Best of 2018: Sports Writing

An ESPN The Magazine collaboration. Daylight goes by fast in Doha. Jet lag clings, but not to the elite gymnasts who land days ahead and resist luscious naps. It’s October warm in the blockaded country of Qatar, and Simone Biles is somewhere in a state-of-the-art all-women’s wing of a hospital taking Aleve for a kidney […]

The tennis fan favorite talks to GQ about "emotions tennis," why he has Roger Federer's respect, and just how close he came to retiring.

The short guy with the shoulder injury. The rejection in San Diego and the posthurricane redemption in New Orleans. Six feet of calm, cool and collected dad, overshadowed by his glitzier quarterback cohort. If this is how you see the Saints’ quarterback—b

As of November 5, it looks likely that Larry Nassar has destroyed USA Gymnastics. Before getting caught, he managed to abuse women and girls whose names you know — Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney — and hundreds whose names you don’t.

“You ought to do a story about me.”

Both of these stories are extraordinary examples of my favorite kind of sportswriting — the kind that uses sports’ near-universal appeal and reach to illuminate social and political issues. “The Children of Central City” uses the lens of one youth football team in New Orleans to examine violence in one of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods; as its former coach explains early in the multi-part series, he’s had 28 former players be shot and killed over a 14 year span. The football team is a jumping off point through which the authors (and director — there’s a corresponding documentary) c…

For Aleksander Doba, pitting himself against the wide-open sea — storms, sunstroke, monotony, hunger and loneliness — is a way to feel alive in old age.