ESPN’s new columnist talks sports writing and underdogs.

by Joanna Demkiewicz

Now that Mina Kimes is a staff writer for ESPN, she says her dad is the “proud owner of an ESPN sweatshirt.” And thank goodness, because he totally deserves it. In May of this year, editors at ESPN noticed a post Kimes had published on her Tumblr–an essay about her father and their mutual love for the Seahawks–and they picked her up. She is now an ESPN columnist and features writer.

Prior to this pickup–proof that living on the Internet can pay off–Kimes always worked on staff and never as a freelancer. After interning for Fortune Small Business magazine in college, she was hired and worked at Fortune for five more years, then transitioned to Bloomberg until her epic ESPN pickup. In 2009, she won the Nellie Bly Cub Reporter Award, and in 2013, she was awarded the Henry R. Lucy Award for her investigative piece about a corrupt medical company. Now, she wheels and deals in sports writing exclusively, and since May has written on Ray Rice, tattoos and fandom and MLB’s executive gender whoopsie.

Bluntly put, her former guilty pleasure is now her job, which is a completely new playing field for her. She’s taking it well. And watching a lot of football.

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Joanna Demkiewicz: I know that in your life you are a big sports fan, but now that you professionally work in sports, do you find yourself needing to study certain sports terms and nuances?

Mina Kimes: Absolutely. When I switched to writing about sports, I completely changed my reading diet, if you will. Instead of waking up and reading The Wall Street Journal and the Times business section every day, I started reading sports publications. If there’s something I don’t understand, then I take the time to understand it. But at this point, I know a lot more about reporting than I did when I was 22, so I pick up information a lot quicker than I did when I was younger. But yeah, I’m also a huge sports fan, so I’m not starting from scratch.

JD: So your lifestyle didn’t have to completely change.

MK: If anything, it’s been enhanced because it used to be on the weekends in the fall and winter I would feel guilty about watching football, and now I can kind of write it off and pretend like it’s a part of my job.

JD: On that note, is some of the pleasure in watching sports gone now that it’s your job?

MK: Not for me, because of the nature of my job. I don’t have a beat, so I am still able to consume most sports purely as a spectator and a fan, rather than being like, ‘Oh, I have to write about this game and look out for x, y and z.’ I’m still able to take it in, because what I do for ESPN is I write a column that’s about a whole mish-mash of things. And then I’m writing features on a rolling basis. Most of my sports watching is for entertainment.

JD: So, I should admit that I don’t consider myself a sports fan. But I’m currently dating someone who’s really into baseball, and witnessing his fandom is really interesting to me. And watching his relationship–which is sort of like a combination of the bonding element with other fans, nostalgia and loyalty–that’s what it takes to be a fan, that concoction. Would you agree? Or am I missing something?

MK: Yeah. The bonding aspect is enormous. A huge degree of my sports fandom  is born out of family and friendship. My parents–my father, my brother and I–it gives us something to be in touch about, enjoy together, celebrate together and mourn together. It’s a common touch-point that never goes away. I’ve also met people, both in real life and on the internet, through being the same Seahawks fan.

JD: Right. So these people are total strangers to you, but you have a bond. 

MK: Yeah. I have a lot of–it’s funny because I didn’t really go through that live-journal or internet-friend phase. I think I’m a little older. Through football, I’ve actually made a lot of friends who I’ve never met, which is pretty funny.

JD: Yeah, and in your Tumblr essay, you mention how your dad would be like, ‘Hey, do that Twitter thing you do to figure out these stats.’ Social media has allowed fans to become really big voices in sports. It’s sort of a new playing field. How would you say social media has changed sports commentary?

MK: For me personally, it’s how editors, including the editors at ESPN, knew I was crazy about sports. Even though I was a business writer and hadn’t ever written anything remotely close to a sports piece, other than that personal essay. It was pretty obvious from what I’ve been tweeting about the last few years when I’ve been insanely obsessed about football. So for me it was a way for me to express my passion. And I continue to use it today to dialogue with people about what’s happening on television and make jokes, kind of make light of things. It’s a non-stop conversation that runs through games, sort of 24 hours a day.

JD: I think it’s so interesting that it’s a way to connect with total strangers. Since working at ESPN, have you used social media as a jumping point for a story?

MK: Yeah, actually, when Ray Rice’s initial suspension occurred in July, everyone on Twitter immediately expressed their dismay over what happened, which was this pitiful two-game suspension. I remember I tweeted something about how it’s hard sometimes to be such an ardent NFL supporter as a woman. And I noticed a lot of women–female sports fans–tweeting that they weren’t sure they could continue watching football and supporting it because of this. So I decided to write a quick column about what a poor decision this was for the NFL in terms of expanding their market and growing their female audience based on what I had seen on Twitter. And I ended up interviewing one of the women whose tweets I saw. That was a pretty quick response just on seeing how people were reacting in real time.

JD: Interesting. I read that piece, but hearing the backstory like this makes it more valuable to me. So, before chatting with you, I communicated with some sports writers–just because I’ve never written a sports story before, and I’m not in that world. Actually, I don’t know why I’m ‘othering’ it so much, like it’s so different, because–

MK: It’s really not. That was a huge thing for me to wrap my head around and decide in terms of what seemed to me to be a pretty large career change, having established myself as a business journalist and investigative reporter. Can I write about an entirely different field? And I realized the skill-set was almost entirely the same.

JD: Right. In interacting with another female sportswriter named Caitlin Swieca, who works for the Columbia Daily Tribune, she made the comment that sometimes she gets, ‘Wow, you really know your stuff.’ Like, how surprising. Do you get that reaction?

MK: Yeah, and I got that when I wrote about finance. I think in any field you write about as a minority and as a woman, you’re going to occasionally encounter that sort of reaction. It’ll come up–but you know, I got that even before I started writing about sports. I got that as a female sports fan all the time. When I started following sports more closely, I realized it doesn’t–you can learn a lot and become conversational in it pretty quickly if you pay attention, and I think some people are intimidated by that.

JD: Do you just brush it off?

MK: Yeah, I have always seen that–again, whether it’s in business or in sports–as an advantage. If a man chooses to react with surprise or condescension, all it does is give me–I’ve always just felt that it’s to their disadvantage and not mine. Does that make sense?

JD: Yeah. I feel like, also, in reading some of your pieces, the comments section often gets hairy.

MK: Well, that’s worse than in business, because in business you don’t have the same readership. But I just ignore any comments that aren’t substantial. It shouldn’t have to be that way, but for me–I guess I’ve developed a thicker skin over the years. Anything that doesn’t address or engage with the piece is sort of irrelevant to me.

JD: Right, and there’s so much of that happening because there’s this sort of bravery that comes with the anonymity of leaving a comment.

MK: Definitely. The crazy thing is that on our site you have to use your Facebook to leave one. So I’m like, ‘Wow, you really don’t mind putting your name next to that? Ok.’

JD: A lot has happened since you joined ESPN, and you wrote about the Ray Rice issue and then on gender disparities in MLB. You work from home, so you can’t really speak to the atmosphere of the ESPN newsroom when these stories broke, right?

MK: All I can speak to is my experience, and when the Ray Rice news broke, I said immediately, ‘This is what I want to write.’ And it went up the next day and all day it led the home page. I felt immensely supported in writing about important issues–writing about gender–the same goes for the other column I wrote, about baseball.

JD: So you definitely felt internal support.

MK: Yeah, exactly. They’ve been really excited about these pieces, as evidenced by that one piece being the home page, which was pretty awesome. I took like a million screen shots. I think I Instagrammed a screenshot of it.

JD: Something else on my radar–ESPNW. From your perspective as a writer and a woman, do you consider that gendered element of ESPN to have both pros and cons?

MK: So I’ve written two pieces that have run on both ESPNW and parts of ESPN. So the Ray Rice piece ran on both ESPNW and on ESPN and the NFL page, and the baseball piece ran on both ESPNW and the MLB page. So I see it as a website that women can go to, but those pieces are also cross-pollinated across the website. I can’t really speak to the strategy behind it.

JD: Interesting. So now I’m going to ask a really cliché question. What athlete would you have lunch with, dead or alive–not you dead or alive–and what would you be eating? 

MK: My favorite player on the Seahawks is the running back Marshawn Lynch, who’s sort of notoriously reticent with the media but is an intriguing person. And he’s from Oakland, so I would go to whatever his favorite restaurant is there. Seeing him in his element would be awesome.

JD: What would you talk about?

MK: He’s a running back, and he’s kind of a quiet guy. So I would just get him to open up. He came from sort of a tough background, and I’d like to hear about his life and what it was like growing up. He’s at the peak of his career right now. He’s a really fascinating and sort of hilarious character.

JD: Why do you say that?

MK: Because he’s sort of reticent. Fans have been able to glean his personality from little bits and pieces that he lets show. Jokes, little asides in interviews, funny things he does–it lets you know that he’s incredibly dynamic and funny and interesting. As a reporter that’s sort of tantalizing, right. Someone who hasn’t expressed everything, but there’s clearly so much going on.

JD: And that’s part of being a fan, too. You get so curious about how they are in daily life. How much is personality a part of athletic success?

MK: I think definitely, we’re talking about men and women performing at the highest level, whether it’s sports–honestly, it’s the same as it was in business. It’s the reporter’s job to suss out what aspects of that person’s biography, and what qualities of their personality drove them to achieve this pinnacle of success. I know that sounds cliché, but because we’re dealing with a very small subset of society, they are unusual people. It does take rare personality traits. And yeah, like you were saying, fans just really want to know who these people are and what drives them, excites them and propels them forward, and what it would be like to hang out with them. Those are all things we obsess about.

JD: Is there a sport that you’re ho-hum about?

MK: I’ve never gotten into golf, but I could. One cool thing about writing my column–so it’s about anything, across the board, any sports. So in looking for stories, I talk to a variety of people about sports I’ve never paid attention to before. I’ve found new interests in the process.

JD: That goes back to the whole research element of it–

MK: Exactly. I mean, if you research anything long enough, it becomes interesting to you. I wrote about the craziest industries. I wrote about the railroad industry and learned everything about that. I wrote about pharmaceuticals – things where I would start knowing nothing and I would end knowing far more than I could ever fit in a seven-or-eight-page piece, and I became fascinated in things I had no interest in before. I wrote a column recently about a baseball card collector. And since then, I’ve become interested in that, and whenever I see something about collecting, I want to read it, and I’m curious about what kind of people do this, which was definitely–I didn’t have a card collection as a kid or anything.

JD: Switching gears a little–what is on your bedstand right now?

MK: Oh gosh. I want to say something other than sports stuff. I’m actually sitting on my bed. Honestly, I’m such a magazine junkie. You know, I get Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, so those are all next to my bed right now. I get them all in print.

JD: Who are your favorite writers right now?

MK: I just read something amazing…what was it? I really love–God, I’ve been reading so much sports writing lately–I really love Brian Phillips, who writes for Grantland. I just read this amazing piece by Jennifer Gonnerman in the New Yorker. She’s a favorite, for sure. I’ve always liked her work and writing about New York stuff. I also really love the work of Jeanne Marie Laskas, who writes for GQ. One of my favorites.

JD: Do you have any favorite sports books?

MK: As far as fiction, I love “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” by Ben Fountain. It’s a really, really, really wonderful book.

JD: Something I’m always curious about–I think it speaks volumes–is the writing process. What’s your writing process? Are you a morning person? Night person–

MK: It’s different for long features versus columns for me. I don’t sit down and just write and, you know, magic just flows through my fingertips. I’m very studied and sort of perhaps overly prepared before I even start writing. I do incredibly exhaustive outlines that sometimes take me–with features, anyway–sometimes take me as long as the actual piece to write. So I have this crazy, elaborate system of Google Docs that all funnels into this outline that can run dozens of pages, and then I use that for my master document before I start writing. I even outline my shorter pieces, as well. I’m kind of an obsessive outliner.

JD: So it’s definitely a calculated process.

MK: Yeah, I definitely have a system that I use. I like having all my notes and Docs when I’m fact-checking, especially with longer pieces, so I can go through and check everything. It’s kind of like modern day index cards, I suppose. As far as my writing, the only thing I need is absolutely silence. I can’t write–I’ve worked in newsrooms, and I can’t write in them. I can’t write in a coffee shop, I have to write in a quiet room.

JD: Are you more of a morning person?

MK: Yeah, when I’m writing, I’ll get up at six, eat lunch, and then keep writing. I tend to get the most done in the morning and at night, and not a lot after lunch. I think that’s my least productive time of day. I don’t know–my dog wakes me up. He’s quiet, though, so it’s ok.

JD: What’s his name?

MK: Lenny. He’s named after Lenny Kravitz.

JD: Oh my God.

MK: There’s no reason for that, either, it’s not like I’m a Lenny Kravitz fan.

JD: Does he look like Lenny Kravitz?

MK: He doesn’t look anything like Lenny Kravitz. It makes no sense. Because I work from home now, he’s my only co-worker.

JD: I love pets with people names. It’s one of my favorite things in the world.

MK: I love the really–like Brad. Or like Steven. Because Lenny still kind of has a dog attribute.

JD: Is Lenny in your Twitter photo?

MK: No, that’s my parents’ dog, Winston, who I have sort of a complicated relationship with.

JD: Oh. Jealously?

MK: I’m kind of giving him a side-eye in the picture. He’s kind of a little bit overconfident, in my opinion.

JD: Ha, love it. So, when I think about cliché sports stories, the first thing that comes to mind is “the underdog.” What are other story lines in sports?

MK: For example, Johnny Manziel–Johnny Football–this is a guy who wasn’t exactly born into poor circumstances, and he’s been successful for a really long time, but his impact on sports has less to do with his personal journey, and more to do with peoples’ fascination with him and his style of play. So that’s a big one. The Michael Sam story, also. Call it an underdog story, but I think in more ways it’s about introducing a new audience to sports, defying expectations, challenging stereotypes. He has emblematized so many important stories. I think there are a lot of great relationship stories. Rivalries are really fascinating. Because team sports involve more than one person, the relationship between players on and off the field can make interesting stories as well. Those are sort of different tropes than just the underdog story – I guess the Michael Sam story is more about a pioneer than anything. There are a lot of great stories like that.

JD: And then–with player relationships–the dynamic can change after players are traded.

MK: Right. I think thinking of sports as a business and these men and women as having careers sorts of plays into that. It is a business, but there are very real lives affected by these business decisions. I think that’s really interesting. Thinking about these people as not just entertainers, but as men and women trying to succeed to better their own lives and be financially stable is really interesting as well.

JD: And thinking about the flaws of the institution itself is really interesting.

MK: That’s certainly a big story in football right now.

JD: I like to ask: What are you afraid of most in life, besides death, and what makes you the happiest?

MK: Afraid of? A paper cut to the eye.

JD: Oh my God!

MK: If someone is swinging paper, I’m like ‘Ah!’ My flight mechanism is insane. So a paper cut to the eye and spiders, I guess. I really hate spiders. And what makes me the happiest? Good Korean food; I’m Korean. Finishing a story and the moment when you send it in and you feel good about it. That anticipation of waiting for someone else to tell you it’s good, because journalism is not a solitary exercise. And then when Seattle won the Super Bowl. That was big. That was a big one.

JD: Ok, I have to ask. Will you dissect your recent tweet: “JJ Watt is the Jennifer Lawrence of the NFL?”

MK: Ok there’s three reasons. So JJ Watt is an extraordinary player; he plays defense for Houston. And he’s like very popular–he’s critically acclaimed, but also mainstream fans love him, too, so I feel like he’s like Jennifer Lawrence, because she’s like America’s Sweetheart but also critically beloved. And then, two, he seems very nice and laid back, but then he’s crazy on the field and really fierce. I feel like that’s similar. And, three, they’re both blonde.

JD: I needed to know, because I love Jennifer, but know nothing about JJ Watt, and now I love him. I commend you for getting someone who’s not interested in sports interested in what that meant.

MK: Actually, it makes me so happy when I write a column and someone tells me, ‘I’m not a sports fan, but this really interested me.’ That feels great.

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Joanna Demkiewicz is The Riveter‘s co-founder and co-editor. Find her on Twitter at @yanna_dem.