Gary Smith

[friend of the friendless]

Benighted Brown,

By way of explanation of a non-joke.

There are stories that have plenty of facts but no truth. Dreary as a cop's notebook.

There are features, Smith's among them, that are like novels in that they create whole worlds of their own and convey truth. Some people might think that by doing 50 or 100 interviews he is simply doing due diligence so he doesn't f-ck up. But no matter how any interviews he does and how intensive they are, the worlds in his pieces are created as much as recreated, but these worlds are his subjects' not his own. His aim isn't simply to piece together as much of the jigsaw as he can puzzle out ... his aim is truth. I don't know about anybody's issue with his facts ... but even if there might be somebody somewhere who'll say or prove a detail is in error, the larger truths over-ride and on these Smith hits way more than he misses.

He's one of the few featurists in any dept whose features are whole worlds unto themselves. Which to me makes them superior as pure writing to Deford.

YHS, etc

 

[Chad Conant]

Reilly once called him the I.M. Pei of profilers.

Hard to argue.

 

[sirvaliantbrown]

explanation of a non-joke.

Thank you, good sir.

 

[Webster]

An excellent read, and I thought that it subtly showed a less than glowing view of Andre in places. I doubt that he was only obsessing about Steffi, but it makes for a nice tale. Certainly, Brooke Shields come across as pretty shallow.

 

[FreddiePatek]

Reilly once called him the I.M. Pei of profilers.

Did you mean ...

?

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

I'm bumping this over from the Mike Fish thread.
There are times, it seems, that, for all the research he does, and for all his uneniable skill as a writer, Smith can get spun. I'm thinking not only about his Tillman piece, where he pretty clearly got played by the army, but his Tiger Woods opus, where Earl spun him, and his Jim Valvano piece, where he let Valvano essentially blame Armen Keteyian (and, through him, SI) for his cancer.
Just throwing it out there.

 

[shockey]

I'm bumping this over from the Mike Fish thread.
There are times, it seems, that, for all the research he does, and for all his uneniable skill as a writer, Smith can get spun. I'm thinking not only about his Tillman piece, where he pretty clearly got played by the army, but his Tiger Woods opus, where Earl spun him, and his Jim Valvano piece, where he let Valvano essentially blame Armen Keteyian (and, through him, SI) for his cancer.
Just throwing it out there.

in fairness, wasn't the tillman piece right after the incident? tough turnaround there.

 

[FreddiePatek]

I'm bumping this over from the Mike Fish thread.
There are times, it seems, that, for all the research he does, and for all his uneniable skill as a writer, Smith can get spun. I'm thinking not only about his Tillman piece, where he pretty clearly got played by the army, but his Tiger Woods opus, where Earl spun him, and his Jim Valvano piece, where he let Valvano essentially blame Armen Keteyian (and, through him, SI) for his cancer.
Just throwing it out there.

in fairness, wasn't the tillman piece right after the incident? tough turnaround there.

True. He had barely a week, I believe (May 3 edition, death in late April)

 

[sportsed]

i've told this one before, but it's worth repeating: when boomer esiason joined the jets, it coincided with  the news that boomer's son has cystic fibrosis. that summer, gary did a piece on boomer/gunnar. freaked out us mortal jet writers. he spent about a month tailing the esiasons, all family members, focusing on boomer, boomer's dad and the kid. a tremendous job of  reporting, insight and writing. when boomer was a player, he was as good an interview subject as any in sports. but gary culled things never before reported. sure, he gets the time to do it. but i don't care if any of us had 50 years, we couldn't do it as well.

\

Also, my favorite SI cover ever came out of that story.

By the way, nice photo by Steffi.

 

[tonysoprano]

Hell yes. Used to be the same thing when Rick Reilly wrote features.

I wish he would go back to that. His Marge Schott feature is one of the greatest profiles ever written.

Agreed. As much I enjoy Gary Smith, I began subscribing to SI because of Reilly's features I read back in high school.

 

[Columbo]

I'm bumping this over from the Mike Fish thread.
There are times, it seems, that, for all the research he does, and for all his uneniable skill as a writer, Smith can get spun. I'm thinking not only about his Tillman piece, where he pretty clearly got played by the army, but his Tiger Woods opus, where Earl spun him, and his Jim Valvano piece, where he let Valvano essentially blame Armen Keteyian (and, through him, SI) for his cancer.
Just throwing it out there.

in fairness, wasn't the tillman piece right after the incident? tough turnaround there.

And Smith wasn't there.

What a pile of ornately written **** that was.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Once every four minutes, Daddy, on two threads.
I'm in awe.

 

[sirvaliantbrown]

Speak for yourself. The only thing more pathetic in this business than jock-sniffing is hero worship of a Gary Smith. You may keep your tongue up his rectum, but don't expect everyone else to do the same.

Gary Smith, is that you?

 

[shockey]

Ya'll know that Smith has at least one full-time reporter dedicated to helping him with his articles, right? He's not a one-man act. I'm not at all taking away from his abilty to write, and not saying he doesn't report well. But it's a team effort over there.

Thank you.

shockey gushed

but i don't care if any of us had 50 years, we couldn't do it as well.

Speak for yourself. The only thing more pathetic in this business than jock-sniffing is hero worship of a Gary Smith. You may keep your tongue up his rectum, but don't expect everyone else to do the same.

buzz off. if you think so highly of yourself to think that you're as good as gary smith, god bless you. but there is nothing at all wrong about knowing you're good but also being able to acknowledge, "i can't do that."

if that's sucking up, in your eyes, too bad. i view it as knowing your limitations. if you have no such limitations, again, god bless. but i doubt that you have no such limitations very much.i

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Ya'll know that Smith has at least one full-time reporter dedicated to helping him with his articles, right? He's not a one-man act. I'm not at all taking away from his abilty to write, and not saying he doesn't report well. But it's a team effort over there.

Thank you.

shockey gushed

but i don't care if any of us had 50 years, we couldn't do it as well.

Speak for yourself. The only thing more pathetic in this business than jock-sniffing is hero worship of a Gary Smith. You may keep your tongue up his rectum, but don't expect everyone else to do the same.

buzz off. if you think so highly of yourself to think that you're as good as gary smith, god bless you. but there is nothing at all wrong about knowing you're good but also being able to acknowledge, "i can't do that."

if that's sucking up, in your eyes, too bad. i view it as knowing your limitations. if you have no such limitations, again, god bless. but i doubt that you have no such limitations very much.i

We used to have a higher class of trolls around these parts.
Sorry, shock.

 

[Columbo]

Once every four minutes, Daddy, on two threads.
I'm in awe.

Your phrases are well over my bulbous head.

Even when you are insulting me (were you?), you are the man.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Absolutely not.
Sincere praise. Esepcially your four a.m. binge-posting.
And, the miracle is, not a padded post among them.

 

[Columbo]

Absolutely not.
Sincere praise. Esepcially your four a.m. binge-posting.
And, the miracle is, not a padded post among them.

Wow.

Would you like me to take the first sip from the vat, Mr. Jones*******?

Danke.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Bitte.
And I, alas, am not Mr. Jones.

 

[tmunson]

Smith is one of the greatest of his generation. Count me among those who gets excited every time I see he has written a story in this week's SI.
We could all learn from his reporting, not his writing.
My only complaint -- and I'm just nit picking here -- is that every profile sounds the same.
I've said it before, but I would love for him to write SI's coverage story on the Super Bowl or the Final Four, just to see how he puts his meticulous reporting and observation skills to use in other areas.

By the way, if Moddy or someone affiliated with this site would kindly ask him, Smith probably would come on here and describe how he goes about reporting and researching his stories. He's very open that way.