Don't let the door hit you on the way out! The Louisville Sports, writers are more professional, interesting, and unbiased. They have to be ,after turf coverage there's not much left! 
Ray Melick leaving birmingham news..
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<< The Louisville Sports, writers are more professional, interesting, and unbiased. >>
May be--after Pat Forde left! Nope, there's still Rick Bozick blathering along...
As for Melick, I missed most of his words of wisdom because I wouldn't read him. Classed him with Slimebaum.
And I do truly miss Cecil's clear thinking--but not enough to pay for what used to be free.
RTR
May be--after Pat Forde left! Nope, there's still Rick Bozick blathering along...
As for Melick, I missed most of his words of wisdom because I wouldn't read him. Classed him with Slimebaum.
And I do truly miss Cecil's clear thinking--but not enough to pay for what used to be free.
RTR
Cecil is still locked in the TSE cage. :frown: Still can't figure out why they did that.
I wish the Birmingham News could get Cecil. That is wishful thinking though.
I wish the Birmingham News could get Cecil. That is wishful thinking though.
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Maybe the Bham News can hire Cecil from Tuscaloosa so we don't have to 'pay to read' his journalism. It sure would be a step up in their quality!
Since both my brothers wrote sports, and now, like you, I have written here on Tidefans, I find this to be a sticky subject.
It's not as easy as you would think to write sports -- is it?
There came a point in my my brother's career that he turned his back on sportswriting and never looked back. That was after he had worked in the front offices of the Braves and Falcons, and as managing editor of NFL Properties, Inc. (offices in Los Angeles), and had written a book (Tom Bennett, The Pro Style (Prentice-Hall, 1975). By the time he was 33 years old, he wanted no more of sportswriting.
I even heard a harsh criticism of Grantland Rice yesterday evening on 'Ringside.' The criticism was that he made a racist remark when he compared Joe Louis to a black panther. Now that I think about it, that was prophetic of the political group of the sixties by that name.
A big problem I have had with sports writers is that they seem to come out of the same milieu of all other journalism majors nowadays, where they all seem to have been told, "The most important quality of a journalist is objectivity, and by that I mean a critical view of what you are writing about." Therefore, when these people have come out of college, they have sharpened their critical pencil and were ready to shred to pieces any positive, affirmative opinion they could find about Sport.
But there is a problem inherent in that educational situation. How do you know that what they are telling you in those university departments is absolutely what you need to know to actually BE a good journalist? Are you SURE that you understand what 'objectivity' is? Is there even such a thing as absolute objectivity? Or is the truth rather that there is no such thing as objectivity -- just as (I've heard or read) there is no such thing as a true vacuum in space?
What makes a good sports writer, in my opinion, is not some principle he picked up from some professor in a dusty old classroom somewhere. Rather, it is God-given instinct. ANYbody can learn to write, given a modicum of intelligence. But not everybody is good at writing on a certain subject. I couldn't write on Science. In the first place, I don't know enough about Science to write about it.
My brother and I went through this years ago. I told him about how at Howard College I was around a bunch of young men who all thought they were going to be great preachers. In reality, only a very few of them were going to be successful preachers. But they all came out of high school, wide-eyed, intent on being great preachers. THAT is not easy to do either.
There are people on this Tidefans site who have better instincts about football than a lot of sportswriters and sports commentators have. (I'm not trying to polish the apple here.) But you turn on the TV and just listen a few moments to what passes as sports journalism, and you can see that MANY of these guys were not hired because they have great sports instincts. They were hired for some other reason. And they seem to be all through the profession.
I'm not talking about hiring jocks either. Just because a guy played the sport of football or baseball and he likes to talk a lot doesn't mean that I can gain something by couch-potatoing it and listening to him. There have been a few ex-jocks worth their salt as analysts. Sorry to have to say it, but many of them are just more gabby clutter in the field of sports journalism. Jim Palmer was good. Pat Sumerall. Bob Griese. Ken Stabler.
I think that the problem nowadays is on the 'management' level. The greatest 'manager' of sports journalism that I knew anything about was Roone Arledge. Associated with him was the ex-basketball guard, Chet Forte. They never produced a sports broadcast but what it was of top quality. Since they left the field, it has, for the most part, gone on a downward trend. Evidently, they were replaced, en masse, by graduates of 'the school of objectivity.'
It's not as easy as you would think to write sports -- is it?
There came a point in my my brother's career that he turned his back on sportswriting and never looked back. That was after he had worked in the front offices of the Braves and Falcons, and as managing editor of NFL Properties, Inc. (offices in Los Angeles), and had written a book (Tom Bennett, The Pro Style (Prentice-Hall, 1975). By the time he was 33 years old, he wanted no more of sportswriting.
I even heard a harsh criticism of Grantland Rice yesterday evening on 'Ringside.' The criticism was that he made a racist remark when he compared Joe Louis to a black panther. Now that I think about it, that was prophetic of the political group of the sixties by that name.
A big problem I have had with sports writers is that they seem to come out of the same milieu of all other journalism majors nowadays, where they all seem to have been told, "The most important quality of a journalist is objectivity, and by that I mean a critical view of what you are writing about." Therefore, when these people have come out of college, they have sharpened their critical pencil and were ready to shred to pieces any positive, affirmative opinion they could find about Sport.
But there is a problem inherent in that educational situation. How do you know that what they are telling you in those university departments is absolutely what you need to know to actually BE a good journalist? Are you SURE that you understand what 'objectivity' is? Is there even such a thing as absolute objectivity? Or is the truth rather that there is no such thing as objectivity -- just as (I've heard or read) there is no such thing as a true vacuum in space?
What makes a good sports writer, in my opinion, is not some principle he picked up from some professor in a dusty old classroom somewhere. Rather, it is God-given instinct. ANYbody can learn to write, given a modicum of intelligence. But not everybody is good at writing on a certain subject. I couldn't write on Science. In the first place, I don't know enough about Science to write about it.
My brother and I went through this years ago. I told him about how at Howard College I was around a bunch of young men who all thought they were going to be great preachers. In reality, only a very few of them were going to be successful preachers. But they all came out of high school, wide-eyed, intent on being great preachers. THAT is not easy to do either.
There are people on this Tidefans site who have better instincts about football than a lot of sportswriters and sports commentators have. (I'm not trying to polish the apple here.) But you turn on the TV and just listen a few moments to what passes as sports journalism, and you can see that MANY of these guys were not hired because they have great sports instincts. They were hired for some other reason. And they seem to be all through the profession.
I'm not talking about hiring jocks either. Just because a guy played the sport of football or baseball and he likes to talk a lot doesn't mean that I can gain something by couch-potatoing it and listening to him. There have been a few ex-jocks worth their salt as analysts. Sorry to have to say it, but many of them are just more gabby clutter in the field of sports journalism. Jim Palmer was good. Pat Sumerall. Bob Griese. Ken Stabler.
I think that the problem nowadays is on the 'management' level. The greatest 'manager' of sports journalism that I knew anything about was Roone Arledge. Associated with him was the ex-basketball guard, Chet Forte. They never produced a sports broadcast but what it was of top quality. Since they left the field, it has, for the most part, gone on a downward trend. Evidently, they were replaced, en masse, by graduates of 'the school of objectivity.'
