This tweet got me thinking a lot about how we tell the human stories of college athletes and it’s really required me to take a hard look at the process. Adam’s larger issue is 100% right but I want to address "tragic stories overcome” trope, which runs deep. A (long) thread (1/x)
First, since he's mentioned in Adam's tweet, let me say that there's no nicer human in this biz than Tom Rinaldi, so NONE of this is a critique of him. Rather, its a critique of me and (hopefully) a point to consider for all of us who tell stories for a living (2/x)
I like to fancy myself a feature writer. Maybe not a good one, but it's the part of the job that gives me the most satisfaction. The best advice I've ever gotten is that all stories are stories about people & features let me tell the best people stories. (3/x)
When telling a feature story -- or any story, I guess -- you're really giving YOUR perception of someone else's story. I hope my reporting is good enough that my perception matches experienced reality, but that's especially hard when writing about black athletes. (4/x)
Let me give you an example. I wrote this piece about former FSU star Devonta Freeman & his pal, former Cuse DB Durrell Eskridge a few years ago. I liked it. I thought I did a good job showcasing why they were so close. (5/x)
espn.com/blog/acc/post/…
espn.com/blog/acc/post/…
Reading it now, with a focus on how my life as a white guy might've played a role in how I told their story, I see some obvious flaws, starting with how innocuously I framed the lede, suggesting something less important to me (sneakers) was unreasonably important to them. (6/x)
But it goes deeper than that. I remember interviewing Devonta, who was really smart and sweet and soft-spoken with the media during his time at FSU, and he was tremendously engaged in telling this story. I was super appreciative. It felt meaningful. (7/x)
But I also remember the details felt a bit polished -- almost as if he was telling me what he thought a middle-aged white guy expected to hear. It's not that any of it wasn't true or that I disbelieved him -- just that he might've SAID it differently to a black person. (7/x)
Or let me give you another example. I did this story on Deshaun Watson some years ago, about his work with Habitat for Humanity after his mother was given a Habitat house when Deshaun was a kid. Again, good story I thought. (8/x) espn.com/college-footba…
Yet I also remember when I interviewed Deshaun for the piece, I asked him a lot about the housing complex where he lived before H4H. He offered some generic "lots of crime and drugs" and I got the sense he knew that's what I was expecting to hear. (9/x)
FWIW, I went to his old complex after we talked, met w/neighbors. Went back next year for another story. People there were thrilled for Deshaun. I didn't see drugs or crime, but there was a lot of poverty. A church was handing out lunches to a line of kids during 1 visit. (10/x)
What bothers me now is, Deshaun had a tattoo representing those old apartments on his arm, a reminder of where he'd come from. He had friends there, and clearly that place shaped him. He wasn't ashamed. He was proud of it. (11/x)
So why did he feel he had to tell me about the drugs & the crime but not focus on the better stuff? Because he knew it was a story about H4H & played it that way? Or because he didn't think I was capable of understanding how complex his relationship with that place was? (12/x)
He wasn’t wrong. I DID go into that interview with an expectation that he’d say his old home was bad and the H4H home was great and that getting away from crime and drugs was the key to a new Deshaun. It’s an easy narrative that was partly true — but only partly. (13/x)
I genuinely try to be open to where a story takes me, not assuming too much before I start -- but that's a hard thing to do, particularly when narrative tropes around certain demographics are so ubiquitous & I lack the experience to imagine another reality. (14/x)
There are so many really talented people telling great stories about these athletes -- from Rinaldi to Gene Woj to Wright Thompson, who's written beautifully on race over the years but can never truly write it from the perspective of a black person. (15/x)
So I wonder how much we're truly telling of these men's stories & what damage we do by perpetuating tropes about heroic white coaches and damaged black athletes. There can certainly be a kernel of truth in that trope, but it's a flimsy foundation for real reporting. (16/x)
Is a coach a hero because he rescued a black man from drugs and violence in a bad neighborhood to let him play football and go to college? Or is that narrative just a reflection of a flawed system that creates a power imbalance from the moment those athletes are born? (17/x)
When we tell stories about athletes escaping the hard life in the streets, are we creating a mythologized picture of blackness for a largely white audience & applauding men for adapting into a more white-accepted culture under the guise of bettering themselves? (18/x)
In those tropes, it's impossible to avoid the obvious parallel: The good guys look like us, the bad guys look like the athletes, and the athletes benefit from the opportunity to move from bad to good. It's created to make US feel better. (19/x)
That really undersells the complexity of their lives and the very fundamentals of who they are as people. It exacerbates coach worship and adds to the narrative of white culture being good and black culture being bad. It's a black man's life through white eyes. (20/x)
So, what's the answer here? Do I give up feature writing? I hope not. I love it too much, and as imbalanced as some of those stories may have been, I do think they impacted some people, helped shed SOME light on the subjects, if not perfectly. (21/x)
Instead, I think we need to make a commitment to putting more people of color in a role to tell these stories too, to offer more insight, to add to the mosaic so that, in totality, a fuller picture can be seen. (22/x)
That's not a great answer either though. There's no overnight way to change the demographics of newsrooms, and the industry's rapid decline certainly doesn't make for a lucrative future for anyone -- let alone writers of color. (23/x)
So it’s also up to people like me to understand our preconceptions, to course correct during interviews, to earn the trust of our subjects & to be aware of how we frame stories, so we're really writing about their lives, and not the lives we assume they've lived. (24/x)
When I wrote about a coach’s wife battling cancer, I asked friends who’d had similar fights before I did the story so I went in w/an appreciation of the dynamics. Why don’t I do that with stories about black people, too? I should. We all should. (25/x)
As well intentioned as we might be, the tropes we've helped perpetuate have a lasting effect on how power is divided, how black men are perceived & the hero worship of coaches who benefit from a flawed system. We need to break down walls, not add more bricks. (26/26)
Oh & I should add that this all started with a tweet from @primediscussion, who’s really smart & often makes me think harder about politics and race and occasionally FSU football. He’s a good follow.
