R.I.P. Sports Illustrated

For better or worse, I am a huge sports fan.  For as long as I can remember, I have loved to play sports, watch sports live and on television and, most of all, to read about sports.

I always admired sportswriters and, for a time growing up, I wanted to be one.

I especially admired national columnists I read weekly in The Sporting News - the first magazine I subscribed to, at the age of 10 or 11 - legends like Dick Young, Art Spander and Joe Falls.  The Sporting News arrived weekly at our house addressed to me and that was big.

Sports Illustrated was different.  It also arrived weekly but it was addressed to my mom, not me.  I couldn't wait for its arrival and to see who was on the cover.  Sometimes but not often, my mom would beat me to the mailbox and read it before me.  Glossy, amazing photographs.  Letter to the Editor.  Faces in the Crowd (young athletes - high school or small college usually).  The Point After.  This Week's Sign That the Apocalypse is Upon Us.  Game stories.

If it was written about in Sports Illustrated, it obviously was a big game from the previous week.  Or, big events, like the Master's, Wimbledon, etc.  It was all there.

And long form pieces, which were my favorite part of the magazine.  Features.  I loved reading them.   In fact, in high school during study hall, I would pull bound editions of old Sports Illustrated magazines from the stacks and read long form pieces from years gone past.

Such great writers, some of whom recently died.  Dan Jenkins.  Frank Deford.  S.L. Price.  Gary Smith.  Tim Layden.  And so very many more.

Later, when I left for college, my mom gave me my own subscription to Sports Illustrated as a Christmas gift.  And she kept giving that Christmas gift to me, year after year, until she died eight months ago.

So many times over the years, we compared notes on that week's Sports Illustrated.  Did you see the article by Gary Smith on . . . ?  And on and on and on it went.

No questions, I inherited my love of sports - and Sports Illustrated - from my mom.  Now, she's gone and for all intents and purposes, after yesterday, Sports Illustrated is gone, too.  Half of the staff laid off as an internet publisher from Seattle - Maven - takes over.  Bloggers and contract writers will replace staffers.  More video, less written content.

Like everyone else in the magazine industry, Sports Illustrated has been on life support for a few years.  Writers have departed.  Bi-weekly issues, at best.  Now this.

I hate that my boys and I won't have Sport Illustrated to bond over in the years to come.  I hate that we won't share that experience the way my mom and I did.  I miss my mom terribly and I will miss Sports Illustrated, too.

My mom would have been sad about the demise of Sports Illustrated.  I know I am.