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- [00:01]
UnitedHealth Group Announcer
Now finding a doctor is a little less challenging. UnitedHealth Group is investing in tools that make it easier for patients to navigate healthcare and pay less. These transparency tools help patients find providers. And this is the big compare costs upfront. The big picture, more transparent pricing benefits everyone. These tools from UnitedHealth Group can help patients save hundreds of dollars annually. Learn more@unitedhealthgroup.com commitment.
- [00:30]
Podcast Host
Hey, y'. All, we're gonna try something different today. I'm speaking to the foremost sports writer in America, Wright Thompson. Not about a particular book, but about sports in general. We talk about sports writing. We talk about gambling in sports. We talk about college sports. We talk about what separates a great athlete from a good athlete. I think you're gonna love it. This is. Wright Thompson. Welcome to old School. I am delighted that you are here.
- [01:10]
Wright Thompson
It's a treat, man. We know a lot of the same people, so I'm very excited about it, and thanks for having me.
- [01:15]
Podcast Host
I listen to sports radio every morning. I confess when I work out, and I cannot help but ask you some questions about sports to kick this thing off. What are the sports storylines that you're following right now? I can't resist asking you.
- [01:29]
Wright Thompson
Well, I love the NBA playoffs. So, you know, a lot of basketball, a lot of. What's going to happen with the Knicks, you know, what's going to happen with Steve Kerr? Is he going to coach again? You know, I love Steve. Steve's as good a guy as there is in the world. I mean, there's almost nothing more boring in sports than the NFL draft. So I'm trying to avoid that and, you know, and just wish my algorithm would stop giving me Mike Vrabel content, because it's just like, like, everybody involved, like, has a family. Like, it's just like everybody needs to shut the fuck up. Like, it, you know, you just, like, just stop, like, stop with the gossip. So, but anyway, you know, a lot of that.
- [02:16]
Podcast Host
Yeah. Are you following? What do you think about the Lakers being up 20 without a supporting cast? LeBron is carrying them again. At 41 years old or something, LeBron is incredible.
- [02:26]
Wright Thompson
I mean, LeBron is Tiger Woods. He's Michael Jordan. He's, you know, Tom Brady, whatever the comparison is Bill Russell. And so, no, he. He's incredible. And, you know, you forget Jack Nicklaus, the golfer told me one time that if he could get, like, on number 15 in a major championship, one up on the field, he remembers how to win. He could win. He could play 16, 17, and 18. He just could never get himself in that position. And you forget the guys like this are like, they're not professional basketball players. They're professional competitors. I mean, and they've been wired this way since they were kids. And it's the reason that, you know, athletes don't want to go play their sport when they retire, because it's not football they love, it's the stakes and the feeling. I mean, one of the beautiful things about the Golden State warriors winning that first round playoff against the Clippers was that they all got to feel what it was like again when they were sort of young and dangerous. And you got the sense that, like, the only way they can fully access those memories is by experiencing some version of them. And so, you know, they keep wanting to go back. So, you know, LeBron James is just. His willpower is. I mean, that's his strength. It's not his vertical leap, it's his will.
- [03:51]
Podcast Host
Gambling is a deal. That's really. I teach undergraduates and a lot of students talk to me about the kind of draftkings commercials that they see on every single NFL broadcast, the problems that their friends have with sports gambling, the way gambling is compromising sports itself. There were those high profile arrests in the NBA and, you know, mlb, that kind of stuff. And I just wonder, what's your view on the way gambling is changing both sports itself? And it seems to be kind of affecting young men, too.
- [04:19]
Wright Thompson
Gambling is going to destroy American sports. But the greatest sort of casualty of it is they're a generation of people who are being taught to commodify everything. I mean, they're being turned into sort of optimized machines. It's really dangerous and it's, you know, like, gambling is bad, full stop.
- [04:41]
Podcast Host
Yeah. And same way that gambling kind of affects the soul. I talk to a lot of folks who are coaches, athletic directors, even at the, you know, at the universities at which I've taught, and they talk to me about the way this big money in college sports is affecting the way in particular young men who are football players behave. I mean, you get a millionaire and he's 18, and you're trying to make him a leader and make him a person of character. But he's got $2 million and he's just out of high school. That's a hard thing for any coach, no matter how inspiring to handle. And I wonder what you make of that whole thing.
- [05:12]
Wright Thompson
Well, I think. I think the coaches are utterly full of shit. I don't think they're in the business of creating men or leaders. I think they're in the business of winning football games, and they want to have their cake and eat it too. And if universities and coaches didn't want to be in the business of professional football, they shouldn't have gotten in the business of professional football. Like, you know, the idea that suddenly these guys are throwing their hands up in the air, the horror. I find it hypocritical at best, and I have zero sympathy for them. Cause they don't like the world that they built. They liked it fine. When they were getting checks and flying around in a challenger, they liked it fine. There was no moral ambiguity about it when the universities were making billions of dollars from television rights. Deal. But the second a quarterback gets some, all of a sudden this is this huge moral quandary, and I just call full bullshit on that.
- [06:07]
Podcast Host
You think it's good for the game. I mean, we've discussed if it's good for the athlete. Is it good for the game?
- [06:12]
Wright Thompson
Absolutely not. But, you know, if universities didn't want to be in the business of professional sports, they shouldn't have gotten in the business of professional sports.
- [06:20]
Podcast Host
So, you know, the salary cap is a perennial debate, especially in baseball right now. The Mets are terrible, and they spent a whole bunch of money, and the Dodgers are doing all right and they spend a whole bunch of money. So I wonder what you think about the salary cap, that controversial issue.
- [06:35]
Wright Thompson
You know, it's funny. We don't. We don't like it when the things we love sort of intersect with capitalism. James Carville one time said that he thought it was the role of government to shave off the sharp edges of capitalism. Right? That like. And also, it's a little bit of a misnomer because there's no such thing as capitalism or socialism anymore. It's like everything is like, every time somebody starts talking about that, I'm just like, dude, you're fighting the last war. Like that. That's already over. There's no such thing. Like, what are you even talking about? But, like, I think we want our sports to be fair. I think we want our sports to be fair more than we want our society to be fair. And we are willing to impose rules on sports that we are not willing to impose on any other aspect of our lives. But. But we instinctively understand that we want our games to be fair. And so if a salary cap is the way to do that, then I'm all for that.
- [07:42]
Podcast Host
And you think the competitive landscape of baseball would be improved by salary cap the way. I mean, the NBA has a tanking problem, I suppose. But it's a different problem than.
- [07:52]
Wright Thompson
That's a. Yeah, it's a totally different problem. But like. And you know, I don't know what you do about it, but. Yeah, I mean, I think, like, how can you know? At some point you can't have the Los Angeles Dodgers, the New York Yankees, the Chicago Cubs and everybody else.
- [08:08]
Podcast Host
You sent me some essays and I want to talk about some of those. You know, you sent me an essay on Ted Williams that was so moving. You sent me an essay about a racehorse that got shot that was so moving. But I gotta tell you, and I don't say this to flatter you, and I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it. Of all the essays that I read in preparation for this interview, there was one that stopped me in my tracks. And that essay was called Holy Ground. And it was written by a man named Wright Thompson. And it was written about almost 20 years ago now, if I'm not mistaken. It was 07, maybe when you wrote that.
- [08:39]
Wright Thompson
It's been a long time.
- [08:41]
Podcast Host
I wanted to ask you to revisit that essay for me. First of all, tell people what it's about. I wonder what motivated you to write it at the time. And then I also wonder how it feels 20 years later.
- [08:55]
Wright Thompson
It's a essay I wrote about my father after he passed. And it was sort of, you know, the plot, if you will, or the story is me never taking him to the Masters, to Augusta national, and sort of me regretting that, but it's really just about sort of trying to hold on to sort of the crumbling pieces of someone who played such an important role in your life and then vanishes from it is really what it's about to me. And I mean, it's funny you bring it up, you know, that story ends with me imagining taking a kid there one day. And so I did that this year for the first time. I took my eight year old, Wallace. We went, I picked her up from school on Friday, we drove to Atlanta. We got up early in the morning, we went over to the golf course. She just loved it. We did serious damage at the, at the pro shop. I had back to back weekend trips with my kids. So Louise and I went to Chicago and we went to the American Girl doll store. And I spent so much money at the American Girl doll store that I'm embarrassed. I can't even say the number out loud. My wife will kill me. And all of which is to say we nearly equaled it at the Augusta national pro shop. But she Loved it. And we were getting ready to leave and she asked if she could go back out and watch Rory McIlroy hit again. You know, she really loved it. And so I. I was obviously a mess the whole time, but it was beautiful for that to have sort of come full circle. I sort of feel like there are two kinds of men in the world. They're the people who want to be just like their fathers and the people who want to be nothing like their fathers. And I definitely am in the first category. And so it's very strange to sort of look up and feel how the roles have reversed.
- [10:49]
Podcast Host
It's a beautiful essay about sports, cancer, loss, fatherhood. I encourage everybody to check out Holy Ground. It's unbelievable. You know, you've written on a lot of extraordinary people and of course your career's not over, but I wonder if I asked you to look back and think about a story or two that you've worked on that you think are some of the best that you've done or some of the most interesting that you've done that have affected you. I said, Holy Ground affected me. I wonder what stories you've written that you look back on and they affected you.
- [11:24]
Wright Thompson
That's a great question. I mean, a couple immediately come to mind. I wrote a story about Pat Riley that really affected me because I recognized a lot of my own issues and Pat's issues. I wrote a story about the baseball player Dale Murphy, who was my childhood hero, but he, you know, two time MVP and he sort of went out of his way after his career was over to kill the avatar of him and sort of erase his fame so that he could be a present husband and father. And he is the happiest former athlete I've ever met. And I think at the intersection of those two stories, I realized that, like, I want to be Dale Murphy, but I am Pat Riley, you know, in a way that like, I don't love. I'm doing a story right now on Steve Kerr and I love that story because, you know, right now he's trying to decide whether or not to keep coaching. And that story made me really think about, like writing these profiles and how long I want to do it, how long I could sort of hope to do it. It's a very odd thing to get this close to someone. It's sort of like unnatural. And then write about them in an honest way. Like every time I do it, I'm like, that's it. I'm never doing that again. And then of course I do it again.
- [12:48]
Podcast Host
Do you spend time with them. I talked to a writer the other day who told me he's a biographer. And he said they can invite. He's a historian. He said they can invite me into the archives and they can, you know, I can look at all the stuff. But he said, nowadays, when I write a biography of. Especially of a living person, a biographical piece, I want to spend time with them. I want access to them. I want to see them in action. And if they won't give it to me, then I don't write it. Do you spend time with your subjects in incredible.
- [13:13]
Wright Thompson
I mean, look, you do it both ways. I spent a lot of time with Michael Jordan, and I have never been in a room alone with Tiger Woods. So, I mean, it goes both ways. You know, I always imagine Tiger every time. Like, I get asked to talk about him on ESPN a lot. And, like, I don't say yes all the time, but there's sometimes I feel like, you know, they pay me and I have to say yes. And I can just imagine Tiger woods sitting at his house being like, who this? What? Who is this guy? Like, I just. Like, I have this hilarious scene in my head of him on a couch in a big white room covered in trophies, overlooking the ocean, just being like this motherfucker.
- [13:50]
Podcast Host
Like, again, you recommended to me, I mentioned at the top of the show, I think it's an essay by Richard Ben Kramer, Ted Williams profile. And you also recommended an essay that I read called Death of a racehorse by W.C. hynes. Those are the two that I read in addition to your own pieces. What makes those essays the best sports essays?
- [14:10]
Wright Thompson
That they're eternal. That they are both gripping in the specific but also universal. There's that great line from east of Eden that I love, that the only story that can truly last is the one that's about the hearer. So that if a story isn't universal, it just turns to dust and fades away. William Faulkner and his brother John Faulkner were both novelists. And, you know, everybody remembers Absalom. Absalom. And it's very hard to find a copy of Dollar Cotton, you know. And I mean, like, you have to. They have to be universal. So, I mean, Death of a Racehorse is unbelievable when this is all said and done. Like, the greatest honors of my sort of sports writing career are winning the Dan Jenkins medal and getting it handed to me by Dan Jenkins in Dallas. And the other would be. I, along with three other writers, was asked to read Death of a racehorse at W.C. hines Wake. And his whole family was There it was incredible. But that story's perfect because it's life and death, it's the universe, it's the Iliad. I mean, it's incredible. And then the Richard Ben Kramer. I think the first sentence is something like few men try for best ever. And Ted Williams was one of those men. And it, it's such a. You know, in some ways every story I've ever written is like a cover version of that. You know, I mean, like, you know, like all that's about is like the cost of greatness. And so like, you know, that is, if I have a recurring theme, it is that. And that story to me is the best version of that.
- [16:02]
Podcast Host
I want to turn to that theme. And for people who don't know, we're talking about the racehorse story is about a racehorse who breaks its leg and ultimately, unfortunately has to be shot. And it's a two page, fast paced story. Whereas the Ted Williams story is, is. It took me an hour to read. It was an Esquire. It is a beautiful, beautiful essay. It's about the cost of greatness. And you just said that your career is about the cost of, I mean, you know, many of the stories that you've written in your career about the cost of greatness. And so I wanted to ask you about that because the Ted Williams story, people should go read this in Esquire. It is an extraordinary, extraordinary essay of a kind that you don't see written too often anymore. But what that essay revealed about Ted Williams, who's the great Boston Red Sox player, hitter at the time the story was written, it said that at Cooperstown there's only two statues, Ted Williams and Babe Ruth. I don't know if that's changed, but that's a kind of testament to the man. But he was revealed in that story. What I love is every time Ted Williams talks, it's in all caps, like he's shouting, you know, in the story. But he was revealed in that story to be a man of some inner turmoil. There was something in there. And you've studied people like this. And so I want to ask you about that because you mentioned Tiger woods and clearly, you know, he's been in the news lately. There's some inner turmoil in there. There was that documentary on Jordan, the Last Dance, that kind of showed that there's something inside Jordan that's going on that's different from everybody else. And so I kind of want to ask you about the connection between that greatness and the whatever the inner turmoil is that Ted Williams has Or Tiger woods has, or maybe to some extent, Michael Jordan has. That makes them great. What's going on there?
- [17:38]
Wright Thompson
Look, I mean, my favorite detail about Ted Williams is that his mother lived through his entire professional baseball career and never once went to a game. And when she died, he flew home, paid for the funeral like a dutiful son, then went to the house and got every single family photograph and burned them.
- [18:02]
Podcast Host
Wow.
- [18:03]
Wright Thompson
And, you know, the, the. The title of my collection of ESPN stories is called the Cost of these Dreams. I mean, it's a little on the nose, but it's a song lyric that I like. And, and, you know, that's it. That's what they're about. You know, nobody, nobody who's great at anything is normal. You know, like, people are broken in big and small ways. And especially, you know, people who do something in public that is either art or craft. Very often their art or their craft is the way that they try to figure out what's wrong with them and soothe it and medicate it and push it down where they don't have to deal with it. I mean, so the thing at the very highest level, like you were talking about LeBron James in the playoffs, at the very highest level, sports, is something incredibly private and personal that happens to be happening in public.
- [19:08]
Podcast Host
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- [20:20]
Wright Thompson
I mean, trying to Fill a dad sized hole, I guess. You know, I mean, the greatest thing I think you could have as a parent is to have a, a happy ski bum kid. You know what I mean? Like, like you would know you did a good job if they aren't sort of out trying to fill a bottomless hole with achievement and success. I mean, like, I look sometimes at my kids and I'm like, well, you know, you catch things. You're like, well, she is. You know, they've definitely inherited their father's crippling need for approval. You know, I am up in San Francisco doing this podcast instead of sitting in a hotel room watching Seinfeld. You know what I mean? Maybe I write about other people so I don't have to unpack my own stuff.
- [21:12]
Podcast Host
Would you say that a good athlete is a happy athlete? A great athlete is an unhappy athlete? In other words, there's something, and the same would be true for art, that like, you can be a good artist and be happy, but you're not going to be a great artist. There's something about unhappiness, discontent, rage that, that's required for, for these folks. And that's why they, a lot of times they fall apart after they retire. I mean, not every, every time, but
- [21:37]
Wright Thompson
sometimes, well, it's that they lose. First of all, a scoreboard is super simple and binary and a stopwatch is super simple and binary. And you know, there are no, I mean, for the most part there are no politics in, you know, it's a meritocracy ball. Don't lie. And then you leave that and all of a sudden you live in a world in which there is no sort of objective truth. Everything is someone's opinion. And that's incredibly difficult. I don't know if you have to be miserable to be successful. Like, that is probably, that's almost certainly an exaggeration. But like there is a sort of. You have to have some sort of internal rage to keep going. When you've been knocked down over and over again, there has to be some sort of reason to not take the hint because you know that like over and over. That's the thing is like, you know, I love that Billy Joel line, you know, you've got no scars on your face and you cannot handle pressure, you know, and like, you kind of have to like it.
- [22:41]
Podcast Host
There are some of these people who win one championship and that's all that ever happens. But then you got the Brady's, the Jordans, the Tigers, the LeBrons. They win and then they gotta find Some new motivation. And, you know, there's this kind of famous line about Jordan that he somehow makes up motivation. Like, he'll find it. I mean, what. How do you. You know, how do you think about that? Because today, there's a lot of people who say young men in particular lack purpose. They don't have motivation. And I'm wondering if there are transcendent lessons from sports about life when it comes to motivation and purpose.
- [23:11]
Wright Thompson
Well, maybe all the wrong lessons, but, like, you know, I love the idea. You know, the golfer David Duvall, who's such a great guy, you know, he famously was sort of the best player to never win a major, and then he won the British Open and woke up the next morning and realized that he felt exactly the same and. And never won another golf tournament. Like, I actually really admire that. Like, you know, snowboards, and he's a great dad. And, like, some people figured out that the thing that the culture tells you matters is not the thing that matters. You know, the most impressive thing about LeBron James is not all of his rings or his points. The most impressive thing about LeBron James is he grew up with no example of what a father was and is an incredibly sort of doting, involved dad. He had to teach himself how to do that. Like, that's the triumph of LeBron James. Breaking patterns and sort of, you know, escaping the gravitational pull of inheritance. I mean, Bruce Springsteen said this thing in his Broadway show that I loved that you can either be a. You can either be an ancestor to your children or a ghost. You can either wrap your stuff up so tight around their ankles that it drags them down like a ghost, or you can be an ancestor and you can help them to take the best of you and to leave the worst. I mean, you know, one of the things. There's this. It's so in vogue right now for people to not. For us to not want to know our entire history, either of our families or of our states or our country. And, like, I just think that's a huge problem, too, because we have to be able to look clearly at our families in the past and take the things we admire. And. And, you know, some stuff should die with my dad, and some stuff should die with me. And so, I mean, in many cases, like goat culture, ring culture, I think it teaches all the wrong lessons, especially to young men who are the primary recipient of this information. Seth Wickersham has this great book about the New England Patriots called It's Better to Be Feared. And it's about the Patriots Dynasty. And you, you read it and you realize that, like, it's the perfect snow globe of that American moment in which only victory matters. And there is no place in the conversation for ethics or morality. And in fact, those things are viewed as weak. And so, you know, in many ways, sports, especially sports right now, goat culture, ring culture, is teaching impressionable young men all of the wrong lessons about what it means to be a man.
- [25:56]
Podcast Host
So this one's for the older listeners. The word of the day is goat. G O A T. If you don't know, it means the greatest of all time. It's a word we use to describe people who are at the absolute peak of what they do. Often. Athletes. LeBron James, Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods. People who are the absolute peak of the form of the sport goat.
- [26:27]
UnitedHealth Group Announcer
Now finding a doctor is a little less challenging. UnitedHealth Group is investing in tools that make it easier for patients to navigate health care and pay less. These transparency tools help patients find providers. And this is the big thing. Compare costs upfront. The big picture, more transparent pricing benefits everyone. And These tools from UnitedHealth Group can help patients save hundreds of dollars annually. Learn more@unitedhealthgroup.com commitment.
- [26:59]
Podcast Host
What do you make of the notion that in order to be a kind of franchise athlete today, you have to be, and this is like a term you'll hear thrown around in discussions in the draft, high character. So, like, Mendoza was drafted number one yesterday as the time of this recording, everybody thinks, boy, that's a high character guy. And there's a lot of people in the NFL who've had a lot of success who get the Walter Payton man of the year award. Their high character. You know, you just talked about LeBron James being a good father, but there's a lot of other athletes who you wouldn't call high character, who are franchise players, arguably an ability. So I'm just curious about the connection between character and sports and how important is that, really?
- [27:39]
Wright Thompson
I think it used to be important, but maybe that's just nostalgia. I mean, when coaches talk about a high character guy, they're not looking for someone who's faithful to their wife. They're looking for someone who shows up at a meeting on time. So, like, what character means in that setting is a very specific thing. You know, they want someone who, you know, we think character and we think, you know, are, you know, like almost like the boy Scout, like, trustworthy, clean, brave, Reverend, you know, and, like, that's not what they mean. This is not my line. I wish it was but like. Like, one of the things I sort of like about Lane Kiffin is he seems to be the only person who acknowledges that all a coach really is is the piano player in the whorehouse. And, like, do you know what I mean? Like, he's not. Yeah. He's not shaping future leaders. He's calling plays to score touchdowns. You know, I'm sort of suspicious anytime somebody starts talking about they want a high character guy. Cause they don't. They want someone who lives by their code, which is different. Sports is always, I think, and sports writing particularly is like an honest look at the soul of the culture. Like, I think if you go read 10 sports stories from any era, I think you have some understanding about sort of that moment in America, for instance. And like, what's. You know, they're the things we say we value, and then they're the things we value, and those things are often very, very different.
- [29:09]
Podcast Host
Let's turn for a moment to fandom, because I think you probably have a pretty unique perspective on fandom. On the one hand, you stand somewhere in between the athlete and the fan, and so you have to kind of see something that the fan doesn't see. At the same time, you are clearly a fan. And there's kind of pathologies of fandom today. I don't know how intense it was 50, 60, 70 years ago, but the lengths to which fans go is pretty intense today. And I'm just curious, what is it that we're looking for as fans? That intensity that's unique to sports? What is that a gratification of what, longing or desire or drive? Is that an expression of.
- [29:51]
Wright Thompson
You know, I just watched those interviews that Jenna Bush did with the four presidents, you know, and she was talking to the one I remember was her talking to her dad. And, you know, I think that, you know, he touched on this a little. But, like, I feel like we are a nation of people separated by sort of class and by the algorithms more than anything. And. And that we are sort of tribeless people wandering the land in search of a tribe. And, you know, I think that, you know, I think a lot of our sort of political movements right now capitalize on people's innate desire to have a tribe when the American tribe has been sort of so under assault from every direction. And so I think sports does that. Sports is very tribal. Sports is a way where really complex, multi generational ideas about home and family are handed down almost like zipped up like an email, you know, and like, it's. It's a way for really complex things to be made simple and digestible. You know, this is who we are. We go to. We do this at these games. And so I think it's deeply rooted in our sort of desire to live in tribes.
- [31:12]
Podcast Host
When you're writing, do you think about what you want to give the fan? In other words, you're trying to give them something, a kind of intimacy that they can't get without you.
- [31:23]
Wright Thompson
You know, it's a deeply personal thing. I mean, what you have to trust, like Rick Rubin said. And I think it's really smart. Like, the first thing that all art must do is divide the audience. And so, you know, I've, like, writing about someone or something is a super personal, intimate thing. And what you hope is that, you know someone, that the things you're interested in, other people will be interested in. But, like, at the end of the day, that's just sort of a prayer in the dark. You know, you don't really know. I think some stories really resonate with people, and, you know, I'm not very good at picking which one those are gonna be. You know, some things do really well and some things don't. And I have found that I have no insight into which is which.
- [32:13]
Podcast Host
Are there things that fans miss that you think you can see better because you have a long history of observing sports from a different vantage point than they do? Like, what can you see that, like, I can't see?
- [32:23]
Wright Thompson
Well, you know, the. The referees are almost always right. You know, like, the. You know, and. But, like, by the way, like, sports is not supposed to be logical. Like, it's not supposed to be. It's supposed to be tribal. It's okay to not see it dispassionately. It's kind of the point.
- [32:41]
Podcast Host
Is there something that kind of separates good sports writing from good other writing? In other words, could somebody who. You know, could William Faulkner have written as good a sports story as you can? Or could Ernest Hemingway. I mean, is there something about good sports writing that's different from good writing generally?
- [32:59]
Wright Thompson
Look, Faulkner covered the Kentucky Derby for Sports Illustrated once. It's really good.
- [33:06]
Podcast Host
Yeah, I bet.
- [33:07]
Wright Thompson
Yeah. You're like. You're like, damn. No, I mean, I think. I think sports writing attracts a certain kind of person and. But, you know, like. Like, a lot of people started as sports writers and then moved into other things. You know, I'm thinking, you know, probably the best. You know, I'm trying to think probably the best newspaper writer in America is this guy for the New York Times named Eli Saslow who Started as a sports reporter at the Washington Post. I mean, over and over, when you start digging into people's bios, you will find that, oh, this person started as a sports writer.
- [33:43]
Podcast Host
Yeah. Yeah. That reminds me. David McCullough started writing for Sports Illustrated and went on to be, of course, a great Pulitzer Prize winning historical biographer.
- [33:51]
Wright Thompson
Yeah. You know, there's a famous story that Kurt Vonnegut had started at sport, had a job at Sports Illustrated, and his job was to write captions. You're going to have to bleep this out. But it's funny. And. And he. They kept having him rewrite a caption about a horse that escaped from the racetrack, like out at Aqueduct or something, and went into the infield. And so they kept asking him to do it, and finally he was so sick of it that he just walked out and he left as his resignation letter, the caption in his typewriter, and it said, the fucking horse jumped over the fucking fence. And so. But, you know. So Kurt Vonnegut worked at Sports Illustrated.
- [34:27]
Podcast Host
Yeah, that's pretty good.
- [34:29]
Wright Thompson
I mean, it's really good. Just like. Yeah, total masterpiece. Just like 10 out of 10, no notes.
- [34:36]
Podcast Host
What about, you know, the way sports has this interesting relationship with the South? I mean, you know, like, it's almost like the University of Alabama, the University of Tennessee, you know, Mississippi State, University of Ole Miss. Like, there's this kind of mystique that I think sports, especially football has in the south that, I mean, not to say that sport isn't popular all over the country, but I sit here talking to you in Texas, and you're a man from Mississippi, and I would say Texas football, high school football, it's a different deal out here than it might be in a different state. And I wonder, I can't really make sense of that. And I wonder if you can, like, why is that essence of sports, especially the essence of football, Southern? What is it about it?
- [35:23]
Wright Thompson
You know, that's a good question. I mean, I certainly think it's places that are rooted in faded mythologies. You know, if, as we talked about earlier, the greatest athletes are people who are trying to fill some sort of void inside of them, I would say the same is probably true about places that really love their teams like that. These teams are proxies. These games are proxies for something. I'm not smart enough to figure out what they are, but, like, that's what's going on. You know, the, you know, it is hard to separate sort of rust belt decay from Pittsburgh Steeler fandom. It is hard to sort of separate sort of the washed out, sort of abandoned place on a no longer needed commodity chain in rural Mississippi and Alabama. You know, in a lot of these places where football is huge, you know, these are dying towns, you know, it's hard to separate Odessa Permian from the boom and bust cycles of West Texas. You know, I mean, it's not an accident that the Friday Night Lights is in an oil town. I mean that's not random. And so like, I think, I think those things are, you know, I think they matter a lot. And you know, and you know, I think, you know, Friday Night Lights is a book about sort of American longing,
- [36:53]
Podcast Host
you know, it's a beautiful book and I'm from.
- [36:56]
Wright Thompson
Really good. Oh, where are you from in West Texas?
- [36:58]
Podcast Host
I'm from Lubbock, Texas, which is north of Midland. Odessa, but it's the same kind of deal.
- [37:03]
Wright Thompson
So is Lubbock, which is, Is it ab, Is it Abilene? What's the place that has the Big Texan?
- [37:09]
Podcast Host
The Big Texan where you can get eat if you get it. If you eat a 72 ounce steak, eat it for free, then it's free. So everybody should know. Go to the Big Texan, eat a 72 ounce steak. That's in Amarillo, Texas. That's an Amarillo hour north of me. Yeah.
- [37:24]
Wright Thompson
The maddest my father, my mother has ever been at. My father was when we thought he was gonna have to go to the emergency room after trying and failing to eat that steak. And she was so pissed. She was like, like, I can't believe this is happening. You know, one of my favorite stories, one of my favorite stories I ever did was I went out to West Texas, to Nazareth, Texas, which had the girls basketball dynasty. And it was a dry county, I think, but there was a bar, there was a bar in somebody's garage out on a farm where one of the dads took me to. But I loved it out at Nazareth, man.
- [38:02]
Podcast Host
Yeah, West Texas is real people, you
- [38:05]
Wright Thompson
know, dude, like I covered a trial in Odessa once and so I was out there for a lot of hearings that were in the morning. So I would fly in the night before and then go to the hearing and then leave. And so it used to really annoy me because I had to bring an entire other change of clothes because you could still smoke in all of the bars in Odessa. And I was just like, like, it's unbelievable. Like, I loved Odessa. I spent a lot of time in Odessa.
- [38:32]
Podcast Host
I mean, do you think that the, like the love that you're talking about sports places like we're now talking about West Texas, but places where you're from Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia has something to do. And I've kind of turned this over my head with a respect for. A longing for just the tradition of the game. That tradition itself is pretty powerful in those places. For whatever reason. Like, you know, Texas A and M, you go there, you know, they got all these traditions. And I'm looking at this thing, and I'm like, wow. Or, you know, Alabama, there's these traditions. So, you know, you mentioned, you know, that it's. It's these. These broken towns, which I think is, you know, part of that's true. But there's also something about the meaning of tradition and the preservation of tradition that's pretty powerful in some of these places.
- [39:16]
Wright Thompson
Well, yeah, and it's hard to sort of. It's hard to walk a line between sort of tradition and mythology. In places where things seem to change a lot, you have a longing for things to never change. And, you know, I certainly, you know, let's go back to Odessa. I mean, you know, boom and bust and boom and bust and boom and bust and boom and bust. But on Friday night, everything is always the same.
- [39:44]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [39:44]
Wright Thompson
And, like, there's a real power to that, and there's a real sense that, you know, in Mississippi, your whole life is determined by the sort of price of cotton and soybeans, which are not good right now. And. But we're gonna always, you know, we are gonna do Saturdays at Ole Miss. Like we've done them for four generations.
- [40:12]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [40:12]
Wright Thompson
You know, it's interesting. Cause, you know, the people think of the grove. You know, they've been tailgating in the groves since the 50s. But, you know, the modern tense, I mean, that's in the 90s. I mean, it's not that old. It is something new masquerading as something old. And, like, I think that's really interesting. You know, I love that line from the Episcopal liturgy. We do this in remembrance of you. And, like. And I always sort of think about that line when I'm at an Ole Miss tailgate and, you know, you know, the ghost of all the people who used to be there somehow still there. And, I mean, I often catch myself thinking we do this in remembrance of, you know, almost like sports as communion. And, like, I think that's 100. You know, I think that's what you're getting at. And I think that's 100%. It. I mean, occupies. I would love for someone to have their brain scanned at a sporting event. Because I bet the same parts of the brain are activated that are activated at mass. Like, I bet it. I bet whatever the spiritual part of your animal lizard brain is, I bet sports hits that. Like, I don't think sports and a movie hit the same part of your brain. Like, I don't, you know, sports triggers some sort of fight or flight thing that other entertainment can't, you know, in the way that, like, live music celebrates our desire for community, sports, like, trigger some sort of animal warfare response. Like, it's live music makes you feel something totally different than going to a game. And I don't know why that is.
- [41:46]
Podcast Host
Yeah, I mean, I said tradition, but it sounds to me like what you're talking about here is ritual.
- [41:50]
Wright Thompson
That it's ritual. No, that's what I mean.
- [41:51]
Podcast Host
It's almost quasi religious, you know, it's quasi religious.
- [41:54]
Wright Thompson
It's ritual. To me, it's. It is more ritual than it is tradition. And, And. And it's, you know, like, I love. Like, I don't speak Latin, but I love a Latin mass. You know what I mean? Like, I like the. I like all of that stuff. And so, no, I think it very much lives in the ritual space.
- [42:12]
Podcast Host
I think another aspect of this has got to be that it's a venue in which we can be unashamed and we can be all clear about the fact that we're there to observe human excellence. In other words, the standards in sports are not confused. You can tell somebody outside of sports, be who you are. Be yourself. What you are is good. Don't judge, you know, the kind of superficial relativism that pervades our culture. But in an arena or in a. In a, you know, on a field, there is no question for anyone in that place what excellence means. And they're there to see it, and they're there to see a standard held to or exceeded. And that's also unique.
- [42:54]
Wright Thompson
Well, look, it's the idea that, like, you know, sports is the last meritocracy because, like, at a certain point, the best people play, and like you said, you know, what good is. I mean, that goes back to why athletes have so much trouble in life afterwards. Because, like, how do you determine whether you did good or not? Because, you know, every single thing I do, for instance, you know, a certain percentage of the people really like it, and a certain percentage of the people really hate it. And so it's sort of like, hard to sort out. Like, what's data? Like, what's the signal? And what's the noise? And sports is beautiful in its simplicity. Like, there's a winner and there is a loser, and there are things to be learned and taught and observed about both. Like, sometimes I'll feel like the most important thing that kids learn at school is that life isn't fair. You know, that, like, the most valuable lesson is a shitty teacher. Because we all had them. You know, I had a great first grade teacher, a great second grade teacher, a shitty third grade teacher, a sort of. Yeah, fourth grade teacher, a great fifth grade and a great sixth grade teacher. Like, I remember that. And, you know, God, sorry, Ms. Peters, if you're watching, but you sucked. But, like, I think, like, that's a big part of it. And sports does that too. Like, not everybody wins. Like, and that sort of moral relativism that you were just talking about, there's this idea that, like, you know, that sacrifice is rewarded and that being a good person buys you something in this life, and it just doesn't, and that's not why you do it. And so, like, there are a lot of lessons to be learned from. From sports. I mean, you know, that. Like, I. I totally. I completely agree with you.
- [44:42]
Podcast Host
There's. There's also a lesson as you talk about this. There's a lesson in deference. What I mean by that is, if I'm on the court and Shay Gilgeous, Alexander, LeBron James, Michael Jordan are on the court, and it's the last five seconds, I don't want the ball because I know that they're better than me, and I'm a professional, right? I've made it to the NBA, but I'm about to give that guy the ball because at that moment, you can see that there's a difference between me and him, and so can all of America. And so there's these great lessons in deference where if it's the last second, get Tom Brady the ball, because something magical just might happen. Because he's that good. And not only is he that good, he does the same thing as all these professionals do who are all millionaires, but when it comes down to it, he's light years better than them in a certain way. I mean, there's this deference, you know,
- [45:29]
Wright Thompson
what's life in the food chain?
- [45:30]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [45:31]
Wright Thompson
And. And. And, like, I think, you know, one of the sort of. You know, there's this idea that we try to pretend sometimes that the food chain doesn't exist, but it does. You know, we're in the food chain and, you know, everything isn't Relative, like, you know what I mean? Like, LeBron James is better at this than, you know, than Devin Booker, than
- [45:55]
Podcast Host
even a guy next to him who gets paid 15 million a year, and he gets paid.
- [45:59]
Wright Thompson
You know, one of the reasons I thought, like, Scottie Pippen has sort of struggled so much in retirement is that he was one of a handful of people on Earth who was good enough to hold his own with Michael Jordan and therefore realize that the differences between them were both tiny and insurmountable.
- [46:22]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [46:23]
Wright Thompson
You know what I mean? He was, like, one of the few people who was good enough to know the difference. Yeah.
- [46:29]
Podcast Host
What do you make of this? That, like, we have a sick culture, people say. And then, you know, there's this notion that in a polarized America, sports is a great unifier, that you can turn to somebody when you're at the Yankees game and there's a home run and you can give them a high five. And what you don't do is think they're a Democrat or they're Republican. You think, man, that guy, you know, he just homered. Right. So that sports somehow transcends our politics. Now, I understand sports is politicized a lot. Right. And you're aware of that more than me. But does sports have a kind of unique power even or especially in an environment like today?
- [47:02]
Wright Thompson
I think it can. I think you gotta be really careful with it. There's an Ole Miss fan whose tent I pass on the way to my tent every Saturday and has a bunch of signs up that say, like, no liberals allowed. And I just want to be like, you know, like, I kind of want to be like, are you from Texas or Georgia? Because you're not from here. You know what I mean? Like, no one from here would be so casual with something so precious that, like, you know, this isn't the bumper sticker of your shitty car. Like, this is a sacred space. What are you doing? Like, go home. You know, my first thought is, what? Like, where's this carpetbagger from? I think that it can be that unifier. I think, you know, I was just at Augusta national, which, you know, it's a weird sample size, but, like, I was joking that, like, oh, this is the last place where the social contract still exists, where everybody's happy, where everybody is polite. You know, the. So I think it can be. I mean, I think the question, of course, is. I mean, what you don't want is for different sports to be siloed in different communities. Because, like, you know, we talked about this earlier, but, like, the American experiment. The American tribe has been under deep assault from the left and the right for a very long time, both of whom claim to love America. And, you know, the idea that, like, if there isn't some unified tribe of us, then we really don't even have a country. And so we're just people who pay taxes to the same place and drive the same roads, but we're not neighbors. And so, like, sports is a way for people, for strangers to be neighbors. You know, a stadium in rapture. And like, I was at the Ole Miss. It was at the Sugar bowl when Ole Miss beat Georgia and was, like, hugging strangers on the street. And like, that's the best of us. That night was the best of us. You know, I didn't want to go home, not. Cause we were drunk, because I just didn't want that to end because it felt so magic. We'd go into places and it would just be Ole Miss fans everywhere. And we were hugging. And like, Georgia fans who've won a lot and therefore can afford to be gracious, were incredibly gracious. Like, everybody was like, congratulate. Like, it was this beautiful, beautiful moment. And there's almost nothing in the culture that does that except sports. I mean, sports, like, live music does it, you know, but, like, you know, that. That collective euphoria is increasingly rare and precious.
- [49:38]
Podcast Host
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it was sort of sad this year at the Olympics. There was some politicization of the Olympics, but you go back to times like when Team USA defeats Russia, you know, when the whole country seems to come together. Or I think about when President Bush threw out that pitch after 9, 11, and, oh, it's incredible. I mean, you know, those are moments where you think this has the power to do something that's like, that, like, transcends the pettiness of party politics.
- [50:01]
Wright Thompson
Well, yeah, but it's. You know. You know, the reason the Olympics went like that is that, you know, there currently is no United States of America.
- [50:10]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [50:11]
Wright Thompson
I mean, it. You know, and, like, not to be overdramatic about it. I mean, I hear how that sounds when it comes out. But, like, that's why no one could agree because, like, there was no ability to sort of. For everyone to put down their rhetorical swords and cheer for the same thing. And, you know, and that's being egged on, you know, I mean, like, you know, we talked about gambling, but, like, you know, social. The intersection of social media in sports is a nightmare. I mean, we're just a nation of trolls, you know, and it's true. It's like, you know, athletes have a window into the true American nature of more than most people because people say outlandish, awful stuff to them all the time.
- [50:53]
Podcast Host
Look, Wright Thompson, I want to thank you for coming on to old school. Thank you for being a storyteller. I mean, you're a rare breed in that way, the kind of stories you tell and the depth and emotion with which you tell them. So thank you for being here.
- [51:05]
Wright Thompson
It's my pleasure. Thank you so much.
- [51:08]
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