The Sports Page

Auburn’s notorious Journalism 101 class (now JRNL 1100) has claimed many victims.  Most forget the shame, especially if they survive a retake. PGA Tour rookie Gary Christian can only wonder what might have been.

Having sailed past the spelling test, he confronted the usage module. Strunk & White.  (The very mention sends a painful shudder through most.)  For a student who grew up learning Oxford English, it was a losing battle.

“It worked against 22 years of education.  I never studied, but that was one class I studied for,” he recalled.  “I got a 71.”  In the 101 grading scale, that is a failing grade. In its grading system, failing one exam means failing the course, regardless of your performance on other exams.  “I am not a fan of Journalism 101,” he said.

But journalism’s loss was golf’s gain.  Gary completed his degree in mass communication in 1995 (with honors), and now, a mere 16 years later, he has made it to the PGA tour.

His candid, easy-going manner has earned the attention of a growing number of golf journalists, as well as the tourplayers.com Web site.  (I’ll send you there to get his take on his first experience tailgating at Auburn in 1993 rather than detail it here.  It’s worth the trip.)

A warning about Gary Christian: He speaks English as if it were a second language. If you follow him on Twitter (@GazzaGolf1966), you might need a translator to understand the Brit.

After playing alongside Davis Love III, he declared him a “pucker geezer.” True, Davis’s pursed lips rival Renee Zellweger, but was that necessary?  He explains. “Pucker” means genuine.  “Geezer” means great guy.  “Maybe I should have called him a ‘diamond geezer,’” Gary says.  Yeah, much clearer.

And when he described world No. 1 Rory McIlroy as a “scouser” for his perm and “shell suit” (i.e., track suit) top, well, it certainly painted a picture of what one would look like, though Gary clarified that a true scouser would also wear several gold medallions — and be from Liverpool.

From his outgoing manner and his refusal to take himself as seriously as his game, Gary seems a natural for the broadcast booth, and even he acknowledges the possibility, acknowledging an English accent as meeting a job requirement.

But don’t think he plans to recycle other commentators, like Gary McCord (“Sometimes he tries too hard”) or David Feherty (“A little over the top for me. There is a very thin line between having enough material and having too much.”)

For all his talk of humor and pucker geezers, however, Gary is all business on the golf course.  His dress is as conservative as everything else isn’t.  Payne Stewart had his knickers, but Gary is leaving the shell top for the scousers.  “I’m pretty reserved,” he said.  “If you dress like a clown, you play like a clown.”  On those days you struggle, he pointed out, you don’t want to draw attention to yourself.

Performance-wise, Gary is off to a good start. He recalled that the first hole of his first PGA tournament, in Hawaii (tough gig), he hit his approach within 8 feet and birdied.  On the next hole, he lost his drive in a palm tree.

But overall, he has done well.  Of the 26 rookies on the tour, he ranks 7th in stats.  On the positive, he made five cuts in a row before barely missing in Puerto Rico.  The tough part has been turning those cuts made into high finishes.  He has one Top 15 finish and was toward the top in the Honda Classic before fading late and finishing tied for 30th.

He is one of four Auburn golfers currently on tour.  Gary is not as well-acquainted with the most successful of the crew, Jason Dufner.  He is closer friends with Roland Thatcher, whom Gary recruited to Auburn in 1995.  He has also developed a friendship with fellow rookie Will Claxton, who is 10 years younger but, like Gary, has found some success his rookie year, including a Top 10 finish at a tournament in Mexico.

“I’m good friends with him; he’s a great fellow,” Gary said of Claxton.  “He enjoys being around Auburn.”  Claxton came out of nowhere to make it through PGA Tour Qualifying School.  Gary said he credits it to “life changes, a new perspective.”

Gary is enjoying the ride too.  At Doral, his tee time was close to Tiger Woods’, so he warmed up next to him at the driving range.  “Standing next to one of the top five players in the history of golf,” he said.  “It was an odd reminder that this truly is a dream come true.”

But he still has time for fun.  Gary insists that in his future is a tourplayers.com video shoot of him having his back waxed, like Steve Carell.  Let’s see Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy top that.

(The following has been published in the March 12 print edition of Sports Business Journal.  Many thanks to the folks there.)

I remember an illustration from youth rallies and assemblies.  The speaker would have someone stand on a chair, with a friend standing on the floor next to him/her.  The one on the chair would be challenged to lift the friend.  Impossible.

Then the speaker would challenge the friend to bring the one on the chair down.  One yank, and mission accomplished.  The warning?  It’s easier to drag someone down than lift someone up.

Perhaps someone needs to bring a chair to the Poynter Institute.  In their role as ethical watchdog for ESPN , the Institute risks dragging themselves down in their attempts to lift ESPN — or, at least, to be perceived as lifting ESPN.

The partnership was announced in March 2012 and hailed as a “new step in media transparency.”   Poynter Institute staff would review ESPN’s content and practices and comment as appropriate, while also addressing fan concerns and writing monthly essays.  ESPN would gain Poynter’s expertise in teaching and encouraging ethical behavior.

In theory.

In practice, the arrangement seems to be having little effect on how ESPN conducts its conflict-of-interest-filled daily business.

First, some background on the Poynter Institute.  An excellent training facility for all aspects of journalism, the Institute was funded by Nelson Poynter, publisher of the St. Petersburg Times and other newspapers, who willed controlling stock in his newspapers to the Institute as a funding source.  (Disclosure: I attended a seminar there in the late 1990s.)  It’s impossible to summarize for the purpose of this article.  Check the hyperlink above.

So it is not surprising that the essays themselves, by Kelly McBride and Jason Fry, are excellent, thoughtful and deserving of consideration by readers as much as by ESPN’s management.  But are they more than just words on a screen?

First, have you ever tried finding these essays?  You’ll need help, and here it is:  On the entry page, scroll down almost to the bottom.  Under “Feedback” is a link to “Poynter Review Project.”

The uninitiated reader might think the feature is dedicated to a review of the career of Michael Poynter, backup QB for Rice.  Understandable, because the name “Poynter” is meaningless to most outside of the journalism industry.  You’ll have to ask ESPN why they don’t put the word “ethics” there.

Vague as that is, it’s an improvement.  You used to have to go almost all the way to the right at the top menu bar, to “Page 2 & Commentary.”  It was buried at the bottom of the commentary list — not so bad, since Rick Reilly’s column was next to the bottom. (Of course, Reilly is hardly buried, since his columns by contrast are frequently featured on the ESPN front page.)

Second, what impact are the essays having?  McBride criticized the network’s lack of action after hearing the alleged victim’s taped conversations with former Syracuse assistant Bernie Fine’s wife.  Fry and McBride also criticized their slow coverage of the Sandusky scandal.

From a practical perspective, those columns might have encouraged more aggressive coverage of allegations in the case against former AAU president Bobby Dodd.  Of course, the lack of action in the Fine and Sandusky cases has caused reflection and reform across the board in such cases, but McBride’s and Fry’s particular critiques of ESPN were enlightening.

My concern is the impact on the broader conflicts of interest, involving ESPN’s double life as an outlet for objective news information and a producer of overly-hyped programming.  In these cases — for example, McBride’s appraisal of ESPN’s schizophrenic role in reporting and promoting college football realignment — the columns seem like window dressing.  ESPN lets McBride and Fry reflect and ponder, but ultimately they are left to their own ivory tower, worth only PR points for ESPN, with no real change.

A more recent slam came from Richard Deitsch of SI.com, in his best and worst of 2011.  He double-slapped both Poynter and ESPN for their lack of follow-up regarding allegations that ESPN analyst Craig James hired a PR firm to smear former Texas Tech head coach Mike Leach, whose book Bruce Feldman (then of ESPN) co-wrote.  Although Poynter mentioned the allegations, neither the Institute nor the Worldwide Leader has taken further action.  That earned a “dud” designation from Deitsch.

Their initial response to the charges of racism in coverage of Jeremy Lin did not appear until three days after the worst of the offenses — the “Chink in the Armor” headline that cost an ESPN.com editor his job.  Not very nimble.

The third concern involves ESPN’s payments to Poynter.  In an e-mail to McBride, I asked her for details on this.  She declined, saying that Poynter, although a non-profit, does not disclose the details of such client contracts.  (Disclaimer: True to form as a Poynter faculty member, McBride provided me much instruction and background in our brief e-mail exchange, even as I prepared an article that would criticize her organization.)

In this non-disclosure, I think Poynter errs.  Given their status within the journalism profession as an ethical stalwart, their transparency in this relationship should be above the letter of the law.  I don’t believe that Poynter is being bought off by ESPN, lending their name as sanctifying gloss over the network’s ethical derp-dom.

But I do believe that Poynter could head off any ethical misgivings while showing that they are truly the Worldwide Leader when it comes to journalism ethics.  It takes some organizational courage to show the specific financial benefits of such relationships.  But that courage is buoyed by confidence that what they are doing in their work with ESPN is right.

In fact, I don’t believe that ESPN will drag the Poynter Institute down.  But to extend my opening metaphor, I don’t believe that Poynter will raise ESPN up, either.  I’m thinking that, however long the relationship lasts, ESPN will remain at its level of ethics, and Poynter, from its lofty position, will end up with sore arms and improved finances.