Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated on his Mike Powell Story "Man In Full"—And Way More
It's a good day here at The Blog. No, not because of Valentine's Day, which Katie and I totally loserishly do not celebrate, as is explained in my previous post. Not even because it's Tuesday. I actually kind of like Mondays. Well, most Mondays. Some Mondays are just ugly. But most are actually pretty okay.
Mostly though, it's a good day because today Sports Illustrated senior writer Chris Ballard joins us to talk more writing and journalism and his latest bonus story "Man In Full," which came out in last week's SI. We also talk dunking, fatherhood, husband-being, writing in bars, and how at 38 he can still dunk a basketball.
If you haven't read "Man In Full" yet, I high recommend you click here and get started. It's a master class in in-depth reporting and longform story structure. It's also about 7,500 words long, so give yourself a minute or two to really dig through it. Trust me though: it's worth it.
As always, I emailed Chris the questions and let him do with them what he does best: write. He got carried away. He wrote like 5,000 words total. He felt sort of bad about it. I told him he should feel the opposite, because I'm a vacuum for knowledge about this stuff, and I know lots of you are, too. So yeah, get comfy. If you want to print it out, click here.
Also, if you have any questions for Chris, go on and drop them in the comments at the end of this post. You can also hit him up on Twitter, where he is @SI_ChrisBallard. (If you have questions for me for whatever reason, I'm also on Twitter as @brandonsneed.)
Finally, it goes without saying: enjoy. I sure did.
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Feb 14, 2012 | |
"Man in Full"
Chris Ballard
Mike Powell
One Shot At Forever
Sports Illustrated 







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