"In the Line of Fire"; Sports Illustrated

Like a powerful direct kick, Grant Wahl’s profile of soccer player Hérculez Gómez, “In the Line of Fire,” soars over behind-the-scenes NCAA basketball stories and NFL round-up features before softly landing in readers’ hearts. I commend Sports Illustrated for featuring this long shot article in its Feb. 4, 2013, edition.

The topic has two knocks against it. First, soccer is an underdog professional sport in the United States, especially in early February when the NFL hits its height, the NBA finds its mid-season swagger and college basketball swiftly creeps toward pinnacle play. Second, Mexico, the story’s setting, is an underdog country many Americans disregard; but unlike soccer, two fouls do not equate to story ejections (or rejections) in the publishing world, and this piece has a saving grace: it needs to be told.

Wahl knows how to tell it. He details Gómez’s unconventional comeback while simultaneously providing context about Mexico’s political corruption and dangerous cities. Department of State warnings about travel to Mexico may be common knowledge (you can read one in the story deck), but I doubt many SI readers know Torreón, a city in central Mexico, ranks the “seventh-most dangerous city in the world.” I doubt many know Torreón is a city. Shamefully ignorant, I had no idea 60,000 people have died since the Mexican drug war kicked off in 2007 and I never expected learning that from reading SI.

Addiction to political outlets and international news is not as potent as the sports obsession in the U.S. Wahl takes a serious issue—the “gruesome parade of dead bodies” just south of the U.S.—and presents it in a palatable portion intermixed with the sugar of sport. He uses strong descriptive phrases to detail the irony of Gómez finding success within Mexico’s borders. There are thousands of stories about Mexicans escaping to the U.S. to start better lives. How many plots detail Mexicans escaping to the U.S., then returning to Mexico for successes? I know one: Gómez’s. The man transformed from a financially struggling “MLS afterthought” into a “Mexican scoring champion.”

Gómez showing off his signature post-goal pose.

“In the Line of Fire” gains momentum immediately with its introductory anecdote, which details Gómez’s frightful drive home. It nets a goal with its concluding reflection on Gómez’s bright future and impending World Cup qualifying play.