Wright Thompson was just the latest person to mention Thomas Lake as one of his favorite current writers. John Walsh and Bill Reiter were the others. I think it’s time we take a look at something he’s done Check out this story from Sports Illustrated’s February 2012 issue.
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In my opinion, the single most powerful part of the story was when Lake writes, “Barnes applied the pads to Wes’s chest and waited for the robotic voice to guide her. But the machine made no sound. The battery was dead.” When I read that part I felt about ten different emotions.
That’s why the thing I liked most about this story was the discussion throughout about the defibrillators, especially how Wes’ mom is going around and giving to school’s as part of the Wes Leonard Heart Team. Some people may not have liked all of the medical references and talk about defibrillators because it kind of broke up the flow of the story, but those things, especially the Wes Leonard Heart Team, is what I saw as the true legacy of Wes Leonard.
All of that being said, I was kind of disappointed with the ending. When you have already told the readers that Xavier “was about to play the finest game of the season, with 11 points in the fourth quarter and 18 altogether” I think it is kind of implied that he stood up at some point.
To me what make this story so powerful are the anecdotes, but they also leave me with questions. Assuming Thomas Lake was not following Wes prior to his death, he had to ask Wes’s family and friends a lot of background. Lake is able to give complete and descriptive vignettes –some with quotes – about important moments in the time leading up to Wes’s death. What I wonder is how was Lake able to get such information as to make it seem like he was there at the football games and in the hospital with Maria. What we can learn from this is not only to ask a lot of questions, but to ask the right questions to give you the most complete answers. The little things, like the fact that Maria called Wes’s car a girl car may not seem important during an interview, but it can add so much depth to the story. As Greg mentioned, not all details need to be shared; Lake does a good job finding the details that enhance the story.
Something else I noticed about the story is that quotes are rarely used and when they are used, it is mostly in dialogue. I remembered that Wright said he often prefers the same usage guide. I had never previously noticed this model, as I love a great quote, but now that I am aware of it, I have found it to work well in storytelling.
I had the same questions that Kelsie did about this story. I wonder how Lake was able to get all of these details about the game itself and even the quotes from the players during the game. Was he at the game where Wes collapsed? He gets minute details, like Wes saying “Nice box out” to Michael Kamp on Bridgman. You have to wonder if Lake was there at the game or if Wes’ parents and teammates told him all of the details of this story. I think the story is much more powerful if Lake was actually at the game because otherwise you’re at the mercy of other people.
After reading this story, it would seem like Lake received an incredible amount of access throughout this story. I’m just wondering how much of it he witnessed and what was relayed to him by a second source.
I think this story works because of the vignettes. Lake is using all of these mini-stories in the whole piece to establish who Wes Leonard is. The move beyond saying this 16-year-old basketball played died under tragic circumstances. Without the vignettes, it doesn’t move the needle or create an emotional reaction for the audience. What Lake is doing isn’t easy, though. He’s able intertwines several different stories in this piece without leaving the reader confused, which is something that less experienced feature writers might need be able to do. Wright talked about how the best feature, or long-form writers, make this work in their stories. They are able to include subtle mini-stories in their features that are used build the story and make it more powerful. I think Lake does that here.
I, too, think that Lake had to include the medical details of this story to provide enough context. Without these details, the reader is left to ask: why was Wes’ heart decision never discovered? Lake does a good job of telling the reader that this condition can be overlooked for years and then all of the sudden someone can experience sudden cardiac arrest.
I liked almost everything about this story, but I’ll focus on the vignettes especially. I think Lake told this story about Wes Leonard, but more than that he wanted to establish how Leonard’s story and his successes had an impact on a town that desperately needed a light at the end of the tunnel.
He lists through a variety of the people in the audience, painting a picture about the struggles in each of their lives. An unemployed welder named Terry Collins is looking desperately for work. Mike George lost his wife and a part of his leg to cancer. Jayson Hicks is fighting through a rare nerve disease that won’t allow him to button up his shirt.
More than Wes or Xavier needed this, the town needed this. They needed a winner. And I think Lake demonstrates that by establishing the plights of ordinary people who looked to this team and these few players for a spark, a distraction, if only for a few hours in a high school gym.
I enjoyed this read, and I feel like you can point to Lake’s approach as the reason for why it works so well. Sensing a full and complicated, yet worthwhile story; Lake isn’t afraid to tell Wes’ story in its fullest form. There’s so much detail here throughout the piece, and as Nick mentioned above, Lake uses all of this information effectively in varying ways to usher in about 10 different types of emotions within connected readers.
It seems paramount to approach a story of this magnitude in this way. Aiming to keep your readers hanging on every word by using all of your detail from reporting to involve them emotionally is a hefty goal, but flows harmoniously if accomplished (as evidenced here). Lake seems to have realized that the story’s value was highest when told through such angles, and it shows in this piece.
A few comments:
1. I think Nick nailed it in the first comment as far as the highlight of the story. In a story that in my opinion drags on at points, it’s one four-word sentence that carries the most weight. “The battery was dead.” We all know what that means. We don’t need any further explanation. Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in our own prose, and we forget that sometimes simple is best.
2. Kelsie mentioned the quotes (or the lack of them). It’s important to keep in mind that we’re all professional writers (well… we will be someday, hopefully). As graduates of an elite journalism school, we should be able to say things in a more interesting way than most of our sources. Paraphrasing can be a beautiful thing. Had Lake relied on direct quotes to move the narrative instead of telling the story himself, this story would probably lose the vast majority of its power. Unless a quote says something you simply can’t say in a more powerful way, there’s not much reason to use it, especially in a story like this.
3. As I mentioned, I do think this story drags on a bit. It’s 6,600 words long, and readers know from the first sentence that Wes Leonard dies (which I love as a lead… in medias res if you want to be a literary dork). Because it’s a fairly simple story (star player in small town dies, basic medical equipment would’ve saved him, mom starts a foundation), I’m not sure it warrants that much build-up. I think this story would be stronger if Lake and/or his editors tried to tighten it a bit. Some of the vignettes people praise could probably be cut without weakening the narrative.
4. Speaking of literary dorks, James started this by noting several of our guests have talked about Lake. I noticed last week that several of our guests have mentioned “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway (Robert Mays spent an hour or two in an “interview” with John Walsh talking about it, it’s one of Wright’s favorite novels, etc). This is completely off the topic of this post (and of the class), but I was an English teacher in my past life, and I taught that novel. I still own 10 copies that I bought for my class. If anyone’s interested in spending Thanksgiving break reading the novel all sports journalists seem to love, let me know.
The construction of this article is very unusual but effective. Thomas Lake weaves in and out of different narratives to eventually give the reader the full story. Lake didn’t put the events in chronological order. Instead, he arranged him in a way that would make the story more powerful. I think it was especially important when he did this in the final section when describing Xavier’s situation. If Lake would’ve ended the article by telling us that Xavier quit on with a game left in the football season and nearly quit basketball, it would’ve completely changed the tone of the story to something more depressing and uninspiring. Lake wanted to emphasize Xavier’s great performance in the games immediately following Wes’ death, so he wrote that “Xavier knew none of that” and ended it on with a strong and triumphant line.
Some thoughts:
1. Lake’s use of metaphor to explain Leonard’s heart condition is brilliant. I’d be curious to ask him how he came up with the idea to compare Leonard’s deteriorating heart to an old bridge, but regardless of how it came to be, it is effective.
“Under this theory, Wes Leonard’s heart went from all to nothing like a collapsing bridge. The bridge holds up for years, slowly worn down by the weight of cars and the ravages of weather. Bolts quietly work loose. A billion vehicles cross without incident. And then, one rush hour, it all falls into the river.”
2. I agree with those who commented earlier that “the battery was dead” might have been the most powerful line in the story. In four words Lake tells us all we need to know. And yet it leaves the reader thinking about what could have been had the school been more prepared. Sure, he could have talked about Wes’s lifeless body lying in the gym, but the reader is almost certainly imagining that on their own.
3. The previously mentioned vignettes are what separate this story from an average piece of writing. It’s remarkable that, somehow, Lake managed to gain enough of an understanding of so many different people’s lives. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during his interviews with Wes or Xavier’s parents, Jayson Hicks or any of the others profiled in this story.