Bill Simmons: Friend or Foe?

The other day I was “promoted” to College Basketball Community Leader.  Once the confetti was cleaned up, the groupies had gone home, and the last champagne bottle was pitched into the recycling bin, Mr. Tim Pollock—the other CB Community Leader—and I were left brainstorming suggestions to stoke interest in the CB page.

In passing, I mentioned that we ought to do a column on the NBA draft.  Tim’s response was, “NBA draft stuff is a good idea.  It's never wise trying to imitate Bill Simmons (just because the guy is too funny and therefore impossible to successfully copy), but we could steal one or two of his ideas—worst dressed family member of player, etc., etc.”

There it was. 

I was shaken outside of my little over-stimulated internet media cocoon.  I have expressed a few disagreements with Bill Simmons in the past. Although, it should be noted that this disagreement was a thoroughly one-sided affair.

The thing with Simmons, though, is despite the fact that I have ambivalent feelings about him, I find his internet persona utterly fascinating.

What shook me up the most was the fact that I forget, from time to time, that many fans revere the Sports Guy, which is probably why he was going to interview Barack Obama.  Bill Simmons is an internet demigod for some people—especially Bostoners.

Needless to say, I don’t count myself in that group any more. 

But I used to.

I was initiated into Sports Guy-dom in 2001.  To me, it was an entirely new way to consume sports and entertainment information.  “You mean he’s comparing Cheers and Seinfeld like Dr. Jack Ramsey on ESPN? Sweet!”

It was like discovering SportsCenter in the mid-90s as a teenager.  Like Karl Ravech and Craig Kilborn then, Bill Simmons in 2001 was kind of cool, even a little edgy.

These guys were interested in making sports even more entertaining than it already was, and conveying it through a pop culture feed tube.

The Red Sox first World Series victory was the zenith of my zeal for him.  Simmons deserves a tremendous amount of credit for serving as an outstanding conduit through which Red Sox fans may express their joy.  I was never a baseball fan, but it still was captivating to read him at that time.

About a year later, I was exposed to Deadspin, a fantastically snarky website that had me laughing from the get-go. Deadspin readers put anything and everything under the microscope in the name of humor, including—and especially—the Sports Guy.

I was shaken to find out that people actually hated, and I mean loathed, Bill Simmons.

How could this be?  His CB columns did stink, the jokes were overused, and I was a little tired of hearing about his buddies.  All of a sudden, I was joining them, “Yeah! You’re right! He does suck!”

The more I thought about it, the more I tired of his shtick.

Yet, I never stopped reading him in spite of my anathema.  Sure, I do get fed up with him from time to time and now read him with a more skeptical eye.  But the guy keeps cranking out columns, most of which are quality. 

What they say is true: there's nothing like your first.

I'm not the only one either. This Deadspin poll and the comments below concur with me.  I thought the vote would be 75-25 against Simmons, but the readers surprisingly voted for him - assuming Jimmy Kimmel, J-Bug, Hench, and the Sports Gal didn't game the system. 

There’s a vociferous minority that lays into him, and he deserves it.

There’s also a vocal majority that likes him and he deserves that, too.

Yep, those are my feelings.