The tragic story of Earl Badu

If I was giving notes on this story, as an editor or friend, they'd go something like this.

1. The second person is not working. At all. I don't think that's a matter of taste. I think it's reality. Using second person suggests it's trying to give weight to the idea that we're all fooled by people, that we all miss signals of people in distress, that we're all making assumptions about guys like Earl Badu, deciding they'll by lawyers or good fathers because they showed competitive moxie as a walk-on basketball player. That's simply not true. In fact, if I were editing this, I'd tell the writer to try a new draft in first person. That way you're exploring your own biases, your own misconceptions, and it's a more honest "journey" when you chase and chase and come up empty. Second person is so hard to pull off, I don't even think Gary Smith does it particularly well anymore. It implies you're getting at big themes and the themes here are actually a little shallow.

2. As has been pointed out by several people, there are several forced connections in the piece. If you want to use first person to say Earl Badu's shot was one of the most important in Cole Field House history TO YOU because of what it represents TO YOU then I'm (more) ok with it. But again, it really wasn't one of the most important shots ever at Cole to anyone other than maybe Earl Badu, and we're not even sure if that's true. Maybe that shit haunted him. Maybe he hated it that his life was reduced to a mascot side show and one bucket. Who knows. I mean, he almost hit the last shot in Cole and maybe if he had hit the last shot, if we could have frozen things in time he might have been happier in life or things would have turned out differently? I guess the connection just isn't there for me. I'm not sure it's there at all, so that's why I'd rather see it in first person because at least it would give the writer a chance to acknowledge HE wanted that for Badu but maybe at the end of the story he comes to the conclusion life is far more messy that that.

3. Somehow, someway, I need to get some detail about who Badu was as a person. Have an not-for-attribution story with a teammate. An ex-girlfriend. Gary Williams. There needs to be something that illuminates him, even of the premise of the story can be boiled down to "everyone is a mystery."

4. The time element and the competitive element means very little to me. I'm guessing this ran when it did because Maryland was playing in the ACC Tournament. I'm not sure how it suffers if it runs a month from now or six months from now. It's obvious the writer worker hard. I applaud the big swing. It just needed more digging. Someone had to know Badu. Did the money just disappear? That a "businessman" would hand a former player $300,000 for a shady investment was fascinating, but that doesn't get nearly enough focus in the story.

5. The stuff where the psychiatrist talks about Badu -- even though he did not treat him or know him -- is extremely unfair. I would have recommended striking that whole section. It's like in US Weekly, where an expert is called in to speculate on Brittnay Spears mental illness and the magazine must say "Spears is not a client of Dr. Smith." To me, that's not on the writer. The editors should have seen that's completely baseless by the doctor to give his musings on someone he never treated.

Suicide and depression are something that troubles a lot of people and as writers or journalists (or really just human beings) we want to be sensitive to that. I'm particularly sensitive to it because several of my friends have been in dark places. But I think those emotions are making a lot of talented people overlook some real flaws in this as piece of storytelling.

"The Badu's house looks like a home."

That line continues to bug me, because to be honest it reminds me of shit I wrote when I was young and trying to write stuff with "meaning." It doesn't have meaning to it, though. Every home looks like a home. What was expectected here? Observations and descriptions need to go deeper than that. There is a lot of that kind of thing here. If the writer was surprised it looked so normal, then maybe admitting to that naïveté would have been a better conclusion. Not every narrative needs a conclusion or an answer. The mystery can remain a mystery, I guess. But if that's the case, there is a lot of detail here that could be stripped out. And as Vers said, the stuff with the basketball hoop is total conjecture. It's not what "you" imagine. It's what the writer imagines. And I do think there is a difference in the way they're presented.

I have mixed feeling about writing all this. This shit is hard. It's draining and personal and it stings when people find flaws in your choices. I hope the writer keeps taking bug swings. But the people swooning over this and lavishing it with love are reading something I'm not seeing.

 

First, everyone's entitled to their opinion. You're right. Mine was that the critics have been a little off base. You disagree. All good.

Second, the story clearly overplayed the importance of the shot. But I think you're downplaying it a bit. Did you watch the video? Badu was clearly the "Rudy" of the team. Why else would the color man's voice have cracked, and why else would they have cut to a crowd shot when he scored? A Terps fan could speak to this better than I can, but it didn't seem like just another basket.

Third, with as many platforms for longform as there are now, there is no doubt in my mind that someone else would've gotten around to this before long.

Finally, why should the author be concerned about doing a disservice to Badu's legacy? It's not his job to polish his legacy. It's his job to tell the story as best he can - which I believe he did, given the lack of cooperation. The parents were (surely) offered many chances to speak on behalf of their son. If his legacy is indeed tarnished as a result of this, the parents had every opportunity to protect it. They chose not to. Why else would grieving parents in this situation ever talk to a reporter?

Oh, and as for me, I'm going to continue churning out "SB Nation Longform phrases," thank you. SB Nation Longform phrases got me featured on Longform.org, Longreads.com, and Byliner.com. Only five other pieces of sports writing in America so far this year have been picked up by all three aggregators - putting me on a list with Wright Thompson's Jordan piece, and Tom Junod's "Theater Of Pain," from Esquire.

 

(Rolly-eye emoticon)

 

Fuck that. The guy took a swipe at me.

 

When?

 

Cool story, guy.

 

Yet another SB Nation story they loudly labeled as "LONGFORM!!!!!!" that I got three graphs into before coming back here, hoping someone would have posted a Cliff's Notes version.

"LONGFORM!!!!!" for the sake of it.

Get in, tell the story, and get out. If the subject - and your talent, for that matter - merit plastering it as 'LONGFORM!!!!!" then fine. But don't write a bunch of extra words just so SBNation can say "We totally support actual thinking journalism!"

Congratulations on getting to the last few graphs.

 

- It wasn't great. And that's the thing that bothers me the most; it could have been great had others been contacted ... and, to be honest, if someone else wrote the piece.

- The lead is supposed to draw me in, but it almost drove me away. Not sure what that has to do with Earl Badu.

- Speaking of Earl Badu, it took 11 fucking graphs for his name to be mentioned, and it's not as if what's contained in those 11 graphs are very critical to the story.

 

It's strange - I'm a very, very critical reader and writer, and I agree with most of what has been written above. Lots of good editors on this board.

That said, there was still something about this piece that struck me and made it a worthwhile read. I can't quite put my finger on it.

 

A snip-snip here and a tuck-tuck there, and a few tra-la-las, and it will be semi-readable. These longform guys need to realize they are obligated to compete for one's sustained attention. The onus is on them.