Category Archives: Uncategorized

Walking down memory lane with Jasper Brinkley

Posted on January 24, 2010 | Leave a comment

Watching a little NFC conference championship game, and I’m listening to Joe Buck and Troy Aikman discuss rookie middle linebacker Jasper Brinkley, who’s played so well in place of the injured E.J. Henderson. I covered Brinkley – and his twin brother, the awesomely-named Casper – when they played at Thomson (Ga.) High School and I worked at the Augusta Chronicle.

I couldn’t remember how much I actually had written about the Brinkley’s. Thomson has been a powerful program for the last few decades, but it’s also one of the outlying schools in the Chronicle’s coverage area. We gave the school pretty good coverage and we attended many of the football games on Friday nights, but Thomson wasn’t one of our top priorities either.

So I googled “Josh Katzowitz” and “Jasper Brinkley” to see what would pop up and if I ever wrote anything significant about him. Before that, though,, I found this feature from last week about Brinkley in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The moral of the story: don’t make fun of Casper and Jasper.

The lede:

The kids in Thomson, Ga., used to give Jasper Brinkley and his twin brother, Casper, a hard time. They’d poke fun at them because, well, they were named Jasper and Casper.

“Oh yeah, all the time,” Brinkley said. “All the way through middle school.”

Then they stopped.

“We hit our growth spurt in high school,” Brinkley noted.

Nobody was foolish enough to mess around with Jap and Cap – their family nicknames – after that.

Good stuff. But then I found this story that I had written for the Feb. 6, 2003 edition of the Augusta Chronicle. And I groaned. Before I clicked on the link, I knew exactly what the story was – even though I haven’t thought about it in nearly seven years.

Since I was the paper’s main prep writer and since Feb. 5, 2003 was National Signing Day – where all the local prep stars ink their names on letters of intent for colleges big and small – I had to write the annual “This is what happened on Signing Day” story. Basically, it was me driving to a high school (or maybe, if I was really, really lucky, two or three high schools) where multiple players, in a press conference setting with TV cameras filming away, were filling out their letter of intent paperwork and putting on their collegiate hats and smiling big for the cameras and drinking the punch and eating the cookies that were brought into the library for the big event.

It was usually a pretty boring day. And usually a pretty boring story to write.

So, on this day, I decided to spice up it up a bit. This is the lede I wrote – which I say to this day is pretty decent.

By Josh Katzowitz/Staff Writer

Perhaps the festivities for National Signing Day were symbolized best by Thomson offensive lineman Brian Brinson.

In the school media center Wednesday morning, Brinson wore a light-blue short-sleeve dress shirt with a tie. It was half-untucked and didn’t quite go with his dark-blue slacks and brown Timberland sneakers.

He basically looked like the ultimate high school student, who doesn’t worry about fashion – or, for that matter, matching.

The best part of his outfit was the big goofy grin on his face. That was why Brinson – who with teammates Montrell Neal and Jasper Brinkley signed with Georgia Military College – looked like a million bucks.

I thought nothing of my story until the next morning where I caught heat from some readers. They said I had insulted Brinson; they said I had embarrassed him. They said I should think about how my words will affect others before I put them on the page. I hadn’t thought about that lede as insulting or embarrassing. After all, I pointed out, I said he looked like a million bucks. I wasn’t trying to insult him. I was trying to make a contrasting statement that would make an interesting and readable lede (I still maintain that I succeeded in that aspect).

I reread the story a few minutes ago, and I didn’t think it was too bad. But I can see the readers’ point. I probably had insulted him (by calling him sloppy and mismatched), and I probably had embarrassed him (by calling him goofy). It taught me a nice lesson, especially when dealing with and writing about high school students. To this day, I really try to think about what the words emanating from my laptop will mean to the person I’m writing about. Believe me, I thought about that a ton when writing the Rick Minter chapters for Bearcats Rising.

But I hate the fact that this kid probably can’t look at this story (if his parents, in fact, clipped it and put it into a scrapbook, though I can imagine why they, instead, would have burned every copy of the newspaper they could find) without remembering how he felt Feb. 6, 2003.

So, wherever you are, Brian Brinson: I’m sorry. I hope the embarrassment I might have caused has faded away. Hopefully, you can laugh about it today. Hopefully, you won’t send Jasper and Casper to find me.

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Who’s your hero now?

Posted on January 16, 2010 | Leave a comment

Mark McGwire can’t be trusted. Neither can Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens or Sammy Sosa. Rafael Palmeiro lied to Congress and the baseball fans around the world with one wag of his finger. Alex Rodriguez lied before he told the truth. Our heroes have betrayed us.

Actually, I’m not particularly disappointed in the McGwire confession and apology. Pundits and writers have ripped him for his belief that the steroids didn’t help him hit home runs. Only that it helped stave off injuries. And you know what? I do believe him. I really believe that he believes that steroids didn’t help him hit home runs. Of course, you’d have to be a fool to agree with McGwire that steroids didn’t actually have some impact in his 583 career homers. But I also don’t believe that a bearded carpenter (who’s complexion actually was probably closer to Osama bin Laden than anybody would want to admit) is the son of God, so who am I to piss on what somebody else thinks? McGwire wanted to clear his conscience, and I’m sure he feels like he did exactly that.

But I’ve been thinking the past couple days about why I’m not disappointed in McGwire. In part, it’s because his testimony in Congress might as well have been an admission of guilt. I don’t think anybody, save Tony La Russa*, believed McGwire was completely clean after his “I’m not interested in talking about the past” question and answer period.

*I also don’t believe that La Russa really believed this.

But it’s something else. It’s the cynical sports writer in me, and it’s why I’ll probably never be a big fan of anything or anybody again. I’m just not interested in the inevitable downfall of the people we cheer as heroes.

I grew up a huge Mark McGwire fan. Had the posters and the pictures pinned to my bedroom wall. His 49 home runs in 1987 convinced me he was the hero for me. I searched for his rookie baseball card (I only paid $15 dollars, can you believe it?). I cut out newspaper articles. I watched him in All-Star games. I suffered when he hit .201 in 1991. I thought he was the man. Because, with a little bit of help from a chemistry set, he was the man.

But I also never felt betrayed by him either – which, I think to myself, might be a little strange. In 1998, McGwire and Sosa were the heroes of a nation, but by that time, I was in college and I kept my hero worship to a minimum. I was starting a career in journalism, and I had been taught that we don’t cheer for the players on the field. I had already begun my own paradigm shift.

I had lost my hero worship. Not just of McGwire, but of any athlete. A slam-dunk artist? You’re not my hero. A quarterback who can fling it 50 yards with accuracy? You’re not my hero. A bearded red-headed giant of a man with forearms the size of Christmas hams and a conscience that was, let’s say, slightly smaller? You’re not my hero either.

Yet, what’s truly disturbing in this case is that, while nearly everybody has lied, denied and tried to weasel their way out the truth, only one guy can be trusted to speak it. One guy whose words have been proven true over and over again. One guy who’s been sleazy and money-hungry and who can’t be well-liked by, well, just about anybody. One guy who knows the insides of the game and is willing to expose it by slicing open its belly and exposing the undigested remnants of the past two decades. He is the hero in this story.

You know him as Jose Canseco, and he’s the new conscience of baseball.

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A new thought on concussions

Posted on November 23, 2009 | 1 comment

A few weeks ago, I was handed an assignment by the Associated Press. The news organization wanted to write a story regarding concussions in the NFL and how players in the league thought about them and if they thought they were protected. The AP editors wanted five players from each team to take part in a five-question survey (no anonymous names; everybody had to be on the record) that dealt with their personal experiences with concussions.

Here is the AP story that ran, and it tells of some fascinating results.

This is one of the responses to the story by the NFL Players Association. And this is the story the NY Times ran today regarding how the league will now use independent neurologists while treating players with brain injuries.

It was extremely interesting to hear the answers these players gave me on what has become such an important issue. I actually thought I’d have a tougher time convincing players to submit to an interview, but only one man turned me down. The other five I approached were gracious and thoughtful. Since none of the five were quoted in the AP story (with the sorta exception of LB Rey Maualuga’s sorta quote about speaking gibberish in the huddle), I thought it’d be cool to run those interviews so you could see what the Bengals players had to say about the issue.

Here were the questions I asked:

1. Have you ever sustained a concussion that forced you to miss playing time? If yes, how many and at what level?

2. Do you worry about getting a concussion or not? If so, do you worry about it as much – or more? – than other injuries?

3. Have you ever hidden or downplayed the effects of a concussion?

4. Have you followed the recent developments in the news about concussions and dementia among NFL players, including the recent congressional hearing on the topic? (If so, what are your thoughts?)

5. Do you think the game is significantly safer now than in the past, particularly with regard to the risk of concussions? Or do you think it’s about the same now as it has been? Or is it less safe?

And here were the answers:

Frostee Rucker, Defensive end

1. Yes, I had a concussion last preseason, but I didn’t miss a game. It was a minor thing. I got a little dizzy, and that’s about it.

2. No, I really don’t. There are so many other things to worry about. It’s the game of football, and the thing I worry about is making sure I’m in the right spots.

3. No, I can’t say that I have. We’re all aware of it in the locker room, but we know our training staff will take care of it if that ever come up.

4. Yeah, I have. It’s very interesting. You asked me if I’ve hidden things, but some people do hide things. That’s why certain precautions have to be taken. You have to know your business and with life in the NFL, on and off the field. It’s good for everyone to be aware of what’s going on.

5. It’s about the same. We’re still playing a brutal game. Let’s not sugarcoat that at all. Our staff does a good job making sure we have enough air in our helmets and they’re making sure they’re working on safety each game. We do a good job here. I can’t speak for everybody else, but we do a good job here.

Rey Maualuga, rookie linebacker

1. No, you mean did a concussion made me miss this game or the next game? I’ve had concussions in games, and I wouldn’t know how I got it. I wouldn’t know the play I got it in, but I’d be in there talking gibberish to the other linebackers. Other than that, I never missed any other time. I’ve had four or five in college. I won’t remember anything, but I’ll still be in the game. Or I’ll go out there and talk to the doctor and say, ‘I had a little ding.’ Monday, I’ll do a computer test, and it’d be the same as it was when I did it in camp.

2. It’s something, especially if you play defense, that lingers in the back of your head all the time. We like to be the ones giving the concussions, but sometimes, things happen. The worst thing that could happen would be getting my knees blown out. I worry about that more than I would worry about a concussion.

3. I’ve had one and not told anybody about it. but they’d pretty much know because of the questions I’ll be asking. If I’m supposed to go somewhere and I don’t, they’ll tell me to go and I’ll yell at them, ‘No, you go.’

4. No.

5. I don’t think there’s any difference. Football is football. Football is a contact sport, and everybody is going to be hitting. There has been some safety rules – I don’t know about concussions – as far as the horse-collar tackling and rules on the quarterback and things like that.

Clark Harris, long-snapper

1. No.

2. No, you can’t worry about stuff like that. Maybe sometimes if you get hit in the head, you sit up on the field and worry about it a little bit. But other than that, you can’t worry about getting injured.

3. No.

4. Yeah, it’s hard not to notice the news about how all of that can lead to Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. It’s something I’ve been following a little bit.

5. Well, I get a new helmet every year, and with all the new technology that comes out, I don’t see how it wouldn’t be safer. I look at the old films with guys playing the old-school style with just the two bars going across their face. I think, with these new helmets, it’s got to be safer.

Andrew Whitworth, offensive tackle

1. No

2. Yeah, I do. But moreso, I worry about guys who don’t understand what a concussion is. I’m more worried about sustaining a head injury that I don’t realize is a concussion. I really don’t know how guys know for sure. But in this game, the realistic part of it is, especially being a linemen, head injuries and feeling pain with a headache is just natural. That’s more my concern. Not knowing if it’s a concussion.

3. No

4. A lot of guys are more conscious about it. They realize that this is something that can affect them later on. It’s something not a lot of guys understand. On this team, you’ve got Ben (Utecht). Not a lot of guys understood what all went into that and what they can expect down the road. I think we’ve learned a little bit from having a guy on our team that went through that.

5. I think it’s the same. You’ve got guys who are playing for their livelihood and for their families. To say that guys aren’t playing through some kind of concussion … guys play through pain every single week – headaches and all that. You just don’t know if guys are entering the field with headaches or head injuries where, if they take the right hit, it could be severe. You just don’t know.

Jordan Palmer, third-string quarterback

1. Yes, I got knocked out my sophomore year in college out of a game. I tried to run the ball, got dazed a little bit and sat out the rest of the game. I was fine to play the next week.

2. I’ve played three preseason games now and I’ve been hit plenty of times. I haven’t really thought about it. If I played more, I don’t think I would think about it much.

3. I think when you get dazed a little bit, you never think you have one. That’s when the doctors come over and say that you do. I think that’s part of it. But I’ve never lied and said, ‘No, no, I didn’t have one last week” when I actually did.

4. I haven’t followed it much.

5. I think it’s the same. In the NFL, I have state of the art cleats and shoulder pads and stuff. But I wear the exact same helmet I wore in Pop Warner. Now, there are other helmets available to me. It’s not the NFL or the Bengals fault, but I wear the same Riddell, filled-up-with-air deal that I wore when I was a kid. It hasn’t changed that much. But then I see Andre Caldwell, who looks like he’s wearing a lacrosse helmet.

So yeah, players are concerned and many of them lie about sustaining concussions. But they know the consequences are real, and if the NFL isn’t concerned when a guy like Rey Maualuga has suffered five of them and has admitted to hiding it in the past from coaches, that’s a real problem. Hopefully, one that will continue to be addressed.

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The Boys of Summer

Posted on October 7, 2009 | Leave a comment

I completely forgot I had it, gathering dust and nearly hidden on my bookshelf. It was a book I bought a long time ago, a book I never read.

Not that you could tell from looking at it. The front cover is torn in the middle and masking tape covers the spine of the book. Without it, the cover and the back would have been lost many years ago. About one-third of the back cover is gone, revealing, on page 402, the final words of the epilogue.

The book is “The Boys of Summer,” by Roger Kahn, who is still considered by many to be one of the best living sports writers today. The story is fascinating. Kahn, in his mid-20s, was tapped to cover the early 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers as they played in front of adoring crowds at the long-departed Ebbets Field. Quotes and stories from players like Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Carl Furillo, Pee Wee Reese and Carl Erskine litter the inside of the book, as Kahn sets upon his journey to cover the team that first captured his love when he was a child.

That’s the first half of the story. The second half features Kahn, as a wiser, more worldly man, traveling across the country nearly 20 years later to meet those old ballplayers and discover how their lives had twisted and turned after they hung up their glove and cleats for the final time.

I acquired the book about the same time I took possession of Jim Bouton’s “Ball Four” and Sparky Lyle’s “The Bronx Zoo.” I’d never read Kahn’s tome. I tried several times to start, but the book was dense and the history of the author didn’t interest me. Not true for “Ball Four” and “The Bronx Zoo.” Those books were lighter and funnier, and though many years would pass before I could appreciate many of the jokes in those words, I had reread and reread those works a dozen times or two.

About a month ago, I was in the basement, looking through my bookshelf, when my eyes ran across “The Boys of Summer.” I thought I’d give the dog-eared book a read. And you know what? It was really good. And you know what else? I’m glad it took me so long to discover.

First, a quick sampling on page 158 of “The Boys of Summer” with Kahn talking about buying World Series tickets for his friends:

I bought a pair for each game, at $6 a ticket, spending a total of $84, which was $12 more than my weekly salary. Then I offered the tickets to friends who had not called. Both strips were gone in a day. All Brooklyn panted for my tickets, but as it did, I made a modest economic discovery. Once $84 is removed from a checking account, to be repaid in multiples of $6, it is gone. Friends gave me cash and
checks, but the small installments always dissipated. It was months before my account recovered. Whatever the arithmetic, $6 times 14 never equals $84.

And in a similar, two paragraphs from Bearcats Rising (though my editor added part of it – the good stuff), talking about former UC quarterback Ben Mauk, who had applied to the NCAA for a sixth year of eligibility:

Mauk, though, wasn’t finished. He had one more stratagem. Unbeknownst to the NCAA – or anybody at UC – Mauk had badly injured himself as a high school freshman. He was going to argue that an old injury had prevented him from playing as a true freshman at Wake Forest … Like the 2006 season, an injury had cost him 2003 as well.

It was simple. Two plus two equals six. Two injuries, two lost seasons, which equaled a sixth year of eligibility. That was Mauk’s ultimate logic. If some were suspicious of an old injury, well, all’s fair in love and litigation. <

Anyway, if I had read the book when I was 10, I wouldn't have appreciated Kahn's writing, his stories, his journey. I would have brushed off the historical perspective, read it to learn about Robinson and Reese and probably never perused – or thought about – it again.

But I, like Kahn, am wiser and more worldly, 20 years after I first put the book on my shelf. My life has turned in directions I couldn't have imagined, much like the players Kahn covered. I can appreciate the way Kahn wrote, the way he did his job at a time when newspapers were THE information source for people smart and dumb, the way his journey into middle age reflected in his writing.

I'm glad I found the book a month ago, and I'm glad I read it. I'm glad I took the book with me from Marietta to Athens to Augusta to Cincinnati. Even if it takes me another 20 years to reread the work – if I ever do – I'm glad that I saved it all that time. I can appreciate now what Kahn was trying to say.

Before, I wouldn't have understood.

Boys of Summer (front)

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The experience I wish I could have

Posted on September 14, 2009 | 1 comment

My wife, Julie, had the greatest concert experience of her life Saturday night. She drove to Chicago with some friends to see U2 kick off its North American tour, and since she got back this afternoon, she’s been talking non-stop about what a great time she had.

She gave me the play-by-play of her trip while we ate dinner. She showed me the pictures she took on her camera. She made me watch the YouTube videos (crappy sound quality and all). She swooned over Bono.

We saw U2 about a decade ago at the Georgia Dome during the disastrous Pop Mart tour, and since I’m not a big U2 guy, I was just fine skipping this show. Julie, though, made me relive it.

“It was 100 times better than the show in Atlanta,” she texted me minutes after the last notes evaporated into the night.

“It was the best concert ever,” she exclaimed the next day, as I wiped the pizza sauce off my face.

“Don’t you wish you were there?” she taunted (though she knows I don’t really care).

It brought me back to the favorite concert I’ve ever seen. I’ve experienced some great acts – Ben Harper four times in high school and college; Mike Patton close to a half-dozen times; a Bad Religion show where the band played EVERY song I wanted*; Tool, an eight-hour roundtrip ride from Philly to New Haven to see Sparta; etc.

*This is a phenomenon I hadn’t experienced before and I haven’t experienced since.

But the best show I ever saw was Pink Floyd in 1994 at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta on the Division Bell tour, the last tour the band will ever play (I don’t think any YouTube videos exist, but strangely, there are numerous clips from the band’s 1987 stop at the now-defunct Omni). The stage show … incredible. The vibe in the audience … awesome. The sound from the band … pretty good. The entire experience … best-ever.

I remember thinking at the time that this was the best show I had ever seen, and that was true. It was only the second true rock concert I’d ever witnessed (Aerosmith was show No. 1 in 1993, though before that, I was supposed to hit a Coverdale/Page concert that eventually was canceled (I still remember how devastated I was when I heard that show was kaput because of poor ticket sales)). I also remember thinking Pink Floyd (minus, of course, Roger Waters) was the best show I’d probably ever see. And that’s true. At least I think.

I really wish I could have found some YouTube clips from the show at Bobby Dodd, just so I could confirm what I’ve built up in my mind the past 15 years. That apparently is not possible. But I do know this. The stage show was incredible, but the vibe in the audience was mediocre (the crowd was decidedly uninterested when the band played its new music, though the fans turned themselves around when Pink Floyd played the hits in the second act). The sound wasn’t really the best I’d ever heard either.

But overall, that show – when I was 15 years old and a freshman in high school – was the highlight of my concert-going experience, and I don’t think anything will ever live up to it. Listening to Julie describe her experience, I was a little jealous, because I don’t think I’ll ever feel that way for another show. It’s not the Pink Floyd show that was so great. It’s the memory of the Pink Floyd show that was so great.

Maybe I peaked too soon.

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Why can’t I find this music?

Posted on September 10, 2009 | Leave a comment

I used to listen to an Internet radio show where the host – a fairly well-known bass player who continues to play and tour with various bands – would throw out songs by artists I’d never heard before. Some were beautiful. Some were horrible. Most of the new songs I heard didn’t do much for me one way or the other. A precious few hit me right in the heart of my ear drum.

Of course, the host played more mainstream music – some Zeppelin, some Beatles, some Clash, some Afghan Whigs, some Pixies.

But there were two songs that came out of nowhere that I really dug. I’ve sought out the songs occasionally during the past year to listen, but I can’t seem to find a place to download them. They’re not on iTunes, they’re not available for purchase on Myspace, they’re not seen on Imeem. They’re not really anywhere that you can buy.

They are Jeff Klein’s “Bury It Low” (which is actually performed by My Jerusalem, a band in which Klein plays) and Martyn LeNoble’s “Closer” (one of the more beautiful songs I’ve heard lately). All I want to do is download the songs (legally) so I can rip them onto a blank CD or just listen to them on my iPod.

But for some reason, that’s impossible right now. And that seems insane.

Don’t we live in a time where we can get anything we want, whenever we want? Isn’t the Internet supposed to give us whatever we need? Yes? Then why can’t I download the damn songs that I want. Why can’t I pay my 99 cents and listen to the music when I’m sweeping the floor or writing a game story? Why is it so got-damn difficult?

It’s frustrating, you know?

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An almost glorious movie

Posted on September 7, 2009 | Leave a comment

I liked it. Didn’t love it. I’d see it again, but I don’t think it would replace my top two favorite Quentin Tarantino movies. But I liked it. Liked it a lot.

I saw Inglourious Basterds last weekend. I thought it was very Tarantino-esque. Lots of violence, lots of squeamishness, lots of humor. I really enjoy the way he shot the movie*, and believe me, I don’t study directors like a film student would. Some of it was pure Tarantino. Some of it was somebody else Tarantino was impersonating or praising.

*The closeups – of the fabric of a Frenchman’s courderoy pants, the wide white eyes of a family hiding beneath another family’s floorboards, the wild-eyed expressions of a man killing dozens – were particularly enthralling.

Brad Pitt’s Tennessee accent was overly-acted, but appropriately so with a nod and a wink to the audience watching him. Mike Myers was Austin Powers imitating a British Army officer (again, with a knowing smile to the audience). The villianous Nazis were comically inept and boorish.

And then there was the final scene – a scene that sort of emerged from nowhere and featured a climax that could have turned a movie that you liked into a movie that you loathed.

I liked it. I just didn’t love it. It was Inglourious. Just not as Glorious as I hoped.

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Thoughts on Hal … and the newspaper industry

Posted on August 7, 2009 | Leave a comment

This is going to read like an obit, and that’s probably appropriate. In some ways, everybody who knows, reads and loves Hal McCoy will die a little bit at the end of the season.

Another tiny portion of this quickly-collapsing business stopped breathing Thursday. Hal McCoy – famed Cincinnati Reds beat writer for the Dayton Daily News, a mainstay in press boxes across the country since the early 1970s – will retire at the end of this season. He’s not retiring because he’s tired of the business and ready to leave (though he’s been talking about retiring ever since I’ve known him). He’s not retiring because his eyesight continues to worsen (McCoy is legally blind). He’s retiring because the newspaper will not be covering the Reds next year. Too expensive, so the upper management has said his services are no longer needed. The big-wigs don’t care about the readership; they care about the bottom line. This, of course, is nothing new or surprising.

A sampling of what some of Hal’s colleagues have said the past two days:

C. Trent Rosecrans: “Hal has been more than a mentor to me, he’s been a friend.”

Jeff Wallner: “As a know-nothing rookie roughly 10 years ago, I benefited greatly from Hal’s guidance, most of which was provided without my prompting.”

Bill Koch: “I knew this day was coming but it’s still sad to see him go out this way because I always assumed the DDN would let him leave on his own terms. He deserved that.”

This business is funny* like that. You love it all your life, you sacrifice the hours and days you could be spending with your family (I know this was a regret of Hal’s), you work all hours of the day and night. But it doesn’t love you back. It doesn’t care about your sacrifices. Spend 37 years on a beat, bringing daily joy to a community’s life, and this is how you’re treated at the end.

*Not funny ha-ha. Funny like the Holocaust**.

**OK, that might be a bit much.

I think we’re all taking this pretty personally, because Hal was always very good to us. When I was at the Cincinnati Post, I spent parts of three spring trainings in Sarasota, Fla., helping cover the Reds and providing relief for the main beat writer. Since the Post was Hal’s designated driver these past few years because of his deteriorating eye site***, I played Hal’s chauffeur for home and away games. He was always good for a gag and a laugh, always good with a story, always good for helping out another scribe in need. And don’t even think about pulling out your wallet for gas or a meal. Hal seriously would get pissed. He was going to pay, and there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about it.

***You should see that guy’s computer, by the way. The screen on that thing is absolutely ri-freakin-diculously huge.

Four ideas strike me about Hal when I think about him:

1. He has a goofy way of laughing. His shoulders actually shake and his face gets really scrunched up and animated and he laughs the hell out of a good joke.

2. He loves shoes. This is a passion we share. I’d show him my new Johnston & Murphy’s. He’d show me his new Cole-Haan’s. I’d show him my new Calvin Klein’s. He’d show me his new Ecco’s.

3. The man could hold a grudge. The famous story was that, for whatever reason, Hal and Joe Morgan had some sort of disagreement in the late 1970s, and they decided they wouldn’t ever speak to each other again. They’ve been in the same elevator and haven’t uttered a single syllable. They’ve played against each other in a tennis double’s match, and they didn’t share a single word. They’ve been within inches of each other, and yet, they don’t acknowledge the other’s existence. How great is that?

4. I never saw him big-time anybody. Hal, you have to understand, is usually the most-loved guy in the press box. He’s been around for so damn long and he’s so damn nice that everybody goes out of their way to say hello. And for all that popularity, for all that love, he never let his head swell. Sure, he has an ego, but he’d act the same way to a New York Times writer as he would to a community weekly reporter. In my eyes, that might be his greatest attribute.

Now that he’s leaving, Dayton journalism won’t be the same. Now, the Daily News will use the Cincinnati Enquirer for much of its Reds and Bengals coverage, which is a shame. I’m not saying the Enquirer isn’t more than capable, because it is. But Dayton readers aren’t well-served by this cost-cutting idea. The less voices available, the less news that’s broken, the less commentary given, the less eyeballs that are around to serve watch is not good.

People, I think, know this. Watch what happens. The Dayton Daily News will lose subscriptions because of this. The web site will lose hits. The advertising revenue will drop. The Dayton Daily News will be worse off.

I feel bad for the readers. I feel bad for DDN sports editor Brian Kollars, a good man in a tough spot. I feel bad, most of all, for Hal.

Sometimes, it seems that the Internet isn’t going to kill newspapers. It won’t be the declining ad revenue or the loss of classified ads. It won’t be the lost interest of the newest generations, the bad-for-the-times news cycle schedule, the failure to understand how to make money online. Sometimes, it seems that the people who manage the newspapers, they’re the culprits. They’re the heels. They’re the ones who are slowly driving the newspapers into extinction.

It’s like Hal said the other day. The hammer fell. And it hurts like hell.

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The challenge of “Hard Knocks”

Posted on August 6, 2009 | Leave a comment

I’ve been entrenched in Bengals camp the past six days (or is it seven or eight days? It is not easy to keep track of anything when you’re in this isolation booth), and I’ve spent some of my time watching the Hard Knocks crew put together the TV program you’ll watch on HBO later this month.

Coming into camp, I had an impression: a bunch of overzealot cameramen and producers and sound guys and boom operators who were going to run roughshod over everybody in an attempt to get the juiciest soundbite or the coolest-looking video. Like pests. How could they not, I thought? If you’ve watched the show in the past, the cameras seem to be everywhere, in the meeting rooms, in players’ dorm rooms, in everybody’s face, gathering every little piece of information. How could the crew and its cameras not be maddening for everybody – the players, the coaches and the rest of the media? How could they not be locusts?

Instead, you don’t really notice them – which is a pleasant surprise. Yeah, when Bengals strong safety Chinedum Ndukwe hurt his hand Wednesday morning and saw a camera zoom in nearly as close as the trainer examining his fingers, he seemed a little startled by that. But overall, the crew has been very respectful and unobtrusive. In fact, a couple times a few scribes were interviewing players, and Hard Knocks just sneaked up behind us and quietly listened in with their tall boom mikes over our heads. We didn’t know they were there until a few questions into the process.

So far, it seems to be a good experience for everybody involved.

That said, I don’t know how in the hell the Hard Knocks will put together a riveting program based on the practices I’ve seen. I guess, they’ll throw in some stirring music, and, let’s face it, a few slow-motion shots can make anything seem more exciting. As practices go, though, it’s awfully monotonous. Apparently, Hard Knocks gathers 200 hours of footage to make a single one-hour show. I’m actually really interested to see how this is done, because this side of the sausage-making is less than thrilling.

On the plus side, one of the boom operators that I see every day is sporting a mustache similar to this*. So, we’ve got that going for us.

*How this guy blows his nose or eats ice cream is beyond me.

  • Quick public service announcement: I’ll be on Ken Broo’s Sunday morning show at about 10:30 a.m. on 700-WLW.

    Also, a few new book signings to announce:

    Sat. Sept. 19, 1 p.m. – Waldenbooks on Glenway Ave.
    Sat. Sept. 26 – Follett book store, UC campus

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    A new way of thinking (online edition)

    Posted on July 30, 2009 | 1 comment

    There’s been talk recently on some journalism web sites I frequent about how college athletic departments are hiring sports writers to write for their official sites. A new dearth of guys have been hired – DePaul taking in a former Chicago Trib staffer and the University of Virginia grabbing a guy from the Richmond Times-Dispatch are two recent examples – and at least one major conference has done the same (I’ve also written a few articles this summer for the Atlantic 10’s Web site).

    I, of course, began writing part-time for the University of Cincinnati’s Web site in August 2008, Xavier gets some help from a local Cincinnati writer and Miami (Ohio) will join the parade this year as well.

    It’s becoming … well … it’s becoming normal. And it seems like attitudes in the industry have changed.

    Four years ago, when I worked at the Cincinnati Post, I never would have imagined myself working for UC*. Frankly, I thought, it wouldn’t have reflected well on me as an objective journalist.

    *Although I don’t receive a paycheck from the school. My money comes from IMG,** a company which works with UC in house on marketing and other behind-the-scenes goals.

    **To me, this is an important distinction, although whenever I mention it to anybody else, the response I typically receive in return is a rolling of the eyes and a “Yeah, whatever dude.”

    Hell, I can remember talking to Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports a few years ago inside the Reds clubhouse, saying, “Is it weird that you’re not working for a newspaper anymore and that you’re just online? Aren’t you worried about your job security?” He assured me that he wasn’t and that it was the best career move he made. Now, he’s one of the top baseball writers around. And my newspaper died.

    Before, if you wrote for Rivals.com or Scout.com or the school’s Web site, you were a homer*** and deserving of scorn. Now, those jobs are gold.

    ***Look at definition No. 4

    A good friend of mine, Larry Williams, who seemed to have a pretty good job covering Clemson athletics for the Charleston, S.C., paper left the print world and began working for Clemson’s Rivals.com site last year. He makes more money, and honestly, he has more job stability. He seems to be really happy these days.

    Now, if you’re working for one of these sites, you’re not spit upon by print guys. Now, print guys are the ones who covet those opportunities.

    Which leads me to this: how are these sites – any site for which a sports journalist writes – going to make money? Obviously, college administrators are trying to build their sites as legit news producers, because of the objective journalists who now work for them. That leads to more credibility for the site. That leads to more page hits from fans. That leads to more ad revenue. That leads us to the promised land.

    So far, it’s unclear whether this is a winning combination.

    I know. however, the Cincinnati Bengals have benefited from forward thinking like this. About a decade ago, they hired Geoff Hobson, formerly of the Cincinnati Enquirer, to produce news for their site. He does a wonderful job at Bengals.com, and he can be as objective as he needs to be. He’s legit, the site is legit, and now that the Dayton Daily News, Columbus Dispatch and Clear Channel Communications won’t be covering the team on a regular basis – leaving only the Enquirer and Hobson – Bengals.com will only grow in importance.

    It’s not weird or homerific to work for an online only site, even if it is for Bengals.com or gobearcats.com. I get that now. These are the places to go. But is it the solution? Can these sites – or more importantly, can I – be making money in this racket 50 years from now in this system?

    What about a newspaper’s Web site? Or anybody other than ESPN? Can sports journalism be produced for the WWW and make money? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps a new approach is needed. ESPN is trying it by localizing its web content in Chicago, LA, New York and Dallas. Some see this as the apocalypse, because it’s seen as bad news for newspapers. I don’t. I see it as growth in a business that many think are dying (I prefer the word ‘evolving’). If ESPNCincinnati.com came calling, I’d be picking up the phone before it finished its first ring. ESPN, for all its faults, is trying something new. The network deserves credit for that.

    And so is CBSSports.com****

    ****Now, finally, we’ve come to the point of the post. Only 750 words into this monstrosity.

    About a month ago, I was contacted by the managing editor of CBSSports.com to talk about this new idea. Basically, CBS was going to embed an NFL beat reporter in each NFL city (by the time the ME talked to me, he already had most of his writers in place). Really localize the product, the managing editor said, while coming up with an innovative way to cover the league

    He wanted to know if I was interested in some work. I was.

    It’s an interesting concept. Basically, the reporter is a cross between a blogger and a Tweeter, though the ME said the job is actually neither of those things. So, I’m at a practice, giving the masses what CBS is calling Rapid Reports. Basically, 25-30 times a day, I’m observing what’s happening on the field or whatever is around me that piques my interest, I’m typing into the Blackberry they’ve sent me, and I’m sending this Rapid Report into CBS, so CBS then can post my 50-word thoughts all over the web site. It goes onto the Bengals team page on CBS. It goes on to the individual player’s page. It goes to wherever fantasy football participants check.

    I’m intrigued by the concept. Yeah, it’s not sports writing the way I’m used to it, but that’s OK (after all, one our most favorite gags after covering a game is to say, “Yeah, it’d be a helluva job if we didn’t have to write.”). But an opportunity is lurking about, and I thought, in my situation, I’d be foolish to turn it down. Although I’m a newspaper guy, I’ve given up hope for writing for another newspaper. The chance to write, though, for a legitimate national Web site might be the next best thing.

    It’s not a full-time job, though it could eventually turn into one. But it’s a new idea. It’s something different. It’s exciting. It’s a little bit of good news in an industry that’s specialized recently in nothing but bad. It’s a start.

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