Media miscellany.

Miscellaneous articles from around sports media.

Quick question: Did anyone know that Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Matt Jones faced felony cocaine charges in the off-season? Did you forget? Because I CERTAINLY did not. The fact that that Jones did cocaine is bad enough. But the fact that he is STILL on the field, AND the Jags? leading receiver is totally unfair. So I?m here to put some fairness and balance into the picture.

Matt Jones was actually caught by a police officer in a truck with a credit card, cutting up the cocaine. He was ?allegedly? caught with an 1/8 of an ounce of cocaine. As I mentioned, Jones is STILL ballin?. This appeal process has been the LONGEST process I?ve ever experienced in my life. As you read, Week 14 is underway and action still has not been taken. Not by the owner of the Jags, Wayne Weaver. Not by Roger Goodell. Not by anyone.

Sports on My Mind, “YOU DON?T KNOW STEPHON MARBURY“

Simply put: Stephon Marbury is an American hero and sports? greatest humanitarian [1]. And only in America ? and its cartoonized world of sports coverage ? can he become a villain.

I know, I know. You want to talk about the millions of dollars Marbury is making? how he is a ?rich?, ?spoiled?, ?ungrateful?, ?diva?, ?me-first? athlete. Yeah, you want to talk about the millions he makes ? but not the millions he has given away. That?s right. I want to talk about the $500K that Marbury pledged to Katrina victims, or the $4 million dollars he pledged to New York City police, firefighters, EMS, and teachers. …

ESPN doesn?t want you to know Stephon Marbury either. The man is simply too complex to fit into their ?good-vs.-evil-only? sports narratives. Besides, black villains get much higher ratings than black visionaries. When Tony Romo took a homeless man to the movies last month ESPN.com was on the scene, just as it was when Romo helped a man fix a flat tire. ESPN The Magazine soon wondered: ?Why is Tony Romo such a Good Samaritan??, and all of ESPN?s afternoon shows had effusive praise culminating in one ?Pardon The Interruption? (PTI) pundit exclaiming: ?How can you not love Tony Romo!?

Deadspin, “The Curious Case of Fred Hickman“

Hickman’s role was on SportsCenter, but he also hosted the NBA Shootaround and did plenty of fill-in roles. ESPN will not comment on on why Hickman is not longer with the company due to its policy and also because there is a rumored medical reason for his absence, which HIPAA laws preclude them from commenting on. But other current and former colleagues suggest the Hickman experiment was doomed to fail from the get-go and some suggest that the reason his quick exit from the WWL are very murky, but were also very obvious.

According to some people close to the network, Hickman missed more than 200 days in a little under three years at ESPN. The reasons for his absence were, according to many of the individuals who knew about this varied from legitimate to absurd. …

ESPN was apparently warned about Hickman’s work ethic and odd behavior prior to hiring him from CNN staffers, but chose to do so anyway.