College football

What the Manti Te’o Story Tells Us About the Media

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First published on al.com.  Link to it here.

As the sports world moves on (if that’s possible) from the Manti Te’o case, sports journalists still need to stop, take a breath, and reflect on what we have learned from this.

To be honest, journalists are poor practitioners of self-reflection.  We tend to move on to the next story, promising to do better next time and looking for an article to paste over our previous mistakes.  But we need to wrench the gut a little here.

Witness the eagerness to sweep everything under the rug based on Te’o’s interview with Jeremy Schaap.  Whatever you feel about Te’o, however, does not relate how the sports media handled the story.  Or, to paraphrase Lee Corso, “Not so fast, my friend.”

Much of the debate has centered on the reporting by Pete Thamel of Sports Illustrated and Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN, the highest-profile of the many who reported this story.  Both admitted to noticing the red flags in September, when Te’o spoke of his “girlfriend’s” death and how it affected his play in the Irish’s big win against Michigan State.

So now, the debate is, to what extent should Thamel, Wojciechowski and others have double-checked on this.  Thamel pleaded a tight deadline in his defense.  Would SI have delayed the article for a few unconfirmed facts?  Based on this experience, the answer would be different now.  But back then?  We don’t know, because Thamel apparently did not ask.

One troubling aspect of all this is the extent to which everyone, Thamel and Wojciechowski included, seems to be engaging in shoulder-shrugging more than serious reflection.

For example, Peter King of SI tweeted, “And for those crucifying @SIPeteThamel, crucify me too. He’s tremendous. I back him unequivocally.”

King can be excused for rushing to support a colleague, which is understandable, but his statement represents a rhetorical “straw man” that distracts from the real issue.  No one is out to crucify Pete Thamel.  His article and reporting, like the others is another matter.

In journalism, we separate the product from the writer once it is written.  We put our heart and soul into what we write, then step back and let it be cut to pieces by editors, to improve it.  Let’s follow the same principle here.

Good reporting is good reporting because it informs and engages the reader with facts, many of which were not previously known.  It’s not good reporting because a good reporter writes it — although good reporters earn their reputation through their work.

The converse is true.  Pete Thamel and Gene Wojciechowski are not bad reporters.  But this was bad reporting.

So where do we go from here?  So many supporters seem to be throwing up their hands, as if such situations are inevitable.  ”What are we supposed to do?” they ask.  ”Demand to see the body?”

No, but neither are we supposed to give up and accept that factual errors are inevitable.  David Griner, writing for the Poynter Institute, uses the response from “This American Life” and Ira Glass, when a story about injuries and abuse at an Apple factory in Africa turned out to be false.

What we have seen instead falls far short, and we need to strive to be better than that.  Journalists are supposed to skeptical, not cynical.  We are supposed to have our B.S. meter fully engaged, regardless of the source.

And that is one factor here: The desire of all involved to believe the best about Te’o.  That was one of the most scathing indictments of Thamel, by Josh Levin of Slate.  Many more in the media are guilty of wanting to believe the best about Te’o, so that they unfairly dial down their B.S. meter.  The word for that is “bias.”  Would they have been so trusting toward an SEC football player?

My hope as we move on from this is that all sports journalists, from Sports Illustrated and ESPN down to the local weekly, will learn from this.  If a fact cannot be confirmed, stop and confirm.  As this story demonstrates (and it is not a once-in-a-lifetime disaster), it’s worth it.

Imagine if Thamel or Wojciechowski had asked their superiors for a delay to double-check a couple of red flags.  Imagine the article that would have resulted — a well-intentioned but naive college football player hoaxed by a fake girlfriend, culminating with her supposed death before a big game.  Imagine the heartache and missteps this would have saved Teo and his family.

What if one journalist had done his or her homework?

Talk about a hero.

If Petrino Had Been Named Auburn Coach …

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Petrino

 

First published in The War Eagle Reader.  find it here.

This is not one of those wild parallel reality articles; I’m not that talented. It’s my take as a faculty member on the just-concluded search for a head coach.

For those nine days, I lived in fear that somehow, Auburn would name Bobby Petrino as head football coach.

Yes, I know that most Auburn fans are glad the process is over and want to move on. I’m glad too. And it might be that for us academics, the desire to beat a dead horse comes with the cap and gown. But I think some reflection is in order.

In my opinion, hiring Petrino would have sent the wrong message to our student-athletes and to all of our students.  The message would have been this: Doing the wrong thing is OK, as long as you win.  Consequences are for losers.

Had the hire been made, I was ready to resign my position on the University Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics,  and I had expressed that willingness to friends who would hold me to it. It might not seem like a big deal; I am finishing a three-year term.

But I could not have continued as a faculty member on the committee if that were the philosophy of the athletics department. Thank God it’s not.

For me, the issue was not so much Petrino’s oft-ridiculed affair with an Arkansas athletics staff member.  He must bear the weight of that privately, and it looks like he will, for a long time.

It was that he created an ethical nightmare for his school, and might have violated the law, by hiring that staff member to a better-paid position on the staff of a state university.  As I posted in an early tweet, any athletics director would be crazy to hire Petrino, knowing that he had done that.

And let’s not forget that within the Jetgate scandal, Petrino made his own missteps by not informing his athletics director that he was seeking the Auburn job.  Obviously, that would have threatened the process’s secrecy, but once again, Petrino subverted ethical principle to his own interest.

At the NFL level, that’s another debate. I won’t talk about what happened in Atlanta.  But on a college campus (and as I frequently state, this is college football) this is serious stuff.

Despite appearances, a college campus is not an FBS football factory.  It is a setting where thousands of mostly young men and women, some of them athletes, learn at a variety of levels — academic, social, and yes, ethical.

We enforce an academic honor code, and when a student crosses that line, he or she should be prosecuted.  And not just to be punished for trying to succeed by breaking the rules. The idea is for students to recognize that there are consequences for academic dishonesty. We don’t publicly announce individual student verdicts, but they know the process is there. If there were no consequences, cheating would be even more of a problem than it is now.

But it’s hard to expect students to accept that, when they know that a football coach catches a break because of his winning percentage.

In so many ways, critics complain that college football is out of control.  At Auburn, $11 million in buyouts to a fired coach and his staff supports the argument.  An eagerness to hire a disgraced coach because of his winning percentage would have added to that perception.

For all of the heat Jay Jacobs has been catching, his record in promoting the academic welfare of student-athletes has not been mentioned. Under his leadership, our students have shined. Football player Ashton Richardson was a finalist for a Rhodes Scholarship. Soccer player Katy Frierson and diver Dan Mazziaferro were finalists for the prestigious Walter Byers Postgraduate Scholarship.

But his search committee did not hire Bobby Petrino. And for that I am grateful.

To Philip Lutzenkirchen

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First published in The War Eagle Reader. You can link to it here.

My first memory of Philip Lutzenkirchen was when he had scheduled an appointment with our Communication and Journalism department chair during his official recruiting visit in 2008.

The chair at the time, Dr. Mary Helen Brown, referred me to his highlight video on YouTube.  Plenty of high-high-highlights.  My favorite was of him blocking a punt and running it in for a touchdown.  He didn’t exactly run it in.  He stood head and shoulders over everyone on the field, so he basically jogged in, swatted the ball away from the punter’s foot, picked it up and carried it into the end zone.  Opposing players jumped around him like Jack Russells leaping at a man holding up a Frisbee.  Lutzie made it to the end zone no problem.

Now, with his tweet Saturday that he will miss the rest of the season, it’s fitting to remember what he brought to Auburn.  I always called him “the mayor of Auburn University,” with his popularity and influence on campus.  It is sad to see it come to an end.

Of course, Lutzenkirchen signed with Auburn, even in the midst of the Tuberville turmoil.  In one of his tweets, he said he never regretted his decision to come to Auburn.  Nor did his fans.

Philip actually enrolled as a major in the department (good job, MHB), so we remained in cordial contact throughout.  At one time, I think he was a radio-TV-film major, though he ended up majoring in communication.  RTVF seemed a natural major, particularly after his ESPN fame for a highlight where he tipped an end-zone pass to a teammate as he leaped out of bounds.

The clip earned some studio time on ESPN – an appearance that, he admitted, he was not pleased with.  He was too rough on himself.  It wasn’t worse than 90 percent of the interviews you see on ESPN (and better than almost all of Skip Bayless’s and Stephen A. Smith’s rants).

The summer after his freshman year (which included touchdown receptions against LSU and Mississippi State), I requested that he serve as press conference guest for our 2010 Summer Journalism Workshop for high school students, noting that he was after all a major and that would help us recruit.

He and Morgan Toles, a women’s basketball player who was also a major (and who sadly also had to stop playing for injury reasons) did a great job.  Lutzie had a good sense of humor, even when one young lady’s press conference question was, “Are you dating anyone? Kidding!”  From an instructional perspective, that gave me a great opportunity to warn the students about asking creepy questions.

Trivia buffs: At that conference, we learned the meaning of his name: “light” (lutz) “of” (en) “the church” (kirchen).  I’ll leave further comment on that to the ode-sters.

The press conference, obviously, was the impetus of Philip’s contributions to Auburn’s dream season.  Big TD passes against South Carolina, Georgia (twice) and, of course, Alabama – the catch that gave birth to his TD dance deemed “the Lutzie.”  A somersault-capped catch in the national championship game.

Even in 2011, as Auburn struggled on many fronts to an 8-5 season, Lutzenkirchen had his moments – the best being a one-handed grab against Ole Miss that made the Top 10 for several of ESPN’s endless array of Top 10 segments.  Unfortunately, the catch also led to the first of many injuries that Philip would endure – a torn labrum that required shoulder surgery.

But as he remained at Auburn, his favor among the students increased – enhanced by a decision to return for his senior year.  Whether in person or on his popular Twitter account (a weird stretch of letters – oh wait, it’s his last name), Lutzie became something of a campus icon.

So as this year descended into something of a disaster, fans felt a particular heart tug for the tight end who had given a lot to his school.  When the second half against Arkansas opened with an illegal procedure by #43, it seemed a fitting indication of how bad things had gotten.

Then, as fans processed another disappointing loss, this time to Vanderbilt, word that a hip injury would end Lutzenkirchen’s career at Auburn deepened the sadness.

Lutzenkirchen’s tweet – “Sad to say it is over at Auburn. Thanks for the opportunity to play in O&B on Saturdays. It was the best decision of my life to be a Tiger.” – was an appropriately classy handoff by the popular player and sparked hundreds of replies.

Philip is a frequent presence in Tichenor Hall, as one of our majors.  He is friendly to all of the professors he encounters.  It’s one of the qualities that makes college football so special.  These are not just players who score touchdowns to make fans’ lives better.  They are our students and classmates, and we appreciate them in that regard.

He had decided to time his academic progress so that he graduated after his final season – no cursory graduate studies.  I usually represent the department at fall graduation (it’s the coolest weather, so the most comfortable for those bulky caps and gowns), and I look forward to the moment when Ric Smith announces his name as a student one last time.

I will remember another moment as well.  Soon after the semester began, as I walked from my car parked at Comer toward the Science Center, I heard a voice call: “How’s it going?”  I turned.  Philip was waving to me as he called over his shoulders.  Like I told my students, that doesn’t say as much about me as it does about Philip Lutzenkirchen.