UT to fan: You cheer too much!

You must not have been to a Tennessee game and had the tune blared into your ears 65 times in 3-plus hours.
You won't love it so much then, trust me.
And Victoria Caldwell seems like a typical idiot southern football fan who should turn it down about 10 notches.

 

Not officially.

But that's like saying Fox News is "fair and balanced."

Just because they say it . . . doesn't mean it's true.

Tennessee plays "Down The Field" --- the official fight song --- one time after every score. They play Rocky Top 34,497 times, beginning two hours before the game when the players are walking to the stadium.

There are Rocky Top ring tones and Rocky Top musical key chains. Buy an album of collegiate fight songs, and the one you hear for Tennessee will NOT be "Down the Field." If the NCAA one day mandated that teams could play only one fight song -- don't put it past them --- "Down The Field" would go down the tubes.

 

If Adams DID take her into the press box to write a column about her having to sit quietly (no evidence, I can't find a link to same), and she behaved, I have zero problem with it.

 

So you have no problem with non-working media taking up seats? Or girlfriends? Spouses? Boosters? Kids?

 

I agree. Apparently Dennis Dodd and Chris Low (one of the best college writers around, IMO) both feel differently...

Of course, apparently the column in question has never been written...

 

She was working. She was supposed to write a column on not cheering during a game. It sounds like a legitimate reason for a credential -- just a bad idea for a column.

 

AQB, two things:

1) If the pressbox is extremely tight, I'd hope that everybody would be on board that there was or wasn't room for her. Obviously, John would have to explain what he was doing up front, and they'd have to say yes, we have room, or no we don't.

2) I'm mystified as to why some keep equating this with spouses, girlfriends, boosters and kids. It would have been a big gimmicky, sure -- but it was for the purposes of getting a column or columns written (still unclear as to whether she supposedly was going to write), not a joyride for the woman.

Let me put it this way: The L.A. Times once had Leon Uris credentialed for a Super Bowl. He certainly wasn't a "working journalist" in the classic sense.

(EDIT: And before anybody starts, no, I'm not equating this woman with Leon Uris. Still, it was a "gimmick" for the purposes of getting something different.)

 

USA Today credentialed Michael Moore for the Republican National Convention...

I'm guessing the News-Sentinel has five or six press box seats at Neyland Stadium. Apparently Adams decided this lady's column would be more interesting than a sixth sidebar. I can't fault him for that.

 

Folks, it's a press box, it's not the Vatican.

I agree with whoever said it was a dumb idea for a column but if there was room and she was writing a story, what's the problem?

 

We really do lose sight of that sometimes in our quest to be uber-important.

 

OK, one more time, I'll try to make the point.

Access is an ever-important issue, particularly with the growth of the Internet. We're not too far from the time when colleges start charging a ticket price for game credentials (and if they do, so be it.)

My point is that a school issues credentials to news organizations with the idea that they will be used by professionals who are there to cover the game.

Adams bringing the fan into the press box is one issue. The Knoxville reporter being blacklisted by the school for not following the school's guidlines is another issue. However, the second issue is hard to defend when you take into account the first issue (and assuming that Adams went behind the school's back in bringing the fan in on a credential.)

As reporters who often have to bitch, cry and moan for access, I don't think we can afford to have a columnist thumb his nose at the rules/guidelines because he has a bad idea about a column.

What is it about this topic that sports journalists don't get?

 

Well, I'll answer that:

1) We don't know that access was tight.

2) We don't know that Adams didn't tell them exactly what he was doing.

3) The reporter credential issue and the fan-covering-game issue are separate.

4) If she was writing, she's no different than any free-lancer we put in the pressbox.