LeBatard's column on Jason Taylor and playing with pain

One of the other guys in the newsroom pointed this out to me his before I saw it here.

It's great when you have stuff like that and can present it as effectively as he did.

 

Every story doesn't have to solve the world's problems. This column was excellent at what it attempted to be. That's only not enough if no one is pursuing those issues you mention. That's not the case.

Additionally, I think a lot of football fans like reading something like this without being lectured.

 

I think this thread marks the first time I've heard LeBatard praised on this board.

 

"My first wife was 'tarded. She's a pilot now."

 

Exactly. I much prefer a story that just puts it out there for me to decide and not come away feeling that writer is trying to skew my opinion.

I respect that Taylor said that even we all he had to go through he would do it all over again. In the SI story a few months back Earl Campbell said pretty much the same thing. I've also heard Harry Carson say that he bought all his grand-kids golf clubs so they would not play football.

I don't think it's the job of the player or writer to teach kids life's lessons. Would it have been a better message for Taylor to lie and say that he would not have played knowing what he knows now?

When all the steroids stories starting hitting in the last 80's most were encrypted with messages of how they did not help performance which really did not ring true and likely made teenagers pay less attention to the dangers than more. Teenagers do not want to be lectured.

 

After 100+ years of football-as-American-character-builder bullshit, maybe it's not a bad idea to occasionally call on sports writing to deliver a judgment about the actual cost of the thing.

 

Or maybe a writer can simply paint a vivid and accurate portrait of the actual cost of the thing and let the readers make the judgment.

Show, don't tell.

 

Are the two approaches mutually exclusive?

 

Seems arrogant. Personally not a big fan of that type of work. I feel the same when the local weatherman tells me to drive slow in the snow. Ok thanks.

I guess one school of thought is that sportswriters spent 100 years as the messenger, building up football as character building and it is their job now to tear down the notion.

I think the better message is to teach kids to properly disseminate the facts from fiction and think for themselves.

The Charles Barkley "I'm not paid to be a role model" rings true.

 

Guess I'm not sure why it "seems arrogant" for someone to publicly express an opinion (ie., "football is dangerous and comes at a high price") that you assume people 1) already hold (ie. "football is dangerous and comes at a high price") or 2) will arrive at naturally when presented the same information (ie., "football is dangerous and comes at a high price.")

 

I guess it depends on format. Not arrogant if it's in an opinion column of author but arrogant if message is cryptically buried in story.

 

I was thinking the same thing - I thought he was one of the Perpetually Ripped of SJ.