The most profound feature for me was "Frank Hall, American Hero" from the June 24 edition. The cover story by Gary Smith was on a high school football coach from Chardon, OH who in Feb 2012 helped prevent additional deaths in a school shooting that claimed the lives of three students. It's a great piece from Smith made all the more powerful with it beginning on the prevalence of this type of gun violence and then ending with mention of how the violence seems all too quickly forgotten.
Two other pieces I found noteworthy from SI over the past few months were each on the fascinating to me subject of baseball phenoms. "Where Will He Be?" was from the July 8 edition and written by Ben Reiter on Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig. Very interesting stuff about how the Dodgers worked to sign Puig as a relative unknown coming out of Cuba and additionally on a baseball phenom (actually, two) was "Glimmer Twins" by Albert Chen from the Aug 19 issue of SI. About Minnesota Twins prospects Byron Buxton and Miguel Santo, it's on two players who may well have a huge impact on a franchise.
From the Aug 5 edition of SI was another stellar cover story with "The Last Days of A-Rod" by S.L. Price. I'm always interested when I see a feature being done by the excellent Price and on Alex Rodriguez he writes a thorough look at someone who's fallen so far through the course of his career.
The final piece to note here isn't terribly recent, but definitely great writing worth linking to. "Symphony for a Foghorn" was by Steve Rushin from the June 10 Sports Illustrated and about the NHL playoffs. I suppose it's a description that may get bandied about excessively, but (and in line with the piece title), it's extremely lyrical and captivating hockey writing from Rushin.
