I was talking with a frustrated young broadcaster seated by me at courtside in Atlanta last night and asking my advice. His problem was finding new ways to cover a bad team like the Hawks, which continually lose and fail to generate excitement among local sports fans.
He said, “They’ll blow a fourth quarter lead three games in a row, and I wonder how to tell the same sad story over and over again.”
I told him that the true test of a journalist is to find stories when they aren’t obvious and when the deathly emotion of apathy threatens to destroy a team and its fans. If a player rips a teammate, or complains about a lack of minutes or a coach gets fired, the story almost writes itself. Otherwise, you’re on your own, and you’ve got to be creative.
He listened with curiosity when I told him that the Pistons had generated similar sentiments among their media people – that when you win game after game so easily, as they have done, it’s also a challenge to find new angles to what appears to be the “same old story.”
Today’s local newspapers are a good example. At practice in Atlanta, Krista Latham of the Free Press and A. Sherrod Blakely of M-Live were getting into the “Ben Wallace as free agent” story. Gimme a break. That’s a six-months-down-the-road story, but with no headline making events taking place, that’s the topic they picked. Krista asked Flip Saunders the first Ben related question; Blakely asked a follow up to it, and Voila, another non-story is born.
I’m not knocking the writers. The simple point is that when the status quo is maintained and you have space or airtime to fill, sometimes you have to grope. The media beast needs to be fed every day, and some days there aren’t many scraps sitting around. Try doing talk radio on a slow news day if you want to know what a tough media gig really is.
During the merciless blowout of the Hawks, I also found myself feeling sorry for more than just the men and women who try to cover that team. They’d be down by 30; a Hawk would score, and the PA announcer would try in vain to get the discouraged fans to react as they slowly trudged towards the exits.
I also felt for Dominique Wilkens, Vice President of Basketball, who I interviewed in the second quarter. ’Nique wants to succeed in the Hawks front office but may never even sniff a fraction of the success his old rival Joe Dumars has. His arena is half-filled and his young players don’t play well together.
They say that there is no room for sympathy in sports, and as far as management, players and coaches are concerned, it’s true. Flip Saunders had no qualms running up the score so that he could feel comfortable playing his bench. It’s his job to do that, as it’s also Chauncey Billups job to have no qualms about bombing three-pointers even though the game was already decided.
The beauty of sports is that it’s a zero-sum game. In other words, for every win, there must be a loss. For every team in first place, there must be one in last. For every player making a roster or being added to a lineup, another must be taken out. It’s the law of the jungle and those in the sports business accept it and live by it. When you start feeling sorry for your opponent, you can get in big trouble.
It’s different for the people who cover teams. I reported on the 16-66 Pistons of 1980. I felt sorry for myself then, as I did the kid in Atlanta last night. But I told him that I also reported on the World Champion Pistons of ’89, ’90 and ’04, and that he should remember the lessons he learned during the tough times. He’ll be a better reporter and a much more appreciative one when the Hawks finally turn it around.
As I said that, I also felt much more appreciative of my situation as well as yours as Pistons fans. This team has a chance to be one of the greatest “Fives” that ever was. In fact, that’s one thing that Flip said during his comments on Ben. He equated these Pistons to the great Knick "Fives" of the early 70s – with five equal stars in Walt Frazier, Dave DeBusschere, Earl Monroe / Dick Barnett, Willis Reed and Bill Bradley. His point was that Ben appreciates a winning situation and the opportunity to be part of something bigger than yourself, where you can find true fulfillment and can share the experience with people you truly care about.
And, unlike the sad state of affairs in Atlanta, the Piston players can also share it with the rest of us.
Feeling sorry for one's self for covering Pro Sports has got to be a tough sell. I know the reporters don't get paid like the players, I know they get beat up if they do a bad job, but face reality...you guys are doing what millions of men and women would like to do. You are getting paid to cover Pro Sports. As gigs go, it doesn't get any better than that. Of course if the Atlanta reporter still finds himself on the minus side of a creative quandry, then he could try the mines in West Virginia, I hear they are looking for a few new guys.
Posted by: Tom Allred | January 20, 2006 at 08:53 AM