Deford's confessions in SI

I was a bit mean in my earlier post. The truth is, even if DeFord has gone downhill, at least he had a hill to go down. Many among us don't.

 

He had a mountain, not a hill. Deford ranks among the all-time greats.

The guy is 71 years old. Give him a break.

 

I don't care if it was self-indulgent. It was a fun read. And he gave full credit to the guy who wrote the original piece about the football coach. Wasted self-indulgence to me are some of the guys a couple decades younger than Deford who grab for the crutch and interject themselves into the story , effectively saying, "Look at me, I happened to be here when such-and-such took place," not realizing how foolishly contrived they sound. Some of that shows up in SI periodically, and you probably can guess who I"m talking about.

 

Toughest Coach Who Ever Lived - god damn I loved that.

Check it out in the SI Archives if you haven't read it already. It's timeless.

 

Jeez... Just found that story in the SI Vault: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1122011/index.htm

Did it pretty much take up the entire magazine that week? That's got to be one of the longest stories SI has run, though I guess I'm mostly familiar with the mid-90s and on.

 

Great writer, but a pompous tool. He wrote a piece years ago for SI on a junior college football coach in Mississippi that was absolutely the stuff of genius. And yet he seems so oily and generally above it all.

 

I just read the story. I liked it. But I too am a sucker for inside baseball stories, especially in journalism, and I guess, baseball. Also, I wasn't expecting brilliance, just a fun read.

I wonder if it's going to be part of a larger memoir. Or maybe he was trying to write a memoir and gave up. Surprised there was nothing, even a graf, on The National and his work in TV now. He disses TV, but that's his main gig now. Then again, Real Sports is a bit different, with longform-style stories, which is I'm sure how he thinks of it.

 

DeFord's best writing days may be behind him, but he's in the discussion for "The Best Ever" and he never phoned it in the way Reilly has for the last five years.

 

I'm with Mizzou on this. What would we prefer from Deford at age 71 or whatever he is: Silence, as in retirement to Hilton Head or some other golf course/beach/island/gin game? Or occasional pieces like this that link to the past?

I can think of several younger, more "relevant" sports journalists from whom I would prefer silence, ideally coming from underneath some beach somewhere.

 

DeFord has had a pretty cushy gig for the past decade or so. I'm assuming he still does the NPR "essays" but does a few SI pieces every year. I don't get SI anymore so I can't say how frequently the come, but I'm guessing 3-4 times a year.

 

I think he's also done some screenwriting.