’30 for 30′ on Netflix a slam dunk for storytelling

I’m not much of an athlete — you can tell just by looking at me. I don’t even like watching sports all that much. N.F.L. Football is the exception, and I may even stop watching that if they can’t figure out how to make the game safe without turning it into a tame version of itself. Or if the Patriots keep cheating their way to Lombardy trophies.

That said, I’ve really grown to love the ESPN series “30 for 30” and find that I can usually enjoy each episode regardless of what sport is being covered. I didn’t really understand why until I was thinking about a college writing class I took. There I learned that there are really only seven types of stories. They are as follows:

• Man vs. Nature
• Man vs. Man
• Man vs. the Environment
• Man vs. Machine/Technology
• Man vs. the Supernatural
• Man vs. Self
• Man vs. God/Religion

When you look at the “30 for 30” series from the standpoint, it becomes very clear that most episodes fits perfectly into one of those categories. A few examples:

• “Run Ricky Run” details the strange trail for football star Ricky Williams has blazed since coming out of college. Williams has gone through many travails and much consternation and he’s brought much of it on himself, making this episode a great episode of the Man vs. Himself story structure.
• “Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. the New York Knicks” chronicles the fits Miller gave the Knicks during several postseason clashes back in the 1990s. If you boil down the Knicks and their fans to a singular foe in Miller’s way, it’s clear that this is a story of Man vs. Man.
• “Rand University” tells the tale of former football star Randy Moss, and his rise from a high school phenom in Virginia to a possible N.F.L. Hall of Famer. Along the way, Moss struggled to break free from the grasp of his home town, which threatened to derail him. The is a clear-cut example of Man vs. the Environment.
• “Small Potatoes: Who Killed the U.S.F.L.?” is all about the birth and relatively rapid death of the United States Football league. When you consider the role Donald Trump played in wrecking the league, this episode could almost be considered an example of Man vs. God. Although I hope that the real God has better hair.

It easy to see that the reason “30 for 30” works so well is because it’s good storytelling featuring interesting narratives. But that’s not all. “30 for 30” has also profiled some extremely fascinating characters.

One of my personal favorite is John Spano, who is the center of the episode “Big Shot”. Spano lied to banks and the National Hockey League in hopes of purchasing the New York Islanders. Spano is presented as a very sincere chap who wanted to save the team, but who didn’t have an honest bone in his body.
Another favorite character is ice skater Tonya Harding of “The Price of Gold”. The episode details the incident involving an assault on rival Nancy Kerrigan. Watching Harding, it seems clear that while she’s trying with everything she’s got to convince the world of her innocence, she knows way more than she’s admitting. Harding’s got a secret, and that makes her super interesting.

Finally, I enjoy watching “30 for 30” because I love how seriously folks take their sports. For example, in “Pony Excess”, alumni of Southern Methodist University got so tired of watching their football team get trounced that they undertook a dastardly scheme to pay players to attend SMU. Everybody involved in this doc seems excited to be part of telling this story, and man, do they huff and puff and sell the story like it was a matter of life and death. Everyone is yelling and making a ruckus. Then again, maybe that’s just how folks talk in Texas.

“30 for 30” has grown to be one of my favorite things to watch on Netflix, up there with “Sons of Anarchy” and “Cutthroat Kitchen”. It’s full interesting stories, told in a very engaging and entertaining way. If you have some extra time to kill and need something to binge watch, I recommend a couple episodes of “30 for 30”.