Great Sports Illustrated writing by Jenkins & Ballard

There's been a few different stories from Sports Illustrated in recent months that have struck me as particularly outstanding, with one from Lee Jenkins on a high school baseball phenom and two basketball-related pieces from Chris Ballard.

The Jenkins feature was "Hunter Greene is the star baseball needs" on the Sherman Oaks, CA pitcher / shortstop and a cover story, with the most recent previous SI high school athlete cover subjects Jabari Parker, Sebastian Telfair, Bryce Harper, and LeBron James. I'm often captivated by writing about potential future stars and recall the Harper piece by Tom Verducci back in 2009.

The older of the two Ballard stories to note here was "'You Can't Give In': Monty Williams On Life After Tragedy" about the NBA coach whose wife died unexpectedly. The story of how Williams and their five kids dealt with the grief and have carried on with their lives in honor of Ingrid is a great one well told by Ballard.

The final piece to note here was the cover story from the latest SI issue, with Ballard writing "Steve Kerr's Absence: The True Test Of A Leader" about the Warriors' head coach. It's great stuff on Kerr, including him being a grinder, over-communicator, someone who works with people based on how they are and what they'll respond to, doesn't take himself too seriously, and is joyful and just plain likable. Ballard wrote a really compelling story and also interesting from it was mention of how Kerr last season brought into a pair of practices Dacher Keltner, a social psychologist from Cal who studies verbal cues and the dynamics of compassion, and Ballard notes as having played a role in how the filmmakers of Pixar's Inside Out looked at emotion.

Great sports writing about the Golden State Warriors - by Jenkins, Ballard, & Posnanski

There was a series of great pieces over the past few weeks on the Golden State Warriors and their championship-winning team and players.

Lee Jenkins wrote a number of them for Sports Illustrated with the June 8th issue having "Oracle Arena brings the noise for an NBA Finals worth screaming about," "Steve Kerr: The Warriors' Ringmaster" for the June 15th and "Andre and the Giant: How one veteran helped the Warriors turn the Finals" published in the June 22nd issue.

Additionally, Jenkins for the SI website wrote "Golden Hours: Inside the Warriors' nightlong NBA Finals celebration" after the series-clinching win over the Cavilers.

Also, two great pieces to note here from other writers were "Pursuit of perfection: Jerry West's fire burns as deep as ever with Warriors" by Chris Ballard for the SI site prior to the Finals and then after they were over, Joe Posnanski doing "The Right Steph" for the NBC Sports website.

It's a bit of a laundry list of pieces, but some great writing from Jenkins, Ballard and Posnanski on the Warriors.

Great sports stories - by Wilner, Wertheim & Fagan

Three pieces of great recent sports writing were on an NBA coach with a remarkable past, U.S. Olympians who competed in Berlin and later fought the Nazis, and the tragic suicide of a freshman runner at Penn.

The coach's story was "A dad's legacy: Warriors' Kerr guided by father's example" by Jon Wilner for the San Jose Mercury News and it's a fascinating piece on Steve Kerr and the the impact of his father, Malcolm, who was assassinated by terrorists in Beirut while Steve at the University of Arizona in 1984.

The Olympian feature was by Jon Wertheim who wrote "Dive Bombers: American Olympians defeated Axis Powers in peace & war" for Sports Illustrated. About divers Frank Kurtz and Marshall Wayne, it's a detailed narrative that very much brought to mind the brilliant Laura Hillenbrand book Unbroken.

The third piece to note here was "Split Image" by Kate Fagan, who for ESPN wrote of the life and death of Madison Holleran. Such a sad tale of someone overcome by depression, with that depression likely exacerbated by her believing she supposed to be having the time of the life while away at college.