RIP William Nack

I'm literally in the middle of Ruffian. Like so much of what Nack wrote, it's a love story.

 

Meticulous reporter and a great writer.

Deford and Jenkins were more famous, but in the great age of Sports Illustrated, Nack might have been the best at the magazine.

 

And I just read it again. Of course.

 

Me too.

 

Nack was the sports editor of the Daily Illini while Roger Ebert was the editor-in-chief.

 

I read that as the horses thundered past at Oaklawn. Got really dusty here.

 

It took me about five attempts to read the “Secretariat” bio because I kept wanting to read the first chapter over and over again because of what he did with words.

 

Thanks, Moddy. That was a wonderful piece.

 

Reading him gave me a weightless feeling only a few dozen writers do.

 

In 1985 HUGE news hit my town of 1,800 in Minnesota. Sports Illustrated was coming to town. That was the phrase. Sports Illustrated is coming. As a 10-year-old I can't remember if I heard about it in the grocery store, the barbershop or school. But the town buzzed. A writer and a photographer would be at that Friday's football game. I remember seeing the writer standing on the sidelines at the game and a guy lugging around a camera. "There they are!" We stood and stared.

They were there because my town played Glenville, a school closing in on the national record for most consecutive football losses. Even more than most people in town, I was beside myself about SI being there. By that time I'd been reading my dad's SI's for about four years and when the article finally ran I read it right away (on the cover: KC winning the World Series).

It was only years later, long after I out of college and had my own fantasies of writing for SI, that I thought again of that story and went into my parents' basement to find the old issue. I now had a better understanding of the history of SI. I knew all about all the famous writers, knew their personal stories as well as the ones they'd put into the magazine. I found that issue that mentioned my town and for the first time realized who'd written: William Nack. Holy shit. I don't know why it surprised me so much because it was obviously going to be one of the big names from the era. But for whatever reason the fact it was Nack somehow made me...proud? Awed? Bill Nack had been in my town! He'd probably stopped into the grocery store. He'd walked the same football field where I played. He typed out the letters that spelled my town.

So this isn't Nack's greatest story or anything but it's the one I'll always remember and love the most. It's not often the best writer in the country comes and visits your hometown.
'LIKE BEING SLUGGED IN THE GUT'