You Herd Me!: I'll Say It If Nobody Else Will (28 page)

Anti–Soccer Guy has softened some, too. He sees soccer everywhere—on ESPN, on
Fox Sports
. It’s better than he thought, or he doesn’t really see it as a threat anymore. It’s not taking away his NFL or NBA. He can still watch his Cowboys on Sundays, so he’s reached a sort of angle of repose with the whole deal.

And that’s where we stand, with soccer making inroads quietly, persistently, and on its own merits. It’s not some sleeper cell intent on taking over our God-given right to football, basketball, and baseball. It’s a great sport that deserves its spot in the buffet line of sport.

The only major seismic shift left for soccer is the emergence of Soccer Jordan, a transcendent American player who makes even the most hardened Anti–Soccer Guy grudgingly flip on the TV to see what all the fuss is about.

And in a twisted way, one of those all-American sports might unwittingly help soccer move toward that moment. If more and more parents steer their sons away from football because of long-term health concerns, more and more athletes will turn to soccer as an alternative.

That’s all right. We can share. There’s room for everybody and plenty to go around. And for the first time, that’s soccer over there in the corner, ready to make itself comfortable. It might as well pull up a chair and order a drink.

What I’m about to tell you is not a revelation on the level of Watergate or Clinton-Lewinsky, but it needs to be said: everyone in the media—whether it’s politics or business or fashion or sports—has favorites.

It’s that word again:
bias
. When it comes to the media, it’s gone from being a buzzword to being the worst insult possible.
You’re just biased
, people say when they want to discount a story or an opinion they don’t like. It’s almost too easy.

Well, of course we’re biased. Everybody has favorites, and nobody is completely impartial. Do you have a favorite niece or nephew? Do you like one or two of your kid’s friends better than the others?

With that out of the way, I admit I’ve always been more concerned with a different word. This word allows me to overlook your bias.

Access.

Do you have it?

If you have it, I want it.

And the more you have, the more bias I will tolerate.

Former Dallas Cowboy star quarterback Troy Aikman is now a star announcer on Fox. In my opinion, he’s the best football analyst in the business today. When I listen to Aikman, I don’t hear his bias, but I understand that his current and former employers leave him open to that charge.

No matter what Aikman says, an Eagles or Giants fan is going to interpret it in a certain way—a way that takes into account Aikman’s days as a Cowboy and assumes he’s a homer. If Aikman says, “Dez Bryant ran the wrong route,” a Giants fan hears, “If Dez
Bryant had run the right route, he would have scored easily on the Giants’ overrated secondary.”

There’s nothing Aikman can do to combat this. We all understand he’s close to Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and even though he would undoubtedly love to see Jones rewarded with playoff wins, he’s also smart enough to refrain from openly rooting for him on the air.

There is something Aikman can provide that few can rival—access to the Cowboys. His history and connections get him behind the rope line. What that means is this: it’s my job to decipher his coded messages during his broadcasts with Joe Buck. If Aikman says, “I think some people in the organization could be getting frustrated with Tony Romo,” I feel confident I can figure out the rest. Troy had lunch with the Cowboys’ owner on Friday or Saturday, and that’s exactly what his old boss told him.

Aikman’s access more than compensates for any bias—real or perceived—and I’m a more educated viewer because of it.

What I don’t want is bias
without
access. Or bias without expertise.

Which is why I’ve never understood why the sports media have so much damned power when it comes to voting for awards and Halls of Fame.

It’s one thing to have strong opinions in a column or on a talk show. Neither of those have much staying power; they’re here and gone in an instant in today’s 24/7 sports and news tsunami.

Hall of Fame voting falls into a different category altogether. It is tied inextricably to a player’s legacy. Seasonal award voting isn’t quite as permanent, but bonus structures have created financial implications for players. These votes help shape and forge legacies and commerce. In the case of the Hall of Fame, the voting creates the closest thing we have to sports immortality.

To put it bluntly, I want the right people with the right access controlling those votes. The media can be included—in certain situations—but we need to stop treating the media as the overwhelming and often exclusive authorities on such matters.

It works in other industries. In movies, nearly six thousand people vote on the Oscars, 22 percent of them actual actors. The other votes are cast by directors, producers, animators, composers, executives … you get the idea? Highly qualified people.

People behind the rope.

Do these people have agendas? No question.

Do they have access and insight? Absolutely.

In music, the Grammys are chosen from the votes of 150 experts from various musical fields. Artists, producers, engineers … you know, people with access. Voters can vote only in their area of expertise, which means a jazz artist can’t vote on Best Gospel Album. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s nomination committee has six hundred members including artists, historians, and working industry veterans.

You can almost hear Garth from
Wayne’s World
saying, “Who would know rock better than those who rock themselves?”

I’m not anti-sportswriter. And God knows I’m not anti–talking head. But listen to the numbers on some of these sports panels:

The NFL Hall of Fame, the shrine of pro football immortality, bases its inductions on the opinions of thirty-seven people—all of them media members.

How many could diagram even one play? If they were all in a room, how many would be able to tell the difference between “Z right wiggle, 24 fox chase, double tight left, zap set on two,” and “tight right, eagle slant and go, 44 jet Zebra motion and set”?

How many have watched any film at all? How many go to training camp every summer? Don’t you think an eleven-year NFL
player like Archie Manning would have a better sense of greatness than, say, a columnist who was promoted from beat reporter and doesn’t even cover practice with any regularity?

And yet people like the columnist—and not people like Manning—are the arbiters of football immortality.

The voting for the Heisman is so regionally biased that it borders on embarrassing. Andrew Luck, the best college quarterback I’ve ever seen either live or on television, claimed only a third-place vote on one ballot in the South, where perhaps they mistook Andrew Luck for a magician or a scratch-off game.

Who got the first-place vote? A running back from Alabama, of course, who ran behind an offensive line filled with future NFL high picks and gained an impressive 1,600 yards. But a closer look reveals that four of his five biggest rushing games were against North Texas, Georgia Southern, a two-win Mississippi team, and an Auburn team that was 1-5 against ranked teams.

In the 2012 Heisman race, Johnny Manziel won five of six regions, and deservedly so. Where did he lose? In the Midwest, where voters went with a linebacker, Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o.

Manziel produced over 5,000 yards of total offense and forty-seven touchdowns in college football’s best defensive conference and almost single-handedly turned his program around by beating No. 1 Alabama on the road.

Te’o, whose popularity was based partly on Notre Dame mythology and partly on Dead Girlfriend mythology, had fewer tackles as a senior than he did as a junior. And not only that, but in November, as Notre Dame was pursuing an undefeated season with some of its biggest games, Te’o had just thirteen solo tackles in four games.

The NBA got into the act in the 2012–13 season—media voters were woefully off-target when they voted Marc Gasol as NBA
Defensive Player of the Year. The thirty NBA head coaches—you know, the guys who study film and organize game plans and see every player in the league live and in-person—didn’t have Gasol on the All-NBA first-team defense. To take it a step further, the coaches didn’t even have Gasol as the best defensive player on his own team. That honor went to guard Tony Allen. To make matters worse, it was the second straight year the media’s number one pick didn’t merit first-team accolades from the coaches.

These are the same voters who bestowed upon Phil Jackson just one Coach of the Year award despite his eleven NBA titles. That means Jackson has won as many awards—one—as beleaguered Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni, whose teams have such a reputation for poor defense that he’s called Mike Antoni. (Drop the
D
—get it?)

Sam Mitchell has a Coach of the Year plaque in his trophy room, too. It came in his lone winning season. His career record? 156-189. It would be hysterical if it wasn’t so regrettable.

And baseball … baseball might be the worst.

You have to be a member of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America for ten years to vote for the Hall of Fame. The problem: many of the members who have a vote don’t cover the sport regularly. Some don’t cover it at all. A writer who covers a team for a year can remain a dues-paying BBWAA member even if he immediately leaves the beat after that one year and becomes a food writer.

According to Tyler Kepner of the
New York Times
, some writers still voting have spent decades with no involvement in the sport whatsoever. Baseball’s voting structure means that our hypothetical food writer has a vote but Vin Scully, the most eloquent and informed baseball broadcaster ever, has no vote.

Eleven voters kept Babe Ruth from being a unanimous first-ballot Hall of Famer.

The Sultan of … say
what
?

Bias seeps into everything. It’s part of the human condition, so instead of raging against something that’s inherent in all of us, learn to filter it and manage it. Think of it as accepting the flaws in your mate. The love flows more easily when you aren’t searching for—or demanding—perfection on a daily basis. You understand the flaws and appreciate the gifts.

Halls of fame and awards in sports shouldn’t be controlled by people who lack a behind-the-rope quality. They can be part of it—jury—but not judge. Once I filter out the bias, I need to form an opinion based on what’s left.

So stop fixating on bias and concern yourself with access and insight. If you can take me places I can’t see or experience without you, that’s a special relationship.

But if you don’t think Babe Ruth is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, or if you can’t see that Phil Jackson is substantially better than Sam Mitchell, I’m going to be left with no choice but to reduce your power to influence anyone’s thinking.

But your bias? Forget it. I’m already over it.

My parents or teachers often relied on proverbs or maxims in times of crises. They were the guiding lights through chaotic times. At least that was the intention. Most were really corny but a handful stand the test of time.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is a pretty solid message in any era.

The one I struggled to get my arms around was always, “You’re only as strong as your weakest link.”

At least in sports, that’s just not always true.

During the Michael Jordan era, considered the NBA’s golden age, the bottom of the league was atrocious. While the Bulls were piling up 72 wins in 82 regular season games—seven other teams had fewer than 30 wins. Yet television networks have no obligation to broadcast bad teams. The NBA should use this motto: “We are as strong as our strongest are.”

Television revenue has far surpassed gate revenue for most sports leagues. Owners and leagues flourish when they sign multiple lucrative network deals. Those deals don’t have stipulations handcuffing networks to lousy teams. No network ever has to broadcast a Jacksonville Jaguars game. In essence, deals are
all about your strongest and most interesting, not your weakest and least captivating, teams.

Salary caps have mostly eliminated dynasties in professional sports. Great teams are disassembled due to financial restraints. Furthermore, you can only afford so many stars on one team, which even limits how good the very best can be. Even the best teams have holes now. Everybody has weaknesses. It’s mostly about having the talent that can make plays or change the direction of a close game. With added scouting and technology, nobody can hide their flaws.

It’s no longer about your weakest link as much as it is about having a top end or a transcendent star nobody can defend or stop.

The Miami Heat are maybe the worst rebounding team in the NBA in a league that habitually rewards that. They have been to three straight NBA Finals because nobody has figured out how to slow down LeBron James consistently.

A hot goalie can erase all sorts of flaws for a hockey team. Find him and sign him.

A few years ago the Connecticut Huskies won a national title while only finishing tenth in the Big East during the regular season. You don’t
finish tenth without several weaknesses. How did they do it? Nobody could stop guard Kemba Walker once the tournament rolled around.

Get great at something and spend less time trying to fix every little problem. You can win with weakness.

For the record, I still think you should treat others the way you wish to be treated.