Two amazing recent sports stories both dealt with subjects that have gone through profound (and at least in part self-caused) difficulties, with one piece done for ESPN and the other the Fox Sports website.
"The Secret History of Tiger Woods" was an amazing 12,000 word feature by Wright Thompson and though it didn't generate as much immediate interest as the story on Woods, "The Rise and Fall of Rafael Palmeiro" by Flinder Boyd was excellent, and Boyd seemingly doesn't getting the attention deserved for what a good writer he is.
Showing posts with label Fox Sports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fox Sports. Show all posts
Friday, April 22, 2016
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Inspirational sports pieces - on Nate Boyer, Francesca Weems & Lauren Hill
Some remarkable sports pieces lately included a story on a 34-year-old NFL prospect, one on a sportscaster who spent several years of her childhood homeless, and two pieces on college basketball player Lauren Hill who recently died from cancer.
The NFL story was by Peter King for Sports Illustrated with his weekly Monday Morning Quarterback featuring the story of Nate Boyer, a former Army Green Beret who then went to the University of Texas, walked on to the football team, earned a spot as the long snapper and now aspires to an NFL spot.
The second piece to note here was by by Dave Reardon for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser with "HNN's Weems is hungry for life" on Francesca Weems, a 29-year-old sports media employee of Hawaii News Now who along with her older brother Marcus was homeless for several years of her childhood. It's a really cool story made all the more interesting by the mentoring and friendship that was provided by Neil Everett, current ESPN Sportscenter anchor who worked at Hawaii Pacific University when he got to know Francesca and Marcus.
The final pieces to mention are about college basketball player and inspiration Lauren Hill with first a WKRC Cincinnati story on her passing the prior day that included a great 7 minute video feature and then a Fox Sports piece the day after her public memorial service.
The NFL story was by Peter King for Sports Illustrated with his weekly Monday Morning Quarterback featuring the story of Nate Boyer, a former Army Green Beret who then went to the University of Texas, walked on to the football team, earned a spot as the long snapper and now aspires to an NFL spot.
The second piece to note here was by by Dave Reardon for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser with "HNN's Weems is hungry for life" on Francesca Weems, a 29-year-old sports media employee of Hawaii News Now who along with her older brother Marcus was homeless for several years of her childhood. It's a really cool story made all the more interesting by the mentoring and friendship that was provided by Neil Everett, current ESPN Sportscenter anchor who worked at Hawaii Pacific University when he got to know Francesca and Marcus.
The final pieces to mention are about college basketball player and inspiration Lauren Hill with first a WKRC Cincinnati story on her passing the prior day that included a great 7 minute video feature and then a Fox Sports piece the day after her public memorial service.
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
Jason Collins SI cover story & writing on Collins
While none of it as singularly impactful as the first-person narrative "Why NBA center Jason Collins is coming out now" that Collins did with Sports Illustrated writer Franz Lidz, there were some other excellent pieces of writing done on the heels of the announcement Monday by Collins.
About the piece itself was SI Senior Editor Chris Stone who wrote "The story behind Jason Collins' story: How it happened" and Lidz a day later provided "Jason Collins overwhelmed by enormous support for his announcement".
In terms of pieces published placed other than Sports Illustrated, Bruce Arthur wrote for the National Post the excellent "Jason Collins coming out a new beginning for sports" and specifically about the #98 jersey homage to Matthew Shepard, Sam Gardner wrote for Fox Sports "Collins' act wows victim's parents".
Additionally, "The meaning of Jason Collins' coming out" was written by Cyd Zeigler for SB Nation Outsports and "Just the Beginning" by Chuck Culpepper for Sports on Earth and the last piece to mention here was "The Decision" by Charlie Pierce for Grantland. Like many pieces I've seen from Pierce, it's extremely thought-out and contains the interesting idea that people shouldn't get caught up in basically congratulating themselves and society as a whole for being so accepting of Jason Collins on the heels of his coming out publicly.
About the piece itself was SI Senior Editor Chris Stone who wrote "The story behind Jason Collins' story: How it happened" and Lidz a day later provided "Jason Collins overwhelmed by enormous support for his announcement".
In terms of pieces published placed other than Sports Illustrated, Bruce Arthur wrote for the National Post the excellent "Jason Collins coming out a new beginning for sports" and specifically about the #98 jersey homage to Matthew Shepard, Sam Gardner wrote for Fox Sports "Collins' act wows victim's parents".
Additionally, "The meaning of Jason Collins' coming out" was written by Cyd Zeigler for SB Nation Outsports and "Just the Beginning" by Chuck Culpepper for Sports on Earth and the last piece to mention here was "The Decision" by Charlie Pierce for Grantland. Like many pieces I've seen from Pierce, it's extremely thought-out and contains the interesting idea that people shouldn't get caught up in basically congratulating themselves and society as a whole for being so accepting of Jason Collins on the heels of his coming out publicly.
Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Favorite Olympic Writing So Far
There's quite possibly been better pieces that have been and are still to be written on the London Olympics, but a few have stood out to me so far for the subject covered and/or excellence of prose.
In the category of post-event recap writing was Bruce Arthur for Toronto's National Post newspaper with "Canada delivers something worth remembering in Olympic soccer loss to U.S." Really great work done quickly.
With an insightful and important take from the Olympics was the Jen Floyd Engel column "Games of the Girls? Not really" for Fox Sports.
Finally, two additional pieces that stood out were "Painful, Poignant Memories of 1992" by Joe Posnanski for the site Sports on Earth and "Olympics 2012: Rupp follows good friend Farah to podium in 10K" by Pat Graham in the Washington Times. Both were short works of writing that covered tremendously cool events on the track.
In the category of post-event recap writing was Bruce Arthur for Toronto's National Post newspaper with "Canada delivers something worth remembering in Olympic soccer loss to U.S." Really great work done quickly.
With an insightful and important take from the Olympics was the Jen Floyd Engel column "Games of the Girls? Not really" for Fox Sports.
Finally, two additional pieces that stood out were "Painful, Poignant Memories of 1992" by Joe Posnanski for the site Sports on Earth and "Olympics 2012: Rupp follows good friend Farah to podium in 10K" by Pat Graham in the Washington Times. Both were short works of writing that covered tremendously cool events on the track.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
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.
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.
-----
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.
-----
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.
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