Bragg Redux

Sports Illustrated is republishing it's 60 best stories. This one, from Rick Bragg, is the most recent:

They say college football is religion in the Deep South, but it's not. Only religion is religion. Anyone who has seen an old man rise from his baptism, his soul all on fire, knows as much, though it is easy to see how people might get confused. But if football was a faith anywhere, it would be here on the Black Warrior River in Tuscaloosa, Ala. And now has come a great revival.

Read on.

And don't miss David Gardner's Q&A with Rick about the story.

Tease: "I've always said, if you're going to write a good story, find yourself a person with a crease or two in his face."