The End of Sportswriting, Part IV

(This is the fourth part of a five-part series.)

by Rick Rockwell

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. (William Shakespeare)

Yes, this is the obituary for another part of the journalism craft being killed by marketers. Quoting Shakespeare or Ecclesiastes in sportswriting today doesn’t work because it repels a demographic that doesn’t want to connect with the rest of the culture beyond ESPN and talk radio.

But sportswriting isn’t dead yet. It’s only headed in that general direction.

For instance, we are lucky to work with a very good sportswriter on this blog, someone who wrote about Lance Armstrong when he was just a pedaling pup in Texas and not the über-cyclist. However, our friend, Jeff Siegel, doesn’t play the pandering, marketing, shoutfest game that sportswriting has become, so you don’t see his name in lights on ESPN. Likely, he’s happier that way.

And there are others who still attempt to keep the old school ways alive. For instance, this blog has noted that columnist Norman Chad is still one of the best around, although like all of us, he has lapses. Sure, you will find him on ESPN talking poker, but for the most part, his writing has not suffered because he also does Las Vegas play-by-play. He still throws in references to the Taliban, Hezbollah, and other political and international affairs terms into his sportswriting stew. That sort of writing just leaves the punks scratching their heads and wondering what league the Taliban play in and if they use a full-court press.

So there are a few writers of worth still out there. But they are being drowned by the cultural onslaught that is the tidal wave of loud-mouthed media attached to big-money sports.

(To see the next part in this series, click here.)

(The photo is of the so-called Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse at Notre Dame from 1924. Their nickname was created by sportswriter Grantland Rice, and the photo was the idea of Notre Dame's publicist George Strickler, who went on to become a writer and editor at the Chicago Tribune. The copyright on the photo is held by the University of Notre Dame; although use here constitutes fair use.)

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