Excellent Sports Writing - by Dan Wetzel / Wright Thompson / Tom Verducci / Dave Sheinin

I've been thinking over the past few days that since I brought up the whole topic of types of sports writing, it makes sense to post here on some of the best sports pieces I've seen lately.

Favorite feature story I've seen was "The Kid Who Wasn't There" by Wright Thompson for ESPN. Thompson writes lengthy pieces that tend to appear on the longer form E:60 section of the ESPN site and this one is remarkable both in the amount of research put into it (as revealed in a post to writing site Grangry), and the story itself. Topic of the piece is an Odessa, TX high school basketball player living under the assumed name, Jerry Joseph (he was actually in his early 20s and grew up Guerdwich Montimere in Florida). It's ridiculously good writing that traffics heavily in the concept of identity and how fractured and shape-shifting it can be.

Another very solid lengthy feature piece was actually printed a year ago for Washington Post. The Dave Sheinin written profile "For the love of Bryce Harper: Get ready, Washington. You're about to fall head over heels for the Nationals' newest star." gives an excellent view into the 19 year-old baseball phenom. Also, and onn the occasion his recent major league league call up, Tom Verducci wrote the shorter piece "With Harper, future of Nationals -- and maybe the game -- has arrived" for the Sports Illustrated website.

Final thing to mention in this post is around a writer who consistently produces great work for Yahoo! Sports, Dan Wetzel. My favorite piece from him was "Bubba Watson won the Masters with his own brand of golf, but family trumps his green jacket" and two other stories that stood out were "Pat Summitt stepping aside as Tennessee coach could lead to her raising awareness of Alzheimer's" and "Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III go 1,2 in the draft, and now pressure really starts to mount." Wetzel's writing (at least that for Yahoo!) seems to tend towards blended player analysis/feature piece work and he publishes frequently... with 15 pieces (including those on Pat Summitt and Luck/Griffin) between the Apr 10 Bubba Watson piece and today.

Sports Illustrated Writing: from Alexander Wolff, Charles P. Pierce & Jim Gorant

Some great writing from the recent Sports Illustrated double issue that features Pat Summitt and Mike Krzyzewski as the SI Sportswoman & Sportman of the Year for 2011.

Longtime SI writer Alexander Wolff did the cover profile on the coaching icons and paints a revealing portrait of two driven individuals who appear focused on winning the right way. It's solid writing made the more so given that Summitt no longer does one-on-one interviews with her diagnosis of having early-onset dementia, Alzheimer's type.

If Wolff's piece was a well-written profile of exceptional public figures, two other features from this issue of Sports Illustrated stood out as really good writing on subjects known in much smaller universes.

Centered in the town of Magazine, Arkansas, How To Become An American is on the children of Hmong immigrants (with the Hmong portrayed by Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino) playing high school football. Written by Charles Pierce, it combines an almost lyrical beginning with an in-depth description of the athletes and their assimilation into the community and impact on the team. I see Pierce stories most frequently in Esquire and expected and then found a great piece after noting his name in this SI story byline.

A feature that actually turned out to be much more than I expected was According To Alex Kline... on the 17 year old college hoops recruiting guru. Written by Jim Gorant, the two things that stand out in the piece are Kline for creating a thriving avocation out of his interest and Gorant for the style of the piece. After the introduction, the writing flows backwards with sections on various ages of Kline's life to trace what led him to today. This approach helps take something that if done superficially could be little more than a puff isn't that cute? type of piece and makes it a revealing and interesting profile.