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What: “Outside the Lines: 10th Anniversary Special”

Where: ESPN, today, 4 p.m.

It has been 10 years since ESPN broke new ground in investigative sports journalism with “Outside the Lines,” which last year also became a weekly series. This one-hour special, with the news magazine show’s only host, Bob Ley, looks back at those 10 years and revisits some of the memorable stories.

One is about Sammy Drummer, a phenomenal high school basketball player from Muncie, Ind., in the mid-’70s. He was considered a future NBA star. But he shunned Ball State in Muncie to go to an NAIA school, Gardner-Webb in Boiling Springs, N.C., and his career floundered. He was drafted by the Houston Rockets in the fourth round and was cut in his first training camp.

When “Outside the Lines” first visited with Drummer, in 1990, he was working at Ball State as a janitor, sweeping in the gym where the basketball team practiced. The update is, he was murdered while trying to buy crack cocaine outside an Indianapolis housing project in 1995.

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Venus and Serena Williams, first visited by “Outside the Lines” in 1992, are revisited as tennis superstars. Magic Johnson was the focus of a 1996 feature on the impact of the HIV virus and AIDS in the sports world. The revisit focuses on a Magic who says he feels great and keeps busy with his various business interests.

Then there is Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, the former Chris Jackson, who was in the news in 1995 for refusing to stand for the national anthem because of his religious beliefs. He quit the NBA in 1998 but is back, playing for the Vancouver Grizzlies this season. His story will provide a better understanding of the Islamic faith and Abdul-Rauf.

Other stories: A revisit with marathoner David Lindsay, who lost both legs in a 1992 boating accident and now competes on a hand-cranked bicycle, an update of baseball in Russia, the impact of Title IX on former New York high school star Rebecca Richman, and an update of a story about Vietnamese workers involved in the American sneaker controversy.

Lieu Thi Nguyen was fired by Reebok after “Outside the Lines’ ” original report in 1998, but she was rehired with a better job after ESPN confronted the company about its conduct. She was later let go when the company failed to renew contracts of 3,000 workers and is now selling lottery tickets on the street. Another Vietnamese woman, Lap, who helped ESPN and CBS research and prepare reports in her country and was harassed for her part in the stories, tells her harrowing story.

Other airdates for the special are Friday at 11 a.m. and Monday at midnight.

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