sports
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LeBron James as Personal Essayist
Beneath all personal essays, especially those that deal with trauma, a change, or, in James’s case, a tough decision, the implicit narrative is that the author is presently in a clear enough place to produce the prose.
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Politics and Football
The Millions takes a look at Rumpus columnist Steve Almond‘s book Against Football: Almond stalks through his arguments against the modern state of football at a pace that is both clipped and highly personal. There is a lot of shame…
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Leaving Early
I wasn’t looking at them, but I felt I should have been. It’s an act of bravery, to see and be seen, isn’t it? A way to connect? And wasn’t I, just then, needing to feel something like brave?
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The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Steve Almond
The Rumpus Book Club chats with Steve Almond about his new book, Against Football, One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto, the complicity of fans in the violence of the NFL, the sports media’s role in the discussion (or lack of one) and…
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Like Tiny Little Cracks
Steve Prefontaine, known simply as Pre to the hordes of teenage runners who idolized him, once said, “Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it.”
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A Super Bowl Preview for People Who Don’t Know Football (2014 Edition)
If you don’t watch football but might be forced to watch the Super Bowl, this may help.
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Test Scores Over Football Scores
Officials in Pasco County, Florida, have considered squeezing athletic budgets for each of the past six years. They’ve so far agreed to cut about 700 education jobs, and they extended winter break in 2011, but sports have been left mostly…
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No-Look
The first man to make me feel like I could groove in America was Magic Johnson. Not just be here, not just make it through a school day without crying, but groove: exist with such assurance that I could look…
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The Dark Heart of College Sports
Here is an actual thing said by an actual sports marketing executive to a group of commissioners trying to reform college sports: “You sold your souls, and you’re going to continue selling them. You can be very moral and righteous…
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Non-fan Nato’s Guide to Super Bowl Rioting
As the 49ers head to the Super Bowl, San Francisco can’t stuff its excitement into a hemp messenger bag fast enough. In one season, our City—Bill O’Reilly’s favorite punchline for everything fey and un-American—may defeat the nation in baseball and…
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A FAN’S NOTES, THE RUMPUS SPORTS COLUMN #44: The Immortal Head-butt
What if one of your worst moments as a human being was sculpted into a 16-foot-tall bronze statue and displayed in front of a shopping mall? Or a Parisian art museum?
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The Honesty of Aggression
The continual references to my sex are striking. On the one hand, they stand in stark contrast to the identity-digging that I am attempting. On the other, they resonate: trying on aggression for size is foreign territory.