The Thematic Evolution of Sports Journalism’s Narrative of Mental Illness: A Little Less Conversation contends that the conversation developed and sustained by sports journalists about professional athletes’ experience with mental illness has evolved through three slightly overlapping stages, each marked by a primary theme. During the first stage, from the end of the 19th Century to the middle of the 20th century, sports journalists sensationalized the experience and portrayed the athletes - breathlessly labeled insane - as tragic figures. During the roughly two-decade second stage, an...