On Grantland and Sports Media By Way of Food

I was on vacation at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park when I learned about the demise of Grantland via Twitter.

My first reaction was shock. My second reaction was, well, this: 

This was my first thought. Good people got the axe today. Bayless and SAS will be on air Mon. w/o fail. https://t.co/AoNt9aZFbK

— Dave Singleton (@dfsingleton) October 30, 2015

But as I continued on throughout the day, and as some of the eulogies and takedowns have rolled in, I've become somewhat introspective (as I am wont to do).

The main takeaway I've gathered from the demise of Grantland is this:

I don't necessarily think I want to work full-time in sports media anymore.

Every now and then, I've had the itch and I've managed to scratch it in some ways. I do part-time work here on my own site (where I have the pleasure of being able to write whenever I please and whatever I please) and on The Student Section. I've written at Crystal Ball Run, Southern Pigskin, Rock M Nation and at Bleacher Report in the days when that was considered to be a punchline instead of an opportunity. I started on a site way back in the day called E-Sports Media Group.

I dabbled in a couple of podcasts on here, and did semi-regular spots on ESPN Radio in Coastal Georgia. I have been grateful for all of those opportunities.

And yes, during a couple of bouts of (extended) unemployment from my vocation, I probably could have better seized opportunities to turn this sports media avocation into a new career.

The time for that has come and gone, I believe. Some of it because of my age and the fact that I feel it is too late to really break into the game.

Some of it is because of a lack of confidence.

Some of it is plain old frustration with the state of things.

Maybe We Should Stop Calling Student Athletes Kids.

The 2015 NCAA Men's College Basketball Tournament wrapped up last night, with the Duke Blue Devils walking away with shards of a net, a new floor if they want it, and the satisfaction of a successful championship season being completed.

And they'll head either back to class or off to prepare for the next phase of their lives (even if that seems to annoy the senior Senator from Missouri for some reason. But that's another post.).

I consume a lot of sports media. Not as much as I used to, because I just have more important things to do, but more than a sane person probably should. And with my interest/expertise being in the realm of the college experience and intercollegiate athletics, I spend a lot of time reading about and listening to people blabber about college athletes.

I constantly hear sportswriters, analysts and commentators refer to the young men and women as "kids".

It irks me, to be quite honest.

Colin Cowherd Would Rather Blow Out His Nonexistent Brain Than His Knee. OK.

Colin Cowherd is slime.

His reptilian, repugnant, race baiting and elitist approach to sports radio has been document multiple places multiple times (just go hit Google to find the list too long for me to link directly to).

But today’s commentary on what New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski said during an interview on Jim Rome’s show on Showtime was too much.

Gronk basically said that he would rather suffer a knee injury or a concussion. Gronk’s response was, well, telling:

“[S]o if we’re sitting here and I had choose would I want a concussion right now or my knee blown out, I’m going to say a concussion. Why would I want to sit there for eight months and not do anything, when with a concussion I’ll just wake up and I’ll be ready to go again.”

Thank you Dr. Gronkowski.

Cowherd—that noted M.D., PhD and scholar—waded into the discussion as well. Some of his choice quotes were:

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.