Dan Washburn

My work is featured in the 2008 book Inside The Ropes: Sportswriters Get Their Game On, an anthology of the best of participatory sports journalism, edited by Zachary Michael Jack and published by the University of Nebraska Press.

Here’s the product description:

Most of us will never know what it’s like to parachute out of a Cessna, tend goal for the Boston Bruins, burn rubber on a NASCAR track, scale Everest, or quarterback the Detroit Lions. So it’s our good fortune when dauntless literary journalists actually play the sports they cover—returning with firsthand tales from “inside the ropes.” Here, in the tradition popularized by George Plimpton, is participatory sportswriting at its finest and most far-out. Editor Zachary Michael Jack fields a dream team of today’s best sports journalists, hotshots, and rising stars in search of the game behind the game.

More than three dozen decorated writers take the field. Heirs apparent such as Tom Verducci, Jack McCallum, Melissa King, and Sam Walker join veterans Paul Gallico, George Plimpton, Davis Miller, Donald Katz, Tim Cahill, Grace Butcher, and James McManus in swinging for the journalistic fence. Together these thrill-seeking men and women capture the mojo of returning John McEnroe’s serve, taking a punch from Ali, paddling Jack London’s Alaskan river route, coaching the Phoenix Suns’ Steve Nash, umping Manny Ramirez. Forty eye-popping accounts offer the straight scoop as never before—not just in the field but on it.

From Zachary Michael Jack’s introduction:

For young sports writers on staff at major newspapers—a demographic represented in this collection by Greg Bishop, Corey Levitan, and Dan Washburn, among others—the opportunity to cover the rise of alternative sports was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be present at the creation, to a young man or woman covering a youthful movement rooted in “fierce individualism, alienation, and defiance,” as Harvey Lauer, president of American Sports Data, Inc., put it in his 2002 interview with American Demographics. For the participatory journalist, dedicated to the proposition that all sports are created equal, these were, and still are, heady days.

From ForeWard Magazine’s review of Inside The Ropes:

Several of these sports are individually demanding. Donald Katz writes about his participation in a marathon skating race in Holland (as well as the aforementioned fish-grabbing); Bill McKibben gives his take on cross-country skiing, while Dan Washburn raced dragon boats. Most of them would agree: this stuff isn’t as easy as it looks from the distance and safety of the stands or living room. Injury and, perhaps worse, embarrassment are constant possibilities.

This is from the “Contributors” section of the book:

You can purchase the Inside The Ropes on Amazon. You can also see a free preview of the book on Google. Here is a direct link to my chapter. You can also find my dragon boat piece on the Sporting Life website here and here. The full Sporting Life archive (including a two-parter on “the aforementioned fish-grabbing”) is here.