I have a confession to make that will cause my j-school professors to spin in their graves.*
Last Saturday, when Dwayne De Rosario took a lovely pass from Maicon Santos to score an equalizing goal against Vancouver, it took every ounce of energy for me to not leap up and scream. You can take the boy out of the south end, but you can’t take the south end out of the boy. I want TFC to win. Sue me.
The rules are clear. There is to be no cheering in the press box. It’s the most sacred of laws amongst those that occupy the Toy Department at your local rag. This ignores the fact that some of the most brilliant sports writing in history took place in an era when sports writers used to drink with the players on overnight trains to Detroit while ignoring the 19-year-old brunette on the arm of the star player that they were pretty sure wasn’t his wife. You must play it straight and take the passion out of the thing. Failing to do so ensures that you cannot be objective – not a “real” journalist.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]Clearly, what you are covering is vital to the lives of the people that are reading it in a real way. Sports isn’t fantasy, designed to distract people from the misery of their everyday existence, after all.
The above paragraph is sarcasm, by the way. That’s exactly what sports is for and it’s why I, as a classically trained journalist, reject the notion that you need to be dispassionate to properly do your job. You can’t be blind and you can’t ignore things (i.e. performance enhancing drug use, match fixing) that does cross over into the “things that actually do matter” category. But, it is possible to report on those things while hoping for the home team to win.
Caring about the result gives you the tension that is needed to make your reporting pop. Readers aren’t stupid and this isn’t 1973 – they can see exactly the same things you as the reporter are seeing. The emergence of so-called new media is a result of readers seeking out voices that understand what it means to be a fan, to care and to care irrationally.
Grizzled journos will tell you that there are home teams that they would like to throw off the nearest bridge. Professional athletes can be, well, pricks. They aren’t always easy to deal with and they are oblivious to the truth that they are irrelevant without the fans and they don’t have fans without publicity and that publicity comes from the guy with the notepad in front of them. So, you can understand why they may not be inclined to cheer.
But, you can’t hate the fans. The fans are the living, breathing essence of the community that you, as the reporter, serve. I know that a TFC win will make those people – my friends, many of them – happy. That, in turn, makes me happy. Ultimately I care a great deal about the community that I live in and that’s why I will cheer in that press box if I damn well want to. And the day I stop covering MLS is the day I’m right back down in section 113 – I still have a season ticket, after all.
Note: Don’t worry TFC communications department. My cheering will be the silent kind while in the box.
* they aren’t really dead