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I think of sports writers as mediating between two worlds. Athletes probably think of sports writers as not macho enough. And people in high culture probably think of sports writers as jocks or something. They are in an interestingly complex position in which they have to mediate the world of body and the world of words.

Everyone has the impulse to be elite.

When you reach that elite level, 90 percent is mental and 10 percent is physical. You are competing against yourself. Not against the other athlete.

When you look at athletes, they have fundamentals.

But I like to think an athlete is an athlete.

The athlete of today is not an athlete alone. He's the center of a team - doctors, scientists, coaches, agents and so on.

Among the world elite there are a handful of athletes who are physically capable of winning it.

I think that if you are a serious writer, you are almost obligated to provide the intelligent average reader with something that they can relate to and care about. If you are writing only for a tiny elite, then that surely should sound alarm bells.

Writing is a little athletic for me. I get worked up a little bit when I do it. So I guess I'm a little bit like that composer conducting. There are a lot of things that go into what I do, but I think athletics really sort of shaped my ethic.