The Best American Sports Writing 2011

The Best American Series®

First, Best, and Best-Selling

The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and sports journalism. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind.

The Best American Sports Writing 2011 includes

Paul Solotaroff, Sally Jenkins, Wells Tower, John McPhee, David Dobbs, Wright Thompson, P. J. O’Rourke, Selena Roberts, and others

This year, guest editor Jane Leavy curates a powerful collection of sports writing that goes beyond the headlines:

• Investigative Sports Reporting: Go behind the scenes of a shocking ABC News investigation that exposed a culture of sexual abuse within USA Swimming.
• In-Depth Profiles: Meet unforgettable figures like Darryl "Chocolate Thunder" Dawkins, the man-child who shattered backboards and became the first player to jump from high school to the NBA.
• Sports Culture Essays: Discover the untold origin story of the Madden NFL video game, a franchise born from a tense meeting between a young tech visionary and a skeptical John Madden on an Amtrak train.
• Risk and Reward: Explore the high-stakes world of extreme athletes, from the "Elevator Shaft" luge track in Vancouver to the breathless ambition of a record-setting free-diver.