The document discusses the final assignments for a Sports Literature class. It states that there are no more response papers due, but the major paper on a book is due on May 11th. Students are asked to consider an idea for a work of sports literature they would like to write, taking into account the types of heroes and stories discussed in class. The key is to get beyond surface descriptions and focus on the interior experiences and meanings within sports.

1. JRN 573 - Sports Literature
Rich Hanley, Associate Professor
Spring 2016/ Week Fourteen

2. JRN 573 - Sports Literature
Week Fourteen - 1
● There are no more response papers due this semester.
● One written assignment to go: the major paper on a
book, which is due May 11, 2016, at 11:59 p.m.
● Please make sure to carefully craft your analysis of the
work within the context of material from the semester.

3. JRN 573 - Sports Literature
Week Fourteen - 2
● We close the semester’s Discussion Board with a call
for an idea on the subject you would like to pursue if
given the time and support to compose a work of sports
literature similar to the stories we’ve reviewed in class.

4. JRN 573 - Sports Literature
Week Fourteen - 3
● First, consider Messenger’s trinity of sports heroes:
ritual, college and popular.
● Generally, whatever subject you select to pursue would
fit into one of those categories, with a degree of
hybridization.

5. JRN 573 - Sports Literature
Week Fourteen - 4
● Think of the articles from The New Yorker anthology
when developing the idea.
● Consider whether the best stories emerged from
mainstream or on the margins.
● Most of all, think of the interiority of the subject.

6. JRN 573 - Sports Literature
Week Fourteen - 5
● This returns us to the opening week when we read
Roger Angell’s work titled “The Interior Stadium.”
● That work featured one of the most powerful openings
in sports literature history:

7. JRN 573 - Sports Literature
Week Fourteen - 6
● "Sports are too much with us. Late and soon, sitting
and watching - mostly watching on television - we lay
waste our powers of identification and enthusiasm
and, in time, attention as more and more closing
rallies and crucial putts and late field goals and final
playoffs and sudden deaths and world records and
world championships unreel themselves ceaselessly
before our half-lidded eyes.”

8. JRN 573 - Sports Literature
Week Fourteen - 7
● The key for us as writers is to break through the images
that flow across our screens and get to the interior of
the thing.
● That’s what transforms sports writing into sports
literature.

9. JRN 573 - Sports Literature
Week Fourteen - 8
● Coverage reflects action, but really doesn’t present
detail outside a bundle of statistics available to any fan
to dissect.
● Coverage gives us heroes, usually of the popular and
college hero variety, but doesn’t convey the modern
ritual sports hero all that much.

10. JRN 573 - Sports Literature
Week Fourteen - 9
● The role of the writer in Sports Literature is to pierce the
surface and shift the focus of the story to the interior of
the thing, whether it is a player, a game, a golf course,
or anything associated with sports that cannot be
readily observed.
● And it must hold something else.

11. JRN 573 - Sports Literature
Week Fourteen - 10
● And that added dimension is art.
● Sports literature uses sports as an instrument to tell the
larger, universal story of human civilization and
experience.
● That’s what makes it hard but necessary to pursue.

12. JRN 573 - Sports Literature
Week Fourteen - 11
● Thank you for a lively semester.
● Please now consider this final assignment for life:
● Always read, always read challenging material and
always seek to get to the interior of things when
covering sports.