Great sports pieces by Powell, Saslow & Parrish along with ESPN video segment on Lauren Hill

Three recent pieces of great sports writing were from the New York Times, CBS Sports and ESPN, with an additional powerful ESPN video segment.

The ESPN article was "The Long Way Home" by Eli Saslow on Broncos wide receiver Demaryius Thomas. It was the same type of brilliant and detailed storytelling that Saslow regularly provides for ESPN and the Washington Post and this particular piece began with an 11-year-old Thomas being woken up by police bursting into the house and arresting his mother and grandmother for manufacturing and distributing crack cocaine.

The Times piece was an interesting one in that it came from an approach so different than traditional sports writing. "‘OMG. You’re So Much More Than Awesome.’" was done by Michael Powell out of time he spent in rural North Carolina with Kevin Bumgarner who was proudly watching his son Madison Bumgarner make history with his World Series pitching performance against the Royals.

For CBS Sports was a story by Gary Parrish with "More Than a Game" on John Redman and Brittany Huber. Redman is a 24-year-old assistant basketball coach at Dalton State near the Georgia-Tennessee border and he last May barely survived a car accident, caused by a blown tire, that took the life of Huber five days prior to their wedding. Just really well done and solemn writing from Parrish.

Also very much worth noting here was the ESPN video segment "Lauren Hill: One More Game." Filmed leading up to and including her first collegiate basketball game, moved up by the NCAA so she could play prior to dying of cancer, it's a great story told well.

Excellent Storm Aftermath Writing - by Von Drehle, Schaer, Kleinfield and Powell

Three recent pieces out of Hurricane Sandy stood out to me as exceptional, each with a completely different approach, and one from 13 years ago.

This older piece was from current Time Magazine writer David Von Drehle and on his experience in Charleston, SC during Hurricane Hugo. The story was titled "Shaken Survivors Witness Pure Fury" for the Miami Herald and it was recently reprinted in "The Master of Disaster" by Jack Shafer for Slate. Von Drehle is an excellent writer and his work in this piece absolutely riveting.

In terms of writing about the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and some if it's victims, N.R. Kleinfield and Michael Powell wrote the heartbreaking "In Storm Deaths, Mystery, Fate and Bad Timing" for the New York Times.

Finally, The Paris Review blog featured a Robin Beth Schaer piece "Falling Overboard". Schaer is a published writer and she wrote here an account of being one of the crew rescued after the Tall Ship Bounty sunk and claimed the lives of the Captain as well as another crewmember.