I am a lucky man.
Our favorite SB Nation stories of the year
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
As an editor for this website, I get to spend my days reading the work of the internet’s most talented collection of writers and reporters. And with the year winding down, I thought it only fitting that I collect just a small list of some of our favorite stuff we did this year.
I hope these can bring you some joy, open your mind to a new experience or perspective...or at least give you something that can, however momentarily, provide you an escape from the family this season. Happy holidays from all of us at SB Nation.
Profiles
Whitney McIntosh went to the U.S. Open to watch the legends of the game and got swept up in the whirlwind that was Denis Shapovalov, the 18-year-old Canadian with the stringy blonde hair and the too-big smile.
Jordan Brenner’s excellent profile showed Okafor at his most vulnerable — stuck in a void, failed by the Process, and spending his days at the movies; a 7-foot-tall Walker Percy character brought to the NBA.
Charlotte Wilder spent two days with the Eagles defensive end as he decided to donate all of his game checks of the season to charity, and she dug in to find out why he had left the Patriots...and why he still played the game.
Paul Flannery’s fascinating profile gives you a window into the life of an NBA assistant coach, its long hours, and the precise work that goes into preparing for every game.
Bill Connelly traveled to Stillwater to get to know the man behind the mullet and learned a lot about the changing program (and what T. Boone Pickens has to do with the whole thing).
Jessica Smetana doesn’t write for us enough, but I was delighted with this profile of Cam McDaniel, who you all know as the Ridiculously Photogenic Notre Dame Running Back. A lovely dive behind the meme.
Adventures
Louis Bien’s journey to Kakuma, a massive refugee camp in Kenya, goes beyond reporting on a soccer league and tells a painfully human story of dreams deferred and the cost of war, but manages to maintain hope throughout. One that stays with you.
Atlanta native Harry Lyles Jr. went to an MLS game and came away with a new appreciation for his city, its fandom, and the beautiful game. Plus an unforgettable cameo from a security officer who may be Atlanta’s biggest soccer fan.
I wasn’t expecting Grant Brisbee’s funny, freewheeling report on this year’s Astros teams to leave me choked up, but that it did. A beautiful and perfectly crass essay on a team that a city needed.
I’ll be damned if any national sports blog this year wrote better about the city of Houston. Spencer Hall’s story of the University of Houston football team turns into the story of the city itself, its music and food; its grotesque, hulking beauty.
Charlotte Wilder’s loving story on lobster boat racing in a fading Maine town is serene and heartbreaking, and it introduces you to a cast of ragtag, charming characters you will never forget.
Mike Prada’s piece on D.C. and the Wizards is a story of a team, two perfect stars in John Wall and Bradley Beal, and a city that’s changing so quickly it at times feels unrecognizable.
I loved this story — Louis Bien went to watch the Chargers play in their tiny, weird soccer stadium and, quite wonderfully, found the beauty in it.
Come for the opening sentence — my favorite of the year — and stick around for Charlotte Wilder finding the beauty in a big ole crash grab of a football game at one of baseball’s temples.
Alex Kirshner went to a bar in Washington, D.C. for a Nationals game and came away with a beautiful observation of baseball fandom at its most banally miserable.
Charlotte Wilder’s deep dive into the world of NASCAR goes beyond a look at a sport at a crossroads. It’s also a story of inequality and hate, of fear, and the unstoppable force of time.
Richard Johnson perfectly captured a fan base at its most deliriously happy, the spiritual opposite to the Kirshner piece above. The disbelief, the joy, the alcohol...it’s all there, rendered clearly in the moment by Johnson.
Grant Brisbee may have jinxed the Marlins with this article (to be fair, I don’t think any of us saw the Jeter purchase and fire sale coming), but it remains a beautiful, sharp, hilarious portrait of a franchise and a city.
Harry Lyles Jr. took his reporting to a new level with this stark, moving portrait of a town still reeling from a plane crash that took the U. of Evansville basketball team. Lyles’ rendering of the crash scene, and the quotes he gets describing it, are haunting and chilling.
Fiction
Describing Jon Bois’ 17776 is a foolish endeavor. It is a look at the future of football, sure — as its unnerving false opening page tells us — but it is also a grand, Pynchonian exploration of time, meaning, and (im)mortality. As funny as it is haunting, this is a work I look forward to reading for years to come.
Investigations
I adored this story, a look from Adam Stites at the world of NFL kickers, who are underratedly important, excellent at their jobs, and with one notable exception, expected to coach themselves.
Tim Cato has found a niche industry in examining the beautiful minutiae of the game of basketball, and this was one of my favorites. He asks: How do men who are this tall and this strong manage to jump so high in the air...and not break an ankle every time?
Steven Godfrey’s richly reported and finely wrought investigation into the NCAA’s case against Ole Miss — and how it trapped a Mississippi State player in an inescapable, bureaucratic nightmare — is a necessary read for anyone still holding out hope for the ideals of amateurism.
Another lovely breakdown from Tim Cato, who traveled to Houston (again, we owned Houston this year!) to find out about the grand experiment and how it was working. This season, his intuition has been proved even more spot on.
Steven Godfrey again shows us the inner workings of the NCAA, as well as its double standards and hypocrisies, with deep reporting and a clear head. The documents he obtained — including a letter from a hotel manager who had been duped by an NCAA investigator — bring the story to life.
Sarah Hardy worked tirelessly to report and compile a comprehensive timeline of the domestic violence case against Ezekiel Elliott, and in doing so built the most comprehensive, clear look at the case available. This is necessary and strong journalism.
Working alongside Hardy was Jeanna Thomas, whose own deep reporting and understanding of the league, its rules, and the criminal justice system, resulted in this excellent piece which provides a reader a complete understanding of a complicated and drawn out NFL saga.
Tyler Tynes and Harry Lyles Jr. pored through countless stories to compile this definitive timeline of the Colin Kaepernick saga, illustrating how a solitary man’s protest sparked a national movement.
Kristian Winfield took an interesting idea and did the reporting to bring the story to life — identifying a trend in NBA players eating healthier and talking to the players themselves to understand why this is happening and how it’s changing the league.
A perfect internet story — Tim Cato took a LeBron James Instagram post of his wine collection and got digging, speaking to wine experts and finding out that James’ taste was just as good as his game on the court.
Kevin McCauley’s concept is fantastic, but what makes this article is the open heart it attacks the story with, and McCauley’s willingness to see every side of the argument. This could have been meaner than it was, but McCauley wouldn’t do that.
This sharp investigation from Stephanie Yang combines deep research, statistical analysis, perfect anecdotes and a level head to illustrate a major problem in soccer.
Whitney Medworth does brilliant work every week capturing the ephemera of the NBA in her “B-Sides” column, but I also love her work on the Pacers and its fan base. She perfectly broke down a relationship in this story on Paul George, a story I didn’t know I needed until I read it.
Tyler Tynes dove fully into the case surrounding the killing of former New Orleans Saints player Will Smith and showed not only what happened that night, but how a city, region, and history had come together to create a fatal and heartbreaking moment.
James Dator’s first-person masterpiece on a trip to the grocery store. It seems insane, but this is the story I will probably remember the most from this year. How could one forget it?
Essays
Louis Bien’s nostalgic journey to the early world of sports blogging is fun and funny and sweet, an earnest look back at a time that was awkward, yes, but innocent and perfect in its own way.
Zito Madu’s gorgeous essay on returning home to Nigeria and facing the family that stays there, is so much more than just a postcard from a foreign land. It is a heartbreaking rendering of the idea that “you can’t go home again;” a look at what happens when dreams are forfeited, when you realize that you will never — can never — become the person that, as a child, you thought you might be.
Most people read Steven Godfrey for his richly reported investigations into the seedy underbelly of sport, but he’s at his most pure, and funny, when he’s raving about one of his favorite teams.
Spencer Hall’s preseason essay, for Every Day Should Be Saturday, is a look ahead at the coming year in college football, sure. It’s also a raw look at a nation Hall is struggling to recognize at a time when it seems like finding hope for new beginnings is as impossible a task as there could be.
I don’t know if this is an essay, a rant, an argument, a devastating work of a broken man or a masterstroke of genius, but nothing made me laugh harder this year than Ricky O’Donnell’s “Bulls in 6”, a piece that manages to rip down an organization and show an undying love for it all in a few hundred words.
Bill Connelly is not just one of our writers. He is also our candidate for College Football Commissioner, a job we desperately need to exist (if only for Bill to fill it). In his candidacy, he diagnoses all that’s wrong with the sport and offers some beautiful solutions.
Matt Ufford’s wrenching essay manages to look at the current national discussion surrounding the protests in the NFL and beyond and contextualize them from the perspective of someone who has served in the military. Run on Veteran’s Day, this piece changed the way I thought about protest, service, and what we mean when we thank those who serve.
Tom Ziller’s headline pulls no punches, but the essay is smart, earnest and well argued. There is no need for the NBA draft, and fun as it is, it’s hard to argue against that after you read this story.
Spencer Hall took a (quite frankly stupid) national debate about why people were tuning out of the NFL and examined it in purely economic terms. By taking out the heated rhetoric from both sides, he coolly shows what’s gone wrong with the league and why no team ever has any incentive to be innovative, or good, in any way.
Tyler Tynes’ comprehensive and bold year-end essay looked at a single weekend in the NFL — where players came together in protest as a response to Donald Trump — and showed how 200 years of history had led to that very moment.
It’s never easy to say goodbye to a player, but Paul Flannery managed to do so with grace and style in this goodbye to Paul Pierce. Flannery not only tells the story of the player, but of his relationship to the city of Boston, and examines why both were exactly what the other needed.
Jason Kirk and Mike Rutherford manage to take a look at the NCAA in 2018 and, in a few choice words, tear the whole thing down to its foundation. Kirk’s intro especially is one of my favorite things we ran on the site this year — a vicious, brief deconstruction of the entire amateur sports model.
Paul Flannery took stock of the league at last season’s All-Star break and wrote a comprehensive, clear, and beautiful piece on the state of the league he’d been covering for years.
Zito Madu’s short essay on the weekend of protest in the NFL managed to identify a troubling trend, write it out beautifully, and define the national conversation for weeks.
What did I miss? Hit me up in the comments and share your favorite writing from SB Nation this year.
See More:
