College sports, coaches’ salaries, etc.
If you don't count a couple of angry letters to the editor written as a teenager in Vermont, I started my journalism career at an Arizona newspaper called the Daily Sun. Despite the name, it came out in the afternoon. At least it did then.
There was a veteran reporter on the staff who did a lot of good stuff. But the thing that made him a legend in certain circles was submitting his own work to the Pulitzer committee and subsequently referring to himself as "nominated for a Pulitzer Prize."
A few years later, I was working as a news reporter at The Arizona Daily Star in Tucson. Despite the name, it came out in the morning.
In 1981 I sat between two guys, Clark Hallas and Bob Lowe, who actually did win a Pulitzer for their work exposing various misdeeds connected to University of Arizona athletics.
I wrote the story about their award. And I still have a commemorative glass with that front page emblazoned on it. (I refer to it as my "Pulitzer" story, but no one in 30 years has ever thought that was funny.)
Anyway, I don't think the paper sold many of those glasses. You see, the reporting Lowe and Hallas did was not popular in the community. Car dealers pulled their advertising from the paper. News sources refused to speak to us. Et cetera.
I remember it changed the way I viewed Tucson a bit. Sure there was a vibrant progressive element in the city. But there were also a lot of college-sports booster/lunkheads.
In my experience, these people can be found everywhere big-time college sports is played. They like to think they have their priorities straight and that they should not be lumped in with knuckledragging sports zealots in places like Alabama and Oklahoma. But if someone criticizes their beloved "program," well, there's hell to pay.
So I smiled when I saw the story about the coaches being the best-paid employees of the state of Washington.
The Northwest is great in a lot of ways. But when it comes to taking college sports way too seriously, we have our head up our ass. Just like the rest of the country.
