So recently I wrote an article discussing some thoughts about the college 2009 season and one of the players that I wrote about contacted me regarding some of the things I said. He was a bit surprised by some of my talking points and wanted to give me his take on the situation.
First, I want to say that I welcome any input on what I write and I'm always open to new ideas and topics. Please send me emails at airmatch24@gmail.com if you want to discuss something.
Secondly, I wanted to mention that a lot of what I write, and this goes for most sports writers, is nothing but fluff. I recently was inspired to bring up this topic after seeing the most recent Terrell Owens debacle go down.
One of the reasons why sports are as popular as they are in America is because sports writers debate topics and get fans interested in the stories that revolve around the players they follow. Tony Romo mentioned this in his Cowboys/Giants post game interview. However, because it's a business, writers have to continually re-invent themselves and come up with story after story. While it would be nice if we always had a great story to write, epic sagas like Michael Phelps, Joe Kershner, the '07-'08 Boston Celtics, Michael Vick, or Conference 1 only come along once in awhile. Deadlines are deadlines however, and we need something for Monday's column.
This doesn't necessarily mean that journalists manifest news, but it does mean that they sift through sports data with a magnifying glass and when they come across a detail that can be spun into a story, it will be. Whether or not this story actually has any merit or importance in the locker room is not guaranteed but what is guaranteed is that folks at home/work will read it and be entertained. I've been guilty of this on more than one occasion and on more than one occasion I've received a concerned email from a pertinent party. I'm not complaining, it's the price I pay for having an audience. Elite players that get written about have the same problem. I call it "pretty girl tax". Pretty girls get eye balled, harassed, and judged based on their appearance, and despite their issues with it, they don't wish they were ugly (or at least don't do anything about it). You want to be pretty? You want to be great at Ultimate? You want a major audience? You're going to have to deal with these sorts of things. Most folks aren't as lucky and fail to draw the same attention. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
However, the take home message is to try and not let it get to you. What I write, like what Bill Simmons or Tim Kurkjian writes, should not affect the game itself and if it does, players need to NOT read it. These stories shouldn't actually matter, because winning is the only thing that matters. I get the feeling though, that in developing somewhat of a journalism niche, I have introduced a new set of emotions in some ultimate players. I got into this business because I wanted every player in the country (college and club) to realize just how awesome our sport is and to pay attention to it the way they pay attention to the NFL, MLB, NBA, etc... However, I'm guessing that some players I write about aren't exactly ready to be the LeBron James or Peyton Manning of Ultimate. But, because they are the best at our modest little sport, they get the throne, or the dog house, depending on the story.
So to those lucky few players (because believe me, you are lucky), I have this to say: It's all fluff. Don't take what I or anyone else says too seriously. This is all just a game and games are supposed to be fun. If you have taken offense to something I wrote, don't waste your time getting angry. You'll be one of a 1,000 that hates my guts and you're better off remaining happy that you are significant enough to be written about. If I were making money off trash talking, that would be one thing, but believe me, my trips to Texas, Colorado, Vancouver, etc.. aren't free and I am wayyy in the minus when it comes to ultimate expenses. However, like the players I write about, I love this game and am willing to make sacrifices for what I love.
And just to re-enforce my initial point, nothing that comes out of my blog is definitive law, it's just my opinion. If I am off base, incorrect, or misinformed, don't waste your time getting all steamed up about it. I try not to shoot my mouth off senselessly, but I ruffle feathers some times and I really should not. Maybe it's because ultimate players are all nerds at heart and it is easy to mentally perturb them. If you are a dumb jock, you aren't smart enough to be mentally agitated, but if you are an MIT grad, the mental momentum associated with stuff like this is pretty significant. A brilliant friend of mine once told me that it's because of our intelligence that ultimate players have trouble executing under pressure. We are just too smart to block out the pressure and for those that are lucky enough to have this skill, F@#$ You!!! I kid...but seriously, go to hell.
Anyway, it's all a game and even if I could grow a mustache, I wouldn't be twisting it while hatching up a scheme to piss off poor elite players. I've got better things to do with my time, like generate this sick RNAi western blot:
Happy Holidays folks.
just my thoughts
match diesel
7 comments:
Listen, as a name that occasionally appears on your site, it’s my opinion that your writing actually detracts from how fun playing ultimate is for me.
You are right; all sports writing is fluff. Using only piecemeal information and terribly inexperienced and incorrect analysis, sports writers write things that players or coaches would never think.
The interest generated by the media in professional sports that you speak of translates directly into more money to the players, in terms of attendance, tv, advertisements...
Your writing, on the other hand, brings no revenue to the sport, or more importantly, to me. This is no insult. I mean come on, Shakespeare would bring no major attendance, publicity, or advertising dollars to a market as small and dispersed as ours.
You could make an argument that because my name is on your blog that I get a respect from our community that most do not. And you know what? It’s true. I have a lot more friends in the ultimate community than I otherwise would if people didn’t know who I was. Here’s the rub though: I don’t deserve it. Or better yet: There are so many other players you’ve never heard of who do.
Your incorrect and incomplete analysis discounts the importance the rest of the players make. Generally the top players, the ones you write about, cancel each other out. They will all catch some goals, throw some longer passes... but games are won and lost on things, in your blog's opinion, are much smaller, of little consequence, and thus unmentioned - things like the number of live side cuts to the disc generated by cutters 3-5, how many stall counts the defense gets higher than 6, by how close defenders stay on deep cuts... these types of information include the play of the worst on the team, sometimes even more so than the top players. Look at Jam this year - they had all those top players for years now, but the difference this nationals was Adam Scow and Justin Sadfie. Teams who had answers (however unsatisfactory) to their Bart and Damien problem could not stop them from getting open and moving the frisbee. Seattle was able to beat them a few times not because they figured out how to ‘shut down’ Gabe, but because their defenders 4-7 players on the field were able to stop Jam’s. I know, there are better players than them on the team. Faster, better throwers, higher jumpers - but the play of Adam and Justin was the difference between winning and losing at nationals this year. Your blog would never recognize this, and never give them the credit they deserve.
You can call me and all others who receive your attention lucky. And we are. But until you start talking about entire teams, and not just the top players on them, I will continue to feel that I am lucky at other deserving player’s expense. This is not fun, and because you don’t benefit me in any material way, I don’t like your blog.
MAn ..that is a really clean western and your RNAi is working very good ... It is not very quenttative but maybe you can do an Q-PRR
I take offense to not mentioning Safdie because I did mention Safdie in my Sarasota recap.
As for all the analysis you are speaking of, it really is an amount of detail I don't want to get into. I mean, if you watch Monday Night Football, in my opinion, Ron Jaworski is too intense when it comes to analyzing the game. He loves it, but at a point, he stops being entertaining and that is the whole purpose of the broadcast. It's not like we are in the film room with Tony Romo and Wade Phillips. Maybe some people want that kind of detail. Personally, I'm happy with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.
In addition, you wrote "But until you start talking about entire teams, and not just the top players on them..". Sorry, but this a is a really naive statement in the sense that you don't appreciate how hard it is for an outsider to discuss the game at remotely interesting level. I mean elite players know elite players so this all seems like basic information to you, but it's cryptic as hell for everyone else. It's like science, some people know the in's and out's of an RNAi western blot and others have no idea what any of it means. I don't criticize those that don't however, because they aren't like me and I'm not like you. Enjoy being an elite player, I'll enjoy trying to articulate what I see.
The bottom line is that I'm not trying to teach people how to become Jam or Sockeye or whomever, I'm just trying to give them an idea of what they are looking at. Plus, as I've said before, I'm not all that stellar at appreciating the sort of detail you are describing. That is what The Huddle is good at and for those that are interested in the topic, there is a ton of great information there. Personally, I just think it's kinda boring.
And as far as not liking my blog, I can't help but smirk. If you really hated it, you wouldn't drop 508 words on a comment about how much you don't like it, you'd just not read it.
I do however really appreciate your word choice. Most people are really abrasive and dismissive when they disagree with me and your comments were very respectful and reasonable. I feel like some people fail to realize just how important the delivery of a message is, as opposed to just the message itself.
and for cAtA, i've got quantitation...densitometry baby.
My tubulin exposure is short to avoid over saturation so I could normalize no problem, but what's cool about this western is that the knockdown is so prominent that I don't really need quantitation of the WB to convince people that the protein has been 86'ed. As long as I can quantitate a cellular phenotype associated with the biochemistry (already done), I'm in 5 minute mile shape.
And this was done with Ambion's new silencer select siRNAs and I only needed 5nM of the oligos, 5nM!!!
But you don't post what you see, Match, or else you don't see very much. You've reported on tournaments you didn't attend. If IRC You've mentioned Seth's impact at a tournament when he was hurt and didn't really play. You never mention the safe steady players who break the mark to get flow going and open up the field for huckers, and who don't ever turn it over, who play shut down D without the big layout block. You seem to be missing huge parts of the game.
I read your blog to be entertained by your constant attempts to claim that a year of blogging has made you some sort of legendary journalist who knows what Peter Gammons is all about. I find the continued emergence of ego in your writing hilarious and sociologically interesting. Go back and read some of your first posts - it wasn't there. I read it with morbid curiousity to see if you've figured out the names of any club players that weren't major college stars in the last few years. I don't read it to gain any knowledge about frisbee.
I suppose you could say that I like your blog. but not for any of the reasons that you hope, although maybe you don't care, hits are hits.
-ray
To be honest, I totally agree with the ego comments. It wasn't there in my earlier posts but I don't necessarily think that is a bad thing. Not many people have done what I did, so who's to say what I should or should not be when I come out of the tunnel. The sociological impact of my experiences is definitely something that interests me as well.
As for me, I got what I wanted and I'm more or less over investigative journalism. My lab work is where my true passion is and I drop a few lines on my blog every other week or so when I get an idea that's worth spending and hour or two to put together.
Recently, I've been trying to separate myself from my Match Diesel persona and work more on Michael Fiedler. However, I really enjoy writing and I tend to give in to my urges every now and again. It's kind of like Michael Corleone, "Everytime I try to get out, they pull me right back in".
What's cool is that in some ways my journalistic efforts over the last year and half have given me a ton of confidence, not just in my ultimate life, but my entire life as well. If i can go from just another RSDer to what I am now in 18 months, think of what I can do in the lab with all that mental energy and effort? Science is where my true passion is and whereas I once was just another self-conscience grad student, now I believe in myself enough to take some risks and potentially be a successful Postdoc/PI.
So if you want vintage Match Diesel from a year ago, I'm sorry, you're out of luck. I've matured in some ways and moved on from what I once was. With that in mind, feel free to take me off your active radar. Hopefully the criticisms you are discussing will be acknowledged by another up and comer and he/she can blow my work out of the water.
if its all bs, then you can write off these critiques too.
"If you really hated it, you wouldn't drop 508 words on a comment about how much you don't like it, you'd just not read it."
no, he really hates it so he'll do both. i think the declaration of independence had.... 1328ish words. A simple "screw you" might have sufficed, but it really wouldn't have had the same... kick, you know?
As for what Seth mentioned about ultimate theory, well, too bad you aren't interested in that stuff, cause that is what i'm actually looking for. And, No, I don't think the huddle has gotten into subtle strategies as specific as that in any of its issues.
oh, and in my opinion, a true sports entertainment writer wouldn't hide his face or delay from commenting after a certain furious george... well...
You said "I can't imagine Furious missing the show". then you said, "Having Furious go down at Regionals was tough on me, but it allowed me to relax a little bit because I knew that if I didn't make it [to] Florida, it wasn't the end of the world, my boys weren't gonna be their anyway."
if you're going to back the wrong horse, just comment objectively on why their run at nationals went south (or remained quite north, as the case may be) instead of getting ready to check out completely, something which you faulted furious for in their labor day game against bravo.
darn it, Match, just try harder, and I'll keep reading. Maybe a little strategy from time to time?
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