Wait Till Next Year Analysis

WAIT 'TILL NEXT YEAR by William Goldman and Mike Lupica
(August 10, 2005)

At least twice a day, a high school or college student sends me an e-mail asking for advice -- they want to write about sports some day, they don't know how to go about it, and they're wondering if I can help. And I never know what to write back. How can you answer a question like, "I want to write a sports column, tell me what to do?"

Last weekend, I thought of an answer.

Just a quick back story: I probably own 800-900 sports books that I've been reading and collecting ever since I was old enough to read. The lamer ones are at my dad's house and my mom's house. The best ones came to California with me. And when we moved a few months ago, five boxes of the
You can't learn how to write unless you're constantly reading, just like you can't learn how to play music unless you listen to hundreds of different albums, or you can't learn to speak a second language unless you actually go to a foreign country and practice it. For whatever reason, many aspiring sportswriters either don't understand this, or they dismiss it altogether. In fact, I've had conversations at bars with younger people who have approached me, asked me for advice, and when I ask them what their favorite sports books are, they give me the Peyton Manning Face. I'm always astonished by this. How can you aspire to become a sportswriter without reading as many different styles and perspectives as you can?

So I'm here to help. Every Tuesday, I'm recommending a classic sports book in this space. Sometimes I might just write a few sentences about the book. Other times, I might write an entire column about the book. But you're getting a new book every Tuesday. Each one will be worth your time, whether you're an aspiring sportswriter or you just enjoy sports and are always looking for something to read.

This week's book: "Wait Till Next Year," which was co-written by William Goldman (the acclaimed screenwriter) and Mike Lupica (a columnist for the New York Daily News) about everything that happened in the New York sports scene in 1987. Lupica takes the reporter's side, Goldman takes the fan's side, and they alternate writing
The ultimate fan, he twists things around and looks at things from a non-traditional way -- like the chapter on Gooden's drug suspension (which ranks among my favorite things I have ever read about sports), or the chapter about how sports is really air (I won't spoil it for you, but it makes sense after you read it). Would you be reading my column on ESPN.com if it wasn't for this book? Honestly? I don't know. Goldman's chapters made me think, "Why don't more people write about sports from a fan's perspective?" And every time I read the book as a struggling writer, that question nagged at me -- it seemed like there was a different way to approach sportswriting, that you could care about sports, have your little biases, live and die with your teams and still write about everything. Seventeen years later, here I am. Coincidence? I don't think