As regular readers know, On Sports and Life is taking a brief break for holiday travel. In the absence of regular posts, a recent column by Sally Jenkins is highly recommended. The first woman to be inducted into the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame, Jenkins is the author of twelve books in addition to writing a regular column and occasional features for the Washington Post.
Her New Year’s Day contribution to the Post is first a reminder of the unexpected connections that permeate all our lives; the proverbial small world each of us inhabits. Then, with help from a poem by Mary Karr, the column moves beyond the sports page to become an evocation of the power of friendship.
Karr’s poem is about the way our games touch each of us and in her words, about the fact that “we all hold excellence and quality in ourselves no matter how defunct we may seem to ourselves or the world at large.” Jenkins’s column is a tribute to the enduring strength of our bonds of affection; a strength that outlasts time, overcomes distance, and can even, if only for a moment, conquer insidious disease.
“Phil Jackson, Pat Summitt, Mary Karr and a special triangular connection” can be found here. “Loony Bin Basketball” can be read or heard here. Being reminded of the bonds about which Sally Jenkins writes is a good way to begin the new year. Reading anything by the incomparable Mary Karr is always time well spent.
The regular posting schedule resumes later this week. Happy New Year!
On Sports and Life 
Okay, the Jenkins piece is as good as it gets, now on to the poem. Thanks.
By: Don Hebert on January 4, 2016
at 7:09 pm