How to respond like an adult

Back in December I decided I finally wanted to join the college paper. I'd never had a whole lot of respect for the publication rightly or wrongly, but it always seemed to me that they were in need of decent writers and I really wanted a column.

So I emailed the features editor and asked what I needed to do. He got back to me about a week later.

Thanks for your e-mail. What are you looking to write about? If you're still interested, go ahead and send me a list of the top 3-5 things you'd like to write about in a column and we can discuss it further. Also, send me at least two sample clips, so I can get a feel for your writing style...

Fair enough...

along with a 300-500 word statement explaining more on why you would like to have your own column and what it would mean to you.

Say what? What would it mean to me? When did this become an application to attend a special summer camp? I was genuinely dumbfounded. How could I possibly answer that question beyond responding with the obvious "I'd like to see my name in the paper?"

I sat and stared at my monitor for a couple minutes wondering if I could possibly make the sarcastic response that was sure to follow believably convey that I thought joining his paper was a life-altering opportunity. I gave up.

What would writing for The Eagle mean to me? Well first, let me tell you what I think of when I think of eagles. I think of integrity. I think of honesty. I think of men’s hair loss because the eagle is both masculine and, in America, bald.

I can only assume, because I’m not going to do any research, that these were the three things the founders of this proud paper thought of too when they named their publication after an animal, and I’m 100% behind that decision. I am myself very honest and contain large quantities of integrity. Though I sport a full head of hair, I would be more than willing to rock the naked noggin if it meant seeing my name in The Eagle.

I never sent it. I couldn't meet the minimum word requirement.

I haven't forgotten

I said I was hoping to have a follow-up to the Brennan post within a week.

That obviously hasn't happened. I've just found myself too swamped with work to put in the kind of time I'd like to put into it.

I sent an email to Dan Steinberg of The Washington Post asking if he'd mind if I sent along some questions since he actually works in the field I was mouthing off about. He said he'd help out, but I haven't had a chance to get the questions to him.

I promise I haven't totally dropped this. To my quarter-dozen readers: don't worry. It's coming.

Priorities

Their eyeballs roll
First in sockets
Then on the floor
Oh the stupidity!
The irritation!
What words they were
That caused expression of annoyance
To take precedence over sight

Memphis-Kansas overtime

1:58 – Memphis has only been able to muster two points in OT thus far. The way they’ve played with the lead, there’s almost a chance they’re better off playing from behind.

1:05 – Maybe not. Rush grabs his own rebound and scores after a breakaway.

0:45.1 – Douglas-Roberts has orders to foul apparently… but why? Memphis is down only three with plenty of time to go and as Packer says, the Tigers looked pretty solid defensively.

0:12.8 – Kansas at the line up five. Cue depressing shots of Memphis players on the bench realizing that Memphis players are not shooting the free throws for Kansas. This game certainly looks over.

0:00 – 75-68. Memphis loses. Roy Williams cries. Kansas reasserts its position as one of the top basketball schools of all time.

You can't help but feel bad watching Memphis players get covered in confetti. Someone should have provided them umbrellas.

Memphis-Kansas second half

16:07 – Kaun gets fouled. Three fouls on Joey Dorsey. Not good for Memphis. Dorsey has looked the most excited to be in this game. I’ll miss his over-zealous shouting and bumping at the slightest provocation. 39-38 Kansas.

15:15 – Everyone on the court simultaneously decides that the game should be played by rolling the ball around on the floor for awhile. It’s starting to look like soccer out there. If Hansbrough were on the court tonight, we’d have all the ingredients. Floppers are necessary of course.

13:59 – The score is still 39-38, but there’s a shooting foul so the scoring drought might actually be over. Of course, Memphis is at the line. I can say with confidence that the score will remain 39-38.

11:15 – Billy Packer reminds me of Derrick Rose’s existence. He has five points.

6:19 – Douglas-Roberts gets his third and has a seat. Memphis does have the lead at 51-47, but benching your best player at this point seems rather silly to me. A quick look at his stats this season tells me he hasn’t once fouled out. Why not trust that as a junior he has the presence of mind to keep himself in the game?

4:14 – Jim Nance calls an accidentally banked-in three pointer by Rose the “shot of the tournament.” My initial reaction was to roll my eyes, but now remembering how largely awful the games have been the last couple rounds, I’m wondering if he’s right. Memphis is up 57-49. It’d be nice to have a tight ending to a title game for once, but that dream is slowly slipping away.

3:49 – And the score is now 56-49 Memphis. Almost a half-minute after the shot, the refs rule Rose’s three pointer a two. That’s some sloppy officiating. How does that even happen? When does the statute of limitations run out for reviewing a shot?

2:13 – With over two minutes left in the game and only down seven points, Kansas starts fouling. This may be the last time we ever see such a strategy this early make logical sense in the title game.

1:54 – Packer is asked to announce to the audience what Kansas’s strategy for the rest of the game is. Didn’t Geraldo Rivera get in trouble for that?

1:30 – Nance asks, “Will the dream come true, or will Kansas come back?” I understand C-USA isn’t a premiere conference, but this isn’t exactly the United States hockey team circa 1980.

1:00 – 62-60, Memphis. Wow. This game is actually going to have an exciting ending.

0:16.8 – Memphis misses two free throws, but miraculously gets the ball back. Calipari’s brilliant strategy of not practicing shooting from the charity stripe is paying off. The score remains 62-60.

0:00 – Memphis manages to make a free throw and Kansas's Chalmers answers with an equally unlikely three pointer. This marks the first time that two coaches sold their souls to the Devil during the same game. 63-63, overtime. Wow.

Memphis-Kansas halftime

Commercial note II – Bob Knight appears in a Volkswagen ad. He may not be the world’s greatest actor, but he’s still captivating on screen. At one point Knight gets angry and throws the Ikea-looking piece of furniture he’s sitting on about three feet in front of him. They couldn’t find him something a little lighter? It made his toss look rather wimpy.

10:20 pm – I can’t understand the rumors that Bill Self could potentially leave Kansas. How is it that one of the four or five most storied programs of all time can’t come up with enough money to secure a coach? Roy Williams leaving to go to UNC is one thing, but losing Bill Self would just be embarrassing.

10:23 – Congratulations to Tyler Hansbrough for becoming the second ACC player in the last three years to accept the Naismith Award with a complete and utter lack of enthusiasm after getting bounced from the Tournament earlier than he would have liked. That other player of course is JJ Redick. Look for Hansbrough to have an equally exciting career on the bench.

Memphis-Kansas first half

18:38 (left in the half) – Memphis scores after the ball bounces off an official’s foot, thereby stopping it from careening out of bounds. There are so many obvious jokes I could make about referees and yet I can’t think of any of them and I don’t think anyone really wants to read one anyway.

16:20 – Kansas goes down 9-3… a deficit CBS announces is the Jayhawks’ largest of the tournament. Clearly the game is over.

15:36 – It’s 9-5 at the first timeout. I have high hopes that this game will be better than the abominations that have been the title games from 2004-2007, but my confidence would be boosted by Kansas figuring out how to not mishandle the ball every possession.

15:12 – Kaun may have the ugliest looking alley oops I’ve ever seen. It just doesn’t seem plausible that he can get that high off the ground. This is the second alley oop I’ve seen him make this tournament and while this one was far less goofy looking, I think he’d fit in better if he lost his muscle mass, donned some short-shorts and went back in time to play basketball in the 1970s.

13:21 – Tie game, 11-11. Last decent championship game I remember seeing was 2003. That one had Kansas in it too. Good omen?

8:47 – I’m beginning to suspect that the ball is coated in butter.

8:20 – Brandon Rush to Darrell Arthur for an alley oop that doesn’t look nearly as impossible as Kaun’s… by which I mean Arthur didn’t appear to need the help of wires to lift him from the ground. 22-15 in favor of Kansas for Memphis’s biggest deficit of the tournament.

Commercial note – It’s disappointing to see the same old ads I see all the time on TV. I know this isn’t the Super Bowl, but I still feel like it’s an event that deserves something new in the way of corporate sponsorship. That’s likely to be the toughest stance I take all game long. I’m known for my gritty analysis.

7:25 – Oh! Look at that! Roy Williams is in the stands. He’s wearing a very forced smile. I wonder why…

6:20 – Memphis back in front 26-24. I honestly don’t even know how that happened. Perhaps Williams has re-assumed control of the team.

4:46 – Douglas-Roberts has 13. There must be someone out there wondering why CBS has combined their point totals.

1:43 – I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many big men hustle in one game. I thought what I learned from watching Duke’s Brian Zoubek all season long is that big men are supposed to stand in the lane and then deposit the ball out of bounds repeatedly before they’re removed from the game after 30 seconds of playing time. Coach K should maybe look into Kansas’s strategy…

0:00.1 – Memphis determines that taking a shot with the final possession really isn’t worth the effort. The score at halftime: 33-28 Kansas.

Memphis-Kansas pre-game

9:10 pm – Brandon Rush has apparently only made it to the line nine times during the NCAA Tournament. That still compares favorably with the estimated nine free throws Memphis made all regular season long. Advantage: Kansas.

9:15 – Bill Self tells his kids that they have nothing to lose. This year’s Kansas team has won the most games of any Kansas team in history, so says Self. Of course, this year’s Memphis team has won the most of games of any team in history. Advantage: Memphis (though Memphis did play a mid-major schedule…)

I might also mention that Self’s pep-talk was maybe one of the least inspiring that I’ve ever seen. His players looked visibly bored and I swear someone attempted to cue the rest of the team that it should soon pretend to be excited by clapping prematurely before the end of Self’s speech.

9:20 – “Sleek! Fast! Unorthodox!” says the announcer about the Tigers before the players are named. It kind of sounds like they ran out of things to say about them.

Do I understand what a blog entails?

I received a call from Christine Brennan about my last post and needless to say, she disagreed with some of the things I wrote.

I'm working on a follow-up, but I thought I'd at least acknowledge the fact that she thinks I may have misrepresented her in a few places. There was some exaggeration, but I think that was in the interest of humor.

Hopefully I'll have a bit more to add here within the week and I'll try to get across what I think her objections were.

Do you understand what your job entails?

Christine Brennan of USA Today made an appearance at my sports journalism class the other day.

Did you know she gave Tony Kornheiser the ideas for many of his columns back when he actually still wrote for The Washington Post and she's great friends with all the important TV people? Did you know that MLB Commissioner Bud Selig once called her up out of the blue and she gave him a piece of her mind because she's one tough hombre, but he still really liked her book even though she was tough on him? Did you know that she is the reason every exciting or interesting sports story you've ever read got published?

So she's got a bit of an ego. Oh well. So smugness has taken up permanent residence on her face in the form of a cocky half smile and every single one of her sentences involves a namedrop of some sort. C'est la vie. It's her life to live.

If she's doing her job well, I suppose complete self-satisfaction is tolerable.

But she isn't doing her job. And she admitted it to our class.

Today's columnists and news bloggers have a responsibility to interact with their audience. It's part of Internet journalism. That doesn't mean you have to respond to each idiotic response, but you owe it to your readers to take their thoughts into consideration. It's a dialogue of sorts and what better way to get a sense of what the general public is thinking than by reading reactions to your opinion? That should really give you more material to work with and a better understanding of what would make your articles more relevant.

I was shocked when Christine Brennan told us that she doesn't read the comments posted on her column. That's a fundamental misunderstanding of the medium she works in.

I'm not completely talking out of my ass here. I've never been a prominent columnist in a national newspaper, but I know how this commenting business works. I spent two years sifting through comments sent into our high school online paper. Some of those comments were on articles I'd written, so I'd argue that I've been in a similar position to her own before.

Yes, there are a lot of stupid people out there on the Internet, but when you're posting somewhere millions of people have the potential to read what you've written, you have to expect some of those stupid people to say obnoxious things about your piece. Oh well. Deal with it. It comes with the job.

And who knows? Someone out there might actually have something intelligent to say or might have some information you can use to help further your investigation into the subject.

Brennan wasn't the first person I'd heard recently express an unwillingness to engage with the readership. I asked one of The Washington Post bloggers (hint: not Dan Steinberg) what he thought of the comments he received. He had much the same response, albeit he was far less obnoxious about it and didn't seem as contemptuous.

Still, it makes me wonder what percentage of journalists out there get it. Part of journalism must surely be having a thick skin and part of new media journalism must surely be finding a way to have a manageable conversation with readers.

My high school newspaper adviser John Mathwin understood this and he was by no means a man of cyberspace. To him, acknowledging the people sitting at the other end of the Internet tubes was just common sense. But if my incredibly tiny sample size is any indication, apparently it's something that needs to be taught.

A lot of media organizations seem like they're so close to getting it right. There are a lot of interactive features out there. They just need to hire the right people to carry them out.