Anniversary Offering (Reflections from 25 Years of the Sport Literature Association) ('the Doaker's Story' by William T. Doakes) (Critical Essay‪)‬

Were it not for Aethlon (nee Arete), my literary efforts might have been frustrated, my intellectual engagement with defining issues stifled, my views denied an audience. In a sense, had the journal not come into being, I might have had to invent it. In appreciation for such nurturing, and in tribute to the pioneering inspiration of lack Higgs and the late Lyle Olsen, I offer for this anniversary issue some excerpts from a work in progress. The novel is called "The Doaker's Story." It is the tragic tale of William T. Doakes, once a prodigy schoolboy athlete who, confronted with an ethical dilemma as a collegiate all-star, gives up sports to devote himself to investigative journalism. He becomes a TV "general-assignment" reporter, achieving modest success at network affiliates from Missouri to Ohio to the East Coast. On his last assignment, the station kills the story that reports a scandalous incident of sexual violence in a major university basketball program. Billy then takes a leave of absence to investigate, not the incident itself, but the cover-up. Again, he is frustrated in his efforts to air the truth he discovers, and he spirals downhill into psychological deterioration.