Jay Bilas – ESPN college basketball analyst

Roy Williams – Scot’s basketball coach at Kansas

Mike Korologos – sports journalist

Bryan Brockett – friend of Scot Pollard

Gary Gerould – Sacramento Kings radio play-by-play announcer

Bobby Jackson – Scot’s Sacramento Kings teammate

Jodi Bacon – KHTK Sacramento Kings radio 1998-2012

Several members of the family of Casey Angell, Scot’s heart donor, also appear in the feature.

Heart of Pearl was produced and directed by Daniel Lindberg.

In addition to the E60, the Scot Pollard story will be explored in a companion written piece by Alyssa Haduck that will be published on ESPN.com.

About E60:

E60, founded in 2007, is ESPN’s highly decorated sports storytelling brand. E60 has received 112 Sports Emmy nominations with 21 wins, including “Outstanding Hosted Edited Series” for the fifth time in 2025. E60 has won accolades for its mix of revealing profiles, hard-hitting investigations and exclusive interviews delivered with innovative production techniques, top-notch journalism with unrivaled storytelling. E60 has taken numerous formats during its lifespan, including that of a magazine-style program, segments and its current format as a one-hour, single-story program for linear television and streaming.

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Media contact: andy.hall@espn.com