Great Jenkins lead on SI.com

[Cousin Jeffrey]

not sure if this is in the issue too, but this is how you write a lead....

SAN DIEGO -- When the San Diego Chargers hired Norv Turner to be their head coach, they had to know that he lacked charisma, leadership skills, motivational abilities and the winning touch. But they could be sure that he was qualified for the job in at least one respect: He understood how to develop a young quarterback as well as anybody.


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/lee_jenkins/11/20/turner/index.html?eref=T1

 

[Ike Broflovski]

Won't make me forget this one:

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below.

 

[OTD]

Dammit, I was hoping for a Dan Jenkins lead when I opened this. I guess I should've known since he probably hasn't been in SI for 20 years, but still . . .

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

I was less impressed with the story and the editing when I read these passages:

"From the time the Chargers drafted Rivers, fourth overall in 2005 . . ."

"After the 2003 season, the Chargers basically gave up on Brees. By the time he returned to form in 2004, it was too late. The Chargers had already drafted Rivers and awarded him a long-term contract."

Jenkins is excellent, definitely part of a new group of hires that has raised SI even further recently. And I'm sure there will be a chorus of the "I'll bet you never made a MISTAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" crowd. But a factual error, misstated in two different incorrect ways . . . sloppy. Better is expected of SI.

On another note: reading that story last night, I finally discovered and read a lot of the old NFL stories they have now. And the difference between, say, a Dr. Z or Fimrite Super Bowl gamer and a Michael Silver one is like night and day. Replacing Silver with people like Jenkins and Hack is like being the Expos in the Delino DeShields-Pedro Martinez trade.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/writers/classic_nfl/archive/index.html

 

[funky_mountain]

Dammit, I was hoping for a Dan Jenkins lead when I opened this. I guess I should've known since he probably hasn't been in SI for 20 years, but still . . .

for you OTD:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/features/superbowl/archives/12/
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/augusta/si_history_stories/1975.html

 

[broadway joe]

not sure if this is in the issue too, but this is how you write a lead....

SAN DIEGO -- When the San Diego Chargers hired Norv Turner to be their head coach, they had to know that he lacked charisma, leadership skills, motivational abilities and the winning touch. But they could be sure that he was qualified for the job in at least one respect: He understood how to develop a young quarterback as well as anybody.


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/lee_jenkins/11/20/turner/index.html?eref=T1

I'm sorry. I don't see why this would be singled out as anything more than an ordinary lede.

 

[Cousin Jeffrey]

I liked the direct-ness of it. No *****footing around. Same with the Mandel lead on Charlie Weis.

 

[TyWebb]

not sure if this is in the issue too, but this is how you write a lead....

SAN DIEGO -- When the San Diego Chargers hired Norv Turner to be their head coach, they had to know that he lacked charisma, leadership skills, motivational abilities and the winning touch. But they could be sure that he was qualified for the job in at least one respect: He understood how to develop a young quarterback as well as anybody.


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/lee_jenkins/11/20/turner/index.html?eref=T1

I'm sorry. I don't see why this would be singled out as anything more than an ordinary lede.

I agree. I like it, but I wouldn't hang it on my wall and marvel at it.

 

[pallister]

I'd like to see what an editor would do if that Grantland Rice lead were filed today. I'm betting it would be the end of that stringer's career.

 

[Stone Cane]

not sure if this is in the issue too, but this is how you write a lead....

SAN DIEGO -- When the San Diego Chargers hired Norv Turner to be their head coach, they had to know that he lacked charisma, leadership skills, motivational abilities and the winning touch. But they could be sure that he was qualified for the job in at least one respect: He understood how to develop a young quarterback as well as anybody.


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/lee_jenkins/11/20/turner/index.html?eref=T1

is this some sort of joke?

that lead sucks

sucks

 

[Joe Williams]

From "It's great" to "It sucks" in 10 easy posts. Nice.

Here's to this marvelous subjective business of ours!

 

[Mayfly]

Go SJ!!!!!

 

[Orange Hat Bobcat]

I think I am more excited about the ad I read on the side of one of those classic stories than I am about that batch of stories itself.

"Read every story published in the pages of Sports Illustrated. Coming Spring 2008!"

I normally stray from exclamation points. But, yeah, put me down for at least two or three. I can only hope whatever SI puts together is as good as The Complete New Yorker.

 

[Montezuma's Revenge]

Not a great lead, not a sucky one.

Pretty boiler-plate, I thought.

 

[friend of the friendless]

Sirs, Madames,

I recite this on bended knee at bedside before I lay me down to sleep on Thanksgiving's Eve.

In the land of the pickup truck and cream gravy for breakfast, down where the wind can blow through the walls of a diner and into the grieving lyrics of a country song on a jukebox -- down there in dirt-kicking Big Eight territory -- they played a football game on Thanksgiving Day that was mainly for the quarterbacks on the field and for self-styled gridiron intellectuals everywhere.

Psalm 35-31

YHS, etc

 

[chazp]

I'd like to see what an editor would do if that Grantland Rice lead were filed today. I'm betting it would be the end of that stringer's career.

True, it was a different era then. It must have went over well then, for the memory to have lasted so long.

 

[TheMethod]

Rice: "Outlined across a blue-gray October sky, the four horsemen ..."
Editor: What the **** is Rice talking about? Who gives a **** about horsemen? Homer."

 

[-Scoop-]

Not a great lead, not a sucky one.

Pretty boiler-plate, I thought.

My thoughts exactly.

I'm not too sure why this lead deserved its own thread.