Media and Athletes as friends...a question...

Boys, quit arguing and try to find some common ground.

 

It's all about the champagne room.

Seriously, I don't find it natural to have friendships with players you are currently covering, but it's not uncommon for a rapport with a player you are "friendly" with during his playing days in your area to continue after they are no longer a subject of your beat. There's a certain trust you build with players and coaches that you are going to be fair and level-headed with your coverage of them (which, I should emphasize, is not the same as "positive" coverage). If they appreciate the job you did enough to think highly of your decision-making skills, they'll value and, perhaps, seek out your opinion after all the dust clears. I'm flattered by that. Similarly, if my experience with an athlete tells me that he/she is also someone whose input I would welcome, I won't turn that input away.

There have been players and coaches who were interesting people who I continue to speak with. A couple of pro players who used to play at my college, including one hooping in Europe. I look forward to hearing from his misadventures over there. There was a coach who moved on to another college in another part of the country and called my once to ask my a media question. I was flattered that he thought enough of my insight in my field to ask me for help.

Do these kind of exchanges constitute a "friendship?" I'm certainly not babysitting kids or anything like that.

 

QFT.

 

i've become pretty good friends with a handfull of high school athletes i covered, but most of them gave up sports when they got to college.

 

Friendly, not friends.

The people you cover should not be on your facebook page. Or your myspace page.

 

Sneaking out of your hotel room at 4 a.m. OK, though?

 

Case-by-case basis there, Ace.

 

Any reporter who thinks he or she is 'friends' with a pro athlete is delusional.

 

Hope you're not covering preps.

Oh, it says 'Dick Young.' My dyslexia kicked in.

 

It depends on the individual. Some it would be a problem for, but I would have not problem being friends with someone I covered because what I do when I'm at work and what I do when I'm not at work are complete and separate worlds.

 

In my fields of endeavor (field hockey and lacrosse), I have developed long-lasting acquaintanceships with players and coaches, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that; indeed, I get to understand the inner competitor and compare them to their peers around the country.

I'll tend to be standoffish sometimes when it comes to the player I have known since ninth grade who makes the national team, but when she comes out of the press conference, the handshake and "well-played" is sincere.

 

I would venture to say that the dividing line between when writers were buddy buddy with athletes and needed to put some distance in between was Jim Bouton's writing Ball Four and Jerry Kramer's Instant Replay.

Yeah, both writers were themselves jocks, but the type of expository reporting they did in both of those great books became a new standard for writers and heightened expectations from editors and newspaper publishers---to stay one step ahead of the competition, you needed to dig deep into what went on in the clubhouse/locker room and beyond. That means bringing to light stuff that used to be kept under wraps.

Also, issues of objectivity and conflict of interest have become much more a part of the landscape. Writing greats like Red Smith, Jim Murray and Grantland Rice were wonderful prose writers who happened to write about sports, practically writing fiction----they were more like great novelists than they were genuine REPORTERS. Even today's best writers, and even columnists, have to be good reporters, digging out new information. Most sportswriting 40-50 years ago was more literature than the prying, Watergate-type, Woodward and Bernstein reporting that has been in Vogue the last 35 years.