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Sports Guy: In Search of Corkball, Warroad Hockey, Hooters Golf, Tiger Woods, and the Big, Big Game
Here, at last, is Charles Pierce's best writing on sports, collected for the first time in one volume. All of these pieces, first published in GQ, the National, and Esquire, showcase Pierce's trademark humor. Some are spot-on profiles of famous sports personalities such as Tiger Woods, Magic Johnson, and Peyton Manning, while others are portraits of lesser-known figures such as Nebraska basketball coach Danny Nee, a former Vietnam vet who openly opposed the Gulf War, Cool Papa Bell, a ballplayer from the Negro Leagues who is ripped off by memorabilia hounds, and Mike Donald, an obscure golfer on the PGA tour who played the best golf in his life only to lose a tournament by one stroke. Pierce also takes us on unforgettable journeys into the wide world of sports, from a snake-charming pole-vaulter to life on the Hooters Golf Tour, from the fashion accessories of the modern ballplayer to how a small community -- Warroad, Minnesota -- bonds over ice hockey. Sports Guy will delight Pierce's devoted readers and is certain to win him many, many more.
- GenresSportsNonfiction
336 pages, Paperback
First published December 7, 2000
About the author
Charles P. Pierce
14 books56 followersCharles P. ("Charlie") Pierce is a nationally known American sportswriter, author, and game show panelist. His best known work is Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 15, 2011
A solid collection from one of America's best long-form sportswriters, Sports Guy is pretty much everything you'd expect from Charles P. Pierce: it's about sports, but it's about a lot more, too.
It's about people. As this is a collection of sports features, there's a number of profiles of athletes. They range from the famous ones you and your mom know - Larry Bird, Allen Iverson, Tiger Woods - to those you'd otherwise never know of, like golfer Mike Donald, pole-vaulter Jeff Hartwig or Alfred Redman, basketball coach at the Wyoming Indian High School. It's tempting to say the lesser-known the subject, the better the story; his piece on Donald, who marginal PGA-tour golfer who lost the US open on the final hole, is one of the best things here.
But Pierce focuses just as hard on the bigger names, too. He's able to explain why Allen Iverson is a lot more like Larry Bird than you'd think. He's able to explain the difference between Magic Johnson and Earvin Johnson. He was miles ahead of everybody else on Tiger Woods, who he depicts as flawed, like everybody else, years and years before everybody else really noticed.
The writing here is gorgeous, too. Pierce is a great wordsmith and whip-smart; he's able to avoid the easy cliches and cut to the point of what he's writing about; Two Tough Mothers is some of the best sportswriting ever and it's not because of anything any athlete does inside the story.
The only problem I had with this book was it's length; most of these pieces appeared in GQ or Esquire and they're short, often too short. In a couple of cases, they feel like they're only getting going as they end. Recommended for sports fans.
It's about people. As this is a collection of sports features, there's a number of profiles of athletes. They range from the famous ones you and your mom know - Larry Bird, Allen Iverson, Tiger Woods - to those you'd otherwise never know of, like golfer Mike Donald, pole-vaulter Jeff Hartwig or Alfred Redman, basketball coach at the Wyoming Indian High School. It's tempting to say the lesser-known the subject, the better the story; his piece on Donald, who marginal PGA-tour golfer who lost the US open on the final hole, is one of the best things here.
But Pierce focuses just as hard on the bigger names, too. He's able to explain why Allen Iverson is a lot more like Larry Bird than you'd think. He's able to explain the difference between Magic Johnson and Earvin Johnson. He was miles ahead of everybody else on Tiger Woods, who he depicts as flawed, like everybody else, years and years before everybody else really noticed.
The writing here is gorgeous, too. Pierce is a great wordsmith and whip-smart; he's able to avoid the easy cliches and cut to the point of what he's writing about; Two Tough Mothers is some of the best sportswriting ever and it's not because of anything any athlete does inside the story.
The only problem I had with this book was it's length; most of these pieces appeared in GQ or Esquire and they're short, often too short. In a couple of cases, they feel like they're only getting going as they end. Recommended for sports fans.
September 2, 2019
It's kind of unbelievable that after more than 20 years for most of these stories, we're still dealing with the same sets of problems and every thought still feels relevant. Charlie Pierce is a treasure.
March 8, 2020
Pierce is such a talented writer. This collection of columns from the ‘90s is a nice way to reminisce about that era in sports.
February 22, 2015
If you want a feel for 1990s sports, jump into Charles Pierce's book. There's Tiger Woods as a kid, a young Shaquille O'Neal just starting in the pros at Orlando, Allen Iverson, Eric Lindros' mom, Deion Sanders and his bling in Dallas and Jeff Hartwig, the pole vaulter from Jonesboro, Ark.
He also has some more obscure tales about Nebraska baskeball coach Danny Nee and his difficulties with Viet Nam, Abe Lemons on his career at Texas and Oklahoma colleges and golfer Mike Donald on struggling on the tour.
All-in-all, it's a good book, but Pierce seems to do some one-trick pony stuff. Heavy on the descriptions of the surrounding areas in many of his articles seem to distract rather than paint the pictures of the scene. And doing it once in a while is okay, but constantly... I know Oklahoma is dusty, I know there its desperate on the Hooters golf tour. Pierce also falls back on writing at least of couple of stories as if they are Biblical.
It's a fun book that takes the reader back to the sports days of the 1990s and, if read sporadically and not continually, it should be enjoyable.
He also has some more obscure tales about Nebraska baskeball coach Danny Nee and his difficulties with Viet Nam, Abe Lemons on his career at Texas and Oklahoma colleges and golfer Mike Donald on struggling on the tour.
All-in-all, it's a good book, but Pierce seems to do some one-trick pony stuff. Heavy on the descriptions of the surrounding areas in many of his articles seem to distract rather than paint the pictures of the scene. And doing it once in a while is okay, but constantly... I know Oklahoma is dusty, I know there its desperate on the Hooters golf tour. Pierce also falls back on writing at least of couple of stories as if they are Biblical.
It's a fun book that takes the reader back to the sports days of the 1990s and, if read sporadically and not continually, it should be enjoyable.
July 23, 2015
There are some interesting and charming pieces -- on Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, the journeyman golfer, the wrestler who won the lottery -- but overall the subject did not hold my interest, and I found the tone a bit sedate for commuter reading.
November 25, 2007
The story on Henry Boucha of Warroad was worth the price alone. That and the GREATEST story on Tiger Woods ever written.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews