Why do beat writers and columnists write about college football like they themselves are strapping up on Saturdays? The answer and solution to our frustration lies in examining the story of the football butt pad that so many of us share.
The Infamous Butt Pad Quandary
I remember the anticipation. The kind that only the kids who haven't been through late July practices in the state of Florida get. The kind that goes away before you are even done stretching because you realize that you are scorching hot and out of breath and practice is yet to begin.
But the thing that took the anticipation away from me happened before the first practice whistle ever sounded. It was showing up at peewee practice with a butt pad worn like a cup and waddling my way around until finally a coach asked if it was in the right spot.
While not a write of passage into football, or journalism, placing the butt pad in the front-protecting what it closely resembles—rather than in the back-seemingly protecting nothing-has helped me understand why it is that I can no longer enjoy reading most local beat writers/columnists.
It's not that they need to have suffered this humiliation to write about football. It is because they are unable to.
You see, most local beat writers and columnists—like I did only at my first football practice—continually put their butt pad in the wrong spot.
Instead of truly and emphatically listening to the players and coaches telling and showing them the practical place for their butt pad—and the story itself—these journalists keep their butt pad—semiotic of their ego—in front because it looks like it fits there. They are unable to see that the other people involved are what makes a story.
Whether they have played the game or not, something in their psyche is telling them that they are lacking. It is telling them that the only way to be complete is to look like they fit in the front. So they stay up front blurring the picture rather than helping readers gain a complete perspective of the subject matter.
I mean, when is the last time that you put down the paper and felt like you saw the whole picture of the subject and not it's bits and pieces?
When these journalists are in the front fighting to look the part while also trying to observe sporting events and news they end up writing and speaking about themselves in a way that is distracting in the best case and laughably herculean in the worst.
Maybe it's because of my ego, but i'm pretty sure it's theirs because I moved my butt pad to it's proper place in the sixth grade. Nonetheless, we are getting the views of people who want to look like they fit into the story they are telling rather than those that want to be protectors, observers, and authors of the total experience.
When one moves to and writes from the unseen rear, only then can they share the true experience.
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