Stay classy, Jim Souhan

Oooh, you got called out in a press conference. Congratulations! Now, let's rip the coach. Not sure whose effort Friday from Milwaukee was worse Jim, yours or the Gophers.

http://www.startribune.com/blogs/88678802.html?elr=KArks47cQiU47cQU47cQUU

 

Wow, I never even heard of this guy before reading this column. Is he supposed to be the Twin Cities version of T.J. Simers or something like that?

 

Snark doesn't always work.

 

Especially with typos like those.

 

Yes, it's hard to maintain credibility on any topic when your column, blog or story in riddled with mistakes.

 

Souhan will occasionally make good points - at the heart of the column which started all of this was the reasonable idea that, given the institutional advantages a big state university in the Big Ten should have over Xavier, the "no respect" card would have rung a little hollow had the Gophers played it. But it all gets lost because he tries so hard to be funny, and just isn't. He's still making Whizzinator jokes six years after Onterrio Smith got busted. He seems to want to be a Jim Murray-Rick Reilly style one-liner machine, and he's painfully unsuccessful at it.

He will also use 20-20 hindsight without even admitting he's doing it. In 2007, he said it made perfect sense for the Twins to let Torii Hunter go; in 2009 he said they never should have done it because the Twins missed his leadership.

 

I know Souhan from way back in J-school days. Damn good reporter, one of the best. As a columnist-blogger? Perhaps not his wheelhouse.

 

I cringed reading that. Poor form dude.

 

Souhan's longer features and reported, more storytelling-type columns are good reads.

 

As a blogger he would make a great message board troll.

 

This.

We cover people all the time that we know are right where they belong as "career" assistant coaches. Same thing holds for our business. Flipping columnist keys to a strong beat reporter can be a bad mistake -- especially when the person decides he or she is suddenly funny, clever or wise.

Morever, if they removed from each of this guy's keyboards the letter that sits in the middle of "Y," "U," "O," and "P," he would have to resign immediately. Couldn't work w/o the vertical pronoun.

 

Most columnists can (and should) write many, many, many columns without using the vertical pronoun. A select few (IMHO, Lewis Grizzard was one) are good enough to get away with sprinkling it into a column now and then.