Chris Ballard is an American journalist and author who spent two decades as a senior writer at Sports Illustrated. His work includes profiles, investigations, and reported features about professional athletes, amateur competitors, and people outside conventional sports coverage. He has also contributed to The New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and National Geographic. His sports books cover basketball, baseball, and cold-water swimming.
Ballard played basketball at Pomona College and worked on the Claremont Collage student newspaper as a writer, editor, columnist, and cartoonist. His first book, Hoops Nation, grew out of traveling around the United States to play pickup basketball. He later examined NBA players in The Art of a Beautiful Game and a small-town high school team in One Shot at Forever. The Plunge, published in June 2026, follows his reporting on cold-water immersion and swimming.
Chris Ballard Books
| Book | Year | Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Hoops nation | 1998 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Art of a Beautiful Game | 2009 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| One Shot at Forever | 2012 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Plunge | 2026 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
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Ballard has taught narrative reporting at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. His author biography describes leading students in a partnership with The New York Times to report on COVID-19 in California. His work has been selected for The Best American Sports Writing and The Best American Magazine Writing, and he has received the Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting. These activities connect his magazine career with teaching and longer reported books.
His bibliography also includes The Butterfly Hunter, published in 2006, which concerns people pursuing unusual occupations. The sports titles similarly use individual experiences to investigate a larger subject. The research may involve participation, as with playing pickup basketball or entering cold-water competitions, or historical reporting, as with reconstructing a high school team’s season decades after it occurred.
The sports books move among distinct levels of competition. Hoops Nation records games organized informally by everyday players; The Art of a Beautiful Game studies established professionals; and One Shot at Forever returns to school athletics. In The Plunge, Ballard becomes a participant in the activity he is investigating, adding his own experiences to the interviews and research.
Basketball Books
Hoops Nation: A Guide to America's Best Pickup Basketball: Ballard documents a cross-country search for pickup basketball undertaken with other former college players. Their seven-month journey covered forty-eight states and more than a thousand courts. The book combines travel accounts with a guide to places to play, portraits of local participants, and explanations of court etiquette and basketball culture. First published in 1998.
The Art of a Beautiful Game: The Thinking Fan's Tour of the NBA: Ballard investigates the skills, preparation, and competitive habits of NBA players through interviews and direct encounters. Subjects include Kobe Bryant’s competitiveness, Steve Kerr’s shooting, Shane Battier’s defensive preparation, and LeBron James’s abilities. Accounts of training and specialized skills consider the work underlying performances seen during games, with attention to both physical technique and mental preparation. First published in 2009.
Baseball Books
One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season: This history follows the Macon High School baseball team and its run to the 1971 Illinois state final. Coach Lynn Sweet, an English teacher with unconventional methods, leads players from a small farming community against larger schools. Ballard examines the season, tensions around Sweet’s approach, and the lasting significance of the experience for the players and town. Published in 2012.
Swimming Books
The Plunge: Maverick Swimmers, An Unlikely Quest, and The Transformative Power of Cold Water: Ballard enters the world of cold-water plunging and competitive ice swimming, reporting on participants, history, and scientific research. His investigation takes him from ordinary cold plunges to competition alongside Olympic swimmers at the Ice Swimming World Championships. The narrative considers endurance, discomfort, and social connection while examining why people deliberately seek challenging experiences in cold water. Published in June 2026.