Chris Ballard of SI on his Mike Powell story "Man In Full"

brandonsneed · Feb 14, 2012

Hey everyone. Latest interview is up at the blog. Here's an excerpt I thought you'd all enjoy, about how Chris went about his reporting. He was awesome. Here's the link to the whole chalupa: http://brandonsneed.com/home/2012/2/14/chris-ballard-of-sports-illustrated-on-his-mike-powell-story.html

How’d you go about the reporting? How much time did you spend around the town, how many interviews and interviewees, all that good stuff?

This one was really focused. When I write features on high-profile athletes, there’s a ton of wrangling involved, and a necessary reliance on background and secondary reporting. You might only get 15 minutes with LeBron, and in that time he may say little of consequence, so it’s on you to prepare your ass off and get little details from everyone else: the strength coach, the trainer, the high school friend, etc.

In this case, Powell was an open book. He’s incredibly charismatic and forthright, or at least that was my experience. I didn’t know this going in, however, so I was a bit nervous.

The first morning I drove to his house and accompanied him to the doctor, in Chicago. It was a rough ride. He was bummed, because he was going to the doctor and his CPK had just gone up for the first time in months. He felt horrible – though he hid it well – and I could tell he wasn’t excited that I was there.

That ride was the key to the next 48 hours. In short, we hit it off. We share certain things in common: roughly the same age, similar competitive mindset, like-minded politics, music taste, etc. We both had an unhealthy reverence for those single-serving coffee grind-and-pour machines you sometimes see at hotels (not the dinky Keurig ones). (Editor’s note: Hey, I have a dinky Keurig, and I love it. Judge away.) His doctor’s office had one in the lobby; we reveled in it together.

If that car ride had gone poorly, I could have been in a totally different situation. As it was, we established a rapport that allowed him to feel comfortable with me coming into the room while he saw his doctor. I didn’t include any of this in the story – I felt it was too personal – but I recognized it was huge leap of faith on his part, and that of his doctor (who signed off on me writing about the visit). Here he was, having just met me an hour ago, allowing me to sit there with him while he talked about his medication, impediments, fears, etc. It was brave, and a credit to him. In return, I tried to respect this.

I ended up staying with Powell from 8 AM until midnight. I went to brunch with him, then back to his house, where we took his dogs for a walk in the woods. I went for a run and showered while he took a nap. We went to his team workout for three hours, then hit the gym and did the sauna and cold pool together. Then we went to a restaurant and talked over dinner and beers until late. Ninety percent of the stuff we talked about isn’t in the story, and some of it was off the record, but that type of immersion reporting allowed me to get past the I’m-talking-to-an-SI-guy part of it.

For me, this is always the goal with stories like this. To become comfortable with the subject of your story and, more important, for them to feel comfortable with you. I spent much of the next day with Powell, until 8:30 PM or so, attending practice. During the day, I sat down with his wife for a 30-minute interview and then talked to a couple other people: wrestlers, fathers of wrestlers, etc. But with most people, I took their name and number and then called back later. For one, I didn’t want to remove myself from the action, on the chance I might miss a scene or piece of dialogue or moment. Two, especially with high school athletes, I find they’re much better in isolation.

In the end, I spent two and a half days in Chicago and then did a lot of phone and email interviews on the back end, over a period of three months or so. For background, I watched Win-Win, read up on Dan Gable, watched wrestling videos and lurked on wrestling message boards. I also read John Irving’s memoir, Imaginary Girlfriend, which is as much about wrestling as writing. There’s one passage that really resonated with me, because I’m a crappy first-draft writer:

I have no doubt that I learned more from wrestling than from Creative Writing classes; good writing means rewriting, and good wrestling is a matter of redoing – repetition without cease is obligatory, until the moves become second nature. I have never thought of myself as a “born” writer – anymore than I think of myself as a “natural” athlete, or even a good one. What I am is a good rewriter; I never get anything right the first time – I just know how to revise, and revise.
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ringer · Feb 14, 2012

Thank you so much for posting this.

I've been toiling alone for more than a decade (churning out offbeat sports features for major pubs - some involving very heavy subject matter) and I'd never had anyone to compare notes with about his/her own writing and reporting process.

I subsequently went to your site and read the whole interview. It was very enlightening. Plus, Ballard seems like a good guy who --unlike so many of new heavy hitters in the biz -- doesn't seem to be full of himself.

Thanks again

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Chris Ballard of SI on his Mike Powell story "Man In Full"

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Chris Ballard of SI on his Mike Powell story "Man In Full"

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