The death of a newspaper

The Rocky Mountain News in Denver published its final edition today. Anybody who ever worked for a newspaper should be sad about that, and for that matter so should everybody else.

The demise of any media outlet is bad for America and for democracy, in my opinion, because we need more voices in the debate, not fewer. But we live in a tough business climate right now, and the economic realities of the newspaper business caught up with "The Rocky," as it was known in the city. Scripps, the media company which owned the paper, expressed regret that the paper couldn't make its business model work, but nevertheless shuttered the 150-year old publication, making Denver another in a growing list of one-newspaper towns that used to have multiple papers.

To be honest, I've never seen more than one or two issues of the Rocky Mountain News in my life, but Jayne and I feel as if we have a little bit of personal interest in this as a friend and former colleague of ours, Joey Bunch, is a reporter for the Rocky's competitor, The Denver Post. About 10 of the RMN's reporters will be going to work for the Post.

The death of the Rocky is a major story in the world of journalism, although I suspect it's less so in the world at large. That's unfortunate because the impact of the story extends beyond the Mile High City. Via Twitter, I found this blog entry from media analyst Ken Doctor that puts the Rocky closing into some context -- it's the biggest daily newspaper in the U.S. to cease publication since the Houston Post in 1995.

And as I've read about what it all means on various websites, I'm seeing more dire commentary about the future of newspapers. In recent months, I've even seen predictions that even the grand old New York Times might go out of business -- to the delight of conservatives everywhere -- or be sold to Rupert Murdoch, which some observers say is even worse.

How did the newspaper business get to this sorry pass? Again, I've read a lot of explanations, from the right (they're too liberal) and from the left (it's because they sold themselves and their souls to corporate interests in the name of profit). I don't think either of these is adequate. I've also read the critique that they didn't respond sufficiently, and early enough, to the demands of the new digital world -- a more likely reason.

As an inveterate newspaper reader -- to paraphrase Charlton Heston, they'll probably have to pry one from my cold, dead hands -- I'm not willing to give up on them just yet. And even if the newspaper business goes stone cold dead, it doesn't mean that journalism is dead. People are information seekers more than ever before, and there will always be a demand for journalism and what newspapers do.

This and that

A couple of random thoughts about sports before bedtime:

-- The Tampa Bay Bucs of the NFL are usually off my radar screen, but an item online about them caught my attention today. They released a number of high-profile veterans, all but one of whom, the article noted, was older than the team's new head coach, 32-year-old Raheem Morris.

But the notable thing for me was that one of the old-timers released was a player whose games I covered when he was a high school football star, linebacker Derrick Brooks. He was an incredible athlete at Pensacola (Fla.) High School and, as the high school sports writer for the local paper, I named him the 1990 Pensacola News-Journal Player of the Year in football. I'm sure the plaque is displayed prominently in his house along with his Super Bowl memorabilia.

He went on to a fine college career at Florida State, followed by 14 NFL seasons, all with the Bucs. Brooks, who will be 36 in April, went to the Pro Bowl 11 times and was one of the stars of their victory over Oakland in the 2002 Super Bowl. Several accounts I read today called him possibly the best player in Tampa Bay history.

And apparently he also grew up into an exemplary human being. The NFL named him its Man of the Year in 2000 for his work with disadvantaged youth. The Bucs said the move was more about going with younger players than about salary cap room, which they had plenty of already. I hope his career isn't over. That would just make me feel even older.

-- A sign of the times: Tickets to the upcoming Atlantic Coast Conference men's basketball tournament will be available for sale to the public for the first time in 43 years. Historically, ACC tournament tickets have been as scarce as tickets to the Masters golf tournament. And like that event, the valued tournament tickets are passed down in wills from generation to generation and contested in divorces, usually in the possession of well-heeled donors to the athletic programs of conference schools.

A friend of mine who wanted to go one year joined the booster club of another ACC school when Clemson wouldn't guarantee him the right to purchase tickets to the tournament for the size of the donation he wanted to make. He ended up not going as his proposed entry fee wasn't enough for the other school either, as it turned out.

But the 12 ACC schools this year are reporting that they haven't sold their entire allocations of tickets, citing the economy as one reason. Another is this year's venue, the cavernous Georgia Dome in Atlanta, which can seat 36,000 for basketball. So if you've got $363 to spare, you can get a seat for the entire tournament in the upper deck. It's tempting....

-- Maybe another sign of the times: I had the Texas Tech at Texas game on for a while tonight. At halftime, Texas athletic program retired the number of former UT star Kevin Durant. Remember Durant's Longhorns career, which started in the fall of 2006 and ended when Texas was eliminated from the NCAA tournament in March 2007?

Granted, that year was a fantastic one -- averages of 25.8 points and 11.1 rebounds a game and a consensus selection as college basketball's player of the year. But then he was, as they say these days, a "one and done," entering the NBA draft where he was the No. 2 overall pick by the Seattle Supersonics (now the Oklahoma City Thunder).

So does one year, no matter how great, qualify as a college career? And should that player be eligible to have his jersey retired? Maybe if he comes back and finishes getting a degree, too, I'm thinking....

Right question, wrong time?

We don't require journalists and public relations practitioners to get a license from the government in this country -- a good thing in my opinion. But in this day and time when you can easily be your own publisher, anyone can put up a website or a blog and call themselves a journalist. All you need is a computer and an opinion.

But is that really journalism? I thought about that question again when I read and then saw an exchange between Connecticut men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun and a questioner at the Huskies' post-game news conference following their victory over South Florida on Saturday.

The first question Calhoun faced in the post-game news conference was not about the game, but about his $1.6 million annual salary, which makes him the highest-paid state employee in Connecticut. It came from a guy named Ken Krayeske, who is not affilliated with any of the usual MSM who cover college basketball, but who calls himself a free-lance journalist and political activist and has a website called The 40-Year Plan. You can follow the link and draw your own conclusions as to its journalistic merit. I understand that he got into the game with a photo pass.

Here's the exchange, as posted on YouTube.

A few thoughts. First, I never quite trust the journalist, real or so-called, who is willing to make him or herself the story. In this case, that's not me making a judgment. Krayeske himself says on his website that he is "somewhat megalomaniacal." And he is no stranger to controversy. Police arrested him at the 2007 Inaugural parade for the governor of Connecticut for getting too close to the proceedings when he tried to take a picture. (Krayeske's defenders say he was targeted by police beforehand because of his political views).

Second, the way the question was developing (and admittedly I don't know where it eventually would have gone because Calhoun didn't let it) it was shaping up as more of an editorial comment than an actual question. That's also a problem for me.

All that said, the salary of the head coach of a Division I sports program is certainly a valid topic for coverage and questioning, especially when institutions of higher education are tightening their belts and cutting budgets for academics in this tough economic climate. Krayeske referenced the $1 billion deficit in the state budget and Calhoun's response pointed to the $12 million in revenue that his program brings to the university each year. It would be interesting to see if that's gross or net -- before or after expenditures -- and how much the non-athletic programs of the university benefit.

Krayeske, who said that he was asking the questions because the beat writers who cover the team regularly wouldn't, certainly has a point.

Serious investigative sports reporting is difficult, because big-time athletic programs are known to put up barriers to the reporter who tries to practice it. The beat writer must first have access to provide the day-to-day coverage that readers and viewers expect. And in these days of cutbacks, especially in the print media, what he or she often doesn't have is the resources and time to pursue these types of stories.

(On that note, see a good example of what sports journalists CAN do when they're given the time and resources. The link will take you to a Washington Post series on the decline of University of Maryland basketball since the Terps won the national title in 2002, with emphasis on the job performance of embattled coach Gary Williams. Williams cooperated with the story, which was fair but not fawning, and it's a good bet that the reporters didn't get any of this information at a live post-game news conference.)

I've read criticism of the UConn beat writers and broadcast media for being irritated with Krayeske's question and, as you'd expect, of his calling them out for not exploring the salary issue.

I'd imagine that those people have never had to meet a deadline for a story about a live sports event. OK, it was an afternoon game, but a reporter who intends to explore a non-game related issue in any kind of depth should walk up to a source to get some one-on-one time when everyone else's work is done. That's professional courtesy. Or to try arrange a separate interview for a later date. It's not impossible. Calhoun did, after all, offer to talk to Krayeske after the news conference proper was over. (If the source doesn't cooperate, that's certainly a story, too.)

But if Krayeske had done it that way, he wouldn't have had his desired moment in the spotlight.

For me that's what it boils down to, and I guess I'm just an old-school media elitist. But I'm calling this the right battle fought by the wrong person at the wrong time.

A day for academics and Al McGuire

It's always a good day when I can practice both my professions and I had a rare weekend opportunity to do that today.

I spent part of the day attending a program dedicating the new Center for Global Public Relations at UNC Charlotte. Before the semester is out, I'll be discussing PR for international publics with my Cases and Campaigns class. The Saturday program included some of the most dynamic people in PR education, so I decided to go hear some of the sessions.

Pictured below are Dr. Judy VanSlyke Turk (left), director of the School of Communication at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Dr. Doug Newsom, a professor of public relations at Texas Christian University.




Their topic was "Public Relations in the Pacific Rim" and it was pretty interesting stuff. It's a part of the world where the practice of public relations is equally affected both by the most modern of technology and the most long-standing cultural norms.

Dr. Newsom described the phenomenon of "groundswell," public opinion created and spread not by the news media, but by information that people get from each other, especially online. It's a big factor in public relations in nations like South Korea, Japan and even, to some extent despite heavy state control of the Internet, China. But, as both professors noted, it's hard to control the Internet.

And it's difficult for public relations practitioners if they don't become aware of a country's culture. For example, the Japanese find American ad campaigns to be very aggressive and may similarly be put off by some of the more overt "pitches" of stories by PR practitioners. In addition, Newsom said, the Japanese don't deal well with criticism, which complicates crisis communications efforts to deal with negative publicity.

Public relations in many of these Pacific Rim countries is in varying stages of development, from the well-established professional practices in India and Australia, to more emerging professional efforts in the Muslim nations of the region, Indonesia and Malaysia.

All very interesting, and so were the academics' thoughts on the state of foreign language requirements in higher education today. (In 25 words or less, they'd like to see students leave college with at least a conversational knowledge of a foreign language -- hard to get even in two years of instruction at many colleges.)

Several hours later, I made the short trip down to Belmont to cover the Queens-Belmont Abbey basketball game for the Charlotte Observer. As I've noted before, it's been a long season for Queens (6-19), which lost 88-69, its fifth straight setback. Belmont Abbey (18-7) is on a roll, extending its winning streak to seven games. They've improved significantly over last season under first-year coach Stephen Miss.

The Belmont Abbey road trip is the only one I take during Queens' conference season and part of its appeal is to my love of basketball history. The legendary Al McGuire (1928-2001) held his first head coaching job at Belmont Abbey from 1956 to 1963. Of course, McGuire became nationally known later as the men's basketball coach at Marquette, where he led the Warriors to the NCAA Division I championship in 1977. After that he retired and spent the next two decades on TV, calling college basketball games with Dick Enberg and Billy Packer.

The son of an Irish immigrant who ran a New York City saloon, McGuire stocked his Belmont Abbey teams with players from New York. (One can just imagine the culture shock both ways.)

There's a trophy case out in the lobby of the Wheeler Center, the on-campus arena, which displays McGuire-era memorabilia, including game programs and team photos. My favorite item is this photo, and the caption says that Crusaders fans gave McGuire popsicles to keep the fiery-tempered Irishman cool on the bench.



Inside the gym, there are big red plaques on the walls listing the all-time 1,000 point scorers and other career leaders in rebounding, assists and other categories. The plaque that memorializes the top three-point shooters in Belmont Abbey history is dedicated to a player who's seventh on that list. His name was Jim Riches, another one of those New York players, and he hit over 100 three-pointers from 1989 to 1992.

After leaving the Abbey he went back home. The son of the New York City Fire Department's deputy chief, he became a firefighter himself. He died in the line of duty on Sept. 11, 2001, a sobering reminder of how reality can impinge on the fantasy world that we make of sports sometimes.

"Over? It's not over until WE say it is!"

I've always been interested in the statistical side of sport and sometimes have to watch myself that I don't put too many numbers in my stories.

Some folks find it odd that a man with an undergraduate degree in mathematics ended up in journalism, a story which I like to tell students every now and then as living proof that your college degree shouldn't put you in a box when it comes to choosing a career.

But I have always found it useful in my reporting, especially about sports, to be comfortable with numbers. In my Sports Reporting class I always try to devote one session to the use and misuse of statistics in sports journalism.

I encountered a new statistic last night as I checked my Twitter page for a summary of the Florida-Alabama basketball game from a site called, appropriately, StatFix. I learned that the game, which Florida won 83-74, was "statistically over" -- meaning that Florida's lead was safe and Alabama had no more chance to win -- with 17 seconds to play.

How did someone arrive at that figure? Well, first, it's not just any "someone" but sports statistical guru Bill James, who you may know if you're a baseball fan and particularly a fantasy baseball player. He's the inventor of something called sabermetrics and author of many books about the quantitative study of baseball, including his annual Baseball Abstract.

Now just in case I'm about to lose some readers with all this I'll include a link to a description of the formula. If you're interested, click here. If not, just read on.

On their website, the StatFix folks say they've tested the formula on the play-by-play of more than 10,000 games and there's only one instance in which the team which was behind won a game that was "statistically over."

Is it any surprise that it involves the North Carolina Tar Heels? And I remember watching the game on TV when I was a senior in college.

It's Saturday, March 2, 1974. North Carolina trails Duke 86-78 at Carmichael Auditorium with 17 seconds left. Two Bobby Jones free throws and a steal of the inbounds pass and layup by John Kuester cuts the margin to four in just four seconds. Tar Heels steal the inbounds pass again and miss, but Jones is there for the follow. Two points down, six seconds left. Duke's Pete Kramer gets fouled immediately, misses the front end of a one-and-one. Rebound and time out to the Tar Heels, three seconds left.

Walter Davis banks in a 30-footer at the buzzer for an 86-86 tie in regulation (no three-pointers at that time). Shell-shocked Duke goes on to lose 96-92 in overtime.

After the game a friend and I headed to Atlanta where I was covering Clemson's game at Georgia Tech that night for The Tiger, our student newspaper. (This was before it was an ACC game). In a hallway at Alexander Coliseum about an hour and a half before the game, we were telling then-Clemson coach Tates Locke, who hadn't heard the result, about the comeback. He shook his head and muttered something about UNC coach Dean Smith and "sitting at the foot of the Cross."

Anyway, this is all interesting to me, but I think, as the creators themselves suggest, that the formula may be so accurate because it's too conservative. After all, looking at the play-by-play sheet, I think the Gators had that game with the Crimson Tide well in hand last night before the 17-second mark.

And the Tar Heels have been on the other end of the formula, too. I think that in last year's Final Four game with Kansas -- the one time all season that I really wanted them to WIN a game -- the Heels were done when Kansas got that 40-12 lead, their second half rally nothwithstanding.

Sometimes it IS over before it's statistically over.

P.S. Leave me a comment if you recognize the movie line that this blog post's title comes from.

A question of credibility

I watched Alex Rodriguez’ news conference on Tuesday afternoon, along with one of my public relations classes.

They have an assignment to evaluate the PR of this event. Did it help or hurt the New York Yankees’ slugger who recently admitted to ESPN’s Peter Gammons that he used steroids between 2001 and 2003, after lying about it in several other interview situations in recent years. Was he credible? Did he really apologize? Did he need to?

All are good questions, I think, and some are more easily answered than others. After watching A-Rod’s performance, and having had some time to think about it, I’m still not ready to pass judgment. But the lingering question for me – as for many, many other fans and journalists -- is one of credibility. I have a hard time believing – as I did with similar responses to steroid questions in recent years by all-time home run king Barry Bonds – that an elite athlete would take something or inject himself with something or rub it on himself when he didn’t know what it was, or didn’t know what it would do to him.

The A-Rod controversy is a good example of how the sports media, like other media – and as we all do to some extent -- write “scripts” through which they look at the world. And I would imagine that many reporters who cover baseball, just like many fans, are having to re-write their “scripts” about Rodriguez.

After all, he was the “anti-Bonds.” The enigmatic San Francisco Giants star was surly with the media, a bad teammate, loved only by clearly oblivious Giant fans and clearly a steroid abuser, the story lines always went. A-Rod was the “good slugger,” loved by fans and teammates, who had hit his 553 home runs the “right way.” And if he played long enough he would surpass Bonds’ tainted total of 762 career homers and return the home run title to someone who had legitimately earned it.

Now the image has been shattered and reality, as it always does, turns out to be a little more complicated. So is the story, and it will be interesting to see if it gets lost, or gets worse, depending on how A-Rod performs on the field.

One more random note – kudos to that New York Yankees public relations person for his conduct of the news conference. With more than 200 media representatives on hand, including many whose interest in the Yankees extended only to this story, he made sure that the beat writers who cover the team on a daily basis were able to get their questions answered.

It was, for the Yankees, a nice bit of media relations that probably went unnoticed by most folks watching the bigger PR problem unfold.

More fun and games in Division II

My evening's Internet browsing usually includes a look at the Conference Carolinas website on nights when games are played in that NCAA Division II league. As noted before, I cover the games of Queens University of Charlotte, one of the members of the conference, for the Charlotte Observer.

A score jumped out at me just a little while ago when I checked tonight's results: Pfeiffer 126, Barton 117. It looked like the score of a Lakers-Celtics game from 1972 (back when the NBA was actually interesting, but that's for another day). And I wondered how many overtimes it took to get to that result. Answer: none.

If you'll check my blog entry from Jan. 18, I wrote then about Pfeiffer, a small school about 40 miles northeast of Charlotte, and its high-scoring, frequent-substitution style of play. And tonight's game must have been something to see. Pfeiffer led 71-60 at halftime.

And it's an even more impressive accomplishment that they rang up those totals against Barton, a perennial contender for the conference championship and the winner of the Division II national title in 2007.

A quick digression here. Follow this link to see the final 45 seconds of that championship game. The Bulldogs, who trailed Winona (Minn.) State by seven, won the game on guard Anthony Atkinson's length-of-the-floor drive and layup at the buzzer. It became an instant YouTube classic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFYnersg2Us

Because of the upset, Barton, in second place, missed a chance to move into a first-place tie with Mount Olive, which was in a pickle of its own tonight. (North Carolinians will get the bad joke here.) The conference leaders fell in a 99-91 upset to Belmont Abbey.

I've got Queens hosting always-pesky Coker tomorrow night. Coker won the first meeting of the two teams in double overtime at their gym in Hartsville, S.C. So there's more fun to be had in this quirky little conference before the regular season ends.

I'm all a-Twitter

I've been trying to figure out what to do with the latest social networking site, Twitter.

Falling somewhere in the continuum between early adopter and Luddite as it relates to technology, I've embraced Facebook pretty enthusiastically, as noted in previous blog entries. And now I've started a Twitter account, but I've had a little more difficult time trying to figure out exactly how it can be useful to me.

Descriptions of Twitter that I've seen call it a "microblogging" site, where you can post updates called "tweets," ostensibly in answer to the question: "What are you doing right now?" It's supposed to be similiar to the Facebook "status update," but I'm finding most people don't use it that way. Whatever you put there, it has to be brief, as you have a limit of 140 characters.

The application allows you to follow other people's Twitter updates and to be followed by others. So far I'm more of a follower than a followee. And I'm using it actually as a pretty neat professional newswire, as most of the Twitter pages I'm following have to do with journalism and public relations. I also get constant news updates from American, English and German media sites that have a Twitter feed. (I don't have a lot of pretensions, but please allow me this one. When I get an update from Der Speigel or Deutsche Welle, I really do know what it's saying. Really.) And my updates so far have pretty much been invitations to read my updated blog.

Similarly to Facebook, you can converse publicly with other people, but I haven't tried that yet. But I just figured out how to send a "tweet" to my page from my cell phone. I enjoyed playing around with that technology at several athletic events at Wingate yesterday, sending the scores of our baseball and basketball games to my page. Later, it occurred to me that my messages probably weren't targeted to an audience that was interested in our athletic events. It reminded me of my early days on the Internet, where I could access all this neat information, but couldn't figure out how to use it.

My early impression is that Twitter is a little more of a "wild frontier" than Facebook, where you seem to have a little more control over who can see your information. I get some pretty random folks signing on to follow my updates (a Charlotte area dodgeball organization decided they were interested in me for some reason), but they seem pretty harmless so usually I don't block them.

But issues related to the transparency of the communication have already arisen on Twitter, just as they have on other social networking sites and online communication. Here is a link to a story which I found with the help of my Twitter feed, about a journalist who ended up having to apologize for a profanity-laced outburst in a Twittering conversation with a source that went public.

(Advisory: You have to click through to a couple of links to get to a "capture" of this actual exchange. If you're offended by strong language you may be satisfied just to read the commentary about it.)

http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/2009/02/12/financial-post-apologises-for-reporters-twitter-outburst/

It's a good lesson in the importance of being nice online. This stuff not only spreads quickly, it also hangs around -- even if you think you've deleted it.

The anonymity offered by the Internet encourages too much boorish behavior these days, promoting verbal exchanges that you wouldn't think of engaging in face-to-face with someone. I weep for the future of humanity whenever I see the reader comments at the bottom of a news story or a YouTube video. Incivility combined with bad information and worse grammar is not an attractive package.

But that's another post for another day. For now, I'll take any suggestions anyone has on how to deal with Twitter. I'll follow you, if you'll follow me.

Obama meets the press

I'm always interested in what happens at presidential news conferences, frequently using them in my News Writing classes as the most well-known example of the news conference format.

President Barack Obama met the press for the first time last night. Click on the link for a review of his performance in the Washington Post by media critic Howard Kurtz.

I tend to agree with Kurtz, that the media representatives struck a happy medium between the softball question and going for the jugular vein and that the tone was just about right for the first of these public encounters.

Conservatives, as you might expect, are surely going to see it differently. We've been hearing for months, going back to the Democratic primary campaign, about the supposed love affair between the news media and the charismatic then-candidate.

Author Bernard Goldberg has chronicled this already in his book entitled -- what else? -- "A Slobbering Love Affair." I have mixed feelings about Goldberg, a former CBS News reporter whose investigative sports journalism on the HBO program "Real Sports" is admirable. But his book "Bias," and this latest effort would appear to be fairly predictable conservative takes on the so-called "mainstream media," aimed at an audience which wants its own particular biases confirmed.

I'll make the disclaimer that I've read enough of the former to get the flavor of it, but I haven't seen the latter. Based on the title, I think the assumption is reasonable. As they say at Fox News, I report, you decide.

Anyway, the assumption that the MSM go easy on Democratic presidents while hammering Republican ones seems to be an article of faith with conservatives. In communications research, this is called "hostile media effect" -- the media are always against what you're for. But I don't think in this case that it stands up to any kind of clear-eyed scrutiny.

Going back as far as I can reasonably remember about how the media cover the presidency, I thought the same news media that supposedly drove Nixon out of office and grilled Ford about pardoning him, was equally tough on Carter.

One thing I particularly remember was their puzzlement over what one reporter called Carter's "weird religious trip" -- which to any of us who grew up Southern Baptist was a pretty mainstream expression of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And of course he was grilled, too, about the economy and then the Iranian hostage crisis.

Reagan was a tough one for the media, and there I think it was a world view thing. He had a broad vision for the kind of country he wanted the U.S. to be, and the kind of world he wanted the U.S. to lead. But he was fuzzy on the details a great deal of the time and news media folks are all about the specifics. So to The Great Communicator's admirers, the media were unjustifiably picking on a man who, even to many of his opponents, was personally likeable.

Oddly, I can't remember a whole lot about the George H.W. Bush treatment by the media -- he probably got a rougher treatment from conservatives in his own party than from the media about the "no new taxes" thing.

But Clinton was another story. Similarly to today, the conservative script was that the liberal media operated hand in glove with the Clinton administration, never asking a tough question. (Remember CNN as the "Clinton News Network"?) I didn't see it that way, as I can't imagine what reasonably credible story about Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones, etc., went unreported during that era. And if you were to ask Bill and Hillary how much they love the MSM, I'm fairly confident of the answer you'd get.

And now we'll see the inevitable comparisons of how Obama was covered with the news conferences of the previous eight years of George W. Bush. I would agree with those who say that there was a fair amount of showboating by reporters during the Bush administration news conferences. I hope that trend abates considerably.

But what I saw last night was a White House press corps doing what they're supposed to do, no matter what party is in power -- challenge respectfully, be skeptical and ask substantive questions. It's their job.

A pilgrimage

I'm not sure how this tradition got started, but for almost all of the last 12 winters, my brother Jeff and I have picked out a Saturday to make a trip to his alma mater, Lander University in Greenwood, S.C., to watch basketball.

If you know me at all, you're aware that I'm a big college basketball fan and could watch the sport 24/7 if it wouldn't cost me everything -- except basketball -- that I hold dear. It's an addiction that Jayne tolerates with remarkable good humor. As a matter of fact, our first date was to a basketball game -- Clemson vs. Campbell at Littlejohn Coliseum, March 3, 1984. More on that as the date approaches....

So each year, as I plan this trip, Jayne asks, "Is Lander any good? Is the team they're playing any good?" Oh, the questions asked by the innocent! It doesn't matter. Beauty is hoops, and hoops beauty. That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know. (You didn't know Keats was a basketball fan, did you?)

And early on Saturday afternoon, I'm stopping by Clinton to pick up Jeff and we head to the Finis Horne Arena in Greenwood to watch a Peach Belt Conference NCAA Division II doubleheader between the Lander Bearcats and the Columbus (Ga.) State Cougars.

As I've noted previously, I've become fairly familiar with Division II basketball from having taught at Wingate for 15 years and have come to appreciate it on its own merits. And this day's crowd at Horne Arena, a spacious 12-year-old on-campus facility that some Division I schools would envy, is a typical Division II crowd -- a mix of students, faculty/staff, parents and friends of players and a few scattered regulars from the town. And one old grad and his older brother. The raucous throng listed at 255 for the women's game will swell to 350 by the time the men take the court.

Both Lander teams have had recent success, each earning berths in the Division II tournament during the last couple of seasons. It's an especially remarkable turnaround for the women's team, which had a 5-22 record four seasons ago. This season, both Bearcats teams are in the middle of the pack in the conference standings.

Neither of the games are close. Lander wins the women's game, 93-75, in a fast-paced contest that, despite the score, features some good defensive play. During the game we walk over to Bruce Evans, the coach of the men's team, whom I've encountered through my sports writing on a couple of occasions. And he's a former Division I player -- at Furman in the early 1990s for an old acquaintance of mine, Butch Estes. I want him to meet Jeff, the alumnus, and he graciously chats with us for a few minutes.

"I hope you brought us some luck. We could use it," he says as heads for the locker room.

Unfortunately it doesn't work out that way. Columbus State, which enters the game with a 6-12 record, plays what had to be its best game of the season. The Cougars score 15 straight points to start the second half and hold Lander's best offensive player to 2 points on a miserable 1-for-14 game from the field. Final score 76-54, Lander's eighth loss in 10 games after a 7-2 start.

After we leave the campus, we make one last obligatory stop, to a place that many a Lander student and alumnus knows well, the Dixie Drive-In. It's a classic old hamburger stand -- no tables, just a U-shaped counter with red vinyl covered stools all around it. We each get the Dixie Cheese, a cheeseburger with all the trimmings, and go for the "half-and-half" option, which means you get both french fries and onion rings with your burger. Good sweet tea, too. Total bill for two: $15.41.

Some random notes on the day:

-- My brother, who started his college career at the then-North Greenville (S.C.) Junior College, has a odd distinction shared by few others. Both of the schools he attended have changed their nickname/athletic mascot since he graduated.

North Greenville, now a four-year institution, called its teams the Mountaineers (for its foothills location) back in the day, but they're now the Crusaders. Lander's athletic teams were formerly the Senators (not sure why), but a couple of years ago, the school decided to change its mascot to the more marketable Bearcat.

Don't get Jeff started on either one of these developments. In this case, change is not good.

-- Lander's arena is named for the coach who started the school's men's basketball program in the late Sixties and coached it for 29 seasons, winning 491 games. I saw him between the games, entering the arena with a couple of tickets in his hand. I hope he didn't have to pay for them.

-- One thing the Lander athletic department does that I really like is a "Wall of Fame" of sports photographs down one corridor of the arena, something more schools should do. It's recently been expanded to include historical photos of non-athletic subjects, dating back to university's previous incarnation as an all-female teacher's college. I kid Jeff that the team pictures from his era keep moving farther and farther down the hall.

-- At halftime of the women's game, something happened that reminded me of how few sporting events I attend as a paying customer. Walking down that hallway, I passed a fellow who must have been Lander's sports information director. He held what looked like a stack of halftime stat sheets in his hand. I very nearly reached out my hand so he could give me one as I passed by. Just a reflex, I guess.

Big drama on a small stage

I've always believed that the best stories are found where no one else is looking.

When I teach the Sports Reporting class, at this point in the semester we will talk about the concept of "pack journalism" -- a multitude of reporters chasing the same story from the same sources. Last night's Super Bowl is probably the best example, as much as been written about the two weeks of media hype that precede the game. It rarely results in great journalism.

You can also list many other "big events" in sports that fall into the category of pack journalism. I've covered a few -- Major League Baseball's All-Star Game, the U.S. Open Golf Tournament, the NHL's Stanley Cup playoffs and the All-Star Game.

Those experiences were a lot of fun -- some of my favorite memories include hearing Tony Bennett in concert at the MLB All-Star Gala in 1994, shaking hands with Chicago Black Hawks legend Bobby Hull at the owners' pre-NHL All-Star Game party in Montreal, and exchanging pleasantries with Arnold Palmer in the clubhouse men's room at Oakmont, where he played in the U.S. Open for the final time.

But I don't recall getting any really memorable stories out of those assignments. On the other hand, some of my favorite stories have come from events on smaller stages.

I've enjoyed my five seasons covering the Queens University men's basketball team here in Charlotte. Although I went to three schools from NCAA Division I's "powerconferences," I've developed a fondness for Division II basketball -- especially since I teach at another Division II school. And especially since I've always believed that just because an event is small, it doesn't make it automatically inferior to a big one.

For example, I saw what will almost certainly be the best basketball game I've seen this season this past Saturday night when Queens defeated Anderson University 104-102 in double overtime. It drew a crowd of about 500 people at the Grady Cole Center, a little multipurpose facility in Charlotte which back in the Sixties hosted concerts by the likes of the Rolling Stones and Janis Joplin.

It was an entertaining game played at a high intensity level. There were 22 lead changes and 21 ties in the game, the great majority of them after halftime. Queens, struggling through a 5-14 season with a lineup heavily dependent on freshmen, put together its best game of the season. Senior Patrick Fox was a hero twice over, hitting a shot with two seconds left in the first overtime to send the game to a second extra period and then putting in the game-winner with one second left in the second overtime.

The Royals have lost by six points or fewer seven times, and, while we reporters really aren't supposed to pull for anyone to win -- and I remained true to my "no cheering in the press box" credo -- I coudn't help but hope that Queens, playing its second overtime game in three days, would pull this one out.

"Coach (Wes Long) put up on a blackboard the games that we've led with a minute left but have lost," said Fox. "We wanted this one to turn out better."

A super Super Bowl

Tonight's Super Bowl XLIII (I agree with the writers who have said enough with the Roman numerals already) extends what has been an encouraging trend of recent years in the NFL championship game -- competitive and watchable games. Out of the last eight Super Bowls, five have been decided by fewer than five points.

Being former Pittsburghers, we're happy about the Steelers' victory. In two years there, we never made it to a Steelers game, but it wasn't hard to get caught up in the enthusiasm for the team. It's a team that's always reflected the 'Burgh's blue-collar ethos, tough and durable.

But Jayne was just a little conflicted. She seemed quite taken with the Arizona team's "scowling cardinal" logo as we watched the Cardinals' surprising march through the playoffs.

You can find all the analysis and game coverage you want elsewhere, but a couple of thoughts about some of the associated events:

-- not sure I was terribly impressed with any of the commercials this year. I think I'll have to watch them on Hulu before I talk about them with my classes.

-- I liked the moment after the game where one of the Super Bowl's first superstars, former New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath, a native western Pennsylvanian, delivered the Lombardi Trophy to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for the post-game awarding. He looked genuinely happy for the Steelers, slapping hands and congratulating them. Seeing him made us both realize how long we've been around.

"I remember when he was hot," Jayne said, noting the bespectacled Namath's graying hair and lined face.

"That was 40 years ago," I said.

It's hard to believe that it's been four decades since the historic Super Bowl III upset victory by the Namath-led Jets of the AFL over the NFL champion Baltimore Colts. If you know me personally, you can ask me about my search for Namath on a trip to Tuscaloosa, Ala., to cover another event in the spring of 1975. I won't bore you with it here.

-- You also know you're getting old when the edgy and controversial "guitar heroes" of your younger days are now considered middle-of-the-road enough to be the Super Bowl halftime entertainment. Bruce Springsteen, looking a little thicker around the middle (as did some of his fans, actually) than when we saw him at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena in 1992, did a creditable job of running through some of his hits in the halftime extravanganza. The E Street Band sounded pretty good, too, But I'd have to say that it didn't top Prince's rocking performance at the 2008 Super Bowl.

So scoff if you will, youngsters, but in a couple of decades it might be Coldplay or L'il Wayne, looking a little grayer and heavier, belting out their hits backed by a light show.

And if we wait long enough it might be safe for Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake to come back, when the risk of a hearing aid malfunction might be the biggest thing to worry about.