Best of my Work (September/October)

Okay so that idea of writing more sports on here? A lot more difficult when you're working 12-hour days and driving for three of them. Ambition is a wonderful thing.....execution is a lot harder as I've learned from my running/exercise journey.

Either way, I figured I'd give you guys a chance to see what I've been up to for work. Since I'm not writing here. Here's some of the best stuff I've written since late August. I'll try to do this every month.

1986 Crespi: Part 1 and Part 2
As a prep sports scribe, I've always been fascinated by Russell White, one of the greatest running backs in California history. He's the only sophomore named State Player of the Year and that 1986 Crespi High School team is the only team from the San Fernando Valley to win a title at the highest division.

Crespi coach Troy Thomas, left, and former Celts coach Bill Redell, right, show off the school’s memorabilia from the 1986 championship season. Thomas played defensive back on that team. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht/Los Angeles Daily News)

White went on to an All-American career at Cal (still their all-time leading rusher) but I wanted to study his team. Coaches and players from that team became successful around Southern California. So I wanted to know what drove them to be great. The first story is a general reflection. The second is short snapshots of three guys from that team I didn't talk to in Part 1.

A Week of Good Work

It's been an eventful week for me but also a productive one. Even though jury duty abruptly changed some of my plans, I'm still amazed at the level of work I did in spite of it and my schedule being tight.

I know I've been neglectful in sharing my stories here but I hope you'll indulge me for sharing after this week. (Here's a quick link to my non-sports thoughts from Monday on last week's Game of Thrones ep, which I think shows how my TV critiques are getting better)

Tuesday, for Bro Jackson, I tag-teammed with fellow scribe Courtney Cox to tackle the ignorant, lazy comments of Chris "Mad Dog" Russo regarding the lack of Black journalists on his station. As I've written before, media and new media are glaringly White and when comments like these are said, you can't leave them alone because they are dangerous. Courtney set it up so well with her takes that I felt like Mariano Rivera or Trevor Hoffman closing this out in style.

Later that night, I was at a volleyball game with a league title at stake. A three game sweep for El Segundo against South Torrance. 2 straight Pioneer League titles and 2 straight without losing a set.

Remembering Ralph Wiley

Happy birthday to Ralph H. Wiley. All these years later your legacy is still going strong! @bomani_jones @vgoodwill @jadande
— Cole Wiley (@colewiley) April 12, 2013

As his son posted above on Twitter, today is the birthday of Ralph Wiley, one of the greatest sportswriters we've seen. For Black sportswriters, he is perhaps the best of the post-civil rights era and influenced so many of us to write with style and cool.

Even though I didn't realize it at the time, I feel blessed that I got to read Wiley at ESPN during my college years before he passed in 2004 at the young age of 52. Re-reading those pieces the last couple years, I see a writer who wasn't afraid to speak his mind and did it while humanizing his subjects. He was intelligent but never lost his edge or his ability to relate to the audience he wrote.

I realized today that I saw in him what I see in James Baldwin. Both were insightful, clever, perceptive, sympathetic and had the balls to say what must be said, not what you think you should say. Baldwin was a witness to his era and so was Ralph Wiley. That's why they still speak to me today - they didn't just record or respond to history, they enlightened it so we could learn from it later.

Wiley's influence can be seen in writers like Jason Whitlock, Scoop Jackson, JA Adande and Bomani Jones. It's seen in The Shadow League, one of my favorite sports websites of the past year. It's seen in former ESPN colleagues like Bill Simmons, who never fails to praise him, and more.