Good read. I agree with a lot of it as well.
I have never had so much anticipation for a football game as I did
OSU-Texas. I owe it all to the Internet. In the past I could talk to folks about football, but it was one of many topics of common interest and few shared my passion for
OSU. Now I can visit a sight like this where all of those folks have been filtered out. Only the most passionate of the passionate visit regularly and we can find fodder to fuel topics on the most minute details of the program. We feed on one another's frenzy - good or bad the passion grows.
A loss is no longer 'Aw shucks, we'll get 'em next time'. It is someone's fault and assigning blame properly is of great import.
Recruiting has evolved into an unhealthy spectator sport where we all feel entitled to an opinion regarding where a teenager should attend college. Teenagers can actually betray us personally by choosing to leave the state, or by simply looking closely at the benefits of
OSU, but choosing to commit elsewhere.
And yes, ESPN IS out to get us, as is any other writer who dares to criticize the program or fails to list our stadium in its top 10.
But the media is not without blame. They fan the flames and - I am convinced - purposefully write controversial articles because of the uproar - and subsequent flood of emails - it will trigger.
But if we back away half a step we can see that this change in our culture is one of many triggered by cyberspace - and a trivial one at that.
BP is not using the Net to seduce young children (except for Thump), share plans for bombs, or solicit members of hate groups. But that is happening.
What the Net has done is enable individuals to form groups around special interests in a way not imaginable a decade ago. It has irrevocably changed the world beyond our wildest imaginations. There is little any of us can do but watch this change and see where it takes us. There will be good and there will be bad.
In that context the change in the college football landscape is nothing earth shattering. Sports writers can whine about the nasty email they receive, but they might take a half step back as well. Sports writers are simply a product of the technology of their times. Print, radio, tv have all had major impacts.
Their role evolves just as the role of a musician has evolved from that of a minstrel playing for whatever an audience within earshot cares to contribute, to millionaires selling countless copies of a song recorded from a single performance, and again to those same millionaires railing against further techological advances that put sound reproduction in the hands of that original audience.
Among the changes that sports writers are facing - and fearing - are the loss of a monopoly.
Anyone can be a sports writer today. Just start a blog or an Internet site. BP itself is the primary source of
OSU info for many. JoPa suffers partly because local papers friendly to the program are no longer the sole source of PSU info.
I enjoyed the reference to Grantland Rice as well - a man who was free to report the truth as he saw it, or to create the truth as he saw fit. Not saying he did, only that he was free to do so when information flow was limited.
There is nothing wrong with the Internet. The flaws are flaws of human nature. With new media they will simply manifest themselves in new ways.
It is Mr. Zemek who needs to adjust.