Jason Neidleman

Jason Neidleman
Jason Neidleman loves to get out. This kite-surfing, soccer-playing, basketball-playing snowboarding, skiing, biking, tennis-playing, golfing associate professor of political science simply hates to be inside.

“I want to feel a part of things,” he said. “I don’t want to feel like I’m missing out.”

The whole pursuit began with soccer, as Neidleman called himself a “typical suburban soccer kid.”

Now, he occasionally practices with the ULV men’s team, when his Osgood Schlatters – a painful knee ailment – allows it, in addition to grabbing a pickup game in Los Angeles about twice a week.

“Pickup soccer is interesting in a place like L.A.,” said the perpetually-reflective Harvard alumnus who hangs a picture of himself shaking hands with former-President Reagan behind his desk. “You get people together who would probably otherwise never cross paths. It’s also kind of crazy sometimes because anybody can come.”

However, the city has made these games increasingly difficult, making teams pay to play in public parks or simply banning it altogether.

“I see that as an anti-Latino thing.” Neidleman said. “Politics is everywhere.”

As a kid in Massachusetts, he also forged a love for the slopes.

“Everybody was doing it, and I wanted to too,” he said, “so my parents took me.”

Last June, he went to Heavenly Ski Resort and just last week he went to Mount Baldy to ski and snowboard.

Neidleman has also followed his affinity for being outside south of the border, venturing into Baja California to go windsurfing.

“I probably have too many interests for my own good,” he said. “It’s not that I’m into these different things. I just like to do athletic things. I don’t think of myself as a jock. It’s just something I do.”

But this pursuit has slightly halted recently, and Neidleman has had to make a slight alteration on his bike.

“I’ve had to put a seat on the front of my bike,” he said.

Neidleman’s 2-year-old son has been vaulted into his dad’s athletic pursuits, recently hitting the mountainside with his father.

“A really big part of my life right now is my kid,” he said. “I’m very actively involved with his development.”

Neidleman’s wife works as a pediatrician, a “demanding job, so I’m with my kid a lot,” he said.

But not everything in Neidleman’s life pertains to athletics. The rest, actually, usually touches on politics.

Traveling for five years between college and graduate school, Neidleman even visited Cuba, and despite seven years passing, the Federal Government is still prosecuting him for it, he said.

He also enjoys remaining active in land-use politics and activism, although he was able to stay much more adamant while in Boston. Here, he said, land developers control everything.

“There’s limited opportunity for public participation,” he said.

Even his reading pertains to his field, taking in a lot of philosophy: Rousseau, “and then, just all kinds of contemporary stuff,” he said.

In fact, it seems that the only hobby Neidleman possesses that does not pertain to athletics or his job is cooking for his family and friends.

His interest in cooking began when he left for college. He got a book called, “What do I do now that my mom’s not around?”

Now, he frequently holds dinner parties.

“I like to eat well,” he said. “We drink a lot of wine and have good food.”

At the end of the interview, the surface Neidleman segued into the relentlessly introspective, reflective side of the intellectual. The UCLA and Harvard-grad-turned professor must rear its head. He just can’t help it.

“I’m also into self-sufficiency,” he said. Neidleman said he enjoys being able to make his own food, raise his own kid, clean up after himself, “pay attention to the small details.”

But this pursuit is becoming increasingly difficult in today’s complex, integrated society.

“I’m in a perpetual struggle to do that,” he said. “I don’t know how existential you want to get but, you can summarize it as: I’m in a perpetual struggle to avoid succumbing to the emptiness of consumerism and superficiality and judgments based on status. You probably don’t want to put something like that.”

THE PROFESSOR

As a teacher, all Neidleman asks for is effort: “If you put in the effort, you’ll be rewarded. I ask a lot of you, but if you show me that you’re trying a little bit, I’ll reward you.”

However, if students don’t try, “I’ll sense that too. These are the students that I have the most trouble with, the ones that try to put one over on me.”

Neidleman also asks that his students simply let themselves get into it: “I try to get the students personally involved in the class,” he said. “That can be a scary process because you’re questioning basic values that you haven’t ever questioned.”

And finally, he also admits to delving into the philosophy of the lessons.

“It’s an invitation to not only master the material, but engage it,” he said. “If you’re looking to learn about yourself and the world, you’re going to do very well.”

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Jason Neidleman

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