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The Value of Conversations: Thoughts on Grantland’s Look at Sports Radio

31 May, 2015 / Kat

“The readout from our sports-radio diagnostic noted the following: Hosts don’t necessarily maintain the air of swamis. Callers have been downsized or have fled. News updates are anachronistic. Why do we still listen to sports radio?”

– Bryan Curtis in his Grantland feature on national sports radio host Scott Ferrall

Having taken increasing responsibilities on a hockey radio show over the past few years (shameless plug here for Hockey on Campus, Saturdays and Sundays during college hockey season on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio), I have thought a lot about sports radio and its future. Reading the above quote in this weekend’s Grantland profile of CBS Sports Radio host Scott Ferrall stopped my eyes in their tracks.

Why do I listen to sports radio, and why did I start given that I’ve never been a member of the genre’s key demographics?

I feel completely old by saying this, but when I started listening to sports radio, my city had just one show for two hours on weeknights. That was it. I started actively listening as a 11 year old, while my friends were busy calling our Top 40 station to ask for the last gasps of New Kids on the Block and the new sounds of Mariah Carey. (Don’t worry, I also joined them in singing Emotions into my hairbrush (and having my sister ask me to please stop because I sounded like a dying animal.)

Every evening during dinner, my father and I would turn on the Bob Matthews Show on Rochester’s WHAM 1180. Our family dinners were spent listening to Matthews, a longtime columnist for the Democrat and Chronicle, and whichever guests he had on that night. My father and I would argue with the radio, but we would never call the show. I remember wanting to a few times because I had strong feelings regarding some football topic (probably that I felt they were giving Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback Troy Aikman way too much credit for something), but my father always waved me off. “You’re a girl. They’d never put you on the air.”

I was a girl in the early 1990s, and because of that, conversations with my father and listening to Rochester’s one sports radio show were the only football and hockey content beside the newspaper I had. This was back when ESPN showed more sporting events than endless hours of SportsCenter, so it wasn’t like I had a plethora of talking heads to listen to. Never mind chatting about sports at school – there just were not a lot of sports fans at my creative and performing arts high school. I was an odd duck.

Even though sports radio was never made for me – it was made for men like my father, and still is – listening gave me a sense of belonging. There were other odd ducks like me who talked quarterback rating and defenses. Maybe, someday, I would find some of these people in person.

When I moved to Boston in 2004, I listened heavily to sports radio again because I didn’t know many people yet and thus couldn’t have sports conversations in person. (I guess I could have saddled on up to a bar and just started those conversations up with strangers, but I didn’t quite have that gumption.) A few years later, I spent weekend overnights at my then-boyfriend’s parents’ house, where I was regulated to the guest room. Nervous and unfamiliar with the setting, I kept the clock radio in the room tuned quietly to sports radio so because it was something familiar. The combination of my boyfriend’s mother vacuuming loudly as a family alarm on Sunday mornings while the syndicated NFL Preview with Boomer Esiason played on the guest room clock radio is a standout memory of my 20s.

For me, my listening to sports radio is so much rooted in finding people having the same conversations I wanted to participate in. In the Grantland piece, Curtis touches upon the idea that social media is now fulfilling that particular need. That’s true – for people who can engage regularly online. Not everyone can. Economic (the affordability of internet, computers and smartphones), generational (not everyone is fully comfortable with their online abilities) and functional (not everyone can engage with their smartphone or a computer at the their jobs during the day) factors make sports radio still an important outlet for a certain population of sports fans.

There are also times where sports radio still is the best way to have some sports discussions. On Hockey on Campus, the conversations our host has with some of college hockey’s legends are best conveyed in audio format. We could transcribe them (and will next season), but there’s always going to be nuances lost in that transcription. Jack Parker and Jerry York are quite quotable coaches, but their telling quotes lose that je ne sais quoi when you read them.

And maybe that really is sports radio’s saving grace. We may tweet in 140 characters, we may text our friends, but the nuances of audial conversation are still the best. What’s more fun – chatting around the table with your friends or texting? Do I remember tweeting, or do I remember laughing until my sides are sore at something someone said to me? Maybe I value conversations because for so much of my life I couldn’t have them – either because I didn’t have people to have those sports conversations with, or because earlier in my childhood I had speech issues that prevented me from having many conversations at all.

Conversations still have incredible value to me, and that’s why when I’m in a hotel room alone on some crazy work trip, I always roll over and make sure the clock radio is on the first sports radio station I can find. Because sure, now I’ve got people in the press box like me, and I’ve got people on Twitter like me, but when I’m all alone, hearing those conversations still has meaning. There’s still a place for that.

Why Do They Hate You? Let Me Count The Ways.

13 May, 2015 / Kat

The Boston newspaper that I work for part-time plastered the question, “Why do they hate us?” on their cover today under the images of four polished Super Bowl trophies. (Let me preface this by saying I adore the paper and thank the stars every single day that there is a large news outlet that lets me actually write about sports part-time. I understand I am an extremely lucky person.)

They chose the cover they did to echo what many New Englanders have been asking over the last week. Why does the rest of America seem to hate the New England Patriots? Why are those outside of New England rejoicing in the idea of quarterback Tom Brady being suspended four games, the team losing draft picks and having to pay a million dollar fine?

Oh, it’s easy. It is not because the rest of United States is filled with jealous green eyed monsters wanting to revel in the idea of the Patriots’ fall. It’s not because we or the NFL are a Mean Girls-level of catty.

As someone who spent 22 formidable years in “the rest of the country,” let me list the reasons why the rest of the U.S. hates the stereotypical “pink hat” Patriots fan that seems to be getting their turn in the spotlight:

The Patriots fan base will not acknowledge that football existed prior to January 2002.

I thought that by moving here 11 years ago, I would be surrounded by knowledgeable fans I could talk about my favorite 1990s quarterbacks with. Alas, many in New England failed to pay attention to the NFL prior to the millennium. It’s like Boston decided that if they survived Y2K, they should move on to figuring out what this football thing the rest of the country likes is.

You ask who Steve Young is? “He’s that guy on ESPN who bashed Brady!” Reggie White. “Who?” Merton Hanks. “A company?” Steve Tasker. “The sideline reporter from when the lights went out at the Super Bowl!”

Let me tell you, 1990s football was amazing. Less drama, great games, solid personalities, more creative post-touchdown celebrations. (Merton and Deion, your dances are missed.) You missed heck of a lot, New England.

The refusal to acknowledge that there was a point in time where the Patriots were awful.

This harkens back to my first point. Because football seemingly didn’t exist prior to 2002, Patriots followers don’t realize there was a point in time where the team was the laughing stock of the AFC East. (It was when Steve Grogan, Hugh Millen and Scott Zolak played QB. They all seem like nice guys, but they weren’t the best quarterbacks that era had to offer. I am sure there are some who listen to Zolak on 98.5 on a regular basis who may not even be aware that he once started for the Patriots.)

I own Buffalo Bills rainboots (and joke that I own them because it’s always raining for us Bills followers), and the number of completely uninformed comments I get from New Englanders when I wear them is shocking.

An actual example from a Green Line ride:

“Ha! A Bills fan. Bet you wish you’ve gone to the Super Bowl.”

The Bills did. Four times in a row, in fact.

“No they’ve never been! You’ve always sucked!”

Okay. Um, ESPN is about to do a 30 on 30 on those four appearances, but you know, don’t stop believing, buddy!

Bill Belichick

The greatest coaches are often those who elicit a wide range of opinions, and Belichick’s career is a fantastic example.

I grew up with a Rust Belt father who doesn’t hold much hate in his heart. He holds doors for ladies, writes birthday cards and buys candy for his co-workers in the machine shop and dragged us to 7am Catholic Mass every Sunday.

He Hates-With-a-Capital-H Bill Belichick.

After the Giants defeated the Bills in Super Bowl XXV, my father didn’t blame Bill Parcells. He didn’t blame Bills kicker Scott Norwood. He blamed then-Giants defensive coordinator Belichick for using “illegal formations,” claimed that he sent out too many players on defense several times during the game and ran a dirty defense that wasn’t called for obvious penalties. And correct allegations or not, he wasn’t alone in his beliefs. Factories and Wegmans lines all over Western New York engaged in this discussion in the 1990s. If any Giants coach was ever mentioned by name in those “wide right” post-mortems besides Parcells, it was Belichick.

Belichick then moved onto the Cleveland Browns, another Rust Belt city that once was a football power and has since struggled to recapture that glory. His failure as a head coach there there cast him in another bad light. More Rust Belt fathers joined my father and his friends in their hatred.

I’ve learned to respect Belichick for the job he has done with the Patriots and the amount of hard work he has done, cheating and all. I held much of my father’s dislike until I read Michael Holley’s War Room and Patriot Reign, and realized that while Belichick may appear to lack personality and be some sort of evil genius, he is just a lacrosse player who emulated his father and loves coaching and problem solving.

But those two books are deep cuts, volumes that you probably won’t read unless you live in New England or are a very knowledgeable football fan. Reading them changed my attitude on Belichick, but most people in America haven’t read them and rely on Belichick’s not-so shiny public persona for their opinions.

Belichick isn’t liked. Some in America find him the real life version of Grumpy Cat. Right or wrong, his association with the Patriots will forever sully the team to a large base of people.

New England’s collective temper tantrum over DeflateGate.

Never since the toddler tumbling class I once taught had a massive meltdown because I wouldn’t let them throw mats have I seen such a collective tantrum.

That Facebook image of a middle finger with four Super Bowl rings on it that everyone keeps sharing? Super classy. (On a side note, how come 49ers fans never did that with their five rings when Eddie DeBartolo was fined by the NFL, barred from active control of the 49ers and eventually forced to give up ownership? If Twitter had been alive back then, would we have seen the hashtag #FreeEddie?)

The Barstool Sports guys “protesting” at NFL Headquarters in Tom Brady jerseys? Not only is protesting anything contradictory to your previous stance on protests (which are scarily obsessively violent), they looked sad because there were only four of them. Mr. Portnoy, it looked like you threw a party and no one showed up. (Hey, I’ve been there. Seventh birthday: massive strep throat infection depleted my party’s attendance. Two girls. Chuck E. Cheese wouldn’t even come to our table because it was so pitiful.) Or it looked like you were in the end stages of a game of Duck, Duck, Goose. Just sad.

Look, it is absolutely fine to be incensed by the NFL’s decision. We all have a right to question the decision making of Ted Wells and Roger Goodell. (And gosh, Ted Wells, I hope you never decide to get a PhD on top of your MBA and JD and have to go up in front of a dissertation defense, because if Tuesday’s media availability was any indication, you would not get any of your committee to sign off.)

There are less whiny and more classy ways to voice your support of your favorite NFL team and the uneven decision making of the NFL. The changing of social media profile photos to a Brady jersey? Classy. Asking the Patriots not to raise a Super Bowl banner until Brady plays? Understandable. But stop flipping out like a two year old being weaned off a pacifier.
I don’t dislike Patriots fans and know many who are just wonderful. I choose to live in Massachusetts, listen to a lot of sports radio and have a desire to be a full-time sports writer in this town that I chase like a kid chases the first ice cream truck of the season. My statements above aren’t indicative of all Patriots fans, but the loud few. But if Patriots’ followers don’t understand why the rest of America dislikes them, then it’s time to wake up. Just like many other franchises, there is a lot to dislike.

The most underrated U.S. Olympic moment (and why we should take a moment to remember it today)

23 April, 2015 / Kat

Every person who ever considers a career in sports media has those moments that steer them down that path. I talk often about the one that sent me full steam ahead in that direction – Super Bowl XXIX, with Steve Young finally lifting “the monkey off his back” and leading the San Francisco 49ers to their fifth Super Bowl win – but there was a moment three years prior that made me take the initial step.

It was February 1992. Ten year old me was deep in the throws of the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. It was that wonderful first Saturday of February school vacation, day one of my being able to watch as much of the Olympics as I could find without school, dance or Girl Scouts getting in the way.

I was over at my aunt’s split level ranch in East Irondequoit, NY, walking through the kitchen when I caught the 6pm news sports report on her tiny TV in the corner.

“A major shocker in the men’s figure skating tonight,” said the anchor. “If you don’t want to be spoiled, turn away from the TV now.” A way of life of an Olympic obsessed child in the pre-internet age, I would cover my eyes in an effort to convince others I wasn’t watching the TV flash the results, but spread my fingers apart on my right hand so I could see the screen.

Through the fingers on my right hand, I saw that Paul Wylie had won the silver medal. I broke rule #1: I admitted I saw the results. “MOM! The U.S. won the silver medal!”

“Don’t spoil us!” someone yelled.

“Which one?” my mom asked.

“Paul Wylie!” I exclaimed.

“Who?” my aunt asked.

“The third guy!” I explained.

“The third guy?” my mom said in amazement. “He wasn’t even supposed to be on the team!”

Later that night, we gathered around my aunt’s TV in the den and watched Wylie’s long program earn him an Olympic silver medal. Scott Hamilton commentated, and during the wait for Wylie’s scores, he deemed the performance “one of the biggest surprises in figure skating history.”

Wylie had skated on the senior level since the early 1980s. After winning the World Junior title in 1981, he placed fifth four times on the senior level until leaping to second in 1988 and making the 1988 Olympic team. In Calgary, he finished tenth. He earned the journeyman moniker soon after, making three World Championships and finishing 9th, 10th and 11th, all while attending Harvard.

As the 1992 Olympics neared and younger skaters (like Todd Eldredge, who would turn out really defining the term journeyman) began to threaten, Wylie seemed to be the odd man out for a second Olympic team. He finished second at Nationals that year and made the team by placement, but critics called for him to be booted for the younger Mark Mitchell or for reigning World bronze medalist Eldredge, who was petitioning onto the team after being unable to compete at Nationals.

Wylie, Eldredge and Christopher Bowman (a two-time World medalist) ended up making the U.S. squad in Albertville’s men’s figure skating event. Of the three, Bowman and Eldredge looked to be the medal contenders, and Wylie was largely forgotten about. He was so disregarded that he was preliminarily left off the post-Olympics World Championships team in the place of Mitchell.

And then Wylie finished third in the Olympic original (now called short) program. Bowman was seventh, Eldredge ninth.

Wylie skated second to last in the long program and delivered a fantastic performance that had the audience on their feet. He turned out of two jumps, but otherwise skated cleanly and with better spins and edge work than the skater immediately preceding him, the Unified Team’s Viktor Petrenko. The judges marks for Wylie varied greatly, with the Czech judge handing him marks only good enough for fifth and the Unified judge placing him fourth. The remainder of the judging panel had Wylie on the medal stand. Petr Barna, the last skater in the competition, represented Czechoslovakia, and it was clear that his home country’s judge was saving room to keep him on the medal stand by scoring Wylie extremely low.

Political shimmying may have torpedoed some of Wylie’s marks, but at the end of the night of February 15, 1992, he won the silver medal, a shocking finish to an Olympics some within the U.S. skating community didn’t think he should compete at.

Watching the entire story unfold on CBS’ Olympic coverage that evening had young me enamored, and it was one of the first times I thought, “There are people who get to tell about this amazing story. Wouldn’t it be neat to be one of them?”

Twenty-three years later, Wylie’s Olympic story is largely forgotten by the general public, which is a shame. As news broke Wednesday that the now 50 year old Wylie had been hospitalized with a heart issue, those in figure skating shared on social media how impactful his ’92 performance and career has been. The incredible Wylie story has been grossly underrated over the past two decades, and it’s time again to remind the general sports community of one of the most remarkable U.S. Olympic moments of the last fifty years.

The Challenge

2 March, 2015 / Kat

One of the best things about working in education is the inspiration you can find in your students.

For the last two years, I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Connor, a journalism student and probably the only person left on campus who can deftly chat America East men’s basketball. He visited my doorway on Friday, as he and other students often do. I don’t have a big enough office for meetings, so standing or sitting in my doorway to chat has become a tradition among students who I advise or who just want to chat. (A group of them even created a Facebook group called, “Kat’s Doorway Society” back in 2008.)

While he was in my doorway last Friday, Connor mentioned he’s been blogging every single day for 14 consecutive months. I was floored. How could this overbooked college student (he works multiple jobs on campus, PA announces basketball games, takes a full-course load, has friends, and is involved) have this amazing writing streak going? The answer: he just does it. No excuses.

So I told him right then and there that I was going to see if I could do it for a month straight. I may work multiple jobs and am putting a lot of energy into a personal situation, but that’s no excuse. If Connor can do it, I can do it.

The other part of taking on the challenge was to get myself back in the groove of writing for myself. I’ve fallen into a rut where I’ve found myself only writing what’s been assigned to me, which usually is a game or meet story. The danger of that rut? My part-time sports writing career isn’t going to last forever. I’ve already had to make some big cuts to my writing gigs this year, and I can’t pretend that my full-time job schedule will allow me to write for others forever. Because of this, I have to renew my ability to come up with my own ideas and be self-motivated to write.

Let’s see if I can do this. A post a day for one month, no matter what happens.

My Big Fat Vegan Super Bowl Cupcakes

1 February, 2015 / Kat

It’s the of the Big Game (the Large Challenge, if you’re definitely trying to avoid copyright infringement) and if you’re like me, you’ve been invited to a party but haven’t had a minute this week to think about what you’re bringing. But you don’t want to show up with a box of cookies from a nearby supermarket because then you look like you make poor choices managing life priorities. (Isn’t your friend worth something handmade?)

And to throw another twist into this situation, the host of your Super Bowl party is vegan. And so will be a few other attendees.

Well, darn this all to get out. No, don’t darn it all, because guess what? There is a quick solution you can still pull off.

Here are My Big Fat Vegan Super Bowl Cupcakes, adapted from this recipe last year when I had three vegans over to my apartment for the Super Bowl. They have now become my go-to cupcake.

1) Go over to Wegmans, Tops, or one of those Massachusetts grocery stores that continue to make me hang my head in disgust and say, “Boston, you deserve better grocery wise.” Buy Duncan Hines’ Devils Food cake mix. Even better, if you’re at Wegmans, Whole Foods or a store with an organic section, go to the organic baking section and buy the Madhava chocolate cake mix. Pick up cupcake liners (preferably football ones), Earth Balance butter, a jar of organic peanut butter, almond milk (smallest container of it you can find), a can of Whole Foods or Maine Root root beer (or in a pinch, plain old Coca-Cola will work) and head home.

2) Get home. Get out a medium sized mixing bowl, a mixing spoon, your cupcake pan, and your cupcake liners. Drop the cupcake liners in your pan, and preheat the oven to whatever temperature the cake mix box says to.

3) Pour your cake mix into the mixing bowl. Add your can of root beer/Coca-Cola and stir. Voila! Your cake batter.

4) Pour your cake batter into the cupcake liners. When I use the Madhava, it makes 18 big cupcakes. It doesn’t grow as much as regular batter, so keep that in mind as you fill the liners.

5) Bake for the amount of time provided on the cake mix box. Check on them five minutes prior to the finish time – sometimes they’ll bake faster than anticipated.

6) While your cupcakes are baking, whip up the vegan peanut butter frosting. I modified the peanut butter frosting recipe provided on the blog LunchBoxBunch. I use 1/3 cup organic creamy peanut butter, 1/3 cup Earth Balance, three drops vanilla extract, three tablespoons almond milk, and 1/2 cup powdered sugar. Mix it together and let it sit in your fridge until the cupcakes are done baking and cool.

7) Once your cupcakes are finished baking, out of the oven and cooled, frost them with the peanut butter frosting. Is it going to be as pretty as your fad-influenced local cupcake shop (who is probably closing its doors and becoming a juice bar as we speak, because that’s what is happening to all the ones in Boston)? No. Is it going to taste good? Yes. So suck it up that you aren’t going to win Cupcake Wars with this and just frost those cupcakes.

There you go. You made vegan chocolate peanut butter cupcakes in less than 45 minutes and can show up to your Super Bowl party looking all thoughtful and such.

Kat Cornetta