"Outcasts United" by Warren St. John

Outcasts United by Warren St. John was a book that I found to be a fairly interesting read, but may well have enjoyed more had I gotten the original rather than youth version available at the library.


The full title of the book was Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference and the story told was about Luma Mufleh and the youth soccer teams she put together and coached in Clarkson, Georgia.

Written by St. John out of his Jan 2007 New York Times feature "Refugees Find Hostility and Hope on Soccer Field", the book dragged on for me a bit at times, but that was primarily during game recaps, and may well have been written differently in the original non-youth version.


Regardless of the differences there may or may not be in the two book versions, the story is a great one and at a minimum, the Times story well worth a read.

Great sports writing - profiles by Thompson and St. John

Some extremely well done recent profiles on major sports figures included two from Wright Thompson for ESPN The Magazine and one from Warren St. John for GQ.

The Thompson pieces were "The Losses of Dan Gable" on the former wresting Olympic gold medalist and Iowa coaching legend and "The Trouble with Johnny" on Heisman trophy winning quarterback Johnny Manziel.

I've linked in the past to a number of pieces by or about Thompson and it's just remarkable how much great narrative he includes in his stories. The Manziel piece is about someone whose athletic talents have thrust himself into a superstar role, one that few 20-year-olds would be equipped to deal well with. Thompson details all the different entities pulling on Manziel for their own purposes and written into the story is an absolutely awesome juxtaposition between Manziel as "Johnathan" or "Johnny".

What comes out in the Gable profile is a portrait of someone who has always fought for every success earned, and with this drive fed in part by a horrific event from childhood. It's painful reading about what happened to Gable's sister decades ago and the horror endured by the Gable family, but excellent writing from Thompson that both describes events from the past and shows how they helped shape Gable into the man he would become.

Related to this idea of someone's accomplishments coming in part from events or things they didn't create was a great profile done by Warren St. John for GQ. "Nick Saban: Sympathy for the Devil" was on the Alabama head football coach and covers well Saban's relentless pursuit of excellence and extremely brief periods of celebration at achievement. Where the story particularly insightful is with St. John's description of Saban's approach not simply that of a curmudgeon as he's often portrayed, but rather one that comes from how (for better or worse) he was raised to never get complacent and always seek perfection.

College Football Pieces by Rick Bragg, Wright Thompson & Kevin Van Valkenburg for ESPN

Three features from the Aug 20 ESPN the Magazine College Football preview stood out to me as excellent.

Lengthiest was the profile "Urban Meyer will be home for dinner" on the Ohio State head coach. It's an excellent piece by Wright Thompson that delves into whether Meyer will be able to coach at the level he's accustomed to while avoiding the deterioration in health and loss of family time that plagued him at Florida. It's definitely a question with an unknown outcome and Thompson frames it exceptionally well (with a Thompson interview about the piece here).

Also from this issue was another another excellent profile revealing internal conflict. From Kevin Van Valkenburg, "Who's afraid of the Honey Badger?" is on Tyrann Mathieu, the now dismissed from the team Heisman trophy finalist for LSU. It's fascinating to know that Van Valkenburg wrote this piece questioning whether Mathieu's story "the beginning of a cautionary tale?" prior to him getting booted from the Tigers.

Final story that stood out was from Rick Bragg with "Down here: To understand football's place in the South, you first have to see it from the inside." Reminiscent of the Warren St. John book Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Road Trip into the Heart of Fan Mania, it shows (for better or worse) just how much college football matters to people in SEC country.