The SportsThink Weekly Review #71
October 7, 2022
Welcome new readers! The SportsThink Weekly Review highlights my favorite sport-related reading of the week. Most articles are recently published, but some are not; the only rule is that I’ve read them within the past week. Some are relevant to my day job as a professor teaching courses on the business, history, and philosophy of sports. Others are just plain interesting, relevant to my life-long obsession with the games we play. I also occasionally share articles and assorted musings on Twitter. The newsletter is free, but comes with two requests. 1. I’m always open to suggestions, so send me the good stuff that you read! 2. If you enjoy the newsletter, please share it with other folks who might enjoy it as well. Finally, I try to focus on non-paywalled writing, but if you find yourself unable to access anything, just hit reply to the email and I’ll do my best to get you a copy. Thanks for reading!
My apologies everyone, no reads to share this week. I was part of a team putting on an event, we had some guests on campus, and then there’s just life in general. If you’re itching for some content, I’ll direct you to the archives, where I’m approaching 100 editions of the various incarnations of the newsletter. Plenty of stuff in there.
Hopefully I can make it up to you next week. For now, I’d just like to celebrate the life of Jim Redmond, who passed away this week. Redmond’s isn’t a household name, but if you’re of a certain age you might remember the moment in the video below. Redmond’s son, Derek, was contending for Olympic glory in Barcelona when he tore his hamstring during the semi-finals in the 400. He bravely tried to finish the race on his own, visibly in a ton of pain. Out of the stands came his father, to help him across the line. The result in the record books is a “did not finish,” but this will always be a victory for humanity. For thirty years, this has been one of my favorite moments in all of sport, but as a father, it has hit different in recent years. I’m not sure what exactly Papa Redmond said to the official he waved off, but his face and body language carry the most tremendous dad energy, in the best possible way. May he rest in peace.
And here’s the original broadcast if you want the full race and stadium sound.
As always, thanks for reading. Please consider sharing the newsletter.
See you next week,
Tolga