The Mind-Body Problem: Hurdling with Anxiety
byWhat happens when the body fails us? In 2012, at eighteen I clipped the fourth hurdle in the state qualifying 300-meter hurdle race and fell. I couldn’t finish, either from…
Sports
Entitled
byAs kids we played football in the school parking lot, tearing our jeans, and bloodying our elbows on the uneven asphalt, pretending to be Black NFL players. I was my…
For the Love of Donnie Baseball
byI wanted to be Don Mattingly. A power-hitting first baseman with a Mario moustache and greasy slabs of eye black streaked across his cheekbone, he was the type of man…
Tidal Wave
byOn this August afternoon, the summer sun blazing in the western sky, I’m one of 15,000 enthusiastic spectators watching a women’s professional soccer match. Men, women, and children cheer from…
Love in the Time of Horse Collars
byIn 1979 my father refused to prosecute Dan Hampton. The then rookie Chicago Bears defensive lineman had been arrested for driving under the influence the night after he helped the…
Comrades
bySometimes, you know you have to do a thing, even if you can’t say why. But sitting in the taxi on the way to LAX, I couldn’t help but wonder…
The Queens of the Mountains
byUntil recently, the Tour de France, the most momentous contest in professional cycling and a headline event in world sports, provided no opportunity for women. The most esteemed female cyclists…
Missed Opportunities
byBy the spring of our freshman year of high school, Jimmy had been afforded sufficient opportunity to showcase his general—which is to say, abject and uncorrectable—lack of athleticism. Even under…
Giving My Brother Slides
byAs a kid, I was never fully accustomed to what it meant to faithfully watch the Super Bowl every year like most American families do. I never fully grasped what…
The Godliness of Michael Jordan
byAny sport—yes, any of them—can be reduced to an absurdity, given even a moment’s thought. Keeping a ball above the ground, putting it in a certain place by a certain…