Great, great article

[spud]

Mr. Moneyball hit one out of the park with this one. If you've got the time for it, it's a pretty damn good one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/sports/playmagazine/1029play_parcells.html?hp&ex=1162008000&en=00292a0d8a8a5745&ei=5094&partner=homepage

 

[Alma]

I liked it a lot.

But you know what this board will do instead? Keep gnashing teeth over some nobody columnist going to some Web site.

 

[Big_Space]

thanks.

that was good. There have been several good articles in Play magazine recently.

 

[Moland Spring]

What is Play Magazine?

 

[Big_Space]

What is Play Magazine?

NYT sports magazine

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/sports/playmagazine/

 

[Baba_Booey]

Wow. That was great. I wonder how he convinced Parcells to grant him the access.

 

[Rufino]

Very well done piece. Really drives home how devoid of any meaning this guy's life is beyond football.

 

[Jinga_Thomson]

In an ideal world, this board would be good for writers such as Michael Lewis to come on and explain the inner workings of a story. I'm only on page 2, but I'm fascinated by how human Lewis has made Parcells appear. All I have seen from Parcells this year is his short, apparently angry relationship with the media. Then some stranger swoops in and gets all this. Magnificent piece, and I'm not even near done.

 

[shockey]

fine piece on a really intriguing character.

i remember when parcells first took over the jets. i got him in a hallway at the jets' building and asked him: "why do you keep doing this?"

he looked at me, shook his head and said, "i dunno -- i guess i'm just a sick *******."

that about sums it up.

he looks awfully detached lately, though. looks like the whole t.o.-jerry jones sideshow has robbed parcells of a lot of his passion.

 

[shotglass]

I liked it a lot.

But you know what this board will do instead? Keep gnashing teeth over some nobody columnist going to some Web site.

Alma, baby ... we miss you.

I wouldn't come off as at all preachy if you were still around full-time.

 

[Dave Kindred]

What Lewis does is what too few sportswriters do: he trusts the material. No melodrama, no excess, no shtick, no flair for flair's sake. Solid reporting, good thinking, and clear, clean writing -- the time-honored formula for rendering complex subjects simply. It's journalism at its best (to be excessive myself; I mean, it's a profile, not low doings in high places, but you know what I mean).

 

[Jesus_Muscatel]

That's a good way of putting it, Dave.

He trusts the material.

Interesting piece. Man, does Parcells sound like a miserable SOB.

 

[Satchel Pooch]

I know it's a sporadic kind of thing and they don't have to produce week after week after week, but I'm in awe every time I read PLAY.

 

[Jeff Gluck]

One question unrelated to Parcells: Is this part true?

"The cornerback is now the best-paid defensive position and the left tackle the second-best-paid offensive position; indeed, after the quarterback, the left tackle is the highest-paid position on the field."

Awesome story though.

 

[PopeDirkBenedict]

Great story. Lewis has done some great stuff for NYT -- I loved his article last year on Mike Leach.

 

[beefncheddar]

Great story, indeed.

Although, it's nice to know that even the best can lay an egg like:

His final act before the Cowboys signed him, however, was to miss a 46-yard field goal in the last minute that would have tied the A.F.C. championship game

And even this isn't exactly accurate:

“That means Duckett’s playing,” says Parcells. That would be T. J. Duckett, acquired just three weeks earlier by Washington from Denver.

Does his stuff actually get edited, I (and "Jason Whitten") are beginning to wonder.

 

[enigami]

Yeah, Whitten stuck out like a sore thumb. Reminded me of a separate thread here about mistakes getting through Sports Illustrated's copy editors, really devaluing the mag's legacy, if not the product itself. Too bad. This is very good journalism, very good sports writing, and one miserable SOB coach.

 

[daemon]

"An article last Sunday in Play magazine about Dallas Cowboys Coach Bill Parcells misstated the surname of a Dallas tight end. He is Jason Witten, not Whitten. The article also misstated the position that Chris Cooley of the Washington Redskins plays, and misidentified the former team of Washington's running back T. J. Duckett. Cooley is a tight end, not a wide receiver. Duckett played for Atlanta, not Denver. The article also referred incorrectly to a playoff game last season in which Dallas's kicker, Mike Vanderjagt, then with the Indianapolis Colts, missed a potential game-tying field goal against Pittsburgh. It was a divisional playoff game, not a conference championship game."

Longest correction ever?

 

[turnovers]

Geeze, retract the whole story, why don't they. That's an awful big jumbled up mess for one story. It was quite the piece, though, errors aside.

 

[jgmacg]

Two innocent questions.

I notice a couple of folks here commenting on the number of errors in a very long piece by Michael Lewis. Errors then corrected by the magazine.

Presuming you work as writers, what's your average error rate per piece? And how often does your publication bother to print a correction?