Great sports writing - by Pollak, Ballard & White

There's been a few recent pieces of sports writing I've seen that I found particularly noteworthy, with two of the pieces very much profound and the third an entertaining tale.

The first piece was from the Baltimore Sun with the 1997 Pulitzer Prize winning "The Umpire's Son" by Lisa Pollak on MLB umpire John Hirschbeck and his family. In 1992 they learned of the rare genetic disease Adrenoleukodystrophy, or ALD, that would claim the life of eight-year-old John Drew Hirschbeck and leave his younger brother Michael afflicted with the disease, along with his two sisters as carriers that could pass it along to any males they might eventually give birth to. It's an empathically written story from Pollak that becomes even more profound with the Hirschbeck family's tragic news from April of this year.

The second story of heft to note here was from the recent July 28 issue of Sports Illustrated with Chris Ballard writing "A First-time Skydiving Experience, a Fall to Earth and a Terrible Accident." The piece is a detailed account of the cataclysmic 2009 injury suffered by instructor Dave Hartsock as he saved the life of his first-time jumper client Shirley Dygert and a great retelling of a heroic act.

The final piece to mention didn't necessarily have the same gravitas as the first two, but was a well-done story on an topic geographically close to my heart. Set on the Richardson Highway between Glennallen and Delta Junction (middle of nowhere Alaska sort of between Anchorage and Fairbanks) is the annual race and party Arctic Man and written about it was "Artic Man: Wild Rides and Crazed Nights at America's Most Extreme Ski Race" by Matt White for SB Nation Longform. It's an entertaining story and brought to mind the also entertaining segment on Arctic Man by the Adam Richman show "Fandemonium" on the Travel Channel.

Career change pieces: on writers James Erwin & Kevin Van Valkenburg / football coach Joe Moglia

I've come across a number of pieces over the last few weeks with each interesting and all involving career changes.

Longest of the pieces was "How One Response to a Reddit Query Became a Big-Budget Flick" for Wired by Jason Fagone. I first heard of Fagone from an excellent Esquire profile on iconoclastic video-game programmer Jason Rohrer and he tells in the Wired piece quite a career change tale. Reddit is website community where people can link to or post original content they find interesting and Fagone details how Reddit resulted in Des Moines, IA based James Erwin going from being a technical writer to signed by Warner Brothers studio screenwriter.

It's a somewhat amazing path, but which actually makes sense after reading some of Erwin's content reprinted in the Wired piece. The trigger for his writing came from a Reddit discussion thread about modern day armed forces battling in ancient Rome to which Erwin posted fictional vignettes about a US Marine Expeditionary Unit dropped into that setting. It was compelling writing which then (a) acquired a subreddit heading of RomeSweetRome, (b) was found by a Hollywood talent agent and (c) led to the Warner Brothers deal to write a full screenplay and Erwin's leave of absence from his technical writing gig. It was a well written piece by Fagone that details a very cool tale of a guy who did some extremely creative work.

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Related to the same writing career change subject (though, not as large a change as Erwin's), I enjoyed quite a bit the commentary "Kevin Van Valkenburg: A fond farewell to The Sun and its readers." It was written upon Van Valkenburg's leaving (of his own volition) the Baltimore Sun to write for ESPN and has some profound content on writing, working and taking chances.

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Finally, it doesn't have the same writing career element, but another piece of note lately very much had the same career change theme... and follows up on a story seen previously. In September 2010, I did the (long-titled) post "Ex-CEO as Nebraska Volunteer Coach / Not too Late for Career Changes" that linked to a story on Joe Moglia.

I hadn't heard anything new on the former Ameritrade executive who wanted to be a college football coach until seeing the piece "Former CEO taking over at Coastal Carolina." Written by Reid Forgrave for the site Fox Sports Carolinas, the piece details Moglia's background and move from the Cornhuskers to head of a United Football League team and now... head coach for football at Coastal Carolina University. One could take the cynical view and say that Moglia's money helped him get the gig, but it seems more accurate to say his money helped him have the time to work really hard to reach this career goal. Would certainly have been easy to just be content with what he'd accomplished previously, but it was cool reading about Moglia going after something he wanted to do.

Writing On Lives Outside of Normal

One of the hallmarks of good writing is it conveys a story outside the life experience of the reader and there's been a number of pieces I've come across lately that fit this bill. Subjects of the various works cross a wide spectrum of the population and how they became story subjects varies from decisions made, life circumstance or simple chance.

Two of the pieces stood out in detailing people whose lives are so far outside of my own to have them almost seem from a different species. The Ballad of Johnny France is a Richard Ben Cramer story from a 1985 issue of Esquire and reprinted with author permission on the blog Alex Belth's Bronx Banter. It's the ridiculously fascinating story of Montana Sheriff Johnny France and fugitive mountain-men Don and Don Nichols. After kidnapping (apparently in a twisted bid for female companionship) biathlete Kari Swenson, the elder of the father-son duo wound up shooting and killing a would-be rescuer and then they disappeared into the wilderness. Cramer's is a long and multi-faceted feature which not only portrays people living far outside the norm, but which utilizes language in the story as a way to drive home the difference.

Other piece in this different life than mine category was much shorter and remarkable not as much for the writing, but for the choice made by the subject of the story. Gang tattoo leads to a murder conviction is by Robert Faturechi for the L.A. Times and introduces gangmember Paco Rivera, who tattooed on his chest details of the unsolved murder he committed.

Lest this post descend into a quagmire of the twisted and bizarre, two other stories I've seen lately cover people who faced (or continue to face) great hardship and show how to carry through it. Strength From Weakness is an ESPN E:60 feature on former MLB player Ben Petrick and his battles with young-onset Parkinson's. Written by Steve Wulf, the piece reveals how someone cheated of his potential athletic greatness seems to have created a form of greatness with the life circumstances he now has.

Additional piece of feel-good inspirational value is Cary Williams overcame abuse and anguish on way to NFL by Kevin Van Valkenburg. Written for the Baltimore Sun, the profile on Williams details his hardscrabble early childhood, abuse suffered at the hands of his single dad and then being taken in and lovingly raised by extended family. Out of this, Williams then followed a fairly rocky path to his current position as a starting cornerback for the Ravens.

Kevin Van Valkenburg Q&A on Blog TVFury

It's been a few months since I've posted on any writing from Kevin Van Valkenburg and, fortuitously enough, came across recently a ridiculously good Q&A with him about his career and other topics around writing.

Interview was done by and posted on the blog TVFury ("Sports, writing and life through the eyes of Terry Vandrovec and Shawn Fury") and the final words of the Q&A intro are pretty much catnip to someone like myself with a bent towards great narrative sports writing...

"Here, Kevin talks about growing up with an editor mom, life as a college football player, literary heroes, leaving Montana and living in Baltimore, his story that made it into the Best American Sportswriting book, The Wire, David Stern’s ego, the writing life and much more."

Couple of things that stood out in the (long at 10,000+ words) interview were how different journalism was when Van Valkenburg graduated college and (towards the end of the piece) his listing of favorite long-form pieces, books and authors. Quite a few of the writers noted were ones I follow and of particular interest was a quote from sportswriter S.L. Price in his excellent memoir Far Afield.

Very well done interview with interesting answers provided. Not a surprise, though, as Van Valkenburg is a really good writer who (as noted in the piece) does a number of different types of writing.

He references in the Q&A his most rewarding work being this five-part serial narrative about a football team in West Baltimore and my favorite piece of his I haven't already linked to was Sense of loss drives Ngata on Baltimore Ravens (and former Oregon Ducks) lineman Haloti Ngata. Additionally, Van Valkenburg is known for his interesting Five Things We Learned Baltimore Sun column following Ravens games.