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The love/hate relationship with my chosen profession

Reporters, journalists, sports writers. They're parasites, right? Pundits, vultures, shameless egomaniacs in love with their own byline. And I've longed to be one of them for as long as I can remember - or at least since I came to the painful realization that I was never going to be a professional athlete.

Being a sports writer was inevitable, really. I fit the profile completely: I've played sports my whole life, as often as possible. I'm not bad, either; often enough I'm pretty good. But I don't exactly have much discernible talent, either. I was always That Kid - you know, That Kid who "works hard and plays good defense." In school, I was always terrible at math, but I had an unusual knack for calculating meaningless statistics and memorizing obscure names and numbers.

Bound by insecurities and driven by ego, I'm a hopeless neurotic, dangerously competitive with an opinion on everything. And though I may not always be right, I'm never wrong. And while I may not have been anything to write home about on the playing field, I could always wisecrack with the best of 'em. That said, it should come as no surprise that I was never one of the popular kids. People don't always like me; in fact, some might even hate me. Perhaps it's because of my own repressed bitterness toward my lack of natural athletic ability, but those who spend too much time with me find me to be generally irritable. (Just ask Mom.) Also, I tend to say the wrong thing sometimes - and by "wrong," I mean "blunt and honest."

Where else but sports writing could all those factors work in my favor? And so my fate was born.

Like everyone else of my generation, I grew up on 24-hour sports. Like so many, I used to wake up every summer morning at 6 a.m. and watch the same episode of SportsCenter six times in a row. Every day. I couldn't imagine life any other way.

So it's no surprise that I found my comfort zone in the ever-growing market of the sports media. And I love it. Could there be a better job on this planet than watching sports and getting paid to talk about it?

Sports writers are all over the place these days, more so than ever before. It's not just newspaper columns and radio shows - now they're on TV every day, as if they needed their egos stroked any more. "Pardon the Interruption," "Around the Horn," "I, Max," "Rome is Burning," "The Sports Reporters" - and, of course, "The Sports Reporters II." Don't get me wrong, I watch every one of those shows - but there's only so much of Mike Lupica's smug self-righteousness I can handle.

Sports writers and broadcasters are everywhere; they, the "objective" outsiders, are now bordering on celebrity status themselves.

But given the explosion of the sports media over the last 20 years, this was probably a natural eventuality. My gut reaction says the added exposure is a good thing. The bigger the media gets, the better. But at a certain point, it gets a little ridiculous. How many 24-hour sports networks do we need? How many sports talk shows? I'll be honest - as much as I love my chosen profession, the overexposure of everything sports-related has gotten out of hand.

I can't change the channel without Stephen A. Smith yelling at me about Kobe's rape trial, or Jay Mariotti whining about Sammy Sosa's injury, or Kornheiser & Wilbon arguing about the BCS. It's too much. Every story, every report, every rumor is argued about, analyzed, dissected and picked apart ad nauseam, by everybody. No matter the issue, every talking head who can get his hands on a microphone just has to pipe in.

Consensus opinions become fact, misdemeanors become scandals, and every controversy is blown wildly out of proportion. In fact, we can turn just about anything into a controversy, as long as enough people talk about it.

Take an issue very close to my heart: my beloved Boston Red Sox, who have to deal every day with the toughest press of any city in America, constantly reminding them they haven't won a World Series in 86 years. It was tough enough when it was mostly just the papers on their backs. But now, everyone's in on it. Everyone's got something to say. Everyone's right there, replaying that heartbreaking Aaron Boone home run in last year's ALCS, second-guessing Grady Little's ill-advised decision to leave Pedro on the mound in the 8^th. Enough! The media never met a dead horse they couldn't beat to a pulp.

As vital as its function is, sometimes it seems that the media does more harm than good. After all, it was the sports media that hired Rush Limbaugh, of all people, as an NFL analyst, where he proved to be completely out of his element and failed miserably. Didn't they learn their lesson after the Dennis Miller debacle?

I blame the media for the political correctness that has permeated the sports world in recent years. I blame the media for Janet Jackson's right breast. I blame the media for "Kazaam," and every rap album Shaq ever produced. And I blame the media - in part, at least - for the NBA's declining standards. For years, the media has done nothing but glorify dunks, three-pointers and fancy no-look passes. So it's no surprise that the league has become infested with immature high-schoolers who'd rather appear on a highlight reel than learn how to play championship basketball. Somehow, I have this dreaded feeling that the league is slowly deteriorating into one big "AND1 Mix Tape." Defense is bad, shooting is even worse, and league executives still refuse to put an age restriction on the NBA Draft. Go figure.

But more than anything, I blame the media for its obsession with superlatives, creating an endless array of bests, worsts and most valuables; I blame the media for exaggerating fact, for exacerbating its inherent biases, for creating myth. Michael Jordan is the greatest player, perhaps even the greatest athlete, of all-time . . .right? That's certainly what the media has been telling us for 20 years. No disrespect to MJ, but is it any coincidence that his career just happened to coincide with the biggest media boom in our history? Here's a question: If MJ wasn't so fancy, if he didn't make so many circus plays, if he didn't have all those endorsements, and if the NBA and the media hadn't marketed him to the extent they did, would everyone still think he was the best ever? Of course not. Now, he'd certainly be in the discussion. He very well might be the best ever. But there are plenty of others over the last 60 years that have equal or better resumes.

The media bestows greatness or historical status every chance it gets. Over the past few years, the debate has begun: Is Shaquille O'Neal the best center of all-time? A logical fan can only scoff at such a question. Great player? Yes. Best ever? Not even close. Wilt Chamberlain averaged more than 30 points a game for his career (Shaq: 27), along with 23 rebounds a game. One season, he led the league in assists (unheard of for a center). He scored 100 points in a single game. He averaged 50.4 points per game for an entire season. Shaq averages 12 rebounds a game for his career, and has never been such a dominant player - on both ends of the floor - as Wilt the Stilt was. Nor has Shaq had the impact of Bill Russell, a 6'9" center who still averaged 22.5 rebounds a game, won 11 championships in 13 years and completely revolutionized NBA defenses.

In terms of history, Shaq isn't even in the same league as either Russell or Chamberlain - but that doesn't stop the media's sports pundits from begging - and I do mean begging - the question. Hey, it's just another thing to talk about.

I don't remember a time when I didn't want to be a member of the press. That desire remains as strong as it's ever been. I can't help but think of the media's importance in the overall scheme of things. I can't help but think of all the effort and ethics that go into the job. But I also can't help but think that, if we'd all just tone it down a little, we might have never heard the term "wardrobe malfunction," we might never have turned a basketball player into a demi-god, we might never have had a bigot talking about football on TV, we might not see so many kids abandoning an education to play sloppy basketball for a couple million bucks.

I think it might be better that way. But maybe that's just me.

Copyright © 2004 by Chris Bellamy

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