30 for 30 complaint

I was watching the Bo Jackson 30 for 30 and they kept interviewing Chuck Klosterman. I think he probably was interviewed more than any other writer/expert

Don't get me wrong, I think Klosterman is brilliant, but I'm watching it and I'm thinking, "I could have sworn Klosterman is basically my age, why is he being interviewed like he's a Bo Jackson expert?"

Bomani Jones was another one featured pretty prominently in documentary. How in the fuck is he an authority on Bo Jackson? I get Jeremy Schaap, since his dad wrote Bo's autobiography. I get Boomer Esiason, I get Mark Gubicza, I get George Brett, I get his former coaches. I loved seeing Dick Kaegel on there, but apparently he's not nearly the Bo Jackson expert that Klosterman or Jones is...

I understand why they do this for guys who played in the 1950s.

I felt similarly about watching a 36-year-old wax poetic about the 1962 Ole Miss football team.

 

I guess they gotta find whomever they can find. Most of the 30 for 30 pieces are pretty well done. Most of us know the story by now, but they bring out new angles and it's sort of a trip down memory lane.

 

That would be right in the Bo wheelhouse, right? Part of the magic of Bo was the marketing aspect, and that stuff was aimed directly at teenagers (of which you, I and Klosterman were three). I don't think you need to confine Bo memories to people who were working professionals at the time, which would mean they are all 50 or older now.

I have vivid memories of Bo crushing that Rick Reuschel for a home run in the All-Star Game. Klosterman probably does too. You could say the same thing about Michael Jordan. But Jordan became Jordan first off because of the shoes. The first five years of his career, veterans were still in "what has he won?" mindset.

 

I heard an extended interview with the director (Michael Bonfiglio) on Finebaum a week or so ago and he answered those criticisms specifically. Bonfiglio said that, since Jackson was such a cultural phenomenon in addition to being a great athlete, he wanted a fan's perspective. Klosterman and Jones were in middle school or high school when Jackson was at the height of his fame and thus qualified to speak as to Jackson's impact on the youth culture at large.

 

I don't have a problem with Klosterman or Jones being used, but when it seems like they're being presented as "Bo Jackson experts" when there are people out there who actually are "Bo Jackson experts"

If I see one of these things on Jordan, I want to see Sam Smith and Lacy Banks (RIP) interviewed. That's not to say that you couldn't have someone say, "I remember watching him as a kid..." I think that would have a good impact, but that wasn't what I was seeing from Klosterman and Jones...

 

I've loved most of the 30 for 30s. I haven't seen all of them, but I would say they're batting about .900 on the ones I've seen.

For the record, I loved the Bo Jackson one. Like LTL said, I remember the HR off Reuschel, I remember watching the Bo Knows commercial in real time... I remember watching him gun Harold Reynolds at the plate... He's probably the best athlete I've ever seen.

 

I still think someone in our rough age group has more appreciation for Bo than someone who was in his 30s at the time. I doubt that guy was rushing to get that poster of the shoulder pads and the bat, or wearing a "Bo Knows" T-shirt.

As you said, they had plenty of other people on there from the age group you're looking for. Klosterman and Jones were just two other voices, not the exclusive owners of all Bo Jackson memories. Not sure what the beef is here.

 

I was a young sports nut during Bo's heyday. I hold no illusions about sports in the 1980s and 1990s regarding the purity of the athletes. There's only one athlete that could devastate the 30-year-old me by admitting to steroid use: Bo Jackson.

 

Agree... I remember seeing a picture in SI from either the SEC or NCAA Track Championships and they had a picture of a bunch of runners and they all looked the way runners look, skinny, toned... and then Bo was next to them looking like a beast... It was such a funny picture...

 

Bo will always be right by me on that topic. At the height of the steroid saga, a newspaper in the LA suburbs talked to some kind of expert who said Bo used and that he lost his hip because of it.

Bo sued within two weeks.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=2031331

The newspaper retracted the story. Ever since then, I've taken that view: If somebody's saying you did it and you know you didn't, sue like Bo did. If your reputation means that much, it's a small step.

 

I thought I read somewhere that Simmons was a big part of that Bo documentary (producer or similar figure), and since Klosterman is his boy, that's why he was featured so much. Don't know if it's true or not, but it makes sense - especially when you factor in the amount of time they gave to how unstoppable Bo was in Tecmo Bowl. That seems like it's right in Simmons' wheelhouse.

I wasn't offended by it, but I'd rather have seen more highlights or heard more from Bo himself or other contemporaries rather than re-hash how if you ran him up and down the field, that he could score every time in a video game.

 

First thing that comes to mind when I hear Bo Jackson is Tecmo Bowl. Then Bo Knows. Then the Pepsi summer thing Bo did (I had that poster after begging a convenience store down the street to give it to me). We'd have Tecmo Bowl tournaments as kids, draw up brackets and everything. Only rule was: Nobody could be the Raiders. While I haven't seen the 30 for 30 yet, I am glad to hear Tecmo Bowl gets mentioned in it. If they go on for 15 minutes on it, well, that's too much. But 10 minutes? Yeah, that seems about right. I mean seriously, he was UNSTOPPABLE in that game!