The Philosopher

Jon Friedman on Gary Smith: Smith, who joined SI in 1982, treats everyone he writes about with dignity, and unlike so many writers who happily settle for easy, sensational hooks, he doesn't reduce his subjects to one-dimensional cartoon characters. He doesn't judge people or conveniently lump them into simplistic Good vs. Evil morality tales.

"Life for every human being is a problem that has to be solved," Smith recently told me over pizza at Lombardi's in New York.

Perhaps a secret to his success is that he maintains a distance from his peers. "I don't read that much sports journalism," he said. He prefers fiction and philosophy, which shouldn't surprise his fans because he's a master storyteller and amateur philosopher.

It's said that the two qualities that make a story great are the contradiction and the conclusion. "It fascinates me, what makes a person tick," he said. "It's the contradiction, the paradox. In ambiguity, there is a goldmine. There is a lot of tension involved."