The SportsThink Weekly Review #9

August 7, 2020

Hello and welcome to the ninth edition of the Weekly Review. Hope you’re all hanging in there and enjoying the return of live sports.

Inside the Lines: The Best Writing on Sports I Read This Week

1. Will Coronavirus Dim the Friday Night Lights of Texas High School Football? by Molly Hennessy-Fiske, via the LA Times. From the ground here in the Lone Star State, the answer feels like “sort-of.”

2. Fathers, Sons and Soccer: Reflections on the Family Business by Rory Smith, via the NYT. A nice one from one of the best soccer writers in the game.

3. Body Beautiful: In Boxing, Aesthetics Don’t Count for Much by William D’Urso, via SBNation. Interesting stuff. I can now claim that I’m maintaining my current physique to keep an advantage if I ever step in the ring. D’Urso mentions the first Joshua v. Ruiz fight as an example, which is summarized nicely in the video below. Make sure the sound is up from the start to hear the commentators’ bias for Joshua’s impressive (but losing) physique.

4. Inside Helen Maroulis’s Grueling Struggle to Overcome Brain Trauma and Return for the Tokyo Olympics by Abigail Pesta, via SI. Heavy and good.

5. Inside the NBA Bubble’s Unofficial Wine Club by Baxter Holmes, via ESPN. Light and amusing, like a chilled Beaujolais.

6. Texas Tech Women's Basketball Players Describe toxic Culture: 'Fear, anxiety and depression' by Jori Epstien and Daniel Libit, via USA Today. A bonus sixth read. Not a fun one, but essential investigative journalism. Coach Stollings has been fired because of this report, but it’s pretty damning that TTU even allowed her to stay on in the wake of the exit interviews from her players.

The Week on SportsThink

One long-ish read:

• Some Musings on the Return of Sports, From Novelty to History

And a few quick ones:

• Tuesday Links

• Should We Penalize Pros Who Test Positive?

• XFL 3.0, Thanks to The Rock

• Purse Concerns in Boxing

Non-sports Reading

1. How Much Things Can Change by Rodney Brooks, via his blog. A scientist reflects on progress.

2. How The Pandemic Has Clogged The Global Economy With Paper Currency by JP Konig, via his Moneyness blog. Where is all the cash coming from? Criminals might be the answer.

3. Thinking the Unthinkable: Buying and Selling Human Organs by Simon Haeder, via the Milken Review. Should we be in favor of a marketplace for organs?

As always, thank you so much for reading. Please consider sharing the newsletter with someone if you’ve been enjoying it thus far.

See you next week,

Tolga