Featured Essays
The Immaculate Reception’s Great Truth
You won’t miss his statue at the Pittsburgh International Airport. Franco Harris scoops up the ball every single time, #32 immortalized in a line of statues, next to George Washington, Founding Father, and runner-up to beloved icons at PIT . But Harris’ gaze is off to...
My God, Herschel Walker, What Have You Become?
Is Herschel perfect?” the man in an American-flag suit and long white hair asks. We gather together this Election Night, November 8, 2022, on the ballroom floor of the Omni Hotel, in Cobb County, outside Atlanta, to await the results: Senator Raphael Warnock versus...
Why Is a Left-Handed Swing More Beautiful? The Answer Is in Freddie Freeman.
The swing is poetry; his swing is perfect. I miss the swing; but we miss Freddie more. “Give me a second,” Freddie Freeman tells reporters. “I don’t even know if I can get through this.” On June 24, Freeman, the Dodgers’ All-Star first baseman, returns to Atlanta,...
Way up There in Blue: Seven Children Dead in Kabul — Who Is to Blame?
United Flight 244 from Atlanta to Denver sits on the runway. Delayed. Sept. 16, 2021. My fellow Georgians, clad in SEC college football tribal fan wear, carry on industrial sized bags of Chick-fil-A. Soldiers fresh from basic at Fort Benning dot the cabin. Dustin,...
The Reckoning: Football, Love, and Remembering Paul Oliver
Start with his eyes. “Paul’s eyes,” Chelsea Oliver says, “instantly drew me in.” Rise from the pinewoods off Hadaway Road in Kennesaw, battle under the fiercest lights of the SEC, land in the NFL — and there’s much to see. Whole worlds. “Laser beams,” Tra Battle,...
The General Who Never Was: Requiem for Bobby Knight
Stay in your chair. I had papers to grade. So many papers. Stacks. Work. I taught writing courses as an adjunct at the University of New Mexico. A few miles away, practice had just started for the 2005 NCAA West Regionals, the Sweet 16. He doesn’t matter. I crammed...
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Greg Maddux: A World Series Requiem
The joke, said Braves broadcaster Skip Caray, is that if half the people who claimed to be at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium during the Bad Times (1985 to 1990) had actually been there, no seat would've been available. Jason and I were there — wandering, hounding...
Three Falcons Players Died Off the Field in the Late ’80s. Could Their Old Teammates Help Me With My Own Loss?
When I moved back to Atlanta, in 2016, I found myself in a dark wood—specifically, Wesley Woods, the psychiatric hospital at Emory University. Insomnia. Suicidal ideation. At 2 a.m. on Sept. 3, I was buzzed into the dimly lit second floor as a Congolese nurse with...
When We Were Young and Confederate
My earliest memory is of a black man and a Confederate Flag. The man was very black and beautiful. The flag waved in celebration of his flight. The moment still sticks to my lungs. Like any four-year-old, I wanted to fly. Like many in Reagan’s America, I saw this on...
Shadow Boxing
The original Rocky was released in 1976; I was born the same year. In a weirdly literal sense, we’ve grown up together. We recently turned thirty, and neither of our prospects look good. Rocky has to contend with the films Stallone has made since; I have bad knees,...
