Ballard Chris - The best American sports writing. 2016

Copyright 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Introduction copyright 2016 by Rick Telander

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ISSN 1056-8034

ISBN 978-0-544-61731-5

e ISBN 978-0-544-61846-6
v1.0816

Cover design by Christopher Moisan Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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Revenge of the Nerds by Chris Ballard. First published in Sports Illustrated, November 24, 2015. Copyright 2015 by Sports Illustrated. Reprinted by permission of Sports Illustrated.

Meet Mago, Former Heavyweight by Dan Barry. First published in the New York Times, May 4, 2015. Copyright 2015 by the New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the copyright laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this content without express written permission is prohibited.

Hes the Last Boxer to Beat Floyd Mayweather Jr., and He So Regrets It by Sam Borden. First published in the New York Times, April 4, 2015. Copyright 2015 by the New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the copyright laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this content without express written permission is prohibited.

Hold On, Boys by John Branch. First published in the New York Times, March 15, 2015. Copyright 2015 by the New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the copyright laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this content without express written permission is prohibited.

Zilong Wang and the Tale of the White Dragon Horse and the Karmic Moonbeams of Destiny That Restored All Faith in Humanity by John Brant. First published in Bicycling, October 28, 2015. Copyright 2015 by John Brant. Reprinted by permission of John Brant.

A Long Walks End by William Browning. First published in SB Nation Longform. Copyright 2015 by William Browning. Reprinted by permission of William Browning.

Its Only a Few Words, But Its Motivation from Lynch by Matt Calkins. First published in the Seattle Times, December 6, 2015. Copyright 2015 by the Seattle Times Company. Used with permission.

The King of Tides by Kim Cross. First published in Southwest Magazine, July 2015. Copyright 2015 by Kim Cross. Reprinted by permission of Kim Cross.

Rotten Ice by Gretel Ehrlich. First published in Harpers Magazine, April 2015. Copyright 2015 by Harpers Magazine. All Rights reserved. Reproduced from the April issue by special permission.

Why Chris Borland Is the Most Dangerous Man in Football by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru. First published in ESPN the Magazine, August 20, 2015. Copyright 2015 by ESPN, Inc. Reprinted by permission of ESPN.

Spun by Steve Friedman. First published in Bicycling, June 2015. Copyright 2015 by Steve Friedman. Reprinted by permission of Steve Friedman.

Theres Somebody Ruthless on the Way by Chris Jones. First published in Esquire, May 2015. Copyright 2015 by Chris Jones. Reprinted by permission of Chris Jones.

Follow the White Ball by Sam Knight. First published in The New Yorker, March 30, 2015. Copyright 2015 by Sam Knight. Reprinted by permission of Sam Knight.

Learn to Dunk by Michael McKnight. First published in Sports Illustrated, June 3, 2015. Copyright 2015 by Sports Illustrated. Reprinted by permission of Sports Illustrated.

The High Life and Fast Times of Jim Dent by Michael Mooney. First published in D Magazine, August 2015. Copyright 2015 by D Magazine Partners. Reprinted by permission of D Magazine Partners.

Her Decision, Their Life by Eric Moskowitz. First published in the Boston Globe, January 25, 2015. Copyright 2015 by Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC. Reprinted by permission of Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC.

About Winning by Henley OBrien. First published in the Sun, December 2015. Copyright 2015 by Henley OBrien. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Stopping the Fight by Brett Popplewell. First published in Sportsnet Magazine. Copyright 2015 by Sportsnet Magazine. Reprinted by permission of Rogers Media.

A Woman Fell from a Stadium by Michael Rosenberg. First published in Sports Illustrated, February 10, 2015. Copyright 2015 by Sports Illustrated. Reprinted by permission of Sports Illustrated.

Ruck and Roll by Steve Rushin. First published in Sports Illustrated, November 2, 2015. Copyright 2015 by Sports Illustrated. Reprinted by permission of Sports Illustrated.

Why Him, Why Me? by Eli Saslow. First published in ESPN the Magazine, November 17, 2015. Copyright 2015 by ESPN, Inc. Reprinted by permission of ESPN.

American Hustle by Alexandra Starr. First published in Harpers Magazine, April 2015. Copyright 2015 by Harpers Magazine. All rights reserved. Reproduced from the April issue by special permission.

The Greatest Hitter Still Lives On by Wright Thompson. First published in ESPN the Magazine, May 5, 2015. Copyright 2015 by ESPN, Inc. Reprinted by permission of ESPN.

Going Home by Chris Van Leuven. First published in Alpinist, August 14, 2015. Copyright 2015 by Chris Van Leuven. Reprinted by permission of Chris Van Leuven.

The Patriot Way by Don Van Natta and Seth Wickersham. First published in ESPN the Magazine, September 7, 2015 (Original title: Spygate to Deflategate: Inside What Split the NFL and Patriots Apart). Copyright 2015 by ESPN, Inc. Reprinted by permission of ESPN.

Smack Epidemic by L. Jon Wertheim and Ken Rodriguez. First published in Sports Illustrated, June 22, 2015. Copyright 2015 by Sports Illustrated. Reprinted by permission of Sports Illustrated.

Board in the Florida Suburbs by Chris Wiewiora. First published in the Atticus Review, October 13, 2015. Copyright 2015 by Chris Wiewiora. Reprinted by permission of Chris Wiewiora.

All writers have their own creation mythor, as one of my nonfiction friends prefers, an origination story, the turning point where it all began, where the past became the past and the writing life took over, present tense, never to leave again.

Mine begins sometime in 1975. I had just turned 16 and was still in high school in a small town in central Ohio. Nearly every weekend I would borrow the Dodge Dart, and with maybe $10 in my pocket saved from what I earned cleaning bathrooms after school, I would travel from the cornrow-straight country road where I lived toward Columbus, a half-hour trip through the wealthier suburbs. The drive would take me by the Scioto Country Club, site of the 1926 U.S. Open, and past Nicklaus Drugs, where I wondered if Jacks dad still filled prescriptions or if the Golden Bear himself sometimes dropped in for some Ben-Gay. As I neared High Street, the major northsouth thoroughfare that skirted the campus of the Ohio State University, I would see, on the horizon, Ohio Stadium, OSUs Horseshoe, once the largest poured-concrete structure in the world, brutal and cloudy gray as if covered with all the dust churned up from those three-yard plunges into the line. My mother worked at another nearby drugstore and had once waited on coach Woody Hayes and his wife. (She told me that he was impatient and not very nice, and that when he spoke he sounded like my grandmother.)