What pieces changed your lives.

We all love great writing, don't we? So, which pieces changed your lives as sports journalists?

 

I don't know if any pieces have "changed" my life.

But I'm still very appreciative of KVV's piece about Muema a few weeks ago, because it was going nowhere until it turned on a dime and went somewhere big. Been awhile since a story did that.

 

Reilly's Bryant Gumbel profile before the 1988 Olympics was a huge one for me. I remember in the piece it came out that Gumbel keeps a list of pallbearers in case he dies and he updates it yearly. That really stuck with me. I remember it being a really long piece and I didn't give half a shit about Gumbel, but I read the feature probably three times the week I got the issue. I remember thinking, "I want to find out those kinds of things from people."

I had wanted to be a sports writer before that, but that article made me a lot more serious about pursuing the profession.

Doug Looney's Boston College point-shaving investigation in SI was another huge one.

 

There are two books I read in junior high and early high school that made me feel like I wanted to be a sportswriter. One was "Summer of '49" by David Halberstam, and the other was "If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, I'm Gonna Nail My Feet To the Ground" by Lewis Grizzard.

And this didn't make me want to be a journalist, but I've been an Esquire subscriber ever since because of this:
http://www.esquire.com/features/perfect-fire-0700

 

I'm pretty sure I knew what I wanted to be by the time I was a senior in HS. But Tony Kornheiser's Tuesday "Bandwagon" columns during the Washington NFL team's last run to the Super Bowl made sure of it. Consistently funny, entertaining as hell. It started off as a joke and took on a life of its own. And while he milked it, he was fully aware of just how insane the whole notion was.
Those columns are behind the archive paywall now, so I can't link them, but his ability to engage, entertain and inform was invaluable. I understand his TV schtick isn't for everyone (though his radio program should be) but to me he remains a writer first, everything else second.