The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
I was going to write about controversial athletes, specifically L.A. Kings forward Sean Avery and NFL star Terrell Owens, who was on Off The Record (OTR) Tuesday and Wednesday. I was going to discuss how I can't believe Avery is getting another chance with the Kings, even if he might be on a shorter leash than a doberman pinscher. If you're not familiar with Avery, he's a hockey player whose mouth gets him into so much trouble a muzzle should be put on him to keep it shut. With Owens, a.k.a T.O., TSN seemed to pump up the fact that OTR had the controversial star talk about his time in Philadelphia and his problems with quarterback Donovan McNabb. I made sure to watch both shows and was a bit disappointed. I should have known it wouldn't be as controversial as I expected, but you never know, right? I should give host Michael Landsberg credit, he did try. Owens thrives on attention, you can just tell. He continuously flashed his book, which had a picture of his face, next to his own. It was as if he didn't need a mirror with him during the interview because the booked acted as one. Of course, the media can take partial blame for that and that's the direction I take you. I stumbled upon a three-year-old article from a Texas student publication called InterCom written by Jason Oliver titled 'Sports media feeds on controversial athletes'. Here are two parts of the article that made me think. "Although only a fraction of athletes ever get involved in legal disputes, the media tends to focus on the small percentage of controversial athletes. While plenty of well- behaved, respectful athletes can be found at all levels, those are not the athletes whose names lead SportsCenter, or show up on the front page of the local newspaper. The media can be a powerful and influential tool, but it too often emphasizes negative images repetitively." It's hard to argue against these statements because this paper does it too. Anyone would be able to debate whether or not certain stories should be published. Because Oliver's article was the first of three, I don't know if he went into the purpose of why controversial stories need to be told. Perhaps why papers are guilty for it is because it sells and some people want to read it, or the media thinks they do. I can only think of one time that I changed my mind on a could-be controversial topic. The idea came about when Dennis Kubat shared the Rookie of the Year award with defenceman Myles Masse. The focus of the article was to bring the point if it was justified or not to give Kubat at that honour considering he only played 15 games with the Bombers. Having said that, don't confuse that with me saying Kubat is controversial, it's the situation. Instead, I chose to write about his teammate, Kenton Staines, and his work in the community with McIsaac School Ecole McIsaac. It was a more positive story worth telling. I made that decision based on the fact it was a young athlete having a great impact on the future of this community. While controversy is good, and at times should be written, it's about selecting the right ones.
