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“… I don't understand the mania around athletes announcing their sexual preference. Do the vast majority of Americans care whom Sheryl Swoopes sleeps with? That's assuming the vast majority of Americans even know who she is. That's not a dig at Swoopes, just astonishment that we in the media put her coming-out announcement on the front pages of sports sections across the country. It's mind-boggling to me. I'd like to go back and see how many of those sports sections put stories from the WNBA championship series on the front page this season. We somehow think if an athlete is gay it's bigger news than the reason we're supposed to care about her -- her skill as a player, and what she does with that skill -- in the first place.”

First of all, PK has his information wrong. Swoopes’ announcement was hardly front-page material. Maybe if there hadn’t been a World Series going on we would have paid more attention, but most media outlets pushed Swoopes to second-tier story status. Again, not a very controversial controversy.

But there’s something more disturbing about King’s insight. His idealism notwithstanding, homosexuality in professional athletics is difficult, troubled territory that this country moves to embrace very, very slowly. Professional athletes who come out – even those in second-tier popularity leagues like the WNBA – will inevitably be treated as figureheads in an emerging political movement with dangerous roads ahead of it. That Swoopes can come out publicly, and do so with so little recrimination, needs to be shouted from the mountaintops – so that other stars and athletes will feel comfortable opening up. Her sexuality does not need to be front page news, but, to some extent, the story of the ease of her public announcement should be spread far and wide.

Annoying Peter King moment #2: in the third of three “quick notes” on Colgate, where his daughter attends college, King announces that he is now “going ridiculously far afield.” This from the man whose widely-read column on the NFL regularly discusses such diverse topics as exotic coffees, airport hassles, his daughters, the politics of New Jersey high school softball, Coldplay and why “Clocks” is “one of the 20 best songs of all time,” and the greatness of Heineken Light. All of which are, of course, relevant and insightful football analyses. SMW shudders, quakes, and is generally terrified thinking about what would genuinely be “far afield” of MMQB. Maybe just something nasty about Brett Favre.

The Giants Win the Broadcast! The Giants Win the Broadcast

It had been a long time – a really, really long time - since anyone could credibly lead with highlights of a Redskins/Giants game (at least none that we would proudly be associated with). Today, that streak comes to an end: every major national sports website led with New York’s rout of Washington yesterday afternoon, even though the game itself was surely the least dramatic of the week.

Isn’t it great when successful teams come from huge media markets? Just as the Sox and Yanks were fading from view – and especially as the Yankees’ highly-anticipated postseason management shakeup seems unlikely to happen - it’s great to have two big East Coast teams back in the NFL limelight.

One of the ways that editors help manufacture this limelight is by tagging the meandering analyst columns that wander through various comments on any given football weekend. Currently at the Fox Sports homepage, the lead story is Jimmy Johnson’s football roundup column, presumably about the Redskins’ Sunday collapse. The ‘Skins are a big media draw in a huge media market – and they lost to a bigger draw in an even bigger market – so it’s no surprise that Fox would put that front and center. But the actual story wanders through half a dozen different teams and scenarios, spelling out Johnson’s thoughts on issues from across the league. Yes, the ‘Skins are the lead, but it’s hardly the focus of the column.

The same is true at Sportsline, which Vic Carucci’s “Week 8 Snapshots” as being about the Giants’ resurgence. In truth, Carucci grants equal space to every game, and just puts the Giants/’Skins up top to make his boss happy. East Coast Bias is a tricky thing, people: it perpetuates itself in these small corners of sports culture, and then we spend most of our energy blaming other people for it. Time to look in the mirror.

Not Much of a Follow-Through

Last week, SMW critiqued widespread inattention to the death of Richard Rose, the University of Minnesota-Morris junior killed by a falling goalpost during a postgame celebration. At the time, it seemed likely that the issue would surface during the media week, that perhaps once the glow of weekend football wore off somebody might pay attention. Think again.

Sure, it was a hectic week. The World Series, BCS coverage, and the NFL media circus running at full capacity – sports media clearly had its hands full with the day-to-day blitz. But this is no such story – this was a young man’s life, and it merited our attention.

It’s not like there wasn’t anything at all. A few local papers throughout the upper Midwest provided some coverage: on the politics of goalposts, the impact of Rose’s absence on the basketball team, and various efforts to prevent further tragedies. The fruitful, charismatic, and culturally-potent debate SMW wanted to have … well … it hasn’t happened. Unfortunately, one really solid editorial doesn’t do it.

Friends, Romans, etc.: this isn’t right. Rose’s death is a tragedy out of which could grow an opportunity for real public conversation about the institution of campus drinking. Yes, it would be hard for something like ESPN to credibly investigate campus drinking while in the middle of major advertising deals with Budweiser and Coors. But it’s not like those kinds of contradictions have bothered Bristol before… isn’t there room on the Hot Seat for just a few more questions?

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