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Journalism Institute •

Big Scribble pop-up pandemic contest draws writers who won’t quit - Journalism Institute

Imagine a writing contest that embodies key values of journalism — education, speed, creativity, diversity. Throw in a dash of TikTok-style social networking and douse it in COVID-19 isolation. That’s The Big Scribble, an idea conceived last month in the midst of the pandemic that in days generated more than 400 writing entries from student journalists in the U.S. and abroad.


The idea sprang from author and former Sports Illustrated writer Jeff Pearlman. He tested the idea with friend and fel...
Billboard •

Mother & Son Who Inspired 2Pac’s ‘Brenda’s Got a Baby’ Reunited After 34 Years

2Pac‘s classic song “Brenda’s Got a Baby” was inspired by a true story — and the story continues.



The rapper wrote the song addressing teen pregnancy in America’s ghettos while he was filming his star-turning role as Bishop in Juice after coming across a story in the news about a 12-year-old girl who threw her baby in a trash chute after being impregnated by her 21-year-old cousin. The track has since become one of the late entertainer’s most important records in his extensive catalog....
Rolling Stone •

'Everything in Our Lives Was Traumatic': Tupac Shakur's Early Years in Baltimore

The story of Tupac Shakur has been told many times since his tragic death at just 25 following a drive-by shooting in 1996. Yet a life so big and complicated is always ripe for further exploration. Jeff Pearlman’s new biography, Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur, is a 400-page deep dive into Shakur’s brief and tumultuous existence, from his childhood in New York City, Baltimore, and the Bay Area to his early brushes with fame, the development of his gangsta rap persona, and h...
ESPN.com •

Inside the Lakers' Kobe-Shaq dynasty: fistfights, battle lines and Show(boat) time

Editor's note: The following story contains excerpts from Jeff Pearlman's new book, "Three-Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty," published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The book is on sale today, Sept. 22.Before Kobe Bryant was THE Kobe Bryant -- five-time NBA champion, 18-time All-Star -- he was a young boy growing up in Italy, the third of Joe and Pam Bryant's three children. His father, an eight-year NBA veteran nicknamed Jellybean, was playing out his car...
The Athletic •

After starring in the NFL, Thomas Jones is rushing full speed toward his second act

In the lifespan of every male professional athlete, there comes a post-retirement moment when machismo is formally stripped, and the state of existence transitions from snarls and grunts and blood and sweat to an uncomfortable actuality of pedestrian life.When Ellis Valentine, the thunder-armed Montreal Expo outfielder, departed the game, he took a job parking cars at Avis. Shawn Green, once the great Los Angeles Dodgers slugger, is now a ballet dad. Ryan Grant, the former Green Bay Packers half...
Packers News •

Excerpt from new Favre biography, 'Gunslinger'

Following is an excerpt from the prologue of the new Brett Favre biography by Jeff Pearlman, "Gunslinger: The Remarkable, Improbable, Iconic Life of Brett Favre." The book is set to be released Tuesday.

In many ways, a biography is a search for definition of character. You can’t possibly recreate every moment, or enter the brain of a subject matter, or know what a man or woman was precisely thinking at a particular moment (this is something that has forever bothered me about sports media: “Joey...
SLAM •

Book Excerpt: Showtime

Over the course of the two and a half years during which I researched Showtime, I came across a slew of funny, funky, cool, weird characters. No one, however, matched former Laker forward Kurt Rambis.
During the 1980s, Rambis was something of a novelty. First, he was a white starter at a time when there weren’t many. Second, he was a little-known nobody out of Santa Clara. Third, he appeared to be disheveled and overmatched. Of course, standing alongside the likes of Magic Johnson and Kareem Abd...
SI •

For one writer, difficult assignment spawned a lifelong friendship

The worst day of my life was September 11, 2001.The second worst day of my life was September 12, 2001.The third worst day of my life was September 13, 2001.I was -- and still am -- a New Yorker. My wife and I lived less than a mile from the World Trade Center. Shortly after the first plane hit, I saw the burning hole in the side of the building. What the hell is that? What the ...I had no idea.The aftermath was hell. The odor of burning rubble. The thousands upon thousands of "IF YOU SEE THIS P...