How Sports Illustrated Got The Jason Collins Coming Out Story

Click here to read a cool behind-the-scenes look at how SI landed that groundbreaking Jason Collins cover story. Highlights: 

At 9 a.m. last Friday the writer Franz Lidz drove to the Los Angeles home of Jason Collins with a completed draft of a story on which the two had collaborated two days earlier. When he arrived, Lidz was introduced to Collins' mother and father; his twin brother, Jarron; and a high school classmate. They, along with Jason, would have final approval. As the group gathered around the kitchen table, Lidz's daughter Daisy offered a suggestion: Why not have Jason read the story aloud?

Shortly after 8 on Easter morning, Lidz, a senior writer at Sports Illustrated from 1988 to 2007, phoned me at my home. Representatives of an active NBA player, whom they did not identify, had told Lidz that their client was considering sharing, publicly, that he was gay.

The player had agreed to speak to SI on Wednesday, April 24, in Los Angeles, a week after the end of the NBA regular season.

The player's identity remained unknown to Lidz until the agreed-upon date. He, and we, knew there was a very real, understandable possibility that the player could change his mind. Lidz and SI executive editor Jon Wertheim arrived in L.A. on the night of April 23. At noon the next day, they were directed to meet with Collins at his home. For four hours Collins shared his story with remarkable clarity, directness, emotion and humor (keyword: Shaq). There was a deeply moving note of graciousness too.

[Collins reading] "...pretty much every family I know has a brother, sister or cousin who's gay. In the brotherhood of the NBA, I just happen to be the one who's out."

After Collins, having choked up a half-dozen times, read those last words of his story, the kitchen was quiet for a beat. His mother broke the silence. "One thing I disagree with," she said. "Your aunt Teri is a superior court judge in San Francisco." There was laughter at the nitpick, then the happy silence of the very proud.

Helping Pop Herring

Update: Thomas Lake started a fundraising page for Pop Herring at IndieGoGo.com. Here's the link: click.

Pop Herring (from SI.com)

Back in January, Sports Illustrated’s Tom Lake profiled Pop Herring, the man who purportedly cut Michael Jordan from his high school team in Wilmington, NC, way back when. It was a fantastic story, and Tom was even kind enough to let me interview him about it. Tom had also hoped the piece would get Jordan’s attention, as Herring had not in fact cut Jordan and had even been incredibly kind and generous, opening the gym early for Jordan to work on his game, giving him rides and even loaning him his car, and the like.

Well, Jordan never responded, and Herring, who’s suffered from a debilitating mental illness, went from bad to worse. He recently landed in jail. Lake went back to Wilmington to check it out. What he found was that Herring had been drunk when police came looking for someone else, and that got him locked up. He’d stayed in jail for weeks because he simply had nobody to bail him out. Lake ultimately decided to bail Herring out, and then when he sat down to write about about Pop's latest developments, it took the form of an impassioned and powerful open letter directed at Michael Jordan, imploring him to help the man who in his most formative years helped him take those all-important first steps toward becoming the basketball player he is today.

Thomas LakeThe reaction has been loud and mixed. Lake (@ThomasLake on Twitter) has been equal parts praised and blasted. When I initially read his piece, titled “A letter to Michael Jordan: Shame on you for refusing to help Pop,” I thought what Lake had done was, on a human level, awesome. As a journalist, I was torn. There’s a fine line we journalists have to walk when it comes to advocacy, and it’s a safe argument to make that Jordan doesn’t really owe Pop anything. One could even argue that Lake overstepped his bounds as a journalist, as was argued fairly and thoughtfully by, among many others, Wilmington Star-News sports editor Dan Spears. 

I’d planned to ask Lake if he wanted to come on the blog and talk a little bit more about the situation, maybe explain some of his thinking behind these decisions and all that, but radio talk show host Scott Hennessee (@ScottHennessee) got to him first. It was a to-the-point 10-minute talk, and Lake was thorough in his explanation. You can listen to it by clicking here, or if you prefer to read, I’ve transcribed it for you below. It's a quick read, and well worth the time. 

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Stories' Stories: Chris Ballard on his Sports Illustrated Story "Man In Full" And Much 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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Stories' Stories: Sports Illustrated's Thomas Lake on Pop Herring, Making It In Journalism, and More

Today I am totally stoked to bring you this interview with Thomas Lake. Lake is a senior writer at Sports Illustrated. He is 31 years old. He wrote a good story in a recent issue of Sports Illustrated. ("Did This Man Really Cut Michael Jordan?") Only by "good" I mean "phenomenal" and other such over-the-top adjectives. I asked him some questions about it over email. Which was great, because it let Lake do what Lake does best, which is write, and he writes—as always—really, really well down there. Lots of smart thoughts, lots of good sentences. Just good stuff all around.

Since it's pretty long, I'll shut up now and just let the interview go. So ladies and gentlemen, Lake on making it as a journalist, coffee, how and why to get yourself good at what you do, and, of course, Pop Herring. I'd say "enjoy," but I know you will anyway, because Lake responded to everything just amazingly, so I'll just stop saying things and let you finally get to reading.

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Stories' Stories: SI's Tommy Tomlinson On His Harvey Updyke Story "Something Went Very Wrong At Toomer's Corner"

This originally appeared at my other blog, HeyGoodCall.com.

Writer Tommy Tomlinson took way more time than he should have to answer the way too many questions I asked him about his recent story in Sports Illustrated about Harvey Updyke, the Alabama fan who poisoned the iconic oaks at Auburn’s Toomer’s Corner. 

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A salute to the veterans

An American soldier, a veteran of Iraq, once told me, "You know, being a warrior’s not like the movies, that’s for sure." He continued,

"You know, it just goes back to the same – you’re not thinking about your family. Not thinking about what you’re doing the next day. All you’re thinking about is your guys, especially in a firefight. You’re thinking about their safety and how you’re going to get out of their predicament in one piece.

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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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"Sneed is learning how to surf"

I'm starting to do more first-person experience features for the Wilmington StarNews. My first one is this one, about me trying to learn how to surf. As usual, it involved mass amounts of failure.

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Five Ways I Fight Writer's Slog

Some days, like yesterday, writing is hard. And some days, like yesterday, I really need writing to come more easily. This post explores five things I sometimes try to break out of writer's slog.

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