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Articles by Craig Neff
Original Gangsters of Running (Rod Dixon)
All I want to do is drink beer and train like an animal. – Rod Dixon Think it was 1980, in Purchase, New York, at the headquarters of a carbonated beverage company, when Rod Dixon and I first crossed paths. He was an invited athlete and I was happy just to get in the door. Later we partied together at the Pittock Mansion in Portland, Oregon. Well, maybe not actually ‘together.’ My back and his back were often back to back. Not like we ever hung out. Disneyland. 1983 maybe.
Q-and-A with Olympic Medalist (and Avid Naturalist) Lynn Jennings
August 3, 2012 Lynn Jennings is one of the greatest distance runners and toughest competitors in American history.
HIS HONOR, DON BAYLOR
Don Baylor, baseball's preeminent jurist, is in deep deliberation now, studying the remains of the ham sandwich in question. It was found in the locker of Red Sox outfielder Dwight Evans unacceptably close to game time. The customary fine in Boston's kangaroo court for such an offense is $5. But Evans objects. He contends that coach Rene Lachemann, a known pregame nosher, planted the evidence. This, muses Judge Baylor, is a case without precedent. Baylor seeks the truth.
A Twilight's Last Gleaming
The Bishops, Fred and Inez, of Pineville, Kentucky possess all the best American graces—faith and diligence, loyalty, sacrifice and hard work. For most of their lives the Bishops were dirt poor, but there was bounty in what they bred, seven magnificent children, all of whom earned honors, scholarships and college degrees. The Bishop children were bright and popular and so healthy that, in the aggregate, they didn't miss so much as a month of school days. This was a family blessed.
A HEAD TO HEED
Everything in life is more so than it was. That is the basic premise we must live under in the world today. Teddy Tinling said that to the Tennis Tyro one day, and the callow fellow listened and wrote it down because he had been advised that Teddy knew more about a number of things than just about anybody. Anyway, he said them better.
To The Giant Among Us: What life is like for Andre the Giant
Once upon a time, in a farmhouse in France, a baby boy was born. "Such hands," his father said. "Perhaps he will be a man to match my father." "But you have told me that your father was a giant," said his wife with a smile. "Was he truly as large as you say? A head above two meters, and 250 kilos?" "All that and more," the father replied sternly. "I am the son of a giant.
THE BEST AGAINST THE BEST
As they approached the tee at the 72nd hole, Alfie Fyles, Tom Watson's caddie, spoke up. "Go for the jugular," he said, and Watson broke a small grin and nodded his head and asked for his one-iron. This was it, at last; this would be the final hole in what, even then, people were calling the greatest golf match ever. Watson had gone head to head with Jack Nicklaus—the young lion, the challenger of this decade, vs.
Nothing Could Be Finer: North Carolina wins the 1982 NCAA title
Oh for six. Goose eggs by the half dozen. How many times had he heard it? And there it was happening to Dean Smith once more as his North Carolina team, behind again, passed the ball around the Georgetown zone with the clock running down in Monday night's NCAA championship game in the Louisiana Superdome, Over a multitude of Marches, if it wasn't Alcindor, it was Mount; if it wasn't a McGuire farewell, it was an Isiah goodby.
A 1,000 to 1 Shot
From where Tom Watson was on the 71st hole of the U.S. Open golf championship Sunday at Pebble Beach—in the garbage, on a downslope, looking at a slick green—you don't simply chip the ball into the cup for a birdie to beat Jack Nicklaus, who is already in the scorer's tent with a total good enough to win. First, you throw up. Well, that's wrong, of course.
Year Of The Tigers
Until the game was finally over and the 12-0 season and undisputed national championship that had seemed like such a "stupid" idea—to use Danny Ford's favorite word—four months, or even four hours earlier, became real, the 33-year-old coach kept seeing the dream end in just about every unhappy way possible. "Shoot," said Ford after Clemson's 22-15 Orange Bowl victory over Nebraska, "before the game I saw us getting behind by a lot of points early.
KING OF THE SPORTS PAGE
The thing about Jim Murray is that he lived "happily," but somebody ran off with his "ever after." It's like the guy who's ahead all night at poker and then ends up bumming cab money home. Or the champ who's untouched for 14 rounds and then gets KO'd by a pool-hall left you could see coming from Toledo. Murray is a 750-word column, and 600 of those are laughs and toasts. How many sportswriters do you know who once tossed them back with Bogie? Wined and dined Marilyn Monroe? Got mail from Brando?
SI’s best Rio Olympic swimming moments: Phelps, Ledecky
RIO DE JANEIRO — If there were Olympic swimming awards to hand out based on the eight days and nights of racing at the Aquatic Stadium, the U.S. would clearly take home Outstanding Team of the Games. No other country earned more than 10 medals. But who would win the other honors? Here is a look at the performers, performances and personalities that will linger in the memory long after Michael Phelps has settled into retirement: Male Swimmer of the Games: Phelps, of course.
U.S. men, women win relay golds in Phelps’s final race
RIO DE JANEIRO—Olympic swimming always ends well for Team USA. The final events are bring-the-house-down all-star races, the men’s and women’s 400-meter medley relays, in which each country enters a lineup made up of its fastest 100-meter backstroker, breaststroker, butterflier and freestyler. On top teams, every relay member is a medalist. The U.S. always wins the men’s race and takes gold or silver in the women’s event.
Ledecky, Phelps, DiRado, Ervin medal for US in swimming
RIO DE JANEIRO — Katie Ledecky had just one Olympic race left, a race to make history. She would swim it essentially alone. At the Aquatics Stadium on Friday night—an evening when Michael Phelps would swim the last individual event of his career and the U.S.’s Maya DiRado and Anthony Ervin would pull off two of the biggest surprises of the Games—Ledecky dived into the pool for the final of the 800-meter freestyle as an overwhelming favorite.
Michael Phelps, Simone Manuel win swimming golds
RIO DE JANEIRO — Only two days remain in the most impressive farewell tour in sports history, a show that keeps getting better. On a night when a new American star emerged—20-year-old Simone Manuel, surprise gold medalist in the women’s 100-meter freestyle—Michael Phelps was again the galvanizing figure at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium.
Ledecky Dominates in the Pool
(RIO DE JANEIRO) — After the monumental wins by Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky 24 hours earlier, Wednesday was supposed to be a quieter night for the podium-dominating U.S. swimmers at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium. Not exactly. All that happened was that Ledecky spectacularly added her fourth medal of the Games, Phelps put himself in position to win No. 4, Josh Prenot earned a surprise breaststroke silver and Nathan Adrian nearly pulled off a feat that no American had accomplished since 1928.
Lilly King, Ryan Murphy Lead the Way
RIO DE JANEIRO — Each night at the Aquatics Stadium brings new tests for Team USA, which has 30 first-time Olympians on its 45-swimmer roster. On Monday, with Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky competing only in semifinals, seven of the eight Americans racing for medals were rookies who had never swum in an Olympic final before. Five of them earned spots on the podium, as did the one non-rookie.
A Murderers' Row of One
Day after day, the balls soared into the seats. Fastballs, knuckleballs, sliders, inside pitches, outside pitches—all stroked with precise power by Yankee first baseman Don Mattingly, the only man in baseball who wasn't admiring the performance with mouth agape. After Friday night's game Mattingly had homered in seven consecutive games, just one shy of Dale Long's 31-year-old major league record, yet he was paying the streak about as much attention as he does a curveball in the dirt.
ONE SHOCK WAVE AFTER ANOTHER
Nearly five months later, the grave is still little more than bare dirt. "Look for the flag," an official of the Lincoln Memorial Cemetery says, but the miniature American flag that marks the Suitland, Md., burial plot of Len Bias has long since been bleached almost beyond recognition. It is a toy flag, incongruous as a landmark. It is scarcely higher than one's shoe tops. The site is a knoll overlooking forested valleys that are flush with autumn color.
Migrating Songbird Fallout On Machias Seal Island (Guest Post By Lighthouse Keeper Ralph Eldridge) — The Naturalist's Notebook
April 10, 2016 I asked Ralph Eldridge if he would share some of the migrating-songbird photos he has taken as a lighthouse keeper. He tends the Canadian lighthouse on tiny, treeless Machias Seal Island, which sits on the Atlantic Flyway migration route about 12 miles from the nearest points of land in Maine and Canada (Grand Manan Island). I was especially interested in a May 24, 2011, nighttime fallout of migrating birds at the lighthouse.
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