Football

The Ballad of Big Mike by Michael Lewis

Every other high-school football player in America was dying for Lemming to invite him to play in the U.S. Army All-
American Bowl. Michael Oher had left his invitation on the table…
Friday Night Lights by Buzz Bissinger
Outside, the August night was cool and serene, with just a wisp of West Texas wind. Inside, there was a sense of
excitement and also relief, for the waiting was basically over...
Game Brain by Jeanne Marie Laskas
Let's say you run a multibillion-dollar football league. And let's concussions are making your players crazy. What
would you do?
G-L-O-R-Y! by Jeanne Marie Laskas
The hot, peppy, underpaid world of the NFL cheerleaders
There's No Crying at the Pee Wee Super Bowl by Jeanne Marie Laskas
The biggest little game in the world...
Tennis
Federer as Religious Experience
by David Foster Wallace
The world of top-flight tennis, and arguably its greatest exponent
The String Theory by David Foster Wallace
An obsessive inquiry into the physics and metaphysics of tennis
Running
Usain Bolt, Mutant by Luke Dittrich
What would happen if the fastest man on earth started making an effort?
Is the Fastest Human Ever Already Alive? by Chuck Klosterman
Allow me to spare you the hyperbole: Usain Bolt is fast...
The Fast Life of Oscar Pistorius by Michael Sokolove
Should a double amputee be allowed to race against the world's best able- bodied athletes, or could
his disability offer him an unfair advantage?
Either/Or by Ariel Levy
How world-class sprinter Caster Semenya puts the idea of binary genders into question.
Yoga
Why Yoga Can Be So Irritating by Sarah Miller
(Although You Should Go Anyway!)
How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body by William J. Broad
Popped ribs, brain injuries, blinding pain. Are the healing rewards worth the risks?
Misc.
The Istanbul Derby by Spencer Hall
Soccer, fire and a game at the world's crossroads
The Sea of Crises by Brian Phillips
On sumo, ritual suicide and the death of samurai culture
Triumph Of The Swoosh by Donald Katz
With a keen sense of the power of sports and a genius for mythologizing athletes to help sell sneakers, Nike
bestrides the world of sport like a marketing colossus
Why Sports Are for Losers by Matti Taibbi
"There is a dirty truth that professional sports keeps hidden from fans, i.e., guys like you and me who spend winter
after winter wondering, What if? And that truth is: Watching sports sucks"