The Best American Sports Writing 2013 (64 page)

 

B
URKHARD
B
ILGER
has been a staff writer at
The New Yorker
since 2001. Bilger's work has also appeared in
The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine
,the
New York Times
,the
New York Times Book Review
, and numerous other publications and has been anthologized in
The Best American Sports Writing, The Best Food Writing
, and
The Best American Science and Nature Writing
. Bilger's book
Noodling for Flatheads: Moonshine, Monster Catfish, and Other Southern Comforts
was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.

 

B
ILL
G
IFFORD
has been an editor at
Philadelphia
and
Men's Journal
, and his work has appeared in numerous magazines, including
Outside, Wired, Men's Health
, and
Bicycling
. He is at work on a book about the future of medicine.

 

A
LLISON
G
LOCK
is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the
New York Times
, the
New York Times Magazine, Esquire, GQ, Rolling Stone
, and
The New Yorker
, among many others. She is a senior staff writer for
ESPN
, a columnist at
Southern Living
, and a contributing editor at
Garden & Gun
. Her memoir of her grandmother won the Whiting Writers' Award for nonfiction and was a
New York Times
Notable Book of the Year.

 

P
ATRICK
H
RUBY
is a writer for
Sports on Earth
and a contributor to
Washingtonian
magazine and
The Atlantic
online. He has worked for
ESPN.com
and the
Washington Times
and taught journalism at Georgetown University. He holds degrees from Georgetown and Northwestern and lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Saphira. This is his fourth appearance in
The Best American Sports Writing
.

 

D
AN
K
OEPPEL
lives in Los Angeles, California, with his wife and son. His most recent book is
Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World
. In his spare time, he organizes marathon walking events. His website is
www.dankoeppel.com
.

 

T
HOMAS
L
AKE
is a senior writer for
Sports Illustrated
and a graduate of Gordon College. This is his fourth appearance in
The Best American Sports Writing
.

 

From WBUR in Boston, B
ILL
L
ITTLEFIELD
hosts National Public Radio's weekly sports magazine program,
Only A Game
. He was the guest editor of
The Best American Sports Writing
in 1998 and is the author of six books, including the novels
Prospect
and
The Circus in the Woods
. He is writer-in-residence at Curry College in Milton, Massachusetts.

 

J
EFF
M
AC
G
REGOR
is a senior writer for ESPN and the author of
Sunday Money
.

 

E
RIK
M
ALINOWSKI
is a senior writer for BuzzFeed Sports. He has previously been the night editor of
Deadspin.com
and the sports editor of
Wired.com
. A graduate of Boston University with a degree in journalism, he lives with his wife, Rebecca, in San Mateo, California.

 

M
ICHAEL
J. M
OONEY
is a staff writer at
D Magazine
. He also writes for
GQ, Outside
,
SBNation.com/Longform
, and
Grantland.com
. He is a graduate of the Mayborn School of Journalism and is on the advisory committee of the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. His stories have appeared in
The Best American Crime Reporting
and multiple editions of
The Best American Sports Writing
. He lives in Dallas with his fiancée, Tara, and their retired racing greyhound.

 

N
ICOLE
P
ASULKA
is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has been published in
The Believer
,
Salon.com
,
Mother Jones
, and the
Globe and Mail
. You can find her online at
www.nicolepasulka.com
.

 

B
RIDGET
Q
UINN
has written a memoir,
Home Team
, about growing up in a big Montana family and becoming a new kind of woman in the American West. Three excerpts from the book have appeared in
Narrative
magazine, including the piece here, “At Swim, Two Girls,” and “One-on-One,” which was noted in
The Best American Sports Writing 2010
. Her essay “Back in the Pool” was a finalist for the 2006 Annie Dillard Prize in Creative Nonfiction. A grateful denizen of the San Francisco Writers' Grotto, where she works, she lives in San Francisco with her husband Rick, a cyclist; her son Lukas, an avid surfer; and her daughter Zuzu, a goal-scoring soccer machine.

 

R
ICK
R
EILLY
is a columnist for
ESPN.com
and an essayist for
ESPN SportsCenter
. From 1985 until 2007, he was a writer for
Sports Illustrated
. He is the author of 10 books, including
Sports from Hell: My Search for the World's Dumbest Competition
. He served as guest editor for
The Best American Sports Writing 2002
and lives in Denver.

 

C
INTHIA
R
ITCHIE
writes and runs mountains in Anchorage, Alaska. She is the recipient of two Rasmuson Individual Artist Awards, a Connie Boochever fellowship, residencies at Hedgebrook, Hidden River Arts, and Kimmel Nelson Harding Center for the Arts, and the Brenda Ueland Prose Prize, the Memoir Grand Prize, and a Sport Literate Essay Award. Readers can find her work in the
New York Times Magazine, Under the Sun, Water-Stone Review, Memoir, Sport Literate
,
the
Boiler Journal, damselfly press, Third Wednesday, Foliate Oak Literary Review, MARY: A Journal of New Writing, The Quivering Pen, 42opus, Sugar Mule, Cactus Heart Press, Evening Street Review
, and others. She is also the author of a novel,
Dolls Behaving Badly
.

 

K
AREN
R
USSELL
is the author of the story collection
St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
and
Swamplandia!
, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and one of the
New York Times's
Top Five Fiction Books of 2011. Her new story collection,
Vampires in the Lemon Grove
, was released in February 2013.

 

J
ASON
S
CHWARTZ
is a senior editor at
Boston
magazine, where he has covered sports, politics, business, and education since 2007. His writing has also appeared in
ESPN: The Magazine, Slate
, the
Boston Globe
, and other places.

 

J
ONATHAN
S
EGURA
is the author of
Occupational Hazards
and has written for
GQ
and National Public Radio.

 

C
HARLES
S
IEBERT
, a contributing writer to the
New York Times Magazine
, is the author of
Rough Beasts: The Zanesville Zoo Massacre, One Year Later
.

 

D
AVID
S
IMON
is an author, a journalist, and a writer/producer of the HBO television series
The Wire
. He formerly worked for the
Baltimore Sun
and is the author of
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
and, with Ed Burns, of
The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood
.

 

M
ARK
S
INGER
has been a staff writer at
The New Yorker
since 1974 and is author of the books
Funny Money, Mr. Personality
, a collection of his reporting from
The New Yorker, Citizen K: The Deeply Weird American Journey of Brett Kimberlin
, and two more collections,
Somewhere in America
and
Character Studies
. He lives in New York.

 

G
ARY
S
MITH
is a senior writer for
Sports Illustrated
. His stories have appeared in
The Best American Sports Writing
more often than those of any other writer. A graduate of La Salle University, he wrote for the
Wilmington News-Journal
, the
Philadelphia Daily News
, the
New York Daily News
, and
Inside Sports
before coming to
Sports Illustrated
. His writing has also appeared in
Time, Rolling Stone
, and
Esquire
. A collection of his work,
Beyond the Game
, was published in 2001.

 

P
AUL
S
OLOTAROFF
is the author of
The Body Shop, Group
, and
House of Purple Hearts
. A contributing editor at
Men's Journal
and
Rolling Stone
, he has written features for
Vanity Fair, GQ, Vogue
, and the
New York Times Magazine
. This is his eighth appearance in
The Best American Sports Writing
. He lives in New York.

 

W
RIGHT
T
HOMPSON
is a senior writer for
ESPN.com
and
ESPN: The Magazine
. He lives with his wife, Sonia, in Oxford, Mississippi. This is his eighth appearance in
The Best American Sports Writing
.

S
ELECTED BY
G
LENN
S
TOUT

 

J
OHN
A
KERS

Who Is Rick Ray?
Basketball Times
, September 2012

C
HRIS
F
ELICIANO
A
RNOLD

Asleep at the Roger Clemens Trial.
Salon.com
, June 10, 2012

B
EN
A
USTEN

The Glorious Plight of the Buffalo Bills.
Grantland.com
, November 7, 2012

 

J
IM
B
AUMBACH

Falling Star.
Newsday
, December 2, 2012

A
DEMOLA
B
ELLO

Crossed Countries.
Anchorage Press
, March 15, 2012

A
LEX
B
ELTH

The Two Rogers.
SBNation.com/Longform
, October 24, 2012

G
REG
B
ISHOP

In Next Scene.
The New York Times
, December 30, 2012

S
AM
B
ORDEN

A Soccer Prodigy, at Home in Brazil.
The New York Times
, July 9, 2012

F
LINDER
B
OYD

The Ricky Rubio Experience.
TheClassical.org
, November 28, 2012

J
OHN
B
RANCH

Snow Fall.
The New York Times
, December 20, 2012

W
ILLIAM
B
ROWNING

Coach.
SBNation.com/Longform
, October 9, 2012

 

M
ATT
C
ALKINS

Suicide Story Hits Close to Home.
The Columbian
, May 4, 2012

M
ATT
C
OKER

The Lost Boys of Summer.
OC Weekly
, March 30, 2012

J
ORDAN
C
ONN

Let It Fly.
Grantland.com
, August 20, 2012

M
ATT
C
ROSSMAN

A Time to Heal.
The Sporting News
, December 2012

B
RYAN
C
URTIS

No Chattering in the Press Box.
Grantland.com
, May 2, 2012

On the Trail of the Piggyback Bandit.
Grantland.com
, July 11, 2012

 

D
AVID
D
AVIS

Still Richard.
SBNation.com/Longform
, November 29, 2012

M
ARK
D
ENT

Everybody's Doing the Tweener.
TheClassical.org
, May 10, 2012

T
OM
D
INARD

Sunlight for a Moonlight Man.
ThePostGame.com
, January 17, 2012

 

D
AN
E
NGLAND

Getting Back into the Stroke of Things.
The Greeley Tribune
, November 25, 2012

 

K
ATE
F
AGAN

Dream Role.
ESPNW.com
, October 18, 2012

B
RUCE
F
ELDMAN

The Middle Man.
CBSSports.com
, September 21, 2012

N
ATHAN
F
ENNO

A Trip Back in Time.
The Washington Times
, October 5, 2012