Slippery Soapbox of College Football Announcers

So I'm watching the University of Kentucky and Florida State University playing in the Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl, and some FSU defensive back named Tony Carter just did a forward flip into the endzone after an awful interception. One of the announcers, ESPN's Ed Cunningham, has spent the last five minutes railing on the moral decrepitude of this cornerback for his "selfish" flip into the endzone, and that he wants players that forward flip into the endzone on touchdowns to be ejected from the games. Indeed, while he's uptight because of the thirty yards in penalties the forward flip assessed, he keeps claiming that his ranting is because the forward flip is a safety hazard, and he doesn't want to see someone get hurt. While that's noble of him standing on his soapbox, it's a ridiculous excuse for his moral condemnation of the FSU players, because plenty of other rules in college football support much more dangerous maneuvers than the forward flip. In particular, the horse collar tackle, outlawed in the National Football League for its dangerous nature, is perfectly legal and the takedown of choice for many of college football's best defenders. Using a horse collar tackle, the tackler puts his victim at risk of serious injury by yanking his legs out from under him awkwardly by grabbing the back of the neck pads. In this case, the defender is putting the ball carrier at risk of injury; contrast this with the forward flip, which puts only the leaper at risk, the leaper who consciously made the decision to leap. Indeed, even if we assume that the forward flip risks safety, is it really deserving of a personal foul? Sure, it's often unnecessary, but I'd certainly rather see a flip, a feat of athleticism and skill, than Chad Johnson jumping into a camera operator's stand. Does the forward flip call attention to the individual scoring the points? Yes. But so what? Football's a team game, obviously, but college football gets a lot of revenue from these athletes; I see no reason to penalize players for showcasing their athleticism as they score a touchdown, risky or not. And, from his words at halftime, it sounds like Bobby Bowden agrees with me.

Blurring the lines: ESPN Conversation beta

I read the ESPN Ombudsmen whenever he or she posts (once a month nowadays) and, while I'll reserve my criticism of ESPN's Le Anne Schreiber for another day, I've never sent more than a short comment to him or her about anything I see on television. What I've often thought about sending in a comment about, though, deals not only with ESPN articles, but also AOL news items as well: the way reader comments are treated as a part of the news articles. While I'm not one of those people, like the Ombudsmen, that believes no news personalities should be able to endorse products (for one, I have no qualms about more Suzy Kolber on the air, and another, as long as the reporter doesn't have endorsement commercials running during his or her own broadcasts, there's no appearance of reporting; but I digress), I do feel like all news organizations run the risk of morphing user feedback into news. As far as online news articles, AOL's comment section appears directly below the article, and ESPN's similarly appears right below the information itself, separated by, if anything, a few crummy advertisements. But, while AOL only shows five comments on the front page (I assume they are the first five comments), ESPN employs moderators who get to post a few comments on the front page. While AOL's policy often results in vehemently racist or offensive messages (I have even reported some of the comments, and we all know my feelings about "snitching"), ESPN's method seems more prone to abuse, because the moderators have the ability to contribute in a sense to the article by adding opinion to the front page. In the screen shot I've posted alongside this, for example, there's a comment about ASU's blowout loss to Texas indicating a general PAC-10 weakness, drawing from an article by Bruce Feldman. While I certainly understand how an individual can draw such an idea from the article--which discusses, among other pieces, how Texas tore ASU apart despite an idiotic maneuver by a Longhorn employee--the article certainly doesn't demand such an deduction as "the PAC-10 conference is weak." That sort of suggestion is purely the creation of an individual reader, not Feldman himself in the article. Yet, there such a statement appears on the front page, right after Feldman's short bio, making it seem as though such commentary were part of the article. Indeed, by doing so, the moderators are doing more than just weeding out inappropriate responses because they are deciding what comments and conclusions are "worthy" of appearing alongside the article. AOL's method doesn't work (I could post one of the comments I reported, but I don't wish to be associated with that sort of awfulness even here) because anything can appear right there, but ESPN's method presents just as many moral dilemmas. Thankfully, I have a solution for ALL news organizations: simply make sure that each and every user comment appears ONLY on a separate forum page, and that no user comments appear alongside articles. This way, there is a clear distinction made between the news and the article its author has written and what Joe America has to say about that article or the topics discussed within it. By doing this, organizations like ESPN and AOL can offer users an excellent forum, and never worry about having negative or influencing comments from purporting themselves as anything more than non-journalistic commentary.

On Schilling, or Me pretending to be a Sports Columnist

I certainly admire Curt Schilling's performance on the field. Between the bloody sock mythological heroics or the time when he came back as a closer because there just wasn't anyone else and proceeded to stink (mostly), there's a lot to like in his portfolio as a pitcher and a future Hall of Famer. What I don't like about Schilling is his purported voice as a moral compass for the rest of the baseball world, specifically because, while he certainly has a point, his suggestions seem more like providing a voice for Joe Message Board grumbler than that of someone who, whether he likes it or not, is one vindicative clubhouse attendant away from some accusation himself. I don't like the idea that people "cheated" to succeed in baseball, though I'm not repulsed by it at all either. People do bad things to get ahead in life, and the pressures to succeed are strong. That's not an excuse, it's just a thought process. But, while Schilling's right to be ticked about losing out on Cy Young's or all-star votes to people sporting a chemical advantage, what he's not right about is his assertion that Roger Clemens--accused of being a steroid user by a clubhouse employee--must prove his innocence or lose the hardware. "The numbers should go away if he cannot refute the accusations," Schilling says in his blog according to ESPN.com, and certainly, I stress, I understand the chip weighing down his mighty right shoulder. But Schilling, as any politically active mind should realize, misunderstands the burden's placement: since there are no canceled checks in the Mitchell Report featuring the Rocket's John Hancock, Clemens need not "prove" his innocence. The burden is to prove his guilt, not vice versa; while the court of public opinion wields a gavel without restriction, it remains a fact that one is legally presumed innocent until proven guilty. Like it or not, then, Schilling's mistaken in claiming that Clemens needs to prove himself. Besides, how exactly can Clemens prove that he DIDN'T do any of those things, other than issuing sketchy statements? Drop his drawers and showcase a hide without holes?