Yesterday I wrote about Grantland.
Today (Grantland-style; I’m aware of the irony) I’m writing about me.
I used to want to be a sportswriter. As my career has diverted, I still lurk in social playgrounds with sportswriters. At one time I was promising, sure. I’d confidently put paper Daily Iowans sold, or column hit-rates up against the Press Citizen or CR Gazette on my run dates. Had we counted hits, that is. Or not given the paper away for free. We were young.
But today, actually, I finally realized what sportswriting has become. Maybe, today, I’ve finally outgrown the sports-talk itch.
Apparently, sportswriting means the writer falls in love with the subjects he or she covers. Want proof?
- When the Penn State tragedy broke in November, former Kansas City Star super-columnist Joe Posnanski faced a choice. His warm and fuzzy Joe Paterno book lay in ruins. Would he gloss over the scandal in futile pursuit of his original intent? Or would he confront the scandal, the fallen idol, or the wreckage head-on? You decide. Tom Scocca of Deadspin provides the disappointing details.
- Elsewhere, Gannett-owned USA Today just purchased The Big Lead, once a “nascent” blog (his word) with a propensity for media comment. Perhaps coming full circle, and armed with newfound feature-writing resources, blogger Jason McIntyre profiled one-time foe and insufferable radio host Colin Cowherd. Profile isn’t the right word. Think sonnet, or soliloquy, or Tiger Beat magazine, with dialogue and language so rife with syrup the drippings might well drown you.
- And of course, agonizing, we return to the unbearable, navel-gazing Grantland. The Pantheon of sportswriter self-love; its own editor assumes any joke, aside, footnote or yarn he spins turn to gold, no matter how repetitive or long-winded. His minions follow suit, in superficial substance and style. But honestly, Grantland is the logical conclusion of sports journalism. When you’ve tired of covering your subjects in syrup and praise, you move onto the one subject you truly, deeply and madly love — yourself.
It’s now obvious. That’s sportswriting today.
I do not begrudge Simmons, nor Pos, nor McIntyre their success. They’re talented. They each worked extremely hard, and I say this not to be holier than thou (or anybody).
Often, I regret the choices I made on the precipice of my career, sportswriting, reporting, real writing, or whatever: Maybe I should have pestered the Danbury News-Times to pluck me from copy desk and assign me a beat. Maybe I should have stayed at The Star, instead of moving onto corporate pastures. If I’d done things differently maybe I’d be as rich or notable. Or relevant.
But those are regrets. We’ve all got them. Maybe, quite simply, I never worked as hard at sportswriting as these guys. But now they’ve all arrived, and I can finally see the destination, and I know one thing:
That ain’t me.
