Comments on: “SI VAULT”: Sports Illustrated’s Paradise

By: MODI

MODI — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:23:38 +0000

Hey des, thanks for that. I had to go to the middle to find it. Unfortunately it wouldn’t show up in the “read all articles” section

As for SI’s writing it used to be so much better in the past. I do think that they are making a slight comeback lately. I really hope that it continues…

By: des

des — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 01:18:29 +0000

MODI,

See, you got me hooked:

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/edb/reader.html?magID=SI&issueDate=19910812&mode=reader_vault

By: des

des — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:16:43 +0000

MODI,

Thanks for that piece. As a collector of SI from 1983 to 2007, I have most of those books in storage, so I remember that piece, Wiley allowed me to not only know who Ewing was, but what drove him to be the player he was at the time.

Also, reading the stories from the past should make those who value good writing see the difference between then and now. SI couldn’t come soon enough each week, I HAD to read what Ralph Wiley, William Nack, Frank Deford, Ralph Jenkins, Rick Telander, and Curry Kirpatrick wrote about the sports topics of the day. Now ” the Illy “, as Wiley would call it, has become ” Men’s Journal”. This is progress?

By: MODI

MODI — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 23:50:54 +0000

LOL Des!!! The VERY FIRST THING that I did was locate Jack Olsen’s 1968 5 Part Series on the Black Athlete. I’ve seen it referenced a million times, but never able to find it anywhere. The one negative is that the articles only print out one page at a time. I just spent a couple of hours last night cutting and pasting all 5 parts into one single word document so I can read it all at once sometime this week. It comes to over 60 pages! I plan to read it in the next couple of days, and offer some observations.

Part 1 – The Black Athlete: A Shameful Story
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1081325/index.htm

Part 2: Pride and Prejudice
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1081353/index.htm

Part 3: In an Alien Background http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1081383/index.htm

Part 4: In the Back of The Bus
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1081405/index.htm

Part 5: The Anguish of a Team Divided
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1081429/index.htm

I’m having trouble finding the Wiley-Penny piece as the vault still must work out some technical glitches. But here is a wonderful Wiley-Ewing piece from 1985. I remember reading it as a teenager…
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1119034/index.htm

By: des

des — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:43:19 +0000

MODI,

In fact, go to the vault, search for ” The Black Athlete”, and go to the 1967 pieces. See how far we’ve come, if we’ve come far at all.

By: des

des — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:29:31 +0000

MODI,

Dig hard enough and find Wiley’s piece on Penny Hardaway and his grandmother. It was part of their three-part ” Black Athlete” series.

By: MODI

MODI — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:19:40 +0000

Folly, thanks for the link. I didn’t know that som many mags already had their stuff on line. I remember in college how it used take forever to hunt down magazines to find some data. This trend is a really beautiful thing.

By: Charles Follymacher

Charles Follymacher — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:25:18 +0000

Glad they did this. I was loyal to SI for a long time til their javascript got so heavy, so much of a browser burden that trying to navigate thru the site became an unbearable experience. I was forced to go to the "upstart" ESPN just cuz their programmers knew how to make an interactive site w/o the bloat. SI finally got around to fixing that issue a while ago, but they had to do something to staunch the traffic bleed to the competition and reinvigorate themselves with a service the competition can't match. The vault does the trick. It seems to be a trend in online news nowadays. Bully for them, so bully for you and, it follows, bully for us.