SI pushing old-style athletes?

This is not a discussion on Old Style beer, but more of a trend I've noticed in the past few months in SI. Basically, t seems SI has been running a lot more stories on players becoming college and pro stars who were not All-AAU at age 8, didn't have parents who took a second mortgage to pay for private lessons and didn't spend every waking moment focused on being a superstar.

I have two theories on this: One is easy. Time sees the success of things such as the Other Side and tells SI , "hey, give us more of that, people want to read it." Two is maybe SI editors are trying to push the discussion on childhood sports by running stories highlighting guys who were in Pre-K soccer boot camp. Maybe they feel there is a journalistic duty to fight the hype? Tell parents there is no right way to lead to sports?

My belief is option one, but I like to hope that the second option is also true. And yes, I know they did the story in the spring about the five-year-old who hits 90 mph pitching, which was right around the time they did the story on Halladay and how his parents bought a house with a basement large enough so he could pitch indoors from 60 feet 6 inches as a kid.

The change I've noticed started this fall. Am I the only one seeing this? Thoughts?

 

Didn't notice this.

Instead, I noticed that SI ran a couple of long enterprising pieces about female athletes... which it rarely does. Of course, both stories were marred by tragedy (both women are dead), but still.

 

Look in this week's issue about the FSU basketball player. Never played high school, got a scholarship playing AF ball. There was stories like that in the basketball preview as well.

 

I didn't see that, either. Would they pursue stories like the Air Force/FSU kid, coupled with pushing only boot camp kid stories that have cautionary endings, just to make a point about the "right" way to develop an athlete?

The Air Force/FSU kid story seemed interesting on its own merits.

I'm not saying the higher-ups at a magazine wouldn't attempt to promote an agenda, but in this case, I'd need a bigger sample with more clear evidence of a trend.

 

Haven't noticed at all. Your theory actually makes me think of their Heyward story, the polar opposite, before I can think of anything that highlights a kid who never played AAU. I think/hope they're writing about great athletes and then investigating the back story and going where it takes them.

 

I found the Florida State story really interesting. Might as well have been an advertisement for the United States armed forces - in a good way.

 

That's what I mean. That kid didn't seem like Air Force material at all. They could've made a bigger takeout on that instead of just sticking it in the weekly notes.

 

If anything, I've noticed a trend of features on "good guys" (Floyd Little, Tony Richardson) - might just be the addition of Posnanski and some of the other writers. It's overdue in my opinion.

 

I don't think it's either of those things. Just interesting stories that people enjoy to read about. People love the guy that comes from nothing and makes something of himself.