As Auburn students begin another school year, and Auburn fans look ahead to football season, the sad reality of Philip Lutzenkirchen’s untimely death will hit home even more.

His death was a jolt to the Auburn community, even as it happened over the summer, with many of our students gone. Social media connected the Auburn family in its mutual grief, while also demonstrating just what Philip meant to the campus and the greater community.

For many Auburn students, the first experience with peer loss is a jolt – a dose of the reality that youthful invincibility is ultimately an illusion.

For us faculty and staff – many of whom already are guaranteed decades more than these lives lost too soon – it is a jolt as well a reminder of an uncomfortable truth: Young people, current and recent students, die.

The odds turn on them with cruel randomness, and they die in car wrecks or as crime victims.

Their struggle with terminal illness lacks the ultimate triumph.

An undiagnosed condition steals in and steals life.

The substance abuse they thought they could control proves otherwise.

And some mistakenly decide that ending their own lives is preferable to living with the pain.

As faculty and staff members find ourselves within a grieving community, it is our responsibility to help the students grapple, even as we struggle in our own way. It doesn’t get easier with practice.

In 1997, while I was at Campbell University, a freshman wrestler, Billy Saylor, 19, died while trying to cut weight for a tournament. He was one of three wrestlers who would die that way within a month. It led to stricter weight-cutting guidelines from the NCAA.

As word of his death spread across campus that Friday (it had happened late the previous evening), life also seemed to stop at the small campus. It was a day of talking to students, worrying about the teammate who was there when Billy died, facing the Raleigh, N.C., media barrage.

As I watched the 6 o’clock news, it struck me. The worst thing that happened was that Billy’s dreams had died with him. Becoming a champion wrestler, marrying his high school girlfriend, whatever career he was aiming for – the dreams were gone too.

I remember verbalizing a question to myself: Why did God give me and not Billy Saylor November 7, 1997 (and about 6,000 more days after that)? It seemed unfair.

The answer that came back – we could debate the source – was that I could find the answer to that question in each day that followed. That also became my vow, and it has continued through my 11 years on the faculty at Auburn.

But more than that, the experience changed how I looked at my students. No longer were they 85 percent fun, 15 percent why-don’t-you-listen-to-what-I’m-trying-to teach you? (with the 15 percent dominating).

Instead, they became conveyors of something precious – their dreams and goals. My vocation, besides getting them to look up spellings and AP style rules and gather and structure information, was to bring them closer to those dreams, by whatever means. Even a change to a new major, if necessary.

Over the past 17 years, I’ve tried to keep that thought before me. Yes, sometimes students make it difficult, when they don’t seem to have many dreams beyond the next Wednesday night Toomers Corner pub crawl. Sometimes they have to be reminded that unlike animals who eat, sleep, breed, and annoy other animals, they have the capacity to aspire to make their lives better and to simply be better.

I also know that each student is a treasure to someone, even one parent or a sibling or an aunt/uncle. And that treasure is committed to Auburn University – with fear and trust, but mostly fear – for the next 4-plus years. Our job is to return that treasure with something valuable, increased knowledge, so that society can benefit as well.

In spring of 2007, after the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech, I attended an on-campus vigil Auburn students conducted in front of Samford Hall. I saw one of my students, Megan, there. I wondered how her parents felt after realizing that twenty-seven families had lost the students they had sent to Virginia Tech.

After the vigil, I put my arm around Megan and said, “For all that we (faculty) give you guys a hard time, it would devastate me if anything like this happened to you.”

In the seven years since, students have died. A suicide in February brought two of his fellow students to my office with questions of whether they could have done more. We couldn’t know. All we knew was that his pain overrode everything else in his life, including his dreams for his life and his parents who considered him their treasure.

And when a 23-year-old recent Auburn football player dies in a wreck on a rural Georgia road, it brings it home again. Why did God give me and not Philip Lutzenkirchen July 30, 2014, and the days that followed?

As I said, I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know that I will find it in each day that follows. And I know that a big part of that answer involves my students, and their dreams.

First published by The War Eagle Reader. Link to it here.

When it comes to sports, few broadcasting markets are as hungry and crazed as Birmingham.  Thus, the changes that are on the horizon should bring as much attention as fiscal cliff negotiations.  Forget that: more attention.  I mean, here the negotiations will result in real change.

Probably the two biggest changes, which will interest all fans, involve sports talk show host Paul Finebaum and the ownership of 97.3 The Zone.

This blog will cover Part I: Finebaum.  As everyone who has been following him knows, his contract with Citadel Broadcasting (and its owner, Atlanta-based Cumulus Broadcasting), which owns WJOX, ends on Jan. 21, 2013.  Attempts to get out of the contract early (citing changes forced on him by Citadel before it was purchased by Cumulus) to pursue an offer by Cox Media Group and 97.3 the Zone, resulted only in a lawsuit that was settled over the summer.

So now, with the Jan. 21 deadline looming, can we expect a big change in Finebaum’s situation?  He agreed to talk to me about it, knowing his comments would appear on The War Eagle Reader website.  You might remember, after an article about him appeared in The New Yorker about a month ago, a listener asked if any media outlet existed that had not interviewed him.  “The War Eagle Reader,” he quipped.  Now he can cross that off the list.

Finebaum could not talk much about the pending change.  (We’ll come back to that in a few paragraphs.)  But one thing that he did confirm is that he is now being represented by Nick Khan, of the high-powered Creative Artists Agency.  Khan is typical CAA stock: One of his other new clients is Kirk Herbstreit (adding to a roster that already included Nancy Grace and Keith Olbermann).

Previously, Finebaum was represented by Russ Campbell, who is named in the courtroom papers unsealed and presented on the Birmingham Business Journal’s website.  Campbell is more of a sports agent; his clients include Gene Chizik and, until a couple of months ago, Bobby Petrino.  And Finebaum said he was reluctant to discuss the change, which was made in August. until now because of his respect and appreciation for Campbell, who represented Finebaum in his legal struggles with Citadel/Cumulus

“Russ has represented me for a while, and he is my friend,” Finebaum said. “I decided I needed an entertainment agent.”

Even so, with a new agent and possibly new opportunities, he was reluctant to discuss any pending changes.  It’s clear why.  In the June 1, 2012, issue of Talkersmagazine, John Dickey, COO of Cumulus, addressed the possibility that Finebaum would move to The Zone when his contract ended on Jan. 21.  ”He will never work for Cox in Birmingham,” Dickey said, bluntly.  Talk like that makes the situation beyond delicate.

The contract — you can link to it above — sheds more light on Finebaum’s situation.  First, according to the original contract, which was signed in January 2007, even if Finebaum were to end the contract amicably on Jan. 21, 2013, he would not be allowed to broadcast within a 50-mile radius of Birmingham for the next 90 days, because of a non-compete clause (Section 11[c]).

Then, in an addendum signed in November 2007, Citadel added a matching clause, which gives the company the right to “enter into an employment agreement with Employee for monetary terms which are substantially similar to the monetary terms of any bona fide offer which Employee has received.”

Cumulus has continued to move aggressively in the sports radio market.  Cumulus has dropped ESPN and picked up the new CBS Sports Radio network for many of its affiliates,including WJOX in Birmingham, as of Wednesday, Jan. 2.  So they might want to keep Finebaum in the package that now includes Jim Rome and Tim Brando.

Finally, if you read Finebaum’s contract, you realize that it is an employment contract.  Despite his show’s success and growing popularity, Finebaum holds no ownership interest in the program or any of its related projects (the website or podcasts, for example).

Thus, while I could not ask Finebaum about his priorities for a new contract, it would certainly make sense that at this point, given the show’s expanding popularity and nationwide footprint on Sirius XM, he would seek an arrangement that allowed some ownership stake of his program.  Or he could conceivably even create his own company to produce the program and syndicate it himself to individual stations or through a company such as Cox.

Or try this scenario (which a friend suggested, though it exists only in the imagination): Assume that the SEC decided to spurn ESPN’s mega-billions and create its own network along the lines of the Big Ten Network — the main difference being the quality of the football teams, of course.  Given Finebaum’s friendship with Mike Slive, SEC commissioner, and his stature within the SEC, a television version of Finebaum’s show, like “Mike & Mike” on ESPN2, would be a natural for the afternoons.

Finebaum’s show has remained an attractive property over the years, with much interest from prospective bidders.  It was when he jumped from Clear Channel to Citadel in 2007, and it remains so today.

 So as Jan. 21 approaches (with an extension of up to 45 days allowed), Finebaum’s listeners and those who hate can expect that the drama on the show might originate not from Legend and Tammy, but from Finebaum and his parent company.

 

After reading about Brian Downing and Garrison Stamp in the most recent issue of ESPN the Magazine — the Bama teabagger and his unconscious LSU victim — I must admit: I considered the article, and the two individuals, a waste of my time.

As I tweeted about it, one of my friends compared the article to the disproportionate amount of air time given to Harvey Updyke in the ESPN 30 for 30, “Roll Tide War Eagle.”  The comparison resonated with me. Who cares about this man?

Before I proceed, a few disclaimers: I am an alumnus of Auburn University, so you might dismiss my comments as Tide trash talking.  And I am a faculty member at Auburn with the scarlet letters “Ph.D.,” so you might dismiss my comments as elitist trash talking.  That is why we disclose — so that you can incorporate it into your appraisal of my thoughts.

Having admitted to both, I will make my point: While good sports journalism can bring us the compelling stories of competition and struggle, victory and defeat, neither of these stories are worth the resources of quality sports journalism.

First, the magazine article on the teabagging incident. The mundaneness of the situation is amusing. An district manager for a sporting goods store chain (it almost reads like a character written for a Lifetime movie) goes off for a football weekend with friends, gets drunk and drags his testicles across the face of a passed-out fan of the opposing team, who has been abandoned by his friends.

End of story. That’s it.

Put that alongside the stories of Michael Jordan battling the flu in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA finals, or a Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal Grand Slam final, or Eric LeGrand’s heroic efforts to overcome paralysis following his football injury?

You can’t.

Try though you might — even turn the magazine or your tablet sideways so you can read between the lines — there is nothing there.  Just a pathetic incident involving two people as forgettable as I am.

But that didn’t stop ESPN from sending Mark Winegarder to interview multiple sources, and Greg Miller to take dramatic, Annie Liebovitz-esque photos, to produce 7,000 words and poignant portraits.

If one of my journalism students expended that much effort on that topic, I would recommend time management classes.  Spend your precious hours on something worth it.  But of course, after taking the time to read it — precious minutes in my day lost — I felt the same way.

To say that Downing and Stamp represent anything worth reflecting on in sports is to say that a guy who got irate about the presidential election and threw a beer bottle at his dog is making a grand statement about democracy.

He is not, and Downing and Stamp are not. The LSU-Alabama game is relegated to a side note to dumb-ass behavior that could just as easily have taken place anywhere else, after any event, sports or not.

The existential gaze of these characters in cliche poses with 1990s music video lighting and angles might be intended to somehow expose the deep conflict of their soul. Instead, it highlights the gap between what they did and what makes a great sports story.

ESPN 30 for 30 applied the same treatment to Harvey Updyke in relating his contribution to the Auburn-Alabama rivalry.  Again, at the end of the program, we are left frustrated: Why am I forced to care about this guy? Why is ESPN wasting precious seconds of a documentary on an uninteresting individual who did something stupid?

As Updyke has become the journalistic equivalent of the “gift” that keeps on giving (his confession to an Auburn school newspaper reporter being the latest), I feel my attention being assaulted by the neverending story.

And it’s most disappointing that ESPN the Magazine would waste their time on Downing and Stamp.  For years, I have admired the long-form features presented in the magazine (much more than the shorter department-type stuff, but that’s another issue).  You put the name “Wright Thompson” in a byline, and I am there. But articles like this mock the magazine’s higher aspirations.

The best of such journalism, sports or not, is to find the true human drama behind the real moments in sports. In some cases, the greatness is defined by the individuals involved, not by the profile of the story. The Wright Thompsons and Gary Smiths (Sports Illustrated) of the world are the rising tide that lifts all boats — subject, reader and sport — to the heights of humanity.

But when you have a high-profile story where the individuals (apologies) lack greatness, where is the substance behind the style? Is this all sizzle and no steak?

For years, newspapers promoted “telephone book stories,” where you could open the white pages, put your finger on a name and find a story worth writing about for every individual.  Interesting reading in a local newspaper, definitely.

But this turns the idea on its head. It takes a regrettably ridiculous situation and tries to make it into a story worth telling and whose characters’ actions are worth exploring. It fails, but the failure is in the concept, not the execution, which is doomed by the concept.

Sometimes, when a student makes a lowbrow comment in class, I tell him or her, “You know, you don’t have to express every thought that pops into your brain.” I would offer the same advice to any sports journalist. We don’t have to cover every story that is out there, even in this content-starved Internet world.

Forget 15 minutes of fame. These stories are not worth 15 minutes of interest.