Soon after the heartbreaking loss against Kentucky last Tuesday, I read a blog post from ESPN sportswriter Pat Forde. In it, he claimed Mississippi State fans were some of the nastiest and most vulgar fans he had seen in his 19 years of covering SEC basketball.
That is a quite a statement over a few water bottles. This sort of comment is what is wrong with Pat Forde and other sportswriters. He is a hack, plain and simple, and for a multitude of reasons. His sensationalist comments and quick-to-be-indignant personality make him a truly terrible “journalist.”
My best guess as to why he spoke so ignorantly was that he was up writing material for his spot on ESPN the morning after the Kentucky game. Forde appeared on the ESPN show “1st and 10.”
He delivered a hard-hitting piece where he compared dogs from a dog show to NFL prospects. I probably don’t have to tell you that it was horribly lame. He spent nearly five minutes on television in which not a single thing he said was funny or original. It is almost impressive the way he could fill air time without saying anything. Forde also wrote an article before all of this, calling Starkville the worst town in the SEC, so perhaps he just had it for us from the beginning.
Forde only highlights a growing trend among sportswriters. Many will say or do anything to garner attention without the least bit of risk for being called out when their predictions and absurd statements are false.
A good example comes from CBS writer Gary Parrish. Before Jarvis blocked eight shots against Alabama and broke the NCAA record for blocked shots in a career, Parrish wrote that the record is not that big of deal.
His defense was that no one has ever heard of the former first place guy (Wojciech Myrda) so the record is overblown. He fails to mention that the top of the all-time blocks list also includes Tim Duncan, Adonal Foyle and David Robinson. It’s hard to say exactly how many points Jarvis Varnado has been directly responsible for stopping, but it is pretty substantial to be sure. Parrish went on to say that Varnado was a great player, but his point about the block record being insignificant is outrageous.
In reference to his mailbag, from which he fields readers’ questions, Parrish said his readers could ask him anything. Included in this list was, “Why does a 32-year-old have such a stupid haircut?”
Oh, I get it. He is trying to be self-deprecating. Only, his hair really is stupid. If you don’t believe, go look it up. Spoiler alert, it’s a faux-hawk.
Unfortunately the radio isn’t much better. ESPN’s Colin Cowherd has a popular radio show on ESPN radio along with starring in a new TV show called “Sports Nation.” His claim to fame is ridiculous analogies that make absolutely no sense.
Just the other day, I heard him compare the Denver Nuggets to the television series “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” His logic in linking the two was shaky at best. Listen to his radio show once, and you are sure to hear him comparing two unrelated things and calling it entertainment.
In other words, keep your heads up, Bulldogs. We took some heat for the Kentucky incident from some people, but these people are terrible writers always looking to get riled up about something.
Guys like Forde and Parrish think they are better fans than everyone else because they write about sports for a living. I’m not saying I endorse throwing things at sporting events, as I certainly do not, but this situation was blown way out of proportion by some writers on a slow sports night. Those writers just want to make a splash so more people will follow their Twitter accounts.
As Colin Cowherd would likely say, Forde and Parrish are kind of like a Twix bar. You eat one and you think, maybe this isn’t so bad, but then you get done and you realize how unfulfilling it was, and you wish you had just eaten a Reese’s.
Derrick Godfrey is a junior majoring in economics. He can be contacted at [email protected].