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A 29-year-old combat veteran returns home, then decides to try to walk on as a kicker for Wyoming: “Noble took a job for his uncle’s hay-brokerage company, throwing bales from trucks into the barn lofts of thoroughbred horse farms, sometimes 720 of them a day. He told the stories of walking dusty streets and climbing […]

Loving alternative music, but feeling like an outsider: “One day in gym class, sitting on the bleachers adjacent to the football field, the popular kids in class came to sit next to me as we waited for everyone to suit up. Among hushed whispers, one of them turned around and asked me who my favorite […]

Undying hope from a city’s football fans—and a fear that their team will soon disappear: “For Bills partisans, white, black, or anything else, the greatest fear is not that the team will lose a game or suffer another demoralizing season. A far more distressing concern is that the team will follow industry and investment and […]

A young man’s memories of quitting the football team: “The boy remembers walking the hallway toward his office, telling himself not to give in. He sat face-to-face with Coach, Bear Bryant’s picture hanging nearby on the office wall. Are you sure you want to spend your senior year in the bleachers? Coach said. Full of […]

An excerpt from Mark Kram Jr.’s book about the life of Buddy Miley, a high school football star who became a quadriplegic after a game injury. Buddy’s brother Jimmy would later help him end his life: “Calling out the signals as the P-W defense edged in closer to the line, Buddy leaned over center at […]

[Not single-page] An interview with Jerry Frump, who left his job as a Division I college football referee to work as a replacement official in the NFL during a labor dispute between the NFL and the NFL Referees Association. “What was the most surreal moment in this whole experience? “I suppose it was – not […]

How Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo went from a small Wisconsin high school football field to the NFL, and what teammates, coaches, and a local sportswriter remember about Romo’s performance at one particular game: “‘He knew what he was doing,’ Luther says. ‘He doesn’t look like your prototypical quarterback in high school. He knew where […]

This fall, Mo Isom is trying out for LSU’s football team as a kicker, and would like to prove that her athletic ability outshines the fact that she is a woman. She has already proven to be resilient after overcoming personal struggles and experiencing tragedy: “In Isom’s family, her mom and her sister were ‘brains.’ […]

Neuropathologist Dr. Ann McKee, a Green Bay Packers fan, on her autopsies of former NFL players and research into chronic traumatic encephalopathy: “Over the last four years, McKee has become the most visible member of a cohort of research scientists and family members — wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters of the dead, dying, and demented […]

The new Ohio State football coach made a promise to his family that he’d put them first. Will he keep it? “Eighty or so people filed into the school cafeteria. Urban and his wife, Shelley, joined their daughter at the front table, watching as Gigi stood and spoke. She’d been nervous all day, and with […]