What's Wrong With Notre Dame Football?

My article in TIME about Notre Dame football.

The Pacman's Power

With speed and brutality, Manny Pacquiao has won seven world-title belts in seven weight classes. He may just be the greatest fighter ever. My story in The Atlantic about the Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto fight last night.

The Realtime Project on Sports

The Realtime Project on sports in the digital age. In the Fray is quoted. Click here.

Larger Than Life: The Red Grange Story (Coming in November)

There is a Red Grange documentary coming out in November. I make an appearance or two in the film. Click here for the trailer.

A Cammy Award and Twitter

The Galloping Ghost: Red Grange, an American Football Legend (Houghton Mifflin) won the Cammy Award at the CSU Media Festival. I had a good time at the event talking about the book and modern journalism. Also, you can now follow me on Twitter.

Red Grange News: Statue, Twitter, Book

Some Red Grange news:

>Some nice images of the new Red Grange statue, which was just unveiled at the University of Illinois. (More news on the statue at a later date, but here is a radio interview about it.)

>I have been enjoying Red Grange on Twitter. Very funny.

>And I will be talking about my book next Friday, September 18, at the Colorado State University Media Festival.

The Worst Sports Column Ever?

Mark Whicker, a sports columnist with the Orange County Register, wrote a column (some are calling it the "worst sports column in history" and it has my vote) relating sports to the Jaycee Dugard kidnapping. It showed poor taste. Sometimes a journalist will come up with an idea that seems clever but it does not work; these misguided attempts at over-the-top gravity or immature humor usually only see the light of day in college newspapers or on blogs. At major daily newspapers there is usually a system in place to check stories, or at least there is the ability to run an article by a colleague. Whicker's article should have been spiked. An editor looks after the integrity of the paper and tries his or her best to bring readers the most lucid coverage. With the implosion of the newspaper industry, there are fewer editors. Without good editing, newspaper writers do not always elevate the discussion, which is their mission, and there is a creeping sloppiness in our papers. Humor can be difficult to pull off, especially in a daily newspaper. So the Orange County Register ran the column, which really missed the mark in many ways, and readers were mad about it. They wrote outraged letters. Whicker apologized, kind of. In an interview with the Poynter Institute, he did not blame himself, bad editing, or weak judgment. It's the Web's fault! According to Poynter, "...in a phone interview, he defended the premise of his column and suggested that the fast-moving, quick-to-judge culture of the Web was behind the wave of criticism."

In the column, Whicker noted all the sporting events and activities Dugard missed as she was confined to a shed behind her kidnapper's house. "She was not allowed to spike a volleyball. Or pitch a softball. Or smack a forehand down the line. Or run in a 5-footer for double bogey," wrote Whicker, who's been in the business for 35 years. "Now, that's deprivation." And here is Whicker's baseball-inspired kicker: "Congratulations, Jaycee. You left the yard."

The Galloping Ghost: One year later

It is the one year anniversary of the release of my biography of Red Grange If you haven't bought The Galloping Ghost--and who hasn't?--click here.

Slate: Fedor Emelianenko

Big Fan: The Movie

This looks like a good movie about sports fanatics. (Thanks to Jory Kruspe for alerting me to the movie.)

Travel Guide: USA V. Mexico, August 12

Click the image to go to the guide, created by This Is American Soccer and Du Nord.

True/Slant: Log In

I have been asked to write about technology for True/Slant, a blog network. (Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal wrote about True/Slant here.) I am excited about my column, Log In. I have written tech stories, including articles published in the New York Times, USA Today, and Wired, for twenty years and I hope people will come to True/Slant to read my articles. Log In will focus on putting technology into perspective through reported journalism.

I will continue to write about sports and post items on In the Fray, and continue with my other journalism.

Printers Row Recap

I had a great time at Chicago's Printers Row Lit Fest. I was on an excellent panel with Jonathan Eig who wrote Opening Day and Luckiest Man, and Melissa Isaacson who wrote a biography about Lou Pinella. Dan McGrath of the Chicago Tribune did a great job moderating, and we had a standing room only crowd and there were lots of questions about my book. I also posted a piece about Printers Row, and publishing in general, on my True/Slant column.

Printers Row Lit Fest

I will be in Chicago on Sunday for the Printers Row Lit Fest. Printers Row is one of the largest literary festivals in the country.

I will be talking about my book, The Galloping Ghost, on a sports biography panel. My panel starts at 1 p.m. and will be held at the University Center (more details here). The panel will be hosted by Dan McGrath of the Chicago Tribune.

If you happen to be at the festival, please stop by and say hello.

Printers Row Lit Fest 2009

I will be in Chicago speaking at Printers Row Lit Fest 2009 (June 6 & 7). Printers Row is the Midwest's largest literary event, and it is sponsored by the Chicago Tribune. I will post more specific information when I have it, but I will be there to talk about my book The Galloping Ghost: Red Grange, an American Football Legend (Houghton Mifflin).

LA Times: The Blind Side Movie

Patrick Goldstein (Los Angeles Times) writes about the difficulties in casting the movie version of Michael Lewis' The Blind Side.

On Jay Cutler & fandom

As a life-long Denver Broncos fan (I grew up in Denver), In The Fray is not so pleased with yesterday's trade of Jay Cutler to the Chicago Bears for Kyle Orton (Kyle Orton!) and draft picks. But as Red Grange's biographer, I have a different perspective on the trade than most Broncos fans and so I am going to enjoy seeing what happens with Cutler in the Second City. The Cutler drama that has played out over the NFL off-season has made me think a lot about fandom. I continue to follow the Broncos with a great deal of interest, but my passion has been on a sort of auto-pilot for a decade or so. With Mike Shanahan leading the team there was an amazing amount of consistency with the Broncos. They haven't been particularly great since their last Super Bowl win but they have been consistently decent. Shanahan was fired and that marked the beginning of several blundering mis-steps. But something happened to me as I watched the train wreck: a renewed passion for the team. Becoming a fan (I wrote about this issue in USA Today, too) can be quite complex. I have followed the team since childhood and I have been on emotional highs and lows through the years, but lately I have been a relatively impartial observer. For example, I was displeased when they didn't make the playoffs last season, but the end of the Broncos season didn't put me into a three-month depression. The disastrous off-season culminating in the Cutler trade shook me from my stupor: I haven't been this embarrassed and upset about my favorite team for awhile, and it's been nice to know that I still care so much.

Los Angeles Times: Senate plans to tackle BCS

Economy? War? Global warming? I am glad the Senate is tackling the most important issue of modern times.

Endangered: Newspaper beat writers

There are troubling issues related to the demise of newspapers, particularly how journalists serve a watchdog role over our government and how that role might be lost. Every newspaper beat has been impacted. ESPN's Page 2 has a good article about how the demise of newspapers is hurting sports coverage.

Conference: Blogs With Balls

If you are going to be in New York on June 13 and you're interested in sports blogs, you might want to check out Blogs With Balls, a "series of regional social sports blogger and new media gatherings featuring speakers and panelists specifically focused on sports fans, writers, sites, teams, athletes and companies..."

Interview: Hugging Harold Reynolds

Hugging Harold Reynolds, a popular sports blog, interviewed me about The Galloping Ghost.

As it happens, ESPN has been airing a series in which the great athletes of each state are featured as an athletic Mt. Rushmore. The HHR interview was posted the same day as the segment on the Mt. Rushmore of Illinois, and so the blogsphere started linking the HHR interview. (Red Grange was left off the World Wide Leader's list.) This is what Deadspin had to say, "I'm sorry; I know that no one should ever actually give a crap about something like this—ever—but the fact that the Mt. Rushmore of Illinois did not have Red Grange on it is a crime against humanity."

Ditka?!

St. Petersburg Times: The Galloping Ghost

Dave Scheiber reviewed The Galloping Ghost in the St. Petersburg Times today, Super Bowl Sunday.

For the full article, click here. Excerpt of "'The Galloping Ghost' shares the 'Red' Grange story":

His name long ago faded into the mist of history, a legend of the game whose complex life story was largely lost amid the hype of his gridiron greatness.

But in The Galloping Ghost: Red Grange, An American Football Legend, author Gary Andrew Poole digs beneath the surface to present a compelling and fascinating look at the rise of an iconic figure from the Roaring '20s, his tragic undoing and — surprisingly — his profound influence on the sport today.

Through exhaustive research and interviewing, Poole does more than paint a vivid picture of a golden age of American culture. He illustrates how the accomplishments of Harold "Red" Grange permeate professional football today. And when Super Bowl XLIII kicks off at 6:28 p.m. today in Tampa, the most-watched event on the planet can trace a meaningful part of its genealogy — as Poole lays out with well-crafted prose — to gifted ballcarrier and lonely hero Grange...

The central aspect of Poole's book is the light it casts on the unusual business partnership between Grange and his manager, a wheeler-dealer entrepreneur named Charles "C.C." Pyle, who became, in his own way, America's first super sports agent. The author brings both men to life in rich historical detail and reveals how Pyle, a smooth-operating movie theater owner in Grange's hometown of Wheaton, Ill., saw the young star as a ticket to fame and fortune...

Still, the shadow cast today by the Galloping Ghost remains a formidable one — even if it's hard to see through the mist of time and the megahype of one more Super Bowl Sunday.

New York Times: The Physics of the Hit & Polamalu

In The Fray readers might want to check out two Super Bowl-related articles in the New York Times: "The Physics of 'the Hit'", which talks about football collisions, you know, Newton’s second law of motion (force equals mass times acceleration); and "The Tao of Polamalu," a collection of quotes, many about the spirituality of sports, from Steelers defender Troy Polamalu.

Chicagoist: Interview about The Galloping Ghost and Journalism

Here is an interview with me on today's Chicagoist. I talk about The Galloping Ghost and journalism. I was interviewed by Marcus Gilmer who did a nice job with the questions.

What's Mine is Yours [Design] Blog: The Galloping Ghost

Nice write-up of The Galloping Ghost Website on art director and designer Casey Sheehan's blog, which is worth checking out in its own right.