Gregg Doyel Update #3: Thanks, Gregg

I was working on my Master’s degree at Michigan State University when the Mateen Cleaves-Morris Peterson “Flintstones” teams that went on to win a national championship were developing. They won the championship two years after I left East Lansing. My last spring there was their first trip to the “Sweet Sixteen” round of the NCAA tournament, where they lost to, coincidentally enough, North Carolina. Since my time at MSU, the Spartans have become my favorite big-conference men’s college basketball team. (They’re second overall to Bowling Green, of course.)

With that in mind, I’m quite ecstatic that the Spartans are in the national championship game tonight. I think it will be tough to win, as North Carolina is a great team, but I’m excited and hopeful nonetheless. So, I’m quite ready to bask in the glow of praise for the team. However, I’m not willing to do so at the sake of decency, which brings me to Gregg Doyel …

A little less than a year ago, I critiqued CBS Sportsline’s Gregg Doyel for his take on Danica Patrick’s first win as an Indy Car driver. This led to a summer exchange between Gregg and I that I was thankful for and that I reported on here, here, and here on this blog. Well … in the spirit of goodwill, it’s only appropriate to give Gregg some props when I think he’s got something right. (This isn’t to say that he hasn’t had anything else right over the last year. Far from it. Rather, it is to say that this is the first chance I’ve had to note it and write about it.) In a column that Gregg posted this weekend, he argues that all of the stories about how the Michigan State University men’s basketball team is bringing relief to the economic woes of Detroit are not only untrue, but “insulting to true suffering.” While I hope he’s wrong about the outcome of the game (though that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have good points about the MSU-UNC matchup), I have to agree very much with his analysis of the “fairy tale” about MSU alleviating Detroit’s pain.

As I see it, this “fairy tale” is nothing much more than two things: (1) a way for media covering the event to spin a dramatic story that doesn’t have to be realistic as long as it’s dramatic and emotional, which is something that the United States media love to do (and something that television in general strives on) and (2) an attempt by sports media (as well as other media that isn’t directly covering sport, but is invested with the sports industry in one of a number of ways) to offer justification for the importance of sport, even if the justification is not wholly appropriate or correct. In the specific case of Michigan State University supposedly bringing relief to Detroit, it comes across as awfully smug and patronizing for sportscasters and sportswriters, who are doing okay even in the current economy, to be making these kinds of claims about those who are not so well off. Frankly, it’s sickening to hear over and over again and, so, I’m thankful to Gregg Doyel (who, it should be noted, writes for the website of the same media outlet that broadcasts the game tonight) for pointing this out.