Lecturer Portrait: Sportswriter Chris Ballard

He may write about sports, but if you take a longer look at Chris Ballard’s work, his writing goes well beyond the game. Ballard, a UC Berkeley lecturer and author of four books, is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated. Whether his focus is a Peace Corps volunteer in Afghanistan or a Cal rower with lung cancer, he uses athletics as an entry point to bring readers into stories that in many ways aren’t about sports at all.

Ballard played basketball and ran track through his first year at Pomona College, and he wrote for the campus newspaper. While sports journalism appealed to him, when he began his career that wasn’t the direction he took. Instead, his senior thesis at Pomona College was an in-depth look at a local congressional campaign.

Then, right out of college, Ballard wrote a book about basketball. Hoops Nation: a Guide to America’s Best Pickup Basketball, published in 1998, gave him entry into the freelance world, and he began to write for both the New York and Los Angeles Times. But he didn’t feel like he was getting enough feedback on his freelance pieces. He earned his master’s in journalism from Columbia University and was hired by Sports Illustrated in 2000. Since then he has published three more books–most recently One Shot at Forever in 2012.

Early in his career, Ballard says he just wanted to craft a good story, but he soon realized that he was more interested in the people than the sports themselves. Eventually he figured out a way to blend his beat with issues of larger social significance.

“As long as there’s a basketball hook, you get this huge readership. Three million people are going to read about the golden age of Afghanistan through the lens of basketball in Afghanistan,” said Ballard. In this remarkable story alone, he weaves in civil war, Communist takeovers, puppet dictators, mass killings and the ascension of the Taliban.

“It’s amazing what readers will start going into, and then forget that’s why they got into it.”

And his approach works. Ballard’s writing has been anthologized in The Best American Magazine Writing, and five of his features have appeared in The Best American Sports Writing. He’s a National Magazine Award finalist, and six of his stories have been optioned for film.

Starting a full-blown specialization in sports reporting may be beyond the reach of a small journalism school like Berkeley’s, with 120 students, but the appetite is there, says Dean Edward Wasserman. “The public’s fascination with sports is huge, so we very much wanted to give students this chance to learn from one of the best practitioners in the field. Chris came to us with an unrivaled record of professional excellence, and he has turned out to be a huge hit in the classroom as well.” said Wasserman. “We are extremely happy to have him.”

Ballard taught his first sports reporting mini-course last year, and the five-week class is being offered again this spring. He finds the classroom energizing. “So much of journalism just tears you down. It’s rewarding, but you feel just sapped. And this fills the bucket. I’m always amazed at the idealism and energy of the students,” he said. It’s a collaborative process, he continued. “Hopefully you’re helping the students, but also it helps us as professors. It’s like a battery, you pull off that energy.”

By Katherine Rose (’17)