I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.' | | | | | Lifts, trails, possibilities: James Niehues' map of Deer Valley. (Dave Winer/Flickr) | | | | |  | “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'”
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| | rantnrave:// This is my last edition of SportsREDEF. On Tuesday you'll meet our new curator, MIKE VORKUNOV, an accomplished New York/New Jersey sportswriter who will carry us forward to fields, arenas, stadiums and pitches unknown. I'm not going far; I'm not going anywhere actually. I'll be stepping back to take the lead in expanding and strengthening REDEF's overall editorial voice as we continue to build the REDEF brand. (And you can still find me at MusicREDEF)... It's been a thrilling two years exploring the culture, technology, business, art and humanity of sport in this strange era of CHICAGO CUBS World Series and CLEVELAND CAVALIERS championships and triple crowns and (near) grand slams. I have two special thank yous. To every reader who has ever written to me, favorably or unfavorably: Thank you for encouraging me, challenging me and always keeping me on course. And to sites like THE UNDEFEATED, OUTSPORTS and ESPNW: In an age in which diverse voices and points of view are needed more than ever, thank you for providing them, and for shouting out loud in ways both expected and unexpected... A reminder of who we are, from here: "The essence of sport has been boiled down, famously, to two simple concepts: 'the thrill of victory' and 'the agony of defeat.' At SportsREDEF, we look through a different lens. Our interest is in neither the winning nor the losing, but in the stories that come before, between and after. SportsREDEF is sports without the box scores. It's sports that begin before the opening whistle and continue after the fans have gone home. It's men and women at play, in pursuits ranging from basketball and soccer, where hundreds of millions of dollars ride on wins and losses, to yoga and mountaineering, where the very concepts of winning and losing cease to exist. We do care who soars to victory and who bows in defeat. But what we celebrate, most of all, is the what and the how and the why and the holy cow of sport"... This is the kind of story that makes my REDEF heart sing, and which I'll happily offer as the last link I share in this space (it also brings me back to my childhood weekends in WATERVILLE VALLEY): The WASHINGTON POST's T. REES SHAPIRO on JAMES NIEHUES, "the MICHELANGELO of snow," who makes those trail maps you may have jammed into the pocket of your parka at any number of ski resorts across the US without noticing the astonishing craft and fanatical attention to detail. He is to painting snow-covered trees what STEVE NASH is to free throws... Keep skiing. Keep practicing those free throws. Keep making art. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Outside Online |
| For the past two decades, the website LetsRun.com has straddled the lines between gossip, investigative reporting, and hardcore training advice, angering Nike, USA Track and Field, and traditional media in the process. | | |
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 | The Washington Post |
| Map illustrator James Niehues paints gallery-worthy likenesses of skiing and hiking trails. | | |
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 | Bleacher Report |
| This is the world of a kicker. It's full of pressure and a lack of appreciation for the position. It's also full of pranks. Few players have more opportunities--more time--to create trouble than kickers. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Through apps and wearables, technology is creating a workout that’s more data-rich, smarter and convenient than ever before. | | |
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 | The Players' Tribune |
| It’s time I start talking about concussions in soccer. It’s time we all do. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| Odd tactics can be interpreted as a lack of effort, depending on the observer. “It’s a difficult one to police,” Andy Murray said. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| Thanks to new racket strings and slower, uniform playing surfaces, the best tennis players can stay at the top for longer than ever before. | | |
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 | FiveThirtyEight |
| Scan a list of the NFL’s best quarterbacks nowadays, and you’ll find names such as Russell Wilson, Cam Newton, Tyrod Taylor and even that of rookie sensation Dak Prescott -- dynamic passers who can run the ball, too. | | |
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| Bleacher Report |
| The fight was hyped as a rare battle of greats in their primes. For once, boxing delivered on its promise. | | |
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 | recode |
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 | Gear Patrol |
| Bass fishing, along with lacrosse and volleyball, is one of the fastest growing collegiate club sports in the country. We found out why. | | |
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| The Ringer |
| Boxing has never been less relevant - so why does Hollywood keep cranking out movies like ‘Bleed for This’? | | |
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| The New York Times |
| Fell running might seem like a masochistic peculiarity of Northern England, but it kept me sane through decades of life on the road. | | |
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| Outside Online |
| A new device called Halo Sport promises to improve performance by stimulating your brain. We zapped our brains in the name of science to see if it could really make us faster. | | |
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 | Sports on Earth |
| The NFL is going abroad once again this week, this time for a game between the Houston Texans and Oakland Raiders in Mexico City at Estadio Azteca. If everything goes well, NFL fans should expect even more international games in the future. | | |
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| The Guardian |
| Rodeo has remained a sport dominated by white men, but the two-year-old team whose members met in Maryland is inspiring girls as they seek victory. | | |
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 | Yahoo! Sports |
| The National Women's Hockey League made headlines in its inaugural 2015-16 season as the first women's pro hockey league to pay its players. NWHL Commissioner Dani Rylan confirmed on Friday that the League is cutting player salaries across the board. | | |
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 | SB*Nation |
| Sometimes in the NFL, sacks are the quarterback's fault. Free agent NFL lineman Geoff Schwartz explains. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| In this video, young bull riders in Oklahoma take on the risks of the ring. | | |
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 | Howler Magazine |
| The USSF president is failing to deal with more troubling matters than whether Klinsmann stays on as manager. | | |
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 | via YouTube |
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