Excellent read by S.L. Price

I know we all have recently at one time or another predicted the demise of Sports Illustrated and cited as a primary reason its departure from the quality, long form journalism that helped the magazine become the benchmark for our field. But if this outstanding piece by S.L. Price in the upcoming issue is any indication, perhaps the powers that be at SI are starting to get in touch with their roots again:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1181210/1/index.htm

AK

 

Fantastic story.Thanks for posting. Love those Western PA football stories.

 

Looking forward to reading it. hopefully it's in my mailbox today.

(i refuse to read current new s.i. pieces on-line. much prefer the old-fashioned, hard copy way)

 

I used to think that SI should position itself as The New Yorker of sports journalism. But I don't think the market for that is big enough now, with the direction that the Internet has taken attention spans and that fantasy sports and wall-to-wall television coverage and less-thank-wall-to-wall newspaper coverage has taken sports fandom. I've tried to pitch off-the-beaten-path sports stories to SI a couple times. The answer is always the same: We just don't have the space to devote to that kind of story.

I also want to read the Price story in hard copy, though. It's hard for me to read longer pieces online.

 

You know what gets me, though, is the fact that an article like this rarely even merits mention on the cover these days. It would have so nicely worked with the cover story on the Steelers -- Aliquippa is probably 30 miles away from Pittsburgh.

Instead, we get "JIMMER-MANIA" and three refers to other Super Bowl stories. Frankly, knowing there's a Scott Price or Gary Smith story in Sports Illustrated makes me far more anxious to get to reading it.

Then again, I'm a subscriber. I'm sure "S.L. Price" or "L. Jon Wertheim" or "Alexander Wolff" or "Gary Smith" means little to most non-subscribers who are judging the magazine by its cover, literally.

 

Speaking of Smith, he hasn't written a piece for the magazine in a while.

 

He was spot on in capturing the town, the situation and what the football program means to the community. It was as if he lived in Aliquippa his entire life.

 

Versatile,

Very good point. I didn't really look that closely at the PDF of the cover. Man, that's a shame. It boggles my mind that this story wouldn't be promoted on the cover, precisely for the reason you cited about how close Aliquippa is to the city of Pittsburgh. But in the interest of full disclosure, the fact that my laptop has become such an extension of myself that I chose to read it online and no longer subscribe to the magazine probably doesn't help my own case.

Not sure what the best answer here is, but the story did grab my attention.

 

It was around the time of the Coolbaugh article that really noticed Price. He's always been a good, versatile writer (tennis, Olympics, etc.) But there was a stretch of about a month that I wanted to know who wrote a particular story. In each case it was Price, but I never would have guessed it because they were all so different. A Gary Smith story reads like a Gary Smith story, not a knock, but you know it when you're reading something by him. Price has a way of sucking you into a story that you don't even notice his hand guiding you along.
And I've mentioned it before, but he is exhibit A in why great reporting is essential to being a great writer.

 

me too... I'll wait for Thursday, but looking forward to it

 

I let my S.I. subscription run out last month (And oddly enough I kept getting it for another 4 weeks). Last week was the first week it didn't come. I will miss it for these kinds of stories. I just couldn't justify paying for it anymore being on a copy editor's wage and all.

 

Don't they have a professional rate?