Journalism


Long before author Jim Haner became obsessed with youth soccer and the history of the great American Game – a fixation that took him on a three-year quest across eight states in pursuit of the book Soccerhead – he was an investigative reporter deeply interested in how things work, and why.

In a 20-year career at five major newspapers, Haner explored these questions in more than a thousand articles datelined from Manhattan to Miami; Baltimore to Denver; Seattle down the coast to San Diego. He covered the catastrophic crashes of trains and planes; the drug trade in its infinite permutations; the crime sprees of street gangs; the follies, vanities and petty corruptions of a generation of politicians. He wrote about Elvis, Frank Sinatra and Mitch Ryder; the waning days of horseracing; and how the NFL gave hope to a town that didn’t have much left.

In the wake of September 11, 2001, he witnessed the chasms at both the Pentagon and the former World Trade Center while they still were smoldering.

In most of these stories, Haner found the kids in the crowd.

The world as seen through their eyes is what inspired Soccerhead.

‘Baby Theresa’: Grave Status…, The Miami Herald, March 26, 1992
‘Something’s Not Right Here,’ The Miami Herald, March 28, 1992
Issac is 10…and Trouble, The Baltimore Sun, Oct. 29, 1995
The ‘Bronx Zoo’ awaits Orioles, The Baltimore Sun, Oct. 7, 1996
Preakness In The Raw, The Baltimore Sun, May 28, 2000
The Baltimore Experience, The Baltimore Sun, Oct. 22, 2000
Much more than a team, much more than a game, The Baltimore Sun, Jan. 16, 2001
Rescuers Prove Unstoppable, The Baltimore Sun, Sept. 16, 2001
Lead Paint, the vastness of the problem… IRE Journal, May/June, 2002
Justice Undone: Cases Crumble, Killers Go Free, Sept. 29, 2002