Sports Field Guide

The crosses shown above are part of a cemetery planted by the Schouests, sport fishermen who could lose their livelihood in Louisiana. The 101 crosses, planted in their front yard, bear the names of the family's favorite things about Grand Isle.

When the Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo was canceled, few people outside the Louisiana bayous cared.

Aside from anglers and locals, few people had even heard about it.

But everybody knows about the disaster that started it – the explosion at BP’s oil rig that has allowed 25,000-60,000 barrels of crude to flow into the Gulf of Mexico each day. This oil currently covers about 2,500 square miles, causing birds to suffocate, dolphins to flop dead onto beaches, and unknown numbers of fish to die. The spill is also destroying the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people. ESPN’s Wright Thompson focuses on someone who has been hit hard by this disaster – Lance “Coon” Schouest, a man considered the greatest living tarpon fisherman – for a story on ESPN.com (and that is also featured on the network’s news program, “Outside the Lines.”)

In the story, “Paradise Lost,” Thompson reveals the impact of this ever-growing environmental disaster. It’s a story all sports writers ought to check out.

Thompson does an excellent job mixing strong reporting with evocative writing. In “Paradise Lost,” the opening scene (below) works well. Schouest watches his life unravel before his eyes as he views a news program on the oil spill. In this opening, the writer also introduces the main character, describes the scene in detail, and reveals the main conflict – that the tarpon are headed toward the waters off Louisiana at the exact time the oil spill is reaching the bayou. Notice that Thompson offers much of this information through Schouest’s perspective, using third-person limited omniscient.

Here’s the opening to the story:

HOUMA, La. — The greatest tarpon fisherman who ever lived sits in a house on the side of a forgotten bayou, stuck in a blue recliner, watching his world die on live television. Oil gushes out of the well, every lost barrel another line in his obituary.

Though he’s only 55, Lance “Coon” Schouest is about to become obsolete. Everything’s being taken from him, in living color with a network logo and theme music. His way of life, his job, the marshes he grew up in and possibly even an entire breed of fish that has survived since dinosaurs walked the earth. The tarpon has taken every disaster man and nature could throw at it.

Watch “Outside the Lines”
There are places along the Gulf Coast where the oil coats birds and beaches, and there are places where the marshes remain untouched. Wright Thompson shares the story of one town in the middle. Watch “Outside the Lines,” Sunday at 9 a.m. ET on ESPN.

Until now.

The oil pours into the water, and in the next frame, washes up on the shores, over and over, a looped montage of destruction. Coon just stares.

“Look, y’all,” he says to his family, his voice raw. “Jesus. Look at that.”

Above his head hangs a long, silver tarpon, almost 200 pounds and taller than a man, with giant scales. Every now and then, Schouest turns away from his TV and looks up at the fish, remembering the day he caught it — Oct. 3, 1976 — and wondering if he’ll ever catch one again.

These days, he finds himself, hour after hour, obsessing over the map of oil on his television, a growing, black stain on the waters of his childhood. That map is his family history and his memory.

He’s full of a lifetime of knowledge that might soon be useless. He knows the Gulf of Mexico like other people know the streets of their hometown. He knows where tarpon eat, how they move, when they arrive. He senses them. Sometimes, he can close his eyes and see the big school, acres across and sparkling like diamonds, migrating from Veracruz and the Florida Keys toward the mouth of the river. Tarpon, he’s learned, love water that is 74 degrees. They chase it, a need hardwired into their prehistoric DNA. The water off Louisiana is just hitting 74 degrees.

The tarpon are coming, headed for the spreading shroud of oil.

Thompson does so many things well in this story, but I especially love the strong narrative voice that guides the reader to new locations, new characters and new ideas. This is an excellent story that is instructive to writers and both informative and engaging for readers.