Gary Smith to retire

According to Thomas Lake on Twitter, Gray Smith is retiring from Sports Illustrated.

More BASW appearances than anyone. Four NMA's (I think).

A giant of the writing craft.

 

His letter of retirement ran 37 pages.

 

And it began in the second person.

 

My favorite Gary Smith story :
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1016500/1/index.htm

"Moment of Truth" its about a locker room photo of TCU football team
just before they play Syracuse / Jim Brown in Cotton Bowl

 

He had 50-100 sources in his announcement.

 

My real introduction to Gary Smith's reporting/writing:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1138505/12/index.htm

 

Maybe it's because we are who we are, but the lack of posts and number of insults thrown Smith's way surprise me.

 

place has become like high school. if you're uncool enough to show enthusiasm for a piece or a writer, you'll quickly be derided as a suck-up -- especially, god forbid, if it's about long-form stuff. far easier to rip than to praise, or to even-handedly take in someone's faults and talents and understand why they affect you still. welcome to hack city.

and don't tell me that gary's stuff is not holy writ, and we should be able to have a chuckle or some such. his passing from the scene is an important moment for any site that goes by this name.

it's too bad, really. this would've been a great place to tote up smith's career and look at it from the point of view of craft: why the first pat tillman piece or the phillies pitching staff didn't work, why ali's entourage or richie parker did. in short, what he actually DID that made him an important figure -- and whether his kind of career is even possible now.

 

Well said, AD. Smith has written some of my favorite magazine pieces, but I haven't read any of his stuff in quite some time, so none of the topics really jump out at me now. Shadow of a Nation is the only one I really recall off the top of my head.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1118885/

 

Eh, story on the Phillies didn't work because I kept trying to wrap my head around who was who. Tunnelman? Loose Laser? Late Riser? 346 paragraphs into the story, I kind of lost track.