Longreads Pick
How Copeland went from European basketball unknown to 29-year-old rookie for the New York Knicks:
“You are never fully at ease, but you begin to transition. Maybe you date a local girl, or even marry her. You begin to buy tighter jeans, learn some of the language and before you can blink, you are in the twilight of your career. Eventually, you do move back home and tell anyone that will listen that you did, in fact, play pro basketball. You try to find a 9-to-5 job while fighting off the inevitable depression that comes from losing the only thing you’ve ever truly loved, and, over time, you forget you ever had a dream in the first place. It’s a good life, at times an amazing life, filled with peaks and valleys higher and lower than you could ever imagine. And then, it’s over.
“For Copeland, however, there remained a gnawing inside his gut. No matter how well he did, it wasn’t quite enough. ‘I was feeling sad even though I was having a lot of success. In my head,’ he said. ‘I just still believed I could do better. I knew if I didn’t make it, I’d look back with a lot of regrets.'”
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Published: Apr 12, 2013
Length: 24 minutes (6,198 words)
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The search for Clifton (Pop) Herring, Jordan’s high school coach, and the truth about the NBA legend’s early days:
And so, over the next four years, as Michael Jordan became an Olympic gold medalist, a rookie NBA All-Star and the scorer of 37 points per game, Pop Herring went from suspended to unemployed to unemployable. As Jordan’s fame spread around the world, his old coach became a stranger in their hometown. Pop took to running, as if trying to shake out the sickness. His slender frame was seen on highways and bridges, north toward the tobacco fields and east to the ocean. Sometimes he’d come upon old friends and hug them, and other times they would call his name and he would keep running, looking straight ahead, as if they didn’t exist.
“Did This Man Really Cut Michael Jordan?” — Thomas Lake, Sports Illustrated
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Longreads Pick
The search for Clifton (Pop) Herring, Jordan’s high school coach, and the truth about the NBA legend’s early days:
“And so, over the next four years, as Michael Jordan became an Olympic gold medalist, a rookie NBA All-Star and the scorer of 37 points per game, Pop Herring went from suspended to unemployed to unemployable. As Jordan’s fame spread around the world, his old coach became a stranger in their hometown. Pop took to running, as if trying to shake out the sickness. His slender frame was seen on highways and bridges, north toward the tobacco fields and east to the ocean. Sometimes he’d come upon old friends and hug them, and other times they would call his name and he would keep running, looking straight ahead, as if they didn’t exist.”
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Published: Jan 10, 2012
Length: 28 minutes (7,165 words)
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Longreads Pick
By his own account, Philippe Reines has been “hired, fired, forgiven, benched, promoted and promoted again.” He is currently Clinton’s deputy assistant secretary for strategic communications and has been the caretaker of her public image through her iterations as rookie senator, front-runner presidential candidate, sore loser and resurgent secretary of state. … The counterweight to Reines’s reputation for disinformation and dining out on the Clinton name is his profound loyalty to his adoptive clans. For that, he is Clinton’s favorite son and the life of his perpetual D.C. party.
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Published: May 31, 2011
Length: 13 minutes (3,325 words)
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My First Time: A Political Novice Runs for Office
I ran for Congress in Maryland’s 8th District because I thought the government was spending too much money. I had no idea how much I’d be spending, or what I’d have to show for it when the ballots were counted. My rookie stats — 2,242 votes, 15.25 percent of the total — are a matter of public record, although the public’s not exactly clamoring for a look-see. Which could be the harshest lesson from all of this.
By Bill Thomas, Washington Post
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Longreads Pick
I ran for Congress in Maryland’s 8th District because I thought the government was spending too much money. I had no idea how much I’d be spending, or what I’d have to show for it when the ballots were counted. My rookie stats — 2,242 votes, 15.25 percent of the total — are a matter of public record, although the public’s not exactly clamoring for a look-see. Which could be the harshest lesson from all of this.
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Published: Dec 5, 2010
Length: 12 minutes (3,173 words)
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Longreads Pick
She has been stripped of her Olympic medals. She has been jailed. Now she is trying to become the WNBA’s oldest rookie.
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Published: Apr 30, 2010
Length: 45 minutes (11,290 words)
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