Sports Media Guy

A few weeks ago, I made the following analogy on Twitter – and Kate Brodock of Syracuse University suggested I turn it into a blog post.

Soccer fans = Tim Tebow fans = social media experts.

Now, of course there are exceptions to every rule. This doesn’t apply to all soccer fans/Tim Tebow fans/social media experts. But here’s what I mean:

All three groups are passionate about their topic. The subjects of all three are often marginalized, covered in a overly critical manner or just looked down on by the establishment – be it the sports media establishment in soccer, pro football “experts” with Tebow and traditional media outlets with social media experts.

In turn, all three turn so passionate about their subject, they become almost evangelical. In their eyes, there is nothing bad about soccer, about Tim Tebow, about social media.

If you criticize it, you’re not just wrong. You just don’t get it. You are a hater. You are a dinosaur. You are an ugly American. You have a closed mind.

In turn, any kind of criticism seems to be delivered softly. “It’s not that I hate soccer … yes, Tim Tebow is a winner everywhere he goes … yes, social media is becoming important … “ Which also means that any criticism or honest questions or honest debate about the subjects get shouted down in blur of “You just don’t get it …”

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I’m far more fascinated by the media coverage of Tim Tebow than I am by either soccer or social media. The coverage of him seems to combine the atypical quarterback-angle of a Cam Newton or Donovan McNab, combined with the Great White Hope angle of Doug Flutie, mixed with the intangibles, “He’s a winner” angle of Derek Jeter.

But more fascinating is the religion angle.

Tebow’s devout, evangelical Christian faith is a major part of who he is, of his popularity and a major part of his coverage. Witness any columnist who criticizes Tebow and how he or she will hedge it with a “This is not about his faith …” and then inevitably there’s a response column when he or she answers messages criticizing him for being anti-Christian.

I don’t subscribe to the persecuted Christian in America storyline that seems to pop up every now and then, especially when some clerk says Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. Let’s be honest – to paraphrase a post on sportsjournalists.com, if American religious life was a football game, Christianity would be ahead 59-3 in the fourth quarter and still have the starters in.

But traditional media doesn’t do religion well  (a point brought up by Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead on Twitter) – and this is especially true of sports media. Part of it, I think, is the nature of the type of person who becomes a reporter. A reporter has to be, by nature, a skeptic. someone who needs proof, who needs confirmation, who needs to see it to believe it. Faith is the opposite of that. Faith is belief in things unseen. Blessed are they who haven’t seen and yet believe, Jesus said to Thomas (the doubter, also my confirmation name. Clearly, there’s something to the fact that I picked that name before picking a career in the media).

The skepticism is well deserved. How many public displays of faith have we seen from people using their religion as a cover? The notion of winning a football game because you prayed is hard to fathom (the whole “what if someone on the other team prayed to win, too?” question). And for those of us who believe that you should lock your door and pray in secret where only He can see us, public displays of faith are off-putting – even if genuine and heartfelt.

I’ve always wondered why so many Tebow fans assume he’s being criticized because of his faith. And I’m not talking about specific criticism of his faith, like Jake Cutler’s a few weeks ago. I’m talking any criticism of his game. Why do some fans believe that’s supposedly motivated by an anti-Christian belief? It’s a question I’m genuinely curious about, one I’d love an answer to.

For someone who’s been in the spotlight for a long time, Tebow’s a bit of a novelty in NFL terms. He’s started six games, and he’s made all of them fun, must-see events. I’m interested to see how the coverage of Tebow evolves as he becomes more established in the NFL. Will the novelty wear off? Will the reflexive, cliched “He’s a winner” storyline morph into a breakdown of the specifics that make him successful? And will Tebow’s faith continue to shape the narrative or just a part of it?

Scandal seems to follow me.

After graduating from St. Bonaventure in 1999, I covered the school’s basketbal team for five years – including the infamous welding certificate scandal that was the biggest story of my career. After leaving Olean, I spent five years covering Binghamton University basketball – which exploded in scandal a month after I returned to grad school.

In May I earned a Masters’ degree, and I’m currently a doctoral student at Syracuse University, which is in a bit of a mess.

One of the other schools I applied to for doctoral programs, one I seriously considered?

Penn State.

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I feel compelled to write something about the ongoing Bernie Fine scandal at SU. But I can’t shake the feeling that I’m the wrong person to do it. Being a graduate student at a school is far different than being an undergrad, at least from my perspective. Part of it is, no doubt, my situation. I live an hour away with my family, so I’m only on campus a few days a week.

But there’s also a vast difference between grad school and undergrad. When you’re an undergrad, your identity tends to be wrapped around your school. It’s the first place you’ve lived on your own. You are at school, 24/7. Your life is wrapped in the cloak of the school, including its sports teams. Your school isn’t some place you go for four years. In a lot of ways, it becomes a major part of your identity. It becomes who you are. (Sidenote: I have this idea that college sports fandom, and by extension media coverage, is fueled by nostalgia for the viewers’ college experience.)

Grad school is different. It’s more of a job. This has been especially true at the doctoral level. The grind of classes, projects, papers, conference deadlines, publication submissions and Foucault, dear God, Foucault, is what overtakes you. It’s more about your own work and research than the school you’re at. (It doesn’t hurt that, at SU, the athletics offices are mainly on South Campus, a half mile from the main campus. Aside from the Carrier Dome, there are no visible signs of athletics on campus).

So when a scandal hits the school you did your undergrad at, it hits you harder. It cuts to a part of how you identify yourself, both to yourself and to the world at large. You endure jokes and snide comments from co-workers (to this day, I still get welding jokes). To see your school on the ticker on ESPN or CNN, to see reporters dig up unsavory facts about your school, to hear national pundits rip the school and its reputation, can be crushing. It makes you want to say “That’s not us! We’re not the scandal!”

And of course, that’s true. Any university is a collage of many pieces. At Syracuse, at St. Bonaventure, at Penn State, at every school there’s an athletics’ scandal, there is world-class research being done, world-class teaching going on. Students’ lives are being changed for the better. The work my doctoral colleagues are doing, the work of the faculty at SU, isn’t materially diminished by what Bernie Fine allegedly did.

But perception is reality. This is the price we pay for having high-profile, big-time college sports. Fair or not, Jim Boeheim is the face of Syracuse University. If we want to cheer our football teams on Saturdays, if we want to watch our teams in the NCAA Tournament, then we have to know that if a scandal strikes our sports teams, that reflects on the school. You can’t have it both ways.

As I said, I don’t have much of an opinion on the scandal or its impact on the school.Whether or not Boeheim gets fired because of this will not make Foucault any easier to understand. To me, it’s a fascinating story on a lot of levels, but not one that strikes a deep, emotional cord.

But it’s still weird to see so many satellite trucks on campus.

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There has been some exceptional journalism this past month, especially on the local level. The Harrisburg Patriot-News and the Syracuse Post-Standard have done wonderful work, and it’s been wonderful to see the crime reporter of a central Pennsylvania daily become a media star. At a time when people foolishly claim journalism is dying, it’s a welcome reminder that not all great journalism is done by the New York Times.

That being said, there are questions arising about the Post-Standard and ESPN’s handling of the tape featuring Bernie Fine’s wife and one of the accusers and why they didn’t report it eight years ago. I’m not going to try to speculate as to why. But I hope the news outlets welcome the questions and give honest answers. It won’t convince everyone – especially when the alleged crimes are this heinous. Reason (and so often, the 6th amendment) go out the window in cases like this, understandably so.

But it’s what news outlets should do, especially in this new media age. Don’t hide. Don’t shrink or get defensive. Be open, be honest, welcome questions and skeptics.