While growing up in a small town on Louisiana’s Cajun prairie in the 1950s and ’60s, I longed to see the world. I read the National Geographic magazines that my brother received with a gift subscription every Christmas. We had Beatles albums, of course, but we also played a disc from National Geographic that featured the greatest hits of the humpback whale.
In my fourth-grade geography class, I became enamored with exotic-sounding places such as Reykjavik, Lapland and the Zuider Zee. And I wanted to know what the hell tapioca pudding was.
I still haven’t visited any of those places, but I have tasted tapioca pudding. And, upon arriving in New Zealand this month to cover part of the Women’s World Cup, I’ve now reported from 56 countries in my career as a sports reporter, the last 30 years of which have been at The New York Times.
My parents wanted me to be a doctor. I wanted to travel. Sportswriting seemed like the perfect passport.
I’ve been fortunate enough to cover 13 Olympic Games, eight men’s World Cups and six Women’s World Cups. Pursuit of soccer took me on a 15-hour boat trip up the Amazon and a 27-hour train ride from Moscow to the Urals. Along the way, I crossed the Berlin Wall, stood on the Great Wall of China, joined elite runners atop a 13,000-foot
