Q&A With Prolific Charlotte-based Sportswriter, Joe Posnanski – Charlotte Magazine

He would rather ask the questions—but not in the locker room anymore, thank goodness

Joe Posnanski, one of the most successful sportswriters in the United States, would be insufferably accomplished if he weren’t such a nice guy. Words flow out of him, seemingly with no effort: Formerly a senior columnist for Sports Illustrated, he now blogs at length most days. He’s also written the (witty and wise and deeply researched, damn it) bestselling books The Baseball 100, Why We Love Baseball, and Paterno. And we haven’t even mentioned the podcast he hosts with Parks and Recreation creator Mike Schur or the book they’re collaborating on about what it means to be a sports fan. We talked over wonton soup at Jade Dragon.

Charlotte magazine: How did you end up in Charlotte?

JOE Posnanski: I grew up in Cleveland. My dad worked in a textile factory, and when I was 14 years old, he got a job in Monroe. We drove down in February 1981. Typically, I remember the date because it was one month after the Browns lost to the Raiders in the playoffs on the “Red Right 88” play. I came down here, and there were no pro sports whatsoever. This is years before the Hornets, much less the Panthers.

I went to high school at East Meck. One of my first days, somebody asked me, “What’s your team?” I said, “I’m from Cleveland—I’m a Browns fan.” He said, “No, no, no, no. What’s your ACC team?” I didn’t know what the ACC was. I had not followed college sports at all in Ohio. I said, “What’s yours?” He said, “North Carolina.” And I said, “Yeah, me, too.”

That was the fall of ’81, the year that Michael Jordan was a freshman. So they won the national championship (in spring 1982), and I fully accepted myself as a complete Tar Heel fan. In 1991, when I was 24, the opportunity came to be a columnist in Augusta, Georgia. When I came back to live here 20 years later, Charlotte was a completely different city—I didn’t even recognize it. 

CM: I couldn’t help but notice that your new book (Why We Love Football: A History in 100 Moments) has more mentions of Taylor Swift than the Panthers.

JP: There’s one Panthers reference, and it’s very tangential. It hasn’t been a great run. 

CM: What are your conversations like with people who don’t care about sports?

JP: I’m not trying to convince anyone to be a sports fan. I prefer talking to people who don’t care about sports. When people want to talk about sports with me, they want to go deep in the woods, which is great, but I’m always more comfortable being the interviewer than the interviewee. When people aren’t sports fans, they let me ask them questions. If they are sports fans, they often have this feeling, “Oh, you don’t care that I’m a civil rights attorney or that I like to paint by numbers.” 

CM: How famous are you?

JP: I’m not famous at all, but I am famous enough that, most of the time, I can get the people on the phone that I need to, which is all I want.

CM: A sportswriter friend once told me that, speaking in broad strokes, football players were the smartest pro athletes and hockey players were the most polite.

JP: That seems right. You want to talk to the big guys, offensive and defensive linemen. Often, the most boring guy on the field is the quarterback, and the left guard is a Shakespeare scholar. Football has the biggest clubhouse: It’s 45 people, and it’s split. You have offense, you have defense, you have kickers and specialists. Yet it’s the sport that talks about “team” more than any other sport.

Locker-room access has really dried up. It used to be that, after a game, there was a flood of reporters, moving like a swarm of bees. I’ve never found any success in crowds, and getting a soundbite is of no use to me anymore. As much as my role has changed, I think media and sports have changed even more. Those game stories that I used to write every night on five-minute deadlines are kind of useless now. You can’t spend 10 paragraphs describing things that everybody’s already seen.

CM: Have you ever written anything that you regretted?

JP: When I was younger, writing a funny line probably meant more to me than anything else. And I tried to be responsible, but I think I took cheap shots. I don’t regret criticizing somebody if they deserve that criticism, but I do regret hurting somebody just so I can get a cheap laugh.

CM: What are your career goals now?

JP: Is it bad to say that I just want to keep doing what I’m doing?