jrn 573de - sports literature: week one lecture

JRN 573 - Sports Literature

Rich Hanley, Associate ProfessorSpring 2015/ Week One


Week One - 1

● We open the class with two published interviews with accomplished factual writers and an autobiographical article by one of the top sportswriters in the U.S. today, Christine Brennan.

● In addition, we offer two objects of literature: one a short excerpt from a book, the other a poem.


Week One - 2

● Taken together, the materials for the week reveal sports literature to be a broad field that includes factual and fictional perspectives on activities that consume the American public.

● In short, sports literature seeks to answer questions that range beyond the scores and the heroes.


Week One - 3

● We will read works by many writers later in the semester but the interviews and autobiographical article of the three referenced this week present background to the craft of writing about sports at a literary level.


Week One - 4

● The subjects of the interviews are John McPhee and Hunter Thompson and the article is an autobiographical account of Christine Brennan’s career.

● They represent different approaches to the craft: truth in detail (McPhee), observation and opinion (Thompson), and a combination of all (Brennan).


Week One - 5

● The interviews and article are not entirely specific to sports literature but both provide critical insight into the approaches of key figures in factual sports literature.

● McPhee and Thompson wrote many stories on sports, and Brennan remains as one of the top sportswriters in the U.S., so their process is important to our course.


Week One - 6

John McPhee


Week One - 7

Hunter S. Thompson


Week One - 8

Christine Brennan


Week One - 9

● McPhee describes himself this way in the interview:

● “I’m a writer who writes about real people in real places. End of story.”


Week One - 10

● And that approach is clearly evident in A Sense of Where You Are, a piece about basketball great Bill Bradley.

● An excerpt of this work is part of The New Yorker anthology sequence later in the semester.


Week One - 11


Week One - 12

● Hunter S. Thompson’s blend of observation with opinion emerged first in the 1960s but he reached a new generation in the 2000s as a columnist for ESPN.com

● His book Hey Rube is among the choices for the final paper. It is a collection of his ESPN work and stands as representative of his “gonzo” approach.


Week One - 13


Week One - 14

● Christine Brennan’s book Inside Edge also is on the list of choices for the final paper. Sports Illustrated named it as one of the top 100 sports books of all time.

● The book revealed the internal competition, intrique and grueling practices that are masked by the graceful routines must viewers see only during the Winter Olympics.


Week One - 15


Week One - 16

● Again, we will read a McPhee excerpt later in the semester and Thompson and Brennan are among the authors whose works may be used for the final paper.

● Right now, though, our goal with this week’s interviews and autobiographical article is to help us understand writers who tell stories of life through sports.


Week One - 17

● The two other pieces of required reading this week reveals how sports literature can serve the highest ideals of both factual writing and poetry.


Week One - 18

● "The Interior Stadium” by Roger Angell is an excerpt from his book The Summer Game.

● The excerpt opens with one of the greatest sentences in the history of factual sports literature:


Week One - 19

● "Sports are too much with us.”


Week One - 20

● Angell goes on to write that:

“In the midst of all these successive spectacles and instant replays and endless reportings and recapitulations, we seem to have forgotten what we came for.”


Week One - 21

● We will read another piece by Angell in The New Yorker anthology sequence but for now, a response to his concerns may be found in a poem.

● The poem is “Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry,

Ohio” by James Wright.


Week One - 22

● "Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio” illuminates football in a middling, industrial – a dying one, at that – town in Ohio.

● It is sparse, unsentimental work that observes the role of football in the town and how it is both important and destructive.


Week One - 23

● This short poem represents the best of sports literature in that it concisely conveys life revealed through sports.

● And that’s what sports literature is all about.


Week One - 24

jrn 573de - sports literature: week one lecture

Education

sports literature week

factual sports literature

sports books

sports literature rich

objects of literature

week present background

autobiographical article

hunter thompson