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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!
Hello, friends, and happy Saturday. Hope your holiday hustle is mostly pleasurable. I was traveling this week, so I’m a day behind the usual schedule, but here we are. Sadly, the sports world suffered some notable losses this week, so that’s the brunt of my focus this time around. Let’s get to it.
Remembrances: Grant Wahl and Mike Leach
Death comes as it does, but it seems to hurt those left behind more when it comes suddenly. In the last week, we suddenly lost soccer journalist Grant Wahl (48) and college football coach Mike Leach (61). The older I get, the younger those ages seem.
The two men were of course rather different, but in the big picture perhaps more similar than they might seem. They were both resolutely committed to their passions. Wahl, the greatest American soccer writer of his generation (arguably ever?) wrote beautifully about soccer, long before the sport’s recent rise to prominence in the US. He nurtured our love of the game, but was also an incisive critic when it was necessary, of the US Federation, of FIFA, of Qatar, of any corruption and injustice that sullied the beautiful game. Back in the stone ages of American soccer coverage, I always had Grant Wahl’s writing and it was almost always damn good. Leach was the ultimate individual in a profession that seems to prioritize an interchangeable mundanity of personality as a job requirement. In a sea of old white dudes in pleated khakis spouting platitudes, you never knew what was going to come out of Leach’s mouth (ok he was an old white dude in pleated khakis as well, but that’s not the point). But when Leach spoke, he was almost always spouting gold. He was irreverent, funny, and brilliant, if not a little brusque. When it came to football, he was a genius whose offensive schemes literally changed the game. He enjoyed his greatest successes with Texas Tech, peaking around the time I came to Austin and became a Longhorn. I had to pretend to hate the Lubbockian tortilla tossers, but how could I not love them? Leach’s offense was fast, confusing, and prolific, an absurdist affront to everything football was supposed to be, he seemed to understand that the defense’s job is to just hold the other guys to one point less than you score, and they won tons of games with guys no one else really wanted. It was perfect. (And, to be clear, since Leach left, I’ve happily adopted a disdain for all things Tech.)
Both men were also quietly generous, as has become readily apparent with the outpouring of tributes online in the past week. Just search their names on Twitter or Reddit. Scores of journalists have shared stories about the support and guidance they received from Wahl, especially early in their careers. It seems that he was a man who made time for everyone. The same can be said for Leach, who seemed to lean into the dickish character we cast upon, but spent his time in football kickstarting careers for plenty of now-famous coaches and quietly took many opportunities to extend his support and influence to fans, student journalists, and anyone else in his sphere who might need a boost.
RIP to both.
There has of course been a ton written on these two, so I’ll just share a couple things. For traditional obituaries, the New York Times still puts out the best. Here’s Wahl and here’s Leach. Pat Forde on Leach, for SI, is also quite good. Of the many tributes to Wahl, I most enjoyed Jeff Pearlman’s, which can be found at the bottom of his newsletter here. (The feature piece at the top is also pretty good, but not related to the subjects at hand.)
My all-time favorite Wahl piece is one I actually shared in the newsletter a little while back. Here it is again, a wonderful travelogue about FC Sherrif, in the badlands of Transnitria. Really good.
I am far from a technical expert when it comes to football, but I thought this exhaustive breakdown of Leach’s Air Raid system was really cool. And of course, for a man best known for his off-the-cuff commentary, here’s a thread of coach Leach being Coach Leach. I wish it went further back in time, but there’s some good stuff in there…and it makes me a little sad to note that it was posted when he was hospitalized and there was hope for him to pull through. (Just click and you’ll get a bunch of videos.)
One Last World Cup Piece
Lionel Messi, Argentina’s Pavement Artist Who Sees Shapes Before Others (Barney Ronay, the Guardian)
A lovely little piece on the arguable soccer GOAT, Messi. I missed this earlier in the month. Ostensibly a recap of Messi’s performance against Australia, but subtly poetic and as close to capturing Messi’s metaphysical (messiphysical??) magic as words might get. If you read this before Sunday morning, it’s a bit of a preview for the France v. Argentina final, Messi’s final crack to win the one trophy that’s eluded him. After the match, it might read as a eulogy or part of some greater testimony. We’ll see. But definitely watch.
As always, thanks for reading. Please send recommendations and share the newsletter!
See you next week,
Tolga