more espn hatred...

but i cannot stand espn guys when they refer to jason mcelwain (the autistic kid who scored 20 points in a game) as J-Mac. do you think they look at themselves and say, "Why are we doing this? Aren't we professional?" i can see T-Mac or J-Dub, because those were the first ones, but now they do it for everyone... im simply waiting for that idiot stuart scott to start spouting off at the mouth during an highlight saying, "T-Woo drained the 50-foot putt for eagle" or "B-Bel led the Patriots to another Super Bowl title." man, i hate espn.

 

To be fair, I think his teammates called him J-Mac on some of the early news pieces.

 

Is Stu on the team? I think that's a privilege reserved for his teammates.
It's like a Steelers fan saying, "We won the Super Bowl."
Boo-yah!!

 

So only teammates get to use nicknames?
That's going to slow down a lot of game stories.

 

Taken out of contest a bit. I meant if you refer to Jerome Bettis as the Bus, big deal.
How many people actually refer to the kid as J-Mac? Not many, I'd guess.
I covered a team in the mid-90s that had a player nicknamed G-Money. Never once used that in a story. His teammates called him that. As a writer, I didn't think it was appropriate to enter their world. I'm a reporter, not a buddy. I think that's what Gator was getting at with this thread. That as well as the fact that TV faces are hacks and have backbones the consistency of Spam. But that's another thread altogether.

 

gator, i agree with you about this kid. it's ridiculous.

but nicknames have to start somewhere. who's to say that calling someone 'the bus' or 't-mac' has to star with a teammate. sure, 't-woo' for tiger woods sounds moronic, but if they start using it, it's a nickname. and if others keep using it, it's become tiger's nickname. i guess my point is that nicknames can be coined by TV folk.

 

this is pretty petty as far as picking on the "worldwide leader." i mean, when the kid goes around, the pro atheltes me meets call him j-mac. big deal. i'm sure the kid also enjoys the nickname recognition on espn. he's probably not too worried about ap style. if this is the worst thing espn is doing lately, they're doing ok then.

 

When I hear these TV and radio guys use these stupid nicknames, I want to ask them to crawl out of said athlete's ass and quit being a fan. Trouble is, they're proud to be fans. As for Eldrick Woods, he already has a nickname, which means some douche bag will probably give him one that's more "hip."

 

as much as i hate to be on the worldwide leader's side... my girlfriend was talking about this kid one day and called him 'j-mac' -- that was how she referred to him on first reference, so, you know... i think she saw the story on cnn, btw

of course, i had no idea who she was talking about when she said 'j-mac' because i was thinking about my friend johnathan, who we call j-mac. but you know, still...

 

No, the worst thing ESPN is doing now is exploiting an autistic kid for ratings.

 

E-Woody?

 

The better question is why is this kid still on ESPN? Was it a nice story? Or course it was, but that had to be at least three months ago. Why do the good folks in Bristol continue to beat this story to death?