The Players' Tribune does some cool stuff. Like others mention, the amount of ghostwriting is unclear, but the pieces all feel faithful (and accurate) to the subject. They are never hagiographic, and while there's some amount of bravado in almost all of them (I mean, they're former sports stars), it is always tempered by honesty, and often regret. Maybe HN is less likely to assign much weight to what athletes say, but these are pretty unvarnished accounts from people who, by and large, became world-class at something tons of people try. They have interesting things to say.
Some other good pieces are NBA player Dion Waiters' freewheeling account of his life so far [1], former NBA player Steve Francis's bizarre path to and from stardom [2] (an interesting complement to teammate Yao Ming's entertaining account of his own rookie year [3]), and for a rather darker and more harrowing (but also quite moving) story, former NHL player Clint Malarchuk's account of his infamous on-ice injury and its (extensive) consequences [4].
Comments
The Players' Tribune does some cool stuff. Like others mention, the amount of ghostwriting is unclear, but the pieces all feel faithful (and accurate) to the subject. They are never hagiographic, and while there's some amount of bravado in almost all of them (I mean, they're former sports stars), it is always tempered by honesty, and often regret. Maybe HN is less likely to assign much weight to what athletes say, but these are pretty unvarnished accounts from people who, by and large, became world-class at something tons of people try. They have interesting things to say.
Some other good pieces are NBA player Dion Waiters' freewheeling account of his life so far [1], former NBA player Steve Francis's bizarre path to and from stardom [2] (an interesting complement to teammate Yao Ming's entertaining account of his own rookie year [3]), and for a rather darker and more harrowing (but also quite moving) story, former NHL player Clint Malarchuk's account of his infamous on-ice injury and its (extensive) consequences [4].
[1] https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/dion-waiter...
[2] https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/steve-franc...
[3] https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/yao-ming-my...
[4] https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/clint-malar...
It might be pure hometown bias, but this article by Sue Bird immediately comes to mind when I think of the Player's Tribune: https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/sue-bird-se...
I liked the piece by Pete Sampras which also got some traction here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9803867
as an avid NHL fan, so many of the NHL stories brought tears to my eyes. Also never though I'd see this on HN