Does art imitate life? Or does life imitate art? For the winter All-Met section, we found a place where the two converged in harmony: the National Gallery Sculpture Garden on the Mall.

Some of its works are imposing and powerful, like Oxon Hill's Michael Sweetney in the low post. Others evoke speed and elegance, like Gar-Field's Sheena Johnson flying over the hurdles.

On the cover, we arranged our Players of the Year around artist Roy Lichtenstein's "House I," which, according to the Gallery, "exploits illusionistic effects." As one approaches the house, the sculpture appears to project forward from a distance, but from up close, it recedes into space. The house confronts, confounds, then exceeds expectations.

These athletes' performances followed a similar course. All are team leaders, all are turned to for the big shot, goal, race, relay. Over the course of the season, these athletes took the expectations placed upon them and shaped them into inspired All-Met works of art.

About this section
These teams were chosen based primarily on two sources – coaches' ballots and the eyes of our writers, in that order. In addition to the coaches, the people responsible for picking the teams are: Greg Brice, Tarik El-Bashir, Judith Evans, Alan Goldenbach, Aruna Jain, Josh Leventhal, Nathan Max, Camille Powell, Jeff Seidel, Christian Swezey, Bryan Tucker, Angie Watts and Preston Williams.
All coaches and athletes of the year were photographed at the red granite chairs of Scott Burton's "Six-Part Seating" (1985).
The Washington Post would like to thank the National Gallery of Art for allowing the use of its Sculpture Garden for this section.

About the cover
The cover picture was created from nine photographs. The athletes and the house were shot separately and then combined to form one image by Post photographer Michael Lutzky.