As far as sportswriters go, if you're interested in the sentimental, I always used to flip to Rick Reilly's column in Sports Illustrated before reading any other part of the magazine (back when I was in school and could snag my dad's SI before he got home from work). He moved on to ESPN at some point but he has a few anthologies out.

In general, if you know what kind of articles to look for, there are some good stories out there by the major players. I really enjoyed the relatively recent (in the grand scheme of things; "totally old" as far as news goes) articles about the rise of wine's popularity among NBA players ([1]) and a look into NHL dentists ([2]) on ESPN.

If you're interested in writers who happen to be writing about sports, this year I got sidetracked from my original to-read list exploring the oeuvre of the late great David Foster Wallace, who has a handful of tennis essays that I thought were fantastic. He's such a talented writer that I must recommend you seek out his essay collections individually (A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Consider the Lobster, and Both Flesh and Not) but if you're strictly interested in his tennis essays, they were taken from those three and reprinted in a collection called String Theory. As a taste, the title essay of Both Flesh and Not is readable online (as "Roger Federer as Religious Experience", [3]).

EDIT: this was more directed at the grandparent comment than the parent, but well, hey, all of HN is free to take my recommendations (or not!)

[1] https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29517070/inside-nba-secr...

[2] https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/27851359/the-ugly-gory-b...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20fed...