Inside, Outside, In Between
WHEN I WAS TWELVE years old and starting to break competitive-swimming records, I read only books about athletes. I started with Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life. After that, Laura Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit, biographies of Olympic gymnast Carly Patterson and Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz, and a tale of Shoeless Joe Jackson, the Major League outfielder whose career was ended by his alleged involvement in fixing the 1919 World Series. Convinced of Shoeless Joe’s innocence, I went so far as to send a letter to The Shoeless Joe Jackson Society, outlining all the reasons he should be inducted to the Hall of Fame.
I think I was attracted to these sports books for the same reason my mother always thumbed through the shiny gossip magazines in checkout lines: I wanted the inside scoop. Like the tabloids, these books depended on an inherent division between the subject and the reader, but they also promised access, the chance to get a little closer to the athletes I idolized and, maybe, to become less of an outsider. Carly Patterson, Mark Spitz, and the others represented greatness, athletic excellence—at times, even the sport itself. Those narrators (and ghostwriters) pronounced, with an almost God-like air: Reader, I invite you to put your faith in me, and all your questions will be answered.
My swimming career ended rather unceremoniously when I graduated from college. I’d grown sick of swimming and had wanted to quit years earlier, but I couldn’t imagine being on the outside of something that had defined me for so, they seemed to say.
