Dodd-ering Through the Impotent Rage of the Spurned Sportswriter

I’ve been amused by the idea that a certain member of the sports media felt entitled to an interview by an NFL player and took to Twitter very pissed off that he was denied the interview by the athlete.

Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports got salty for no reason after Aaron Rodgers declined his request for an interview. The entitlement that dripped from Dodd’s series of tweets was somewhere in the neighborhoods of amusing, sad and pathetic.

What got to me, though, was the fact that Dodd also seemed to be pissed off that Rodgers was on the floor for the celebration and then had the audacity to not want to speak to Dodd, someone who thinks of himself as a kingmaker, apparently, because he writes about people who play games for their education/vocation.

Someone from the NCAA actually clarified that each institution is allowed to handout wristbands that grant certain people access to the floor for the celebration.

Although to be fair, Rodgers and his girlfriend, actress Olivia Munn, probably could have gotten VIP access without the VIP wristbands.

Something else about Dodd’s rant rankled me, though: it was an insinuation that if a potentially analogous situation had involved Kentucky basketball super fan Ashley Judd, then he would’ve been okay with how things played out.

The obvious sexism stands on its own and doesn’t need further parsing. Par for the course with many male sportswriters, I guess.

I don’t exactly understand what Dodd’s issue was, though. Was it simply Rodgers being able to get closer to the hoop that Dodd, who was relegated to the three point arc (according to his tweets)?

Was it Rodgers saying “No” that really irked him?

Although I wonder what, exactly, was Aaron Rodgers going to add to a game story about the Wisconsin Badgers? He went to a community college in California and went to Cal. He’s an adopted son of the state, not a native one; was not getting a quote from a PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL PLAYER really going to compromise the depth and integrity of a story about a college basketball game??!?!

I sincerely doubt it.

Although there is another train of thought here: Was Dennis Dodd just having one of those days at work where everyone and everything was pissing him off?

Honestly, that last one makes the most sense to me. And I can understand having a shitty day at work; we all have days where we wake up just mad at the world and not wanting to do anything. Days where folks can just wind you up for no particular reason.

If I follow that line of thought, I can understand Dodd’s frustration.

Suffice it to say, though, taking the impotent rage to Twitter is never the best move, because you will hear about it. That’s not grumbling to yourself; that’s putting people on public blast. And you will get blasted back if people find your point to be small minded and petty and illogical.