I've loved sports all my life. I love to play sports, watch sports, talk sports, and read about sports. I've done all of those things as much as possible since I was six. I wish I was better at playing sports, but that's another issue entirely. Nevertheless, my love of all things sports has never wavered. Until recently.
I've always liked reading about game recaps, season and game previews, special reports, everything I could find about my favorite teams, and so on. Those articles used to be based mainly on the writers' knowledge and research. There used to be editors. Their job, if I remember correctly, was to edit stories written by journalists. They were supposed to be looking for mistakes to be corrected. There were facts to be checked, interviews to be verified, etc. Those all seem like good ideas.
I always enjoyed seeing the highlights on shows like SportsCenter and George Michael's Sports Machine. There are more highlight shows than ever before, and I watch many of them. But, things have changed. A lot.
Seemingly, sports writing and reporting are all about declaring winners and losers before the game has even been played. Case in point. The Boston Celtics beat the Miami Heat in Miami in game five of the Eastern Conference Finals last week. OMG! The series is over! LeBron has choked again. It was supposed to be so easy for LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh. The Big Three have failed for the second consecutive year. Blah, blah, blah. Never mind Boston still had to win another game. Not surprisingly that didn't happen. Miami won the next two games and are now in the NBA Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Shocking, huh?
I actually read on ESPN.com that Miami had "come back from the dead" to win those last two games. The dead? Really? The team with the three time league MVP and two other outstanding players were dead because they were down 3-2. Because they had the gall to lose a game at home. It's not like teams haven't won two games in a row before to close out a series. But, it just sounds so much more interesting to phrase it that way, doesn't it? But, why is it even necessary?
I can't be the only person who isn't surprised that the Heat came back to win those two games. I suspect most sports fans expected the same. So, why didn't the writers? Of course, they did. But, it's so much more fun and exciting to paint a different picture. Let's pick on Miami some more. After all, they're the league's bad guys, right? Every single loss is devastating, isn't it? Every single loss must mean the entire team is falling apart at the seams. The coach must be to blame. He's on the ever evolving "hot seat".
Why can't reporters and journalists simply report what happened in game five and leave it at that? If they want to give their opinion about who they think will win game six and possibly seven, more power to them. But, they are not psychic. Don't come off saying a team is dead in the water. Games are played for a reason. To see who will win, because as most people know, anyone can win against anyone else. That's the point. Let them play. Then report on what happened. In other words, do your job.
But, things aren't so simple anymore. People are paid to give their "expert" opinions on everything. Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith seem to have one job recently, to argue for eight minutes about whatever topic they're discussing for the day. Apparently, they both know everything about basketball and any other topic deemed worthy of their "discussion". They must insult each other, raise their voices, and convince America that each one, truly, is the more knowledgeable expert. Am I supposed to care? I can see the same thing at any bar in the continental U.S. and with far more colorful language.
The NFL Draft is another example. Good Lord, literally months of mock drafts, discussions, predictions, rumors, etc, etc, etc. I love the NFL above any other sport. But, my God, enough is enough. The accuracy of these mock drafts is staggeringly awful. If I had results like these from my students' test results, I'd be wearing a red shirt and khakis and working at Target.
Seeing all the "Draft Grades" each day of the draft, and the days immediately after, are a joke. It's like predicting the tastiness of a meal before seeing who's cooking the food and how it will be prepared. Nothing's been cooked yet, let alone washed and prepped. A meal can be heavenly. It can also kill you. You never know until you actually wait and see. I even saw a mock draft for the 2013 NFL Draft the day after this year's draft. Seriously?
Everywhere you look on television there are "experts". To say that networks are scraping the bottom of the barrel would be an understatement. Career third string quarterback Tim Hasselbeck is an example. I saw him on television rating current starting NFL quarterbacks. Apparently, the viewers are supposed to be impressed by his five career starts on one career victory. Hasselbeck obviously thinks he's qualified. Even more so, ESPN does too.
The worst part of all this is what's happening to so many average fans. Try reading comments online during any sport's draft. Every single pick is chastised as being the worst pick in the franchise's history. People are calling for every general manager to be fired. Others are convinced these same rookies will undoubtedly bring next year's championship. Why can't we just be intrigued and hopeful? Hell, we can be doubtful instead. The truth is, no one has any freaking clue what will actually happen. That's the point. But, no one seems to realize that. Why does every single draft pick have to be the savior or the goat? Could it be we're learning from all those experts and journalists?
Despite it all, I'm still more optimistic than depressed. I still love sports. I still love to watch, talk, play, and yes, read about sports. I guess I always will, just not as completely as I once did. Since so many things from our past seem to return (the '80s seem to be the most recent example), hopefully, good journalism will, as well. I can't be the only one who thinks this way. There must be other true fans out there.
True fans who will watch upcoming games because they want to see who will win on the court, diamond, field, and ice. They want to see the joy of victory, the heartache of defeat, the amazing plays, stifling defense, the heroes and goats. They want to smell the peanuts, garlic fries, and freshly cut grass, and taste an ice-cold $12 beer and a $9 hot dog, and sit on the edge of their seat or La-Z-Boy and experience what will happen next.
In other words, they want the athletes to decide who wins and loses. And just maybe the experts won't have a damn thing to do with that.
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