This article discusses how writing assignments focused on sports controversies provide students with opportunities to read, write, research, and debate in ways that feel authentic and meaningful. Athletes dominate the headlines about everything from dog fighting to domestic violence. Sports controversies are appropriate material for teaching rhetorical analysis and research because of their relevance to and impact on students' lives and on popular culture. Students learn to read critically, research scrupulously, and write analytically about many topics, but sports controversies provide a comfortable familiarity. Familiarity and cultural significance apply to teachers as well, and practically speaking, sports controversies allow teachers to teach skills necessitated by the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts. By researching and analyzing sports controversies, students encounter various genres and improve information literacy, and they learn to evaluate sources and determine what constitutes "evidence" in various contexts. Analyzing the rhetoric of a controversy rather than arguing about the topic itself enables students to write an authentic and informed argument about a substantive topic like sports.