ESPN made a big mistake last week.
Now, to be sure, the Worldwide Leader In Sports makes plenty of errors every day. They’re impossible to avoid in the age of instant publishing and “me-first” reporting.
This was different. This was a lapse in judgment and basic human decency that I didn’t even know was possible.
Before we delve into the ugly details, let’s backtrack a bit. Last Thursday, University of Alabama offensive lineman Aaron Douglas was found dead in Fernandina Beach, Fla., of unknown causes. He was 21 years old.
The people of Alabama, and the sports nation as a whole, were obviously saddened by this tragedy. I won’t pretend that it dramatically altered the course of my day, but it was certainly depressing.
The ESPN College Football Rumors section had an entirely different reaction.
In a post entitled “Shocker at LT,” a writer named Albert Lin chose to mostly ignore the death and instead focus on who would replace Douglas at left tackle. Seriously.
“Douglas’ death leaves the door wide open for five-star OT Cyrus Kouandijo to seize the job this summer,” Lin wrote.
ESPN, to its credit, quickly deleted the post and apologized for the egregious lack of compassion displayed by Lin. The Poynter Institute, which serves as ESPN’s ombudsman, responded with this post to scold the website for choosing “speed over sensitivity.”
That’s all well and good. But to me, this incident speaks to a larger issue that needs to be addressed in modern sports culture. ESPN may be at the center, but the problem runs far beyond the boundaries of Bristol, Conn.
Put simply, we have become inundated with nonstop coverage and analysis to the point of being desensitized. This is particularly true in the college-recruiting world, where you can spend hours lost in the web of message boards and sites like Rivals and Scout.
“Five-star athlete,” “depth chart,” “verbal commitment” — these phrases are such staples in the college football vernacular that they have conditioned the way we respond to even the most disturbing of events. Clearly, Albert Lin’s first reaction to the Douglas tragedy was to consider what it meant for the Alabama depth chart.
As sick and wrong as this is, I would venture a guess that Lin was not the only one to think this way. He just happened to have the all-too-powerful keyboard at his disposal. Regardless, this way of thinking is plain wrong, and last week’s incident provides ample opportunity for all of us to reflect on what exactly our priorities are.
Take a moment and imagine how you would react if, God forbid, something happened to LaMichael James or Darron Thomas. Would your first concern be their well-being, or how they would be replaced on a football team contending for a national championship? Be honest.
Personally, I don’t know exactly what my thought process would be, and I hope I never do. But I can’t help but wonder if the fan in me, and my desire to see Oregon succeed, would interfere with my capability to be a sympathetic human being. It is something I plan to keep in mind as time moves forward.
Understand, this is not meant to be some sort of indictment against recruiting websites, message boards or even ESPN. Reporters at Rivals and Scout are simply doing their jobs when they report on the future of high school athletes, and even a website as influential as ESPN is allowed to make a mistake. They corrected it, and all we can do is move on.
My point is simply that the onus falls on all of us, fans and reporters alike, to keep things in perspective and balance our lofty dreams with the knowledge that athletes are human beings.
Nothing more, nothing less.