The Sports Page

I recently had a dust-up with ESPN’s Darren Rovell about the reliability of Poptip poll results.

Poptip is a program that allows users to conduct quick surveys on Twitter, and then compiles the results.

No harm, nothing foul.  But apparently some folks got into it with Rovell about references to a “margin of error” in his Poptip polls.

So being a professor and a math nerd, I thought I would convene a quick session on surveys, if for no other reason, to explain why some people (like me) get so agitated when Poptip polls claim a margin of error.

A margin of error is one measurement of how closely a sample’s opinions reflect the population as a whole.  You might also see it called a “plus/minus.”

The issue here involves, not the size of the sample, but how it is drawn.  As anyone who has studied statistics will tell you, the margin of error is relevant only when the sample is drawn from the population by some mathematical formula.

Poptip polls — like the quick polls on the front page of ESPN — create what are known as volunteer or convenience samples.  They cannot reflect the population as a whole, because they are drawn from people who happen to be on the ESPN page, or see a Darren Rovell tweet, and vote.

They are fun, and they give people a chance to voice their opinions.  But that is as far as it goes.  The results reflect only the people who voted, not sports fans or voters as a whole.  Even responses in the tens of thousands (“mass,” as Rovell described it to me) have no statistical meaning beyond those who vote.

When a pollster uses a random sampling method, he/she has mathematical tools available to predict how close the results are to the population as a whole.  Not perfect.  Not always right.  But as Nate Silver demonstrates, carefully drawn data in skillful hands can yield rich information. 

I’m not here to spoil anyone’s fun. If you want to do a PopTip poll, have at. It looks like fun.  But don’t talk margin of error. That’s just putting lipstick on a statistical pig.

Is the AP’s annual list of Top 10 sports stories biased toward the NFL?

If you have asked me a couple of weeks ago, I would have guessed that the list was biased toward New York — citing the ranking of the Giants’ Super Bowl win as the No. 8 story of 2012.  The Miami Heat’s NBA championship was totally off this most recent list, despite what it meant both to LeBron James’ legacy and to the wider question of free agency.

When I tweeted that complaint, in reply to Awful Announcing’s posting of the list on its Twitter feed, one of AA’s followers, @randyjalisco, replied, “Or just NFL bias.”

That sent me looking through the previous Top 10 lists. And based on a limited sample, I can say — Mr. Jalisco might have a point.

Unfortunately, I could go back to only 2009 to get complete AP Top 10 sports stories lists.  While the wire service has been releasing its Top 10 list of news stories for years, full lists are spotty before 2009.

The executive summary: Every year since 2005, the Super Bowl has been ranked higher than the World Series or the NBA Finals.  Twice before then, the World Series ranked higher, but the trend is toward the NFL’s big event.

Even based on a four-year sample, the difference is obvious.  Compare the three major pro league sports: NFL, MLB, NBA.  In the past four years, the Super Bowl is ranked in the Top 10 all four years.  The highest ranking was in 2010, when the Saints’ victory was the No. 2 story (understandable, given what the victory and team meant to post-Katrina New Orleans).

During those four years, the World Series winner made the Top 10 three times (all except this past year), but every year, the Series ranked lower than the Super Bowl.

The NBA Finals makes the Top 10 only once, in 2011, when the Dallas Mavericks beat the “Big Three.”

If you took an average rating, and assigned the sport No. 11 when it did not make the Top 10 to keep it from having more than a minimal effect, here are the average rankings for the past four years: Super Bowl, 4.75; MLB, 8; NBA, 10.

A glance back through the pre-2009 years (thanks to a couple of friends who work for AP and found the old features, though not any actual lists), can add some casual light to the stats above. 

2008. The New York Giants’ victory over New England in the Super Bowl was No. 2, and the Celtics’ turnaround NBA championship was No. 5, of the five listed.  Michael Phelps and the Olympics were the top story, of course. No World Series.

2007. Only the Top 5 stories were mentioned, and none of those involved major pro championships, though baseball was No. 1 (Bonds and steroids) and NFL was No. 5 (Belichick and video cheating plus Patriots’ start).

2006. The Steelers’ Super Bowl victory was No. 6, and the Tigers’ World Series win was No. 9.  It was a good year for Tigers — the pro golfer’s six straight victories, even after the death of his father, was the top story — seems so long ago, doesn’t it?

2005. Baseball topped football, and every other sport, in this list, which includes only seven stories.  The World Series win by the Chicago White Sox was voted the top story, with New England’s Super Bowl victory ranking No. 5 — the last time baseball topped football.

2004. Unfortunately, the only Top 10 list for the AP involved worldwide sports stories, so none of the three major pro sports leagues were mentioned.  The top rated story, in fact, was Greece winning the 2004 European Championship in soccer.  Now you know.

2003. The entire list is given. The Florida Marlins’ surprise World Series victory was No. 3, and the Tampa Bay Super Bowl win over Oakland (which recently made it back into the headlines after Tim Brown alleged that coach Bill Callahan threw the game) was No. 8.  The Kobe Bryant sexual assault scandal was the top story.

Making the Top 10 for any event is tough.  It takes into account important stories that do not directly deal with actual games: the Jerry Sandusky child molestation investigation was the No. 1 story the past two years.  And the Summer Olympics will always intrude every four years, more often than the Winter Olympics.

But the trend is there.  Maybe the Super Bowl being one game, rather than a multiple-game series, enhances its stature.  Or maybe, as @randyjalisco said, the list has an NFL bias.

Considering that the game takes place almost 10 months before the list comes out, while the World Series finishes less than two months before, only heightens the event’s perceived impact.

So come late December, you can lay odds that, regardless of which Harbaugh wins, the NFL will have laid the PR groundwork so that this year’s Super Bowl will be rated one of the Top 10 sports stories of 2013.

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.

After the Manti Te’o story broke on Deadspin, I was not able to write much about it because:

1) When the story broke, I was on my way back from Birmingham, helping a good friend who needed a ride back from UAB Hospital.

2) Then I taught a 6-9 graduate class.

3) Then I crashed, because of 1) and 2).

So now, the next day, with a story that has spread and been critiqued with lightning speed, I will link you to some excellent stuff on the topic, better than I would come up with in my post-Wednesday exhaustion.

First, check out the original Deadspin article.  Great reporting explained in detail.  It will take a while, but realize that these two guys did their homework.  Note that the term “libel” is never mentioned in discussing this, even among Te’o supporters.  Their reporting is why.

So the question is, how did sports journalists like Pete Thamel of Sports Illustrated and Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN allow themselves to disseminate a story that has turned out to be so false?

A piece by Josh Levin of Slate is very much to point on this.  He compares Thamel’s treatment of Te’o to his treatment of Tyrann Mathieu, and finds some troubling contrasts.

(And having just heard Pete Thamel interviewed on Dan Patrick’s show, in light of Levin’s comments, the bias is troubling.)

And finally, the Poynter Institute published an article that lays out the best strategy for Sports Illustrated, ESPN and the reporters involved from here on out.  It calls for transparency and gut-wrenching self-examination.  Whether the parties involved follow through on this is debatable, of course, especially in light of Thamel’s comments on Patrick’s show.  

(One critique: The writer, David Griner, makes some unfortunate slams on sports writing toward the end.  The same critiques about the hazards of access could be written about government reporters.  I feel that good sports journalism is good journalism.  It is no different than any other form.) 

My only comment involves the mindset Thamel and Wojociechowski brought to their reporting.  Both claim to have found what would have been perceived as “red flags” in their reporting.  Both chose not to follow through.

One reason? Consciously or subconsciously, they wanted the story to be true.  In a tweet, I mused as to whether they would have double-checked the story had it involved Mathieu or Cam Newton. Only they can answer that question.

But moving on from here, sports reporters — all reporters, for that matter — need to realize that even stories that seem too good to be true should be double-checked, regardless of what we want to believe about the individuals who tell them.

(Credit where credit is due: My good friend Troy Johnson reminded me that my advice to “sports reporters” should be extended to all reporters, so I made that change, and I appreciate his point.)

Birmingham is sports crazy, and these days sports radio in Birmingham is almost as crazy.

I wrote about Paul Finebaum and the changes that might be on the horizon as his contract with Citadel/Cumulus broadcasting comes to an end.  But where Birmingham sports radio is concerned, expect more.

In particular, ESPN 97.3 the Zone, the station that had been trying to lure Finebaum from 94.5 WJOX, is itself up for sale by its parent company, Cox Media Group.  Like Finebaum’s contract, a big change for ESPN 97.3 is likely to be announced this month.

To understand the reason behind the sale, you need to also grasp how media companies — and the FCC’s approach, have changed.  This is no fire sale by a company desperate for cash.

Instead, as Birmingham radio veteran Bill Thomas points out, Cox, as a multimedia company that is predominantly newspaper and television-oriented, is selling radio stations in the six markets where the company does not own TV stations or newspapers.  The other five markets are Louisville; Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C.; Richmond; southern Connecticut; and Honolulu.

Not so long ago, the FCC was reluctant to allow a company to own more than one media property — newspaper, radio station or TV station — in a market, to ensure a variety of viewpoints in every market.  

But that was before the Internet, which has created both a wider spectrum of voices and a more difficult financial setting for traditional media.  So the FCC has relaxed its reluctance, and media companies like Cox — seeking every marketing advantage they can — are looking for multimedia ownership in top markets.

The only person to publicly announce an interest in buying The Zone 97.3 is David Dubose, Cox’s vice president and market manager for Birmingham.  He has put together an investment group, Summit Media, that has submitted an offer.  

Dubose would not comment on the chances of Summit’s bid being accepted, but it seems to have a lot going for it, for several reasons.

First, the bid is for all of the stations in all of the markets.  That certainly makes for a cleaner transaction for Cox.

Second, Dubose himself is also a strong advantage to the offer — particularly in Birmingham.  He and a couple of business partners launched two of the city’s most popular stations — 95.7 Jamz FM and 98.7 Kiss FM — in 1996, selling them to Cox two years later.  He has been with Cox since.

Don’t think that 97.3 the Zone is the jewel in the crown for this deal.  ”The Zone is one of many stations in the Birmingham group owned by Cox, but is still in its start-up phase. WZZK, Jamz (WBHJ) FM and Kiss (WBHK) FM constantly rank as the three most highly-rated Cox stations in town,” Thomas said.  ”They are the most valuable properties.” 

But sports fans are more interested in Bama than Bieber, so the news that 97.3 the Zone was for sale so soon after it announced its interest in Finebaum might have seemed a bit contradictory.

Not to worry, according to Dubose.  The Zone will be around for a long time, with a continued emphasis on local programming.  ”We frankly think that as radio is beginning to evolve, those stations that are best positioned to perform well into the next decade have strong local content,” he said

For 97.3, that includes programs like “Eyes on Auburn,” a two-hour weekly program on Tuesday nights featuring Justin Hokanson of AuburnSports and former AU football player Rob Pate.  The station has also made a heavy commitment to high school football, with live broadcasts and a statewide scoreboard show.

Sports fans who prefer to hear Colin Cowherd making it up as he goes along, or Mike and Mike talking over each other, can turn to 107.3, which broadcasts ESPN’s national programming.

The other choice for sports fans, WJOX 94.5, has also been upping its game.  After losing ESPN to 97.3 the Zone, the station and its parent company, Citadel/Cumulus, announced a partnership with CBS Sports Radio.  CBS has been increasing its profile within sports radio, and Birmingham is one of many stations that have added its programming.

As of this week, CBS Sports Radio is providing content 24/7, adding names like Doug Gottlieb, Jim Rome, and John Feinstein.  So Birmingham is one of many cities that can benefit from a lively ESPN/CBS content rivalry, locally and nationally.  

That is just what the FCC was hoping to promote with its earlier ownership restrictions, and demonstrates how, in today’s fragmented media content world, the competition is there.

One final note, and it relates to the CBS Sports Radio network: Rachel Baribeau, a 2003 Auburn RTVF grad has just moved over to the CBS Sports radio station in Atlanta, 92.9 The Game, co-hosting an afternoon talk show, “Game Time,” with former Steelers QB Kordell Stewart and veteran broadcast Carl Dukes.

Baribeau had been co-hosting an afternoon talk show at 97.3 the Zone, but accepted a new position in the Atlanta market a couple of months ago.

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 Talkers magazine, 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.

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.

In fact, I was willing to resign my position on the University Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics if the hire were made and 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.

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.

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 Russell’s leaping at a man holding up a Frisbee.  Lutzie made it to the end zone no problem.

Now, with this 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 just sad to see it come to an end.

Of course, Lutzenkirchen signed with Auburn, even if 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 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.

There is so much not to like with this Steve Spurrier-Ron Morris dust-up in Columbia, S.C.  It’s hard to find anyone doing the right thing.

1. Start with Spurrier.  His remarks seemed directly not only at Ron Morris, the offending sports columnist for The State in Columbia, but also at any sports journalist who would be tempted to take on the Old Ball Coach.

It just seems a bit creepy when a coach turns his attention to the media who cover him and complains.  Most coaches don’t like the criticism that is written about them.  They are not expected to celebrate the First Amendment when they are on the receiving end of a blast.  But most coaches ignore it.

When Spurrier crossed that line, it was unfortunate and unnecessary.  It started with a refusal to answer questions both at a press conference and on a conference call.  It finished with a blunt statement on his weekly radio show.

2. Morris is not off the hook either.  The breaking point for many besides Spurrier came when Morris, in complaining about Spurrier’s high-handedness and the university’s unwillingness to rein him in, compared the situation to Penn State.  Throwing such analogies out require great care.  He was forced to apologize, but he should have known better.

As to whether Ron Morris is the journalistic buzz-saw Spurrier alleges, check out his recent column on Spurrier’s decision to play Connor Shaw against UAB.  I’ll be honest; I’ve read worse.  This doesn’t come close to what Skip Bayless would have said or what Jason Whitlock would have written in similar conditions.

But this is the article that Spurrier was referring to as “very negative, critical toward me, slandered my name, my integrity,” adding, “The guy’s trying to tarnish and ruin my reputation as a coach.”  Really, Coach?  He comes off sounding awfully thin-skinned.

True, much of the controversy surrounding Morris involves an article he wrote more than a year ago that accused Spurrier of “poaching” Bruce Ellington from the USC basketball team.  The facts for that are definitely in dispute.  But the more recent column is light years away from that.

3. WOLO-TV, the ABC affiliate in Columbia, also looks bad.  The station managers cancelled the “Mondays with Morris” segment in light of the controversies.  The timing of such a move looks bad enough, almost like pandering to Spurrier.

But WOLO general manager Chris Bailey compounded the mistake with a statement that includes the following gem: “Free speech … was originally put in place to protect media and writers from government censorship.  It does not, however, protect the writer from consequences in the realm of public opinion or the marketplace.”  Perhaps, Mr. Bailey, but that is because the assumption is that the media themselves will enforce high standards of free expression and debate in the public interest, rather than cutting and running when the heat is turned up.

With this line of thinking, the station would be justified in refusing to air controversial editorial comments on important political issues, because it is the station and not the government making the decision.  That is sad.

4. Finally, the other journalists covering the University of South Carolina are not looking too brave.  Their silence on the issue is disturbing.  The only protests against Spurrier’s words came from national media like Gregg Doyel at CBS Sports.  The only local protest came from Dan Cook of the Free Times, a Columbia weekly.  Nothing yet from the daily sports media.

It seems like Spurrier is getting a free ride from the beat writers covering USC.  They are open to the accusation that they are allowing Spurrier to intimidate and manipulate them.  And, the argument continues, they are letting him get away with it because they know that, as a winning coach, he has the fans’ support regardless of the ethics of his actions.

It is similar to the situation in Alabama (disclaimer: I am an Auburn fan), where the press covering Nick Saban seem reluctant to criticize or even address his treatment of the media.  Before the Western Kentucky game, when Saban went off on the sportswriters for underestimating WKU, the writers mainly joked about it.  The national media again was left to take Saban to task for a truly strange rant.

In both cases, the sports writers know that the fans — their readers — support the coach.  When the coach directly criticizes the media, the fans might respond by canceling subscriptions, or clicking on other websites.  It seems like the sports writers would rather “play ball” with the coach then stand up to him when he crosses the line, as Spurrier did with Morris.  They are intimidated by their readers as much as the coach.

Obviously, the treatment is different for coaches who are not winning.  Can you imagine what would happen if John L. Smith at Arkansas or Paul Johnson at Georgia Tech complained about the media at this point in the season?  The local media would rise up and attack.

Now think about coaches like Mark Richt at the University of Georgia.  He receives his share of criticism and comment, but does he chastise and try to manipulate the media?  He deals with it and moves on.

A colleague brought up another point.  Communities like Columbia, S.C., and Tuscaloosa, Ala., have a more provincial feel to them where coaches like Spurrier and Saban can get away with such treatment of the local media.  But the larger the city, the harder it is to pull that off.  

Lane Kiffin knows that he can’t get away with it at USC, try though he did.  Any coach, pro or college, who would try that in New York City, Chicago, Washington, and maybe even Atlanta (considering Richt’s approach) would only make a bad situation worse.

But win or lose, big town or small town, what Steve Spurrier is trying to accomplish with the media in Columbia is wrong.  And I wish that more journalists would have the courage to stand up to him on it.