Puzzle Pieces: Adventures in Student Journalism

Star writer and cult hero Mike McCall contributes the class of the sports section proper (Phil Kegler’s front page story is also quite good) with a story on the Gators’ surprisingly solid secondary. But even he flubs his approach, burying one of the quotes of the season from Urban Meyer, about strong safety Ahmad Black, in the seventh paragraph.

“He’s like a cat. If you throw him, he’s always going to land in football position.”

Never mind what “football position” is, or how exactly one would throw an athlete as muscular as Black: Urban Meyer is now comparing his players to felines, and that is a slippery slope. In two weeks, Chris Rainey may be “cheetah-esque,” Brandon Spikes “leonine,” and Ron(nie) Wilson “like Garfield, if you replaced an affinity for lasagna with one for firearms that violate the Brady Bill.”

It’s a golden quote, and it loses a lot of oomph being hidden in the middle of plain text as it is. That could have been worked into the lede, used as a closing bit, or at least belabored. Instead, it’s a throwaway zinger that is made less funny by the company it keeps.

But, oh Lord, all of the section pales in majesty to Karl Hyppolite’s laudatory column on the Gators’ recent hot streak. In writing that has Bill Plaschke weeping at the splendor, Hyppolite begins:

"Faster than a speeding bullet."

Boy, that’s original. I’ve never heard that one applied to St. Tebow, erstwhile messiah, before. (Also, that’s not quite a sentence.)

"That’s how fast the Gators are storming to Atlanta."

Oh wait, never mind. We’re going on a speed jaunt, I can tell.

"Colder than a 38-degree night in Nashville. That’s how cold and cutthroat the Gators have been in their past five wins."

Or not. I guess using two forms of cold in two sentences is forgivable, especially when you change the meaning from chilly to heartless mid-thought. That shows creativity. (No other point of reference for cutthroat, though: Geena Davis could have used the shout-out.)

"Stuck between a rock and a hard place. That’s where opponents have found themselves when they face the Gators’ rare combination of speed and toughness."

Wait, now are rocks fast? As fast as speeding bullets? (Or is it the hard place that’s fast? I can never tell.) At least the parallelism makes the sentence fragments work, though I can’t see how the parallelism makes up for the clichés.

"No, Vanderbilt didn’t stand a chance in Saturday night’s 42-14 loss. They rolled out of bed, put on their uniforms, and stormed the field only to realize they were playing a road game in their own stadium."

The use of “night” and “rolled out of bed” is clever, see, because the game was at 7 PM local time in Nashville, and that’s usually when football players in SEC programs leave the warmth of their covers to greet the day on Saturday. We’ve got our second use of “storm” as a verb base in the first five paragraphs of this article.

Oh, and Vandy didn’t actually play a road game in their own stadium. Perhaps, with so many Florida fans in attendance, it felt like one, but it wasn’t one, and that’s not accurate to write.

"Maybe it was the knowledge that their Commodores didn’t stand a chance. Or maybe it was the knowledge that Kevin Costner and Modern West were in town for one night only. Whatever the cause, Saturday night’s game was a road game for UF in name only."

“They” has turned into “their,” and no one knows whether that refers to Vandy’s players or fans yet. At least we’ve reiterated the road game claim more fairly.

(And apparently Kevin Costner actually does front a country band that may have been in Nashville on Saturday, but it required Google for me to confirm that. As a plugged-in sports and music guy, I shouldn’t have to Google to get the references you make, sir.)

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