The SportsThink Weekly Review #12
The SportsThink Weekly Review #12
August 28, 2020
Hello and welcome to the twelfth installment of the Weekly Review! What a week: a historic, emotional moment in the sports world, one we’ll be talking about for some time to come. Some reading on current events below, in addition to some less topical (but really interesting) things I came across this week. Happy reading!
Inside the Lines: The Best Writing on Sports I Read This Week
On the player’s strikes and this major moment in American sports:
With Walkouts, a New High Bar for Protests in Sports Is Set by Kurt Streeter, via the NYT.
What We’ll Remember Most From a Historic Week in the NBA, a nice panel from ESPN, including video.
Colliding Contradictions Crack the NBA’s Political Facade by Brian Phillips, via The Ringer. Good analysis here.
Probably my favorite athlete take of the week, from the Washington Mystics’ Ariel Atkins. Strong words from the 24 year old. (I’m biased here, as Ariel was a student of mine at UT. I take no credit; she’s always been mature and wise beyond her years, in addition to being a serious baller.)
Consumed by Grayson Schaffer, via Outside. An intense story of whitewater kayaking, from 2011. “I ask myself, Are you ready to die? I give it some serious thought. I believe I am. I look back on my life, and I feel satisfied.”
Stepping Out by Clair Wills, via the New York Review of Books. On dance, which while not a sport, is very physical and of our bodies.
Why Do Tennis Crowds Have to Be So Quiet? by Dan Nosowitz, via Atlas Obscura. Very cool history here.
Is That a Bug on Your Hat? by Scott Hines, via his Action Cookbook newsletter. On the pleasures of wearing esoteric merchandise from schools we didn’t attend.
The Week on SportsThink
With classes starting this week, I’m still a bit slow on output on the blog, but I wrote two pieces that I hope you’ll enjoy. A short look at higher scoring in the NBA bubble and some longer thoughts on the continued acceleration of partisan politics in sports.
Non-Sports Reads
How to Not Deal With a Murder in Space by Sam Kean via Slate. A look at a murder in the arctic and the implications for crime in outer space.
Optimal Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches by Ethan Rosenthal, via his blog. This is a bit dense, but fascinating. I’m not sure I totally understand it. On using machine learning to build a better sandwich.
As always thanks for reading and letting me into your inbox. If you’re enjoying the newsletter (or the blog!), please consider sharing with someone else who might like it too.
See you next week,
Tolga