David Alm was working at a sandwich shop in Northfield, MN, waiting to clock in, when reading a magazine article about donuts inspired him to pursue a career in journalism. Now, Professor Alm, who published his first article in a national magazine 25 years ago, is featured in the 2024 edition of The Year’s Best Sports Writing.
The anthology, which previously went by the name The Best American Sports Writing, was conceived by Glenn Stout more than 30 years ago and published for the first time in 1991 by Houghton Mifflin. In 2020, the series was renamed The Year’s Best Sports Writing and acquired by Triumph Books, which retained Glenn Stout as the editor. Stout’s approach in including guest editors, like Jane McManus, executive director of the Center for Sports Media and this year’s editor, aims to highlight diverse and original reporting on often-lesser-known stories in the sports world. In addition to Alm’s story from GQ, the 2024 edition includes articles originally published in outlets such as The Athletic, ESPN, The Ringer, and the Washington Post.
Alm says that he’s drawn to stories about athletes that touch on broader themes. He’s not interested in an athlete’s stats or how famous they might be, but rather in the challenges or obstacles they might have overcome to achieve what they have. “Unless there’s a story, I don’t care how fast somebody is,” he says. “I like writing about someone with a really compelling personal narrative.”
His story about Rachael Rapinoe began two years ago, when he was reporting a story about cannabis use among high-level athletes and stumbled upon a Q&A with Megan Rapinoe on the website for a CBD brand called Mendi. He sent an email to the company, and Megan’s twin sister, Rachael, replied. After a 20-minute phone call, Alm suggested that they work on a piece about her instead. After several months of interviews, drafts, and fact-checking, The Other Rapinoe was published and soon became one of the magazine’s most-read articles for the next several weeks. It tells a story that until then had never been written about in-depth.
Megan and Rachael Rapinoe went to the same college, both are gay, and both are exceptional athletes. But Rachael, despite being “the best athlete” in the Rapinoe family, by Megan’s account, suffered severe health problems and injuries during her college years, leading to an addiction to prescription opioids. For Alm, there was something valuable in telling the story of a sports icon’s twin sister, who started on the same path, but kept falling off track.
She founded Mendi to provide athletes a safer, more holistic alternative to manage both physical and psychic pain. Her own story provides insight into the hardships that being a top athlete might lead to, such as opioid addiction. And that’s exactly why Alm wanted to write about her. “[Athletics] is a way in, but once I’m in, I just want to write about the issue,” he says.
Another of Alm’s articles for GQ, The Marathon Men Who Can’t Go Home, was named one of Longreads’ Best Features of the Year in 2021. It told the story of Ethiopian runners in the Bronx, where many of them were living to escape political persecution back home, and earning a living in under-the-table jobs and through meager winnings at local races. When the pandemic cut off their income from running, they found themselves in an even more precarious position than they had been already. For them, running was a means of survival. Alm says he initially just wanted to find out how they were getting by without it; he did not expect his reporting to lead to a story of political persecution.
Everyone has their “Why?” Alm’s “why” is: “I never wanted to do the conventional things. I never wanted to be a lawyer, a corporate person, and never wanted to work in tech because it never made sense to me. Imagining a life of learning, reading, and writing appealed to me.” But it’s not easy. Alm doesn’t come from family money, and has endured long financial droughts. And working as a freelance journalist, he says, you can never rest on your laurels. Once you “make it,” you have to “keep making it,” he says. You need to persevere, and a bit of stubbornness doesn’t hurt.
He believes that writers must always reevaluate their approach, and if they aren’t, they’ve stopped developing. “I’m 49, and I’m always getting better, and I’m always benefitting from edits and feedback,” he says. “I hope that 10 years from now I’m writing better stories [than I am now], and if they’re not, then I’m not the person I want to be.”
Feeling honored and grateful to be included in The Year’s Best Sports Writing, Professor Alm says that he looks forward to reading all of the other stories in the edition. Even with the ongoing development of AI, he believes there will always be a need for great writers. And though he acknowledges that people don’t read as much as they used to, so it’s hard for many to see the difference between a story that a writer spent six months on versus one that was written in a day, those who do appreciate the craft. The Year’s Best Sports Writing is a testament to that.
Alm encourages students and other aspiring writers to keep pushing for greatness in their craft even on the days they might question it. “Don’t let one or many dispiriting jobs totally dishearten you,” he says, “and don’t expect every day, every job, every moment, to be perfect.”