Everything that happened before former NBA star Lamar Odom suffered multiple strokes on the floor of a Pahrump brothel.

Race and Ole Miss football.

Roger Goodell, the Patriots and one huge “makeup call.”

The life of the former defensive tackle, who was paralyzed during a kickoff return.

“The concussion that led Borland to retire came on a routine play, and that’s precisely his point.”

The running back’s life since he was indicted on charges of beating his son and suspended from the NFL.

“In an industry in which millions of people are invested in his success – in which he’s constantly being advised, praised and berated, often by total strangers – Revis’ tranquillity might be his greatest asset. He isn’t just an island. He’s a fortress.”

Joe Namath believes hyperbaric oxygen treatment can reverse the brain damage he and others suffered playing football, so much so that a treatment center carries his name. The science, however, doesn’t support his claims.

The mysterious death of one of college basketball’s most promising coaches.

The team’s grand, analytics-driven experiment led by a business school grad who won the GM job after giving a “PowerPoint presentation that Sixers executives now recall as an ‘investment thesis.’”

Lester Cotton’s transformation from reluctant football player to top Alabama recruit, and the hopes and dreams of a neighborhood that ride on his shoulders.

On former North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith, who died Saturday, and his battle with dementia.

When should a football player, and in particular one who has suffered three concussions in 10 months, retire?

An essay on Derek Jeter.

An investigation into who knew what, and when.

Y.A. Tittle, an 87-year-old Hall of Fame quarterback with dementia, travels to his hometown for the last time.

A profile of Luis Suarez.

On a preacher who counsels and ministers Major League umpires.

A profile of Bosnian striker Vedad Ibisevic, who has come home after escaping the war more than 20 years ago.

A profile of the Los Angeles Clippers owner, an oft-sued real estate baron with a documented racist streak and a penchant for heckling his own players, on the occasion of him winning an NAACP lifetime achievement award.

Brazil’s restless youth in the lead-up to the World Cup.

Two very different fates at the Chicago Marathon.

The beginning of Don DeLillo's Underworld, in memory of Andy Pafko.

"Pafko is out of paper range by now, jogging toward the clubhouse. But the paper keeps falling. If the early paper waves were slightly hostile and mocking, and the middle waves a form of fan commonality, then this last demonstration has a softness, a selfness. It is coming down from all points, laundry tickets, envelopes swiped from the office, there are crushed cigarette packs and sticky wrap from ice-cream sandwiches, pages from memo pads and pocket calendars, they are throwing faded dollar bills, snapshots torn to pieces, ruffled paper swaddles for cupcakes, they are tearing up letters they've been carrying around for years pressed into their wallets, the residue of love affairs and college friendships, it is happy garbage now, the fans' intimate wish to be connected to the event, unendably, in the form of pocket litter, personal waste, a thing that carries a shadow of identity -- rolls of toilet tissue unbolting lyrically in streamers."

On lucha libre’s exóticos, “wrestlers who dress in drag and kiss their rivals, never quite revealing whether the joke is on their opponents, themselves or conservative Mexican society at large.”

In search of the former boxing champ, who refuses to believe he has HIV.