The venerable Michael Wilbon came to Maryland to speak to a crowd of rapt listeners, who - in the question and answer session I will get to in a minute - proved to be, for the most part, a bunch of pandering ninnies.
Wilbon detailed his love affair with sports and story-telling and shared how he was able to marry them through his rise from journalism major at Northwestern to reporter at the Washington Post.
Throughout the talk Wilbon came off equal parts smug and charmingly profane. Of course he took the requisite shot at bloggers, claiming that he doesn't want to waste his valuable time reading the unfounded opinions of people who don't get to actually talk to the coaches, players etc. But at other times he was delightful, saying that he thinks following recruiting websites is like watching "kiddie porn," and offering to fly a kid out to Vegas when the fucktard asked him what he thought of a Spurs-Magic Finals. Which brings me to my next point:
Yesterday realized that I hate Joe Mindless ESPN-watching Sports Fan (I know, it took a while) and the Ballroom where Wilbon gave his speech was packed with a bunch of "knuckleheads" (to borrow from the PTI lexicon) slobbing on the knob of the WWL.
This became most apparent during the inane question and answer session. For every one intelligent question that either a) raised a particularly relevant or interesting topic, provoking a passionate response from Wilbon or b) asked a question that only someone with the stature and connections of a Wilbon could have answered, there were at least 8 people who asked some variation of "What can my favorite team do to win their playoff series" or "Tell me about something you already said on TV earlier today"...
I mean JESUS, if you want to know what Michael Wilbon thought of Jason Kidd's flagrant foul on Jannero Pargo just go fucking watch your TV! (AND WHO THE EFF CARES ANYWAY????). If I had a nickel for every time a kid said "First of all Mike, I loooooooove you on PTI, but you gotta stop letting TK win toss-up..." Stop sucking on the teet of ESPN for two seconds and just ask the man a question worth a response.
Anway, as I mentioned before, the thing that bothered me most during the event was when Wilbon briefly discussed his disdain for new media, and how he doesn't deem the blogosphere worthy of his attention because he doesn't believe people typing at home are "qualified" to have informed opinions (namely because they a) lack formal journalism training b) have no accountability c) don't play golf with Jerry Sloan on Sundays d) have the competitive advantage of their mom bring all their meals down to the basement, so they don't have to take a break from reading baseball prospectus.)
This reminded me of a recent Deadspin post by Big Daddy Drew who discussed the pitfalls of what he called "privileged sports writing." So I waited in line for 35 minutes to get up to the microphone and ask Wilbon a question.
"Mr. Wilbon, unlike 99% of sports fans in this country, you have the privilege of being immersed in the world you are covering. Like you said, you know Michael Jordan and you've met Muhammad Ali. You experience sports on a level that most of us cannot even understand. Do you perceive this as a burden? How can you connect with an audience that you may not have anything in common with?"
What I received was a refreshingly honest and quasi-satisfactory answer. The following quote is paraphrased (I'm putting it in quotes none the less, for effect).
"I can't." Wilbon (pretty much) said, bluntly. "But that's not my goal. I am trying to give you, the reader, something that you could not have known had you not read my column. I can connect with you on the level of "I know people in Chicago want to hear about the Cubs," but I can't really connect. The thing is, that isn't my goal."
I wanted to ask him if he therefore thought that there was a place for that type of interaction, where I can post on a link to Greivis Vasquez in an SGA election video and one of the brothers Mottram can tell me (or at least anonymous online me) that they appreciate me for digging this shit up, but alas I was cut off by the people who were moderating the Q&A session. But hey, they probably just wanted to know if Wilbon thought Matt Ryan was the right choice for their Atlanta Falcons at #3. Ninnies!
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