New SI: Charles Pierce on Wes Welker

I happen to agree with the opinion (not that it will be ignored). I like this kind of thread here more than on the workshop thread, for the reasons you state. It's a fine line, I guess, to decide who's a board favorite, but some stories should be discussed here.

 

finished it. what i said about the lead stands.

but i also think pierce painted himself into a corner here. not only does welker not support such a grand, big-picture view of the world, but on a secondary level nothing in pierce's reporting lived up to his rhetoric. nothing he found backs up the idea of welker's "vision", his seeing, that can somehow be equated with michelangelo, making him any more special than any other player. as for his "art"? come on. guy juked the fuck out of a linebacker, but, really, i know nothing more about his PLAY than i did before. would've been good to talk to some defenders, to find out why welker is so good, no?

meanwhile, i bet welker reads the thing and says, 'i have no idea what he's talking about.' sometimes, a writer can figure something true about a man and his impact -- talese on sinatra, dimaggio -- that the subject has no knowledge of. welker ain't that kind of man.

brady? you can make the case. you can be wrong, but he's big enough in the culture to handle such an effort. it's almost as if pierce wanted to write his book on brady. again.

 

I'm sure Pierce would have a laugh about mix of successful journalists, has-beens and never-weres critiquing his copy.

 

Wow. I was going to say you had to be mixing Welker up with Tim Dwight, but I'll be damned, Welker played with the Chargers in 2004. Huh. Had no idea.

Haven't read it yet, but as for the idea that Welker didn't measure up to such a grand piece: That's the Patriot Way. You're not supposed to know any more about Welker after reading the piece than before it.

 

Tell us, then - at what point, if any, does one become qualified to critically discuss the work of Charles P. Pierce?

 

A sports journalist's work being talked about by other journalists, retired/washed out/aspiring sports journalists and sports fans/magazine subscribers?

Will wonders never cease...

 

Some of us are more than qualified. Hopefully, this kind of discussion can help people learn about the craft. When I was in college, we read and critiqued "The Great Gatsby," although none of us had a prayer of producing anything like F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Do you think Pierce's work should be off limits for discussion here?

 

My initial thought is that Welker, nice of a guy that he is, didn't help Pierce out very much with the quotes. Neither did Brady. Belichick is a ghost in the story.

The story reads as though Pierce didn't fully source the damn thing. I mean, you have Mike Leach sitting in a resort somewhere - one guy who could probably appreciate Pierce's whole lede, overwrought as it is - and he's nowhere to be found here. Surprising.

I'll have more thoughts later, I suppose.

 

I enjoy Charlie Pierce but every time I read him I wonder if he gets paid by the word. He seems determined to raise the portcullis of his vocabulary to let loose every weapon in his arsenal. One wonders if he is a fantastic writer or simply an aeolist.

 

I have no idea what this means. Is it a MadLib?