MY DAYS AS A FIGHTING SCOT AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF PARTICIPATORY JOURNALISM A Report of a Senior Study by Kevin Lewis Wheatley Major: Writing/Communication Maryville College Fall, 2008 Date Approved _____________, by ________________________ Faculty Supervisor Date Approved _____________, by ________________________ Editor 1 CHAPTER I WHAT AM I DOING AND WHY AM I DOING IT? ANALYSIS OF PARTICIPATORY JOURNALISM I am an aspiring sports journalist currently working as a sports stringer for the Knoxville News Sentinel. By default, this title usually implies I have a bitter athletic past and am extremely judgmental of the jock culture. This bitterness is stereotypically attributed to a variety of factors, ranging from being picked last on the playground for dodge ball to getting my feelings deeply hurt by a fanatical high school baseball coach. Because of my status as a sportswriter, I’m not supposed to truly understand what happens in a huddle on the football field or inside of a locker room. By trade, I am an outsider. Well, consider me an outsider no more. I am coming out of retirement from football and putting on the pads to become a Fighting Scot. Granted, my playing experience consisted of two years as an offensive lineman in high school and I am going to play quarterback for the Scots. I have not stepped foot on the gridiron in nearly five years, but that does not matter. This is not about winning the starting quarterback job and obtaining glory on the football field. No, for me this creative thesis is about gaining a new perspective on the game of football through participatory journalism that will help stimulate my growth as a writer, especially as a sports journalist. I feel that this experience will help me obtain “inside” knowledge on a variety of aspects regarding 2 football. For instance, as a quarterback, I will hopefully be able to decipher what the qualities of a good quarterback are as well as what goes on during a game through the eyes of the signal caller. I will hopefully be able to break down plays offensively and defensively and enrich my talents as a sportswriter in the process. However, this experience will not be all about me. Through this study, I will be able to understand the psyche of football players and delve in their personalities, hopefully going beyond the stereotypes placed on them. Are they as piggish as many people envision them? Are they disruptive in the classroom as often as teachers say? Or is there something more underneath the helmet? I want to know what makes these players tick. Do they let the stereotypes bother them? What is their perception of the media? By further evaluating the roles and psyches of players, my writing will improve along with my interviewing skills, as I will know how to relate to players. My stylistic capability will also expand, as I will be able to discover new stories in the game beyond what happens on the field and recreate these scenes to the audience. Allow me to break down my tentative schedule for my brief stint as a quarterback. To begin my illustrious career at Maryville College, I lifted and conditioned with the team at 7:00 a.m. and at 6:00 a.m. following Spring Break. In April, the team began spring practice, which consisted of drills in t-shirts and shorts. During the summer I planned on continuing my weight training and cardiovascular conditioning while practicing with Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach Ryan Hansen sporadically over the summer. Summer camp began a few weeks before school in August and I finally put on the pads and helmet and start hitting. When the season started, Scots Head Coach Tony Ierulli told me that he wanted me to continue practicing into the season and 3 possibly get some snaps in an actual game. While that did not occur, I did get some quality snaps in a junior varsity game, which will be recounted in my third chapter. I had already talked to Coach Ierulli and expressed my intention to be treated as merely a player with no special consideration because I am a writer. In order to gain the full experience, I needed to be fully immersed in the game and participate in it. I am not the first person to ever embark on a participatory sports journalism project. In preparing for my study, I have looked at three very different examples of participatory sports journalism, which vary on topics such as the length of time spent with the team, the sport itself, literary style, and length of their produced work. George Plimpton’s Paper Lion is a book about his time as a Detroit Lion at training camp in Cranbrook, Mich. in 1963. Plimpton had not played football in high school. In fact, his school did not have a football team at all, opting instead to field a soccer team as its primary athletic program (Plimpton 9-10). He was also 36 at the time (364), leaving only one player older than him on the entire roster, Jim Martin (age 39) (364). Like me, Plimpton was attempting to be a quarterback, albeit for a team in the National Football League (NFL). He met only limited success in his time with the team, only picking up five plays in practice and not gaining a yard during an intrasquad scrimmage, instead losing 29 yards in three plays (240). Plimpton eventually departed from the team, but not before successfully completing his favorite play (“Green right, three right, ninety-three”) against the Lions’ first-team defense (343-344). Like Plimpton, Jeff Foley joined a professional football team and wrote about these experiences in his book War on the Floor: An Average Guy Plays in the Arena Football League, and Lives to Write About it, playing for the Albany Firebirds of the 4 Arena Football League (AFL) in three preseason contests during the 1999-2000 preseasons. Like Plimpton, Foley had no prior football experience, often emphasizing his lack of skill (and height) to his audience, which is an important aspect for an offensive specialist (i.e. wide receiver). Standing a measly five-foot-six, Foley was easily picked out among the rest of the team due to his stature (Foley 196). What is interesting about Foley’s tale is that he played in multiple contests over a span of a year. At first, he was only going to play in one game during the 1999 preseason as an offensive specialist for a story for the Albany Times Union, but he extended his stay to include the 2000 preseason as well. He participated in practices and scrimmages, often earning the respect of his teammates with his determination and will to endure even though he was in intense pain as an unconditioned athlete. His lone moment of glory came against the Milwaukee Mustangs when he caught a pass that went for negative two yards after tripping over his own feet (301). The final piece of my three primary sources is an article by Sports Illustrated writer Tom Verducci entitled “I Was a Toronto Blue Jay: In Five days as a Major Leaguer, the Author saw the Splendors of Baseball -- and its hard reality -- from the Best Perspective: Inside the Game,” which deals with playing in a Major League Baseball (MLB) game. Verducci plays the role of a left-fielder for the Toronto Blue Jays in his first participatory journalism endeavor (he would later assume the role of an MLB umpire for one game), taking part in spring training for five days in the 2005 preseason. During his time on the field, he received a vivid first-person perspective of MLB pitching, hitting, and fielding and noted the difficulty of attempting to hit off of an MLB pitcher. His lone moment of glory in his playing days occurs during an intrasquad scrimmage 5 when he makes contact with a ball off of Chad Gaudin, a former pitcher for the Blue Jays. Verducci popped up to the first baseman, but making contact with the ball was a monumental accomplishment in his eyes. When analyzing these different sources of participatory journalism, it is important to define what participatory journalism entails. According to Ryan May, a public relations professional currently working for the United States Army who also has an extensive background in radio and newspaper reporting, participatory journalism is defined as “collecting, writing, editing and presenting news or news articles through the participation of individuals” (May). While my main interest in this study is in the field of participatory sports journalism, there are many other forms of general participatory journalism. For example, many individuals think of online blogging as a form of participatory journalism, since most of the individuals are involved with the topic that they report (Lasica). Since my primary interest is in the field of sports throughout this study, it would be foolish of me not to look at athletes and those connected with professional sports who actively blog. A few of the more notable bloggers among those associated with professional athletics are Mark Cuban (owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks), David Wright (third baseman for the MLB’s New York Mets), and Paul Shirley (former benchwarmer for the NBA’s Phoenix Suns). Shirley’s blog is often noted for its wit, humor, and sophistication in writing while presenting the perspective of a self- proclaimed “twelfth man” to the public’s attention. His writing does not come off as that of a self-absorbed professional athlete, but rather as an everyman individual, someone who’d be more likely to drink a beer and watch a basketball game rather than actually play in it.