Halloween night ended up being incredibly horrific for fans of the Boston Celtics. They suffered the worst loss in franchise history against the frightfully mediocre Washington Wizards with a final score of 114 – 69.
Shira Springer, the Boston Globe’s beat writer for the Celtics, wrote, “The Celtics are doing all they can to shed the expectations set by their run to the Eastern Conference finals last May. And they are doing a good job. In fact, it is the only thing they truly have done well in two games.”
She went on to describe the game on the front page of the Nov. 1 sports section of the Globe, under the headline, “Wizards pummel Celtics: It can’t get any worse for humiliated Green.” Green was not only the color of the uniforms, but the sickly tinge fans developed. It was not a proud day in Boston.
Last semester when I was sports editor, I learned that writing sports is a very different animal than other news stories. I loved writing about sports – getting the essence of the games, understanding the passion of the players, the thrill of victory, agony of defeat, and other classic sports clich?s. And sometimes I had to be tough, and tell the USM community that the softball team had good pitching but no run support. And, maybe I pissed off the left fielder just enough to get her blood boiling and she sure showed me, leading to 10 wins in a row. That is speculation, but often athletes put critical articles in their lockers as reminders that they need to show someone up because the reporter is obviously an idiot for writing it.
Last week The Free Press published an article by Sports Editor Peter Dugre about the men’s soccer team that was incredibly critical. Was it over the top? Probably. Was I too hasty to publish it without more revision? Most likely. Was it more suited for a column than as a straight news story? Most definitely.
So, then, what happened? Sometimes a newspaper needs to be tough. Not every story is going to sing the praises of its hometown team, especially when they have a 4-9-3 record including six shut outs, three of them in the last four games.
The newspaper is not the team newsletter, nor is it the goal of the newspaper to promote the University and support all of its policies. The newspaper tries to be as objective as possible to present what happens around here to everyone else. Sometimes it is not going to be favorable.
It is difficult to write unfavorable stories because people get mad. They get offended. They come into your office with a look of impending doom. They leave voice mail messages.
A wise person once said of a newspaper, “If people aren’t getting mad you are doing something wrong.” As the editor of this paper that makes me sort of nervous, but maybe we’re doing a good job because we have irritated a good handful of people this year.
When I was sports editor, I developed relationships with many different staffers in the athletics department. From the athletic trainers to the athletic director, I chatted and networked and wrote things down for the next generation of sports editor. At this point I admit I am a bit frustrated that these relationships are on the line, but I recognize that we will still have to write tough stories sometimes, but at the same time, I take responsibility on making sure they are constructive, not necessarily destructive.
Steve Bulpett for the Boston Herald wrote of the Halloween Celtics abomination, “The Celtics went to a Halloween party in the nation’s capital last night and managed to scare the bejeezus out of everyone back in New England.
“Dressed as a lottery team, the East finalists of a year ago got monster-mashed by the Wizards, 114-69. The 45-point loss was – you’d better sit down for this – the worst in franchise history, undercutting by one point a 128-84 loss in Portland on Jan. 4, 1997.”
Unfortunately for Peter, he could not hide his critical story behind holiday innuendos. The thing is, though, the Boston media has no qualms about being supercritical. Ask any Red Sox player.