In a recent piece for the Washington Post, Michael E. Miller profiled Andrew Jennings— a doggedly obsessed, “curmudgeonly” investigative reporter who helped expose the FIFA scandal that brought down Sepp Blatter. According to Miller’s piece, if Blatter’s downfall can be traced to a single moment it was when Jennings grabbed the microphone at a Zurich press conference after […]
Sports
Posted inCollege
Life After Football: Our College Pick
Disappointment feels so much bigger when you’re young because you haven’t lived long enough to know that there’s always something else on the other side.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Why Las Vegas Doesn’t Have a Major League Sports Team
Leagues have historically avoided Las Vegas for two main reasons. Until recently, it wasn’t a particularly large metro area by population. Now, however, it ranks 30th — and is bigger than 12 areas (including Salt Lake City, Raleigh, and Buffalo) that do have pro teams. The other factor, though, has been the simple fact that Nevada law […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Football as a Barometer of Italian Society
“Football is a very simple barometer of a society,” says Paddy Agnew, an Irish Times correspondent and former RAI television commentator who has covered Italian soccer since the 1980s. “And if the red light is flashing in society, the red light is flashing in football. That’s what it is here, they’ve run out of petrol. […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
The King’s Last Game
Elvis Presley and I had at least one thing in common: A love of racquetball.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
The King’s Last Game
Elvis Presley and I had at least one thing in common: A love of racquetball.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Autograph Collecting as a Feat of Historical Inquiry
The graphing community [“graphing” is a term for the craft of autograph seeking] is one of uncommon depth, into which people have spent decades carving their fiefdoms and burrowing out their niches, whether that be players in the single-A Midwest League or members of the Whig Party. Flam’s fellow grapher Rich Hanson supervises inspections at a meatpacking […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Loaded Expectations and Hopes of a Fan Relationship
The fan relationship is often built on expectations and hope, however unfair they might be. My expectation going to Dominique [Moceanu]’s hotel that night in 1998 was that she’d come down from her room even after a long day of training and competing, and grant me an autograph or, if I was really lucky, a […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Why Watching ‘Survivor’ Is Like Watching Sports
Dawson suggests these shows are more closely related to sporting events than scripted dramas. In the case of Survivor, viewers get an experience similar to televised sports, Papacharissi explains: “You can root for your favorite castaway like you do for your favorite team, and vicariously experience her triumphs and setbacks from episode to episode.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Can a Reporter Go a Whole Day Without Learning Who Won the Super Bowl?
Getting to his desk near the Journal sports department required passing innumerable copies of the day’s paper, which had the result printed across the top of the front page. He recruited nearby coworkers to alert him to possible danger—the newsroom has enough televisions to make a Best Buy manager envious—and when an editor from another desk walked by wearing a Patriots jersey, a friend warned Carney not to look up. At one point, Carney had nineteen unread text messages and eighty-six unclicked e-mails.