Author: Don Yaeger

The single-most challenging job in the NFL right now involves a man who doesn’t look like he belongs in the NFL. A little stocky, a little country. His name is Freddie Kitchens. His job? To transform the Cleveland Browns into something great.

I recently went to the Pacific Northwest for a business trip, and during my time there I met two interesting and successful athletes. The first one was still in college. Young, talented, and eager to take his career to the next level, he and I caught up after my talk to his football team. He shared his passion for his game, and how he was driven to succeed.

Sunday afternoon, my wife and children sat next to me, huddled anxiously around my cell phone. We were watching one of the most remarkable finals in Wimbledon history, the epic 4-hour-and-57-minute slugfest between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.

The biggest fireworks of the 4th of July didn’t officially happen on Thursday. Instead, they erupted late on Friday, July 5th, when Kawhi Leonard announced that he was signing a free-agent contract with his hometown Los Angeles Clippers. And he was bringing fellow LA native Paul George with him.

“I just felt like there’s been a weight on me.” Those were the words of Naomi Osaka after she lost in straight sets during the first week of the French Open. The loss dropped Osaka to number two in the world, a result that Osaka said, “was probably the best thing that could happen to me.”

It takes a lot of guts to do what Jill Ellis is doing. The US Women National Soccer coach has guided her squad into the quarterfinals of the FIFA Women’s World Cup with an enormous match today against host nation France. The winner will be one of four teams left. But that’s not the hard part. The hard part has been how they’ve accomplished getting here these last few years.

Of all my Sports Illustrated alums/colleagues, few have fascinated me like David Epstein. His path to becoming a writer at the magazine was very non-traditional, and the way he thought of subjects and numbers was even more outside-the-lines. So when his publisher sent me a copy of his new book and suggested it would make me think differently about my potential path to the top, I absolutely took notice. That book –...

Tonight, the Golden State Warriors will lace up for a make-or-break game against the Toronto Raptors. Down three games to one in the NBA Finals, the Warriors are on the verge of unexpectedly losing a championship many expected them to win. To be fair, the Warriors have dealt with untimely injuries, a part-owner who lost his mind, and the apparent ascension of Kawai Leonard into the annals of NBA legends. The one constant? Head...