Box Score Beat

Just Do It — 6/14/09

Posted on 14. Jun, 2009 by Collin Orcutt in Grass Roots Basketball, Just Click It, NBA, NFL, Sports Journalism

One thing there is no shortage of this time of year is sports reading. The NBA and NHL (congrats Penguins fans) seasons winding down, baseball’s is heating up for its summer run, NFL training camp is a six weeks away and golf and tennis majors will fill any gaps. Sports journalism is everywhere. The problem is, who has time to read everything? I know my Google Reader mockingly pushes its unread list to 1,000 weekly before I have to suck it up, mark all as read and start again.

That said, I do read a lot. So, starting today, Box Score Beat will give you a weekly post (bi-weekly if the content demands) listing the best sports pieces I come across called “Just Do It.” Why Just Do It? Beyond the memories of neon colors and Barkley vs. Godzilla Nike ads. You know why. Just click the link. Watch the video, read (or print out and read on the subway like I do) the piece, click through the pictures. Just do it. You’ll be better for it. The best thing any sports fan can be–writer, fanatic, casual or otherwise–is informed.

If there are pieces I missed, throw them in the comments. Don’t hoard the good reading; be a good teammate. It’s hard enough to deal with one Terrell Owens in the world.

All that said, here is the first Just Do It. Most of these stories are current, but since this is the inaugural list, there are one or two I read prior but think they’re worth a look if you haven’t seen them yet. No more words. Enjoy.

(Full Disclosure: I am interning at Sports Illustrated.com this summer, and therefore spending lots of time on the site and working through the Vault for one reason or another. Naturally, I’ll be reading a lot of SI stories. Also naturally, SI turns out a lot of good ones, so there will more than likely be a few showing up in list. Do with that knowledge what you will.)

• Roger Federer’s French Open win released the floodgates on some quality tennis writing. But the best of it may have been the re-emergence of David Foster Wallace’s story for PLAY Magazine from 2006, “Federer as a Religious Experience.” I didn’t read this in PLAY (RIP) when it first ran, but rather put it on “to read” list a few months ago after a good friend turned me onto the website New York Review of Magazines. There, I found an excellent piece on the short-lived PLAY. In it, some backstory is given on Foster Wallace’s reporting process for the piece, including a mini-meltdown that triggered a 3 a.m. phone call from England.
• I was navigating through the Vault the other day when I stumbled on Curry Kirkpatrick’s beast-of-a-story on Deion Sanders, ‘They Don’t Pay Nobody to be Humble.’ You should trust me and just click the link, but for those non-believers, here’s an excerpt I enjoyed.
  

  What all the button-down NFL earthlings should do is sit back, relax and let Sanders, 22 going on 14, have fun. Let him swing and sway. Let him shuck and jive. Above all, let Deion be on. Let him get the ball in his hands and play. Of course, he’s an act. Of course, he’s two people. He’s even got two languages, street and smart. Nobody could be so blatantly ridiculous au naturel. On this point, Deion is right-on.

• Another piece of excellence from the Vault, this one from 1957: “Basketball’s Underground Railroad” by Richard J. Schaap (you may know him as Dick). If you thought high school basketball talent-evaluators with with “allegiances” to specific colleges were a new thing, well, Schaap’s got news for you. Read it for both the history lesson and the classic writing style.
• This is a little late seeing as how the Nuggets were eliminated by the Lakers last round, but Tom Friend put together a great read on Chauncey Billups entitled “The Disposable Superstar.” It’s a nice step away from a potentially campy, predictable story. It’s worth scanning through the site for a look at the glorious Billups/KG picture if nothing else.
• I’m always excited to read a mainstream sports story about someone I somehow know nothing about, and Jon Wertheim provides just that in his story about former Detroit Lions quarterback Jeff Komlo called “The Wrong Turn.” It’s an athlete-gone-wrong story but far from your typical fall from grace. It reminded me of an early 90’s crime movie: blousy polos, wind-swept dirty-blond hair and a strange tendency to violence that you just can’t quite understand.
• Lastly, a quick-hitter from The Sporting News featuring a great Stan Van Gundy quote. In it, Van Gundy speaks out against the NBA age limit, making a hell of a point. The piece also gives a glimpse of the well-guarded future of basketball statistics.