The deal with Hayward is, you can’t get there from here. The nearest interstate highway is about an hour and a half west, over the state line from Wisconsin in Minnesota. Any way you try to approach it, you’re going to have some substantial stretches of time alone with your thoughts as you wind through thick woods and farmlands and a nighttime darkness...

Back on October 7, the Oklahoma City Thunder were in Minneapolis playing their first preseason game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Early in the third quarter, Russell Westbrook dribbled left around a Kevin Durant screen to beat defender Tyus Jones into the paint. From there, it wasn’t a matter of when, but how. As Westbrook burst toward the goal,...

Welcome back to our 30 for 30 documentary short series. Joy Johnson would wake up before each dawn, pour herself a cup of coffee, lace up her running shoes, and read this Bible verse from Isaiah: “They shall run and not be weary.” This ritual went on for more than two decades but didn’t start until Joy was 59. That’s when she first took up running,...

The Kansas City Royals may have lost last year’s World Series, but in the most indelible moment of the series — indeed, of the season — the Royals held the fate of the championship in their hands. With Kansas City down to its final out in Game 7, trailing by a run to Madison Bumgarner and the San Francisco Giants, Alex Gordon lined a single into the...

A theatrical and sometimes solitary child who grew up in Georgia during the 1960s and ’70s, Decatur-born Jan Hooks spent summers and holidays at her maternal grandparents’ home in the small city of Cedartown, not far outside Atlanta. Throughout her adolescence, she often put on plays and skits there, but it was her barn-burning impression of Tina Turner...

During the rocky beginnings of his pro career, when Austin Rivers was running low on both confidence and playing time, he would seek advice from an NBA head coach — but not the one he played for. That’s one of the benefits of being Doc Rivers’s son. Drawing on 30 years of experience in the league, Doc told Austin to get back in the gym — to stay deep...