For you ask the questions,
The world yearns to hear.
You find the answers,
Deaf to fear.
Write the headlines and
Make the deadlines but
Keep your eyes open,
Neglecting bedtime, cut.
I'll stop there.
If you can relate to those lines, there's no need to explain. But if you can't, let me take you way back to two weeks ago.
Senior Sports Editor Aaron Mansfield and I had just concluded our mission to the City of Brotherly Love.
"You know, you really have to be a prick to do our job," Mansfield said.
Temple had just destroyed the football team, but we still needed quotes from the players and coaches to write the game story that was running.
So the press conference came and went, and my colleague and I shared our mutual feelings of near-disgust with ourselves. How could we press these heartbroken student-athletes for answers just to further exploit their failures?
At that point, I couldn't imagine what it must be like to have to continually interview someone about an aspect that even I know I wouldn't want to talk about.
Actually, I never really felt like the "prick" that Mansfield said our job required being until less than a week ago.
Last week, I wrote the article about Desi Green's dismissal from the wrestling team. I really felt bad for the athletic department because of all the momentum surrounding the wrestling team (and lack thereof for the football team).
Though I knew that Green's situation was a very controversial one and felt it should be publicized, I never meant for anyone to be hurt in any way. I also realized that some of Green's quotes in the article could really jeopardize his future.
But it was an important story regardless. Green's quotes added to the quality of that story, and judging from the backlash following its publication, it must have been a decent article.
Amidst all the misunderstandings and apologies that followed that issue, I thought back to a story I covered during my tenure as a staff writer.
Women's basketball head coach Linda Hill-MacDonald blew a game for her team by calling a timeout that the Bulls didn't have, right after senior guard Brittany Hedderson banged a game-tying three-point shot.
With seconds left on the clock, the opposing team was given two technical foul free throws. The Bulls lost.
I asked Hill-MacDonald several questions in that press conference, but I didn't ask anything about the timeout she called because I didn't want to be the "prick."
However, that was the main storyline of the game. That headline got lost in the story because I didn't ask those questions.
To give you, the reader, the best story possible, we have to ask those difficult questions that nobody else wants to ask.
Maybe others do want to ask. I wanted to before I began reporting. But now I have to, for you.
Email: andreius.coleman@ubspectrum.com
