Goodbye U of Oregon wrestling and don't let the door hit you on the way out

I wrote some really bad columns for my college paper. Really bad. Hate to see them surface here just for ridicule.

We've always had something of an unwritten rule here for a long time that we don't rip people from small-time papers just for kicks. I think that extends to college papers too. I imagine, if he stays in journalism, that this kid will look back at this baby and cringe someday. But it's silly to dice him up for our entertainment. There's no national controversey stirred up by a column in the freaking Daily Emerald. It's just a run-of-the-mill column that's printed on campuses three times a week 250 times a year. As Fenian said, it's torture for the sake of torture. It's weak. Let it be.

 

Think of this place like prison, only instead of everyone being innocent, we're all Gary Smith.

 

Oh yeah, I absolutely agree with all of that. I can't pass up the opportunity to quote The Simpsons, nothing against the kid at all.

 

I'm a wrestling fan so my inner defensive was whistled with the article's title. Nothing against the messenger, but I was grappling for a a clue about why wrestling was being dropped (attendance< womens lacrosse?). I'll double down on the 'me prism' and offer that I broke my wrist wrestling in HS and cut the cast off with a hacksaw to continue with other sports and the wrist never healed. I can feel a tick in it right now.

 

I'm not going to blame the kid so much for the column. After all, it should have needed to have gone through at least two rounds of editing before it was released for publication. Where were the editors to challenge him on this piece of shit?

 

actually, jeb, i started writing columns at a daily when i was a freshman in college and was open to criticism from the masses from that point forward.

and if someone lays a turd like that while discussing d-i sports in a public forum, even a blogger or some dork from a fanboi site, i just might discuss it without even once giving a second thought about what you think.

 

This guy must've learned everything he knows about journalism from listening to sports talk radio blowhards and ESPN.

Dude ... wrestling is a niche sport.

Very, very, very few people follow it. But the people who like it REALLY like it.

And, the first rule of being a columnist (and I've read a few of these with the IndyCar-Champ Car unification) ... just because YOU don't like or care about or watch something, or your friends don't like or care about or watch something, doesn't mean nobody else does, either. That's a hornet's nest you don't want to step into.

And don't trash something out of hand simply because you don't care for it, or you've bought into the ESPN/groupthink mentality of "if everybody isn't doing it, it must not be cool."

I'm not much of a wrestling fan, but this was dumb.