Reader Questions: On Fandom, Media Coverage and Gundy Being Gundy

There were officially zero reader questions this week, but there was one great email and another topic I noticed on Twitter and wanted to address.

Here’s the email first.

I am currently attending a coaches clinic for high school football coaches. There are several across the nation this time of year. Mike Gundy spoke Thursday evening at the one I’m attending.

The main reason I sent you this email is because Gundy was in full Gundy-badger mode! It was great! It ranged from conversations with Yurcich on the headset during games to what he thought about different schemes/coaching they went against defensively. Let’s just say the censor was off. Haha.

The part you probably would have really enjoyed was Gundy using the phrase “out of his world.” He used the regular phrase 6x (I counted for you). But he also changed how he used it several times as well (“we” got out of our world, etc.) so it was definitely over 10x with the different variations.

Anyways, thought you’d enjoy. As always, love the content on the site. -Matt T.

I have nothing to add other than I now want to cover high school coaching camps.

As for that tweet …

I'm an old man. An old, old, old man. But when I was coming up in journalism, there was no "my coach" or "my team" or "my guy." You were handed a laptop, a credential, a pad and a pen and you covered sans bias, leanings, favorites. You just wrote and reported. https://t.co/o54G6zVEaM

— Jeff Pearlman (@jeffpearlman) February 8, 2018

I’m going to need a minute.

…………………….

And a beer.

…………………….

OK, I think I’m ready.

First of all, literally no human being who has ever covered a team or an event or a sport has done so “sans bias.” That would make them not a human being. So I guess if we’re talking about the Washington Post using robots to cover the Olympics, then sure. But if we’re talking about living, breathing humans, then no.

Pearlman was responding to some guy who, as far as I can tell does not cover Arizona State, pumping up Herm Edwards and Arizona State because he’s an alum. Which makes the entire exercise even more ridiculous.

The material from the replies to his tweet could sustain a half-decent sports media professor for like six years. Utterly enthralling (although I may be biased ?).

This one from Will Leitch especially resonated with me.

https://twitter.com/williamfleitch/status/961439211894267904

Look, I do think there has to be some professionalism when it comes to covering teams you have a rooting interest in. Kyle Boone and I aren’t sitting in the press box at Boone Pickens Stadium doing the wave between timeouts or chanting Tyron’s name into the loudspeaker. But to suggest that checking your objectivity at the door when covering a team or a sport is the best (or even only) way to do things is preposterous.

The nugget in there that I gleaned, however, is that I do think there is a tendency to overestimate your own knowledge when it comes to covering teams or players you’ve either grown up with or rooted for for a long time (I do this). That leads to holes in reporting and errors folks who are not fans probably wouldn’t make. Something I’ve certainly struggled with.

But ultimately I think it’s short-sighted to imply that sportswriting or coverage is better when you go in with the illusion of complete objectivity. I certainly don’t root as much as I used to, and sometimes (actually almost all of the time now) I only root because I’m rooting for PFB. But a trait that I think has always separated us is that we inject the #content with a mantra of “we give a crap about this and we know you do, too, so here’s everything we have emotionally and intellectually on this subject or this event” on some level. We don’t always reach that, but we certainly strive for it.

Are others better at reporting? Sure, absolutely. Are we trying to improve in that area? Yes, we are. But the thing PFB brings to the table is that we’ll go 2,000 words on Daxx Garman vs. Dax Hill or 65 minutes on a podcast with Ivan McFarlin, reliving the glory days. Why? Because it’s fun.

The finger-wagging “this is how it used to be done and should be done again” thing has a touch of merit to it, but I think it also rings a little hollow to folks who are just here to enjoy good sports #content. Maybe I got too deep in the Bill Simmons School during my formative years, and to be sure, I don’t think that Big-J journalism doesn’t have a place. I just think there’s room for both in a way there wasn’t before and that to discount one for the other is to not understand the audience you complain never comes to watch your show anymore.