Love and Basketball and Writing

While I was in Toronto for work this past week, I had a chance to grab lunch with a writer friend of mine. We got to talking about young writers. He hears from something like 7,392 a day, many of whom are around my age—25—and crazy frustrated. Not enough is happening fast enough for their liking and they wonder if they should quit. We wondered if a lot of them really love writing, or whether maybe they just like the idea of being a writer.

Because dude, if you don't love this, you ain't gonna make it. Like all great work worth admiring, great writing is a great struggle. You have to slave over the words. It’s the only way to build a great story. 

For some reason, our talk made me think about my basketball career* and then it made me think about writing and then that made me think about whether or not we should write for free. 

* Okay, more like, "career."

It'll make sense in a second. 

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Ed Thomas and Small Town, Iowa, and What They Know That We Sometimes Forget

Sports Illustrated ran this story in July 2009 about Ed Thomas, the beloved Aplington-Parkersburg High School football coach who was shot to death by a former player. Written by Lee Jenkins, one of the best sportswriters around, the piece is beautiful. I'd forgotten about it until tonight, when I watched the video  after a friend posted it to Facebook (available after the jump).  If you read the story and watch the video you'll know the full scope of why it moved me. It'll move anyone who watches it. The family of the downed coach stood up in front of their community and said that they forgave the family of the boy who shot Coach.What struck me, though, was something Aaron Thomas, one of Ed's sons, said toward the end of the video. 

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