Are you a sports fan? Do you have some time? Would you like to waste it?
I have a Web site for you, if you haven’t bookmarked it already.
After two and a half years of archiving and digital development, Sports Illustrated magazine launched the ambitious and socially relevant project known as “SI Vault” on March 20 of this year. This is not a unique venture for a magazine, but having the entire 54-year written history of the magazine at your fingertips is empowering in its own way. One of my high school English teachers once told me that SI had some of the best writers in the world on its staff; coupled with my undying passion for sports miscellany, SI quickly became one of my favorite magazines.
Where to start? The main page (vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com) provides a topical cover and list of related stories. The current topic of choice is the Major League Baseball playoffs (the Olympics and the NFL were also recently featured). A list of most-read stories and a sampling of old covers, video footage and hundreds of thousands of photos also grace the main page. It is an information overload – unless you have an idea of what to look for.
Typing “Oregon Ducks” into the search bar reveals a photo gallery of Ducks cheerleaders, four covers, and 40 articles. Two of the covers likely stick out in the minds of longtime Duck fans: Jason Fife scoring a touchdown against Michigan in September 2003, and Joey Harrington skewering a stuffed Beaver (with Ken Simonton returning the favor with a stuffed Duck) for SI’s 2001 college football preview. Oregon men’s basketball upsetting UCLA (with star center Bill Walton) in February 1974, and a June 1970 issue featuring an Oregon freshman runner named Steve Prefontaine. (For those interested in seeing a young Pre show a little personality beyond “Without Limits,” the article is a fantastic read and contains one of the best lines ever about recruiting from Bill Bowerman: “Oh, I recruit,” Bowerman told SI’s Pat Putnam, “but I don’t go out and make love to some kid.” Words to
live by.)
Covers are a great place to start with SI. Over the years, the images have been iconic (a sports bra-clad Brandi Chastain celebrating her winning shootout kick at the 2000 Women’s World Cup), monumental (witness the recent cover featuring Michael Phelps and his eight gold medals), provocative (“Why the University of Miami should drop football”), innovative (the comic book-style “Bizarro Baseball” in May 26), whimsical (an August 1988 issue featuring a tall, frothy glass of beer with the title “Beer: How it influences the games we play and watch”) and downright confusing (June 1977: Detroit pitcher Mark Fidrych and Big Bird).
Obviously, the meat of the magazine lies in the articles, some of which are so exquisitely told and painstakingly reported that the emotional investment is worlds beyond a standard-issue sports page game recap. These are brought to you by some of the most innovative modern writers who would likely receive a little more national recognition had they not written about sports. Try Frank Deford’s profile of Indiana head basketball coach Bobby Knight (January 1981), Sonja Steptoe’s profile about a 10-year-old tennis prodigy from Compton, Calif. (June 1991), or Gary Smith’s story about the soccer team comprised of young war refugees in Georgia
(June 2008).
Some stories are instant classics, others withstand the test of time, and all succeed in painting the portrait of all things recognizable and desirable in modern sports. From Lew Alcindor’s dominance of college basketball through Michael Jordan’s retirement, from Otto Graham to Barry Switzer, from gang violence to the “student-athlete” sham, SI has been consistently excellent in everything it does.
Two stories have stood out to me above all others. Both, oddly enough, were written by Smith, who seems to have written half of the most notable magazine or newspaper feature stories ever. The first is his September 2007 profile of Miami head football coach Randy Shannon, an exhaustively detailed piece about a private man whose personal life has been an unimaginable hell. The second was published in June 1996, concerning New York high school basketball star Richie Parker, a convicted sex offender, and the college scholarship he eventually obtained. The story reads with the suspense of a murder mystery, touching its secondary characters (for better or for worse, and it’s always worse) to their very cores. I would start there if you’re interested in a primer on quality sports journalism.
Oh, and there are photo galleries of past SI swimsuit editions. My apologies for waiting this long to mention that.
Happy reading, although your professor would like you to close the laptop and pay ttention now.
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