The story “Searching for Gary Smith” by Sarah Perry, gives a short look into the life and methods of Sports Illustrated writer Gary Smith. As the story progresses you see a change from how Smith learns about his interviewee’s to learning about Smith. The story goes through Smith’s life and how he tries to understand himself but instead attempts to understand everything else that is going on around him. The story did a great job at this and made the reader feel as if they knew Smith and the people he interviewed as if they were an acquaintance of their own.

The lead for this story is an anecdotal lead. It starts off with Smith’s inner dialog while he is driving with Muhammad Ali on the Santa Monica freeway. The lead goes on to describe Smith watch Ali fall asleep at the wheel and then the brief dialog from Ali’s son when he took over the wheel to ensure that they didn’t crash.

I believe that the nut graph of this story is:

“But beneath Gary’s modesty and aw-shucks manner lies what people call one of the most penetrating minds in narrative nonfiction today. He uses poetry to delve into a young track star’s head, family history to understand a baseball owner, a psychological game to help a tennis legend understand himself, and a father’s vision to predict that a certain young golfer would flame out. “What kind of mind thinks like this?” wonders co-worker Rick Reilly in the introduction to Gary’s latest book Going Deep.”

I think that this is the nut graph of the story because before this the story just seems to be setting up a back story and giving information on Smith just in case you didn’t know who he was. This makes Smith seem more than just a writer and interviewer. It gives him an interesting dimension to his character that makes you want to find out more of just how this persons mind works. It also explains the two sides of this story. The unbelievable mind of a writer that is really able to dig deeper and get to the center of a story and a person. And a mind that is unable to figure himself out and is always thinking and planning so that nothing takes him by surprise.

I believe there is more to this story than just Smith’s interview techniques. I believe that it also poses the question of if Smith has ever been able to figure himself out as well as he figures out others. While he can understand those around him and their situations it seems as if Smith is not able to do the same for himself, and because of this makes it so that his life is methodically planned out so that he logic and some sort of understanding applied to his own life.

One example of a descriptive copy in this story is:

“Gary say on Agassi’s back porch once, the sizzle of a perfectly grilled steak popping in the background as he sipped a perfect mixture of peach raspberry margarita. Agassi wore shorts and a faded T-shirt, the hot Nevada sun beating down on his shoulders.”

The writer employs the senses of hearing, touch, taste, and sight to really put the reader on the back porch with Agassi and Smith. By giving such a detailed scene of what is going on the writer is able to really tell us what is going on and how his interviews aren’t normal interviews. But more like eating with a friends and talking about the good and bad in life.

Throughout the story there was a total of 6 sources used.

The “boring part” of the story is the time spent in Jesup, Georgia and the interactions with Duke. There really isn’t any real action or interesting things going on in this part of the story. It does provide a better look into Smith’s life and the kind of person he is though.

The end of the story is wonderful. It just doesn’t tie into the beginning of the story but to the story as a whole.

“Was the world’s heavyweight boxing champion pulling a rope-a-dope on the world’s heavyweight sportswriter? Was he resisting the famous mind drill? Gary, for once, will never know.”

The ending not only hints that Smith might have been beaten at his own game, but also still hints that Gary still doesn’t know everything about himself either.

I really enjoyed this story and learned about Gary Smith and what he does. Before reading this I had no clue as to who Gary Smith was. Not only did I learn about Smith but I also enjoyed the story and found it entertaining. One thing that I did not like about the story however was the lack of story into Smith’s life when he is not working. I think that would have provided a more rounded picture of Smith’s life.