Cultural Crossover Comment Chat

Online proxy servers are like a set of keys to a never-ending series of locks. They have allowed me to get on Facebook, check out Twitter and keep tabs on a variety of blogs, including some of my favorites like this and this and this. These sits, of course, are otherwise inaccessible in China because of the expansive Great Fire Wall of China.

One thing that proxy servers can’t do, however, is allow me to post comments on my blog. (At least the proxies that I use.) There have been a number of comments that were insightful, and a few more that asked me specific questions or made specific criticisms. But I have never responded to any of these comments – not because I didn’t want to, but because I can’t. Don’t ask me why I can post articles but not leave comments. (Don’t ask, either, why a blog about basketball is blacklisted in China.)

So in light of the fact that people have left some comments on my blog, and in light of the fact that comment board banter is, at this time, impossible for me to engage in, I’d like to discuss some of the comments that have been left.

This first one is from Cultural Crossover’s No. 1 commenter, Hopfrog.

First off, your being a total wuss, more on that later….

You know how many success stories begin with “I was down to my last dollar....” or “I hocked everything we owned...”. Your going to sit on the sideline because of some debt? Yeah, a big arse chunk of debt, but are we talking about your dreams or just some job you think would be ‘neat’. It sounds to me like this is your dream man, and if thats the case, it shouldn’t even be a question. People that know you probably don’t want to tell you to go for it, and feel guilty if you don’t make it and become straddled with debt.

Sure, there is a point to be made that it is a different world now, but come on, who’s getting that job with SI or ESPN, the guy with talent and a NW journalism degree, or the guy with talent who really wrote some cool stuff on his blog!...

If its not really your dream, then please, don’t even think about doing it. But you clearly have the talent and if this is the one thing that you really want to do with your life, well, then....

Sack up!

This comment was in response to a three-part post that began with my angst over graduate school and ended with a lengthy discussion about swindles in China. (By virtue of having been linked to my mega-China blogger Danwei, I think these may be my most-read posts.)

At the time, I was mired in contemplation/anxiety about whether or not to attend Northwestern’s prestigious master’s in journalism program at the world-renowned Medill School of Journalism. Any frequenters of the blog, or anyone who read the biographical posts at the outset of Cultural Crossover, knows about my journalistic ambitions. I want to be a sportswriter but, having graduated into the shitshow that was the 2008 U.S. Economy – and the coinciding implosion of American newspapers – I couldn’t find meaningful work to save my life. After some freelancing gigs, a too-long stint at a local library and a few heartbreakingly close sniffs at newspaper jobs, I became resigned to the fact that I may as well escape my parents house and go teach in China.

I never wanted to become a lifer in China, however, so I took the GRE right before I left and then applied to graduate schools during the bleak Jinan winter. Sending out applications endowed me with a moment of hope-inspired warmth before I would leave the post office and traipse down the smoggy and bone-chilling streets of Jinan.

I heard back in March that I was accepted to Northwestern’s journalism program among a few others. This was huge news for a wannabe journalist like me because Northwestern is simply THE program for journalism. (Sorry, Missouri. It’s true.)

The problem, though, is that the one-year NU program costs a comical $84,000. What’s more, they offered me only $12,000 in scholarships. Thus, to attend Northwestern, I would have to swallow $72,000 in debt (about $95,000 after interest, according to a financial advisor).

Now, 72K isn’t a big deal in the world of law, or the world of medicine, or business. But journalism? Boy, that’s a gamble. So I shot out emails to a bunch of trusted confidants in the journalism biz, and not a one told me to jump at the opportunity. Instead, they all talked about (a) how a master’s degree could help me be a teacher, and (b) how a master’s wouldn’t guarantee a job in the industry, how it wouldn’t impress anyone.

In that initial post, I surmised:

So there it is – how it’s possible to have the best news of the year turn into the worst news. Congratulations! You, the 24-year-old desperate to be a journalist, have been admitted to the best journalism school in the country (world?)! Now, here’s your piddly financial aid package. Go find $70,000 – psst…it’ll be more like $95,000 when all is said and done – and come on board!

Part of me wonders if I am just being a wuss, if I need to bite the bullet and swallow the debt if this is really what I want to do. Another part of me wonders if that is a decision that could ruin the next 10 years of my life.

Well, Hopfrog gave his opinion: That I was being a wuss. That if I really wanted to be a journalist – and wasn’t just paying lip service to the idea for dramatic effect – then it would be foolish (and wuss) of me not to go to Northwestern. And that’s fair.

In the end, though, I decided not to heed Hopfrog’s advice, and punted on Northwestern. (Actually I deferred my enrollment, so I could, in theory, go there next year. But I will never, ever pay $70,000-plus for a degree that doesn’t guarantee me a job that I want, and there is no journalism degree, not even from Northwestern, that could insure a job.)

Hopfrog makes valid points, but I don’t know that he has enough of a grasp on how bleak the U.S. journalism industry is right now. It’s worse than stagnant.

If I were to go to Northwestern, I would finish up in August of 2011 and be $70,000 in the hole. Even supposing that the U.S. economy begins to right itself (hardly a surefire proposition), the journalism industry will still be turned on its head. Bloggers and fan sites and ESPN will own such a huge chunk of the industry that it just isn’t a good bet to think that a degree from Northwestern will be a ticket to a job. It doesn’t work like that if there are no jobs.

Maybe I could find a job at a smaller paper, in a place like Lawrence, Kan., or Bloomington, Ind. – some college town or something similar. But those gigs pay in the $30,000 range, and if I were coughing up $9,500 a year to pay off loans, then I am basically working a $20,000 per year job. And maybe I could catch on with an online outlet, but the problem with online journalism at the moment – really, the systemic problem with the industry as a whole – is that online journalism isn’t generating any money.

My prediction – and I want to get in print so I can have a good I told you so! to play with in the future – is that Northwestern (and every crazily expensive journalism school) is going to cut its prices DRASTICALLY in the next three years, five years max. My prediction is that the crop of kids going to Northwestern and Columbia and Missouri in 2010 will go down as one of the last ones to get duped into paying anywhere near that much money for the chance to enjoy unemployment in a crumbling industry.

Think about it. Newspapers (and the journalism industry as a whole) really started to fall apart in 2008. The group of kids that would have gone to graduate school for journalism in the fall of 2008 were already signed up by the time papers started sharing copy, by the time long-time writers began to get the axe, by the time that even the most qualified youngsters couldn’t get that first job (me among them). The 2009 crew knew what was happening, but when they were accepted in early ’09, they could have still deluded themselves into thinking that the economy and journalism industry would right itself in the next year or so.

Now this 2010 group, which like me was accepted into these schools in early 2010, will be at the mercy of the new face of journalism: Bloggers who are more on top of stories than anyone (but don’t make dick for money), a shrinking number of outlets that occupy a growing chunk of the market, newspapers and magazine that are paper thin, that are still shedding staff, that appear to accepting that theirs is a fate of less content and fewer writers.

So, that’s why I am not going to go to Northwestern. Charging $84,000 for a one-year program in journalism, even if it comes with the Northwestern brand name, is tantamount to a money grab. Northwestern and other schools could charge that much in years past under the guise that it would land kids a job in the industry. Well, not anymore. The industry that we knew is gone, and so are the jobs that warrant paying that much for a degree.

This is one of the last years that people who are smart enough to get into the program will be foolish enough to not see the writing on the wall.

What I’ll be doing instead of Northwestern is getting a Master’s degree in journalism from a well-reputed Danish university, starting this fall. I received a full tuition scholarship, and I am confident that I can cobble together enough money to pay for the living expenses in Denmark. I have absolutely no disillusions that a master’s degree from Denmark will be some invaluable asset when I graduate and try to get a job in the States. Indeed, employers may scoff at the idea of hiring someone who went to school in Europe. But then again, the chance to attend school in a country like Denmark and not pay a dime for tuition is cool unto itself. Cooler than being saddled with $10,000 of debt each year until I’m 36.

***

Just wanted to agree - White Men can't Jump really is a classic - for a basketball player who only got into the game (from the UK) at 16 in the mid-90s it showed what basketball could be. The other one I'd describe as a classic if “He got game”.

Never got into the stretching thing before the game though... even living in China.

Doug made this comment on a post that used the film (work of art, really) White Men Can’t Jump as a springboard to talk about stretching in China. You see, in White Men Can’t Jump, there is a great scene where the movie’s lone white man, named Billy Hoyle (played by Woody Harrelson), is stretching along the sidelines. He is mocked by the all-black cohort of players, including his future buddy and teammate, Sidney Dean (Wesley Snipes). “What’s this mother f&*% doing? Stretching?”

Unlike Doug, I was never quite as into He Got Game. It does have some awesome scenes. But there are also aspects of it that are shamelessly superfluous, seemingly little more than a way for Spike Lee to make the film 30 to 45 minutes longer than it actually should be. Seriously, why does the dad of Jesus Shuttlesworth need to develop a love affair with a prostitute? Couldn’t he have just gotten a prostitute, and that could be that? That storyline goes nowhere, yet still Lee dedicates a not insignificant chunk of the movie to Papa Shuttlesworth’s courtship of a hooker, in the process forfeiting an incalculable number of chances to show Ray Allen jump shots.

Anyway, I still love the Chinese’s gratuitous stretching, and the fact that I can walk down the street flapping my arms or holding my hands high above my head and not get looked at like I’m some sort of freak. Strike that – in Jinan, anyone with white skin gets looked at like they’re a freak. But at least I’m not getting the raised eyebrow because I’m stretching. Just because I’m a white man (who, by the way, can’t jump).

***

Interesting stats about lefties. Being one myself, I guess I never knew that only ~11% of us are that way. For what it is worth, four of my nine players on our youth basketball team were lefties. Three of them were guards. I think lefties have an advantage, especially in youth hoops because defenders just aren't used to guarding their strong hand.

Jim V left this comment on “No South Paws in the Far East,” a post about how lefthandedness is discouraged in China and, by extension, how there are no lefty ball players.

I totally agree, Jim, that it throws off youngsters when they try to guard lefties. It’s a quirky thing to deal with. What’s also neat about lefty ballers is that they look downright cool when they play basketball, or at least when they shoot. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a sweeter jump shot than former Missouri star (and therefore sworn nemesis) Kareem Rush, who had this buttery lefty stroke that, if flipped to the right, would probably just look like any old run-of-the-mill J. Other aesthetically pleasing left-handed shooters: 2010 Kansas Jayhawks freshman Xavier Henry; Milwaukee Bucks guard Michael Redd; former NBA guard and pothead Damon Stoudamire. No word on whether or not Jim V’s stroke is pure or not.

***

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Michael Jacksson left this on what was, in my mind, one of this blog’s better posts, “Up Fake: China’s Booming Fake NBA Market”. The post dealt with the interesting topic of fake, or jiade, goods in China, particularly the fake NBA stuff, which I seem to see every single day. Thanks for reading, Michael.

***

I have been loving your writing and particularly love that you are Suns fan. I caught the Spurs Suns game on Sunday morning where Dragic the Dragon played an amazing 4th quarter (talk about spindly!!) and where Barbosa really showed up. I don't know about Jinan, but here in Beijing I thought the Meng Niu ads with highlights were really cool... I mean the milk graphics and a milk BBall!! WTF?

But I hear you on the commentary.. I have been following to Suns here in China since I moved here from Phoenix in 1995 (yep, i was in Phoenix during Sir Charles and Thunder Dan's days!!) and have had lots of fun picking up Bball vocab to talk NBA with the Beijing taxi drivers.…

Thanks, Tianrui. I appreciate it. I wrote that post before the Suns’ season was ended in sickening fashion by the Lakers. One can’t help but wonder if they would have won that Lakers series had Ron Artest not put in that buzzer-beater in Game 5.

I went nuts when Jason Richardson banked in that ridiculous three-pointer to tie the game. Of course, as luck would have it, Kobe Bryant – the best clutch jump shooter in the game – then proceeded to airball his game-winning attempt by five feet, and Artest squirted in there to get the rebound and put up that awkward, old-man lay-up. Killer way to go out, but then again, it’s a Steve Nash team, so it’s only fitting that there was a dastardly twist. With Nash, a loss is never just a loss.

It’s just incredible to think about the various ways in which Steve Nash has been screwed over in the playoffs: Tim Donaghy fixing games in 2007, Tim Duncan’s hitting his first three-pointer of the season in 2008, Ron Artest playing the role of hero in 2010. I don’t feel too sorry for guys who get paid millions upon millions to play basketball, but if I did, I’d definitely feel for Steve. And now that Amare Stoudamire has opted out of his contract, and now that Jason Richardson and Grant Hill and Steve Nash are all a year older, it really is a shame he won’t win a title.

***

The slang in Beijing is mostly the same, 我靠 tends to be what I hear most often in terms of beifanghua.

Jim wrote this on a post dedicated to the different slang terms that I hear on the basketball court here in China. Even when I return to the States, I have every intention of shouting Mea you!!! when someone takes a stupid shot. The term – which is prevalent on courts in China – means “don’t have,” and is pronounced more or less like mayo. People will think I’m talking about condiments. I give it a two percent change of catching on and becoming a nationwide phenomenon.

***

Have you thought about foregoing this blog and pitching this idea to a book publishing company?

Jim V wrote this on an early post when I laid out what this blog was about. To be honest, yes, I have thought about trying to write a book about basketball in China. But my apathy toward learning this bizarre language will probably prevent such a thing from ever happening. Since you brought it up, though, I’m convinced that I should write a book about something, if not playing basketball in China. A book would be a way for me to write non-fiction and at the same time skirt the journalism industry, which, of course, doesn’t seem to have any interest in ever welcoming me aboard. I can mark you down for a copy, right?

***

Hi,

Being a Bball nut also, I thoroughly enjoyed your post on the Chinese BBall experience.

I guess Bball skills brings out the “macho man” in most of us and keeping score and dominating is affirmation of manhood.

Maybe, the average Chinese Bballer is less “confrontational” or competitive in some of these situations since they know each other well ( and each others families ? ).

I know that when I played ping pong ( table tennis ) with skilled players , they didn’t try and beat me to death and make me cry. :)

They were gracious and give up a few points here and there.

Thanks, LA Guy

LA Guy has an interesting theory, which he discusses on an early post in which I express my bafflement at how Chinese players often don’t keep score. In the States, I’ve rarely played in games where people don’t keep score. There are any number of way in which score is kept. In HORSE we use letters; in five-on-five it’s generally the case that threes count as twos, and twos as ones; in “21” everyone seems to have their own nuanced scoring system. My experience in the States was that unless you’re playing by yourself, basketball is a competitive endeavor. Not so here.

***

I was in Orlando when we first got T Mac and he was going to be the guy that got us over the top. Of course, we heard that when we got Penny, and when we got Shaq, and what we really got was swept by the Rockets.

It was clear early on that T Mac wasn’t going to win any championships. For pretty much the same reasons that I don’t see Orlando doing squat with Vince Carter.

My immediate guess for his popularity was for being a Rocket and your entry confirmed it. At least Shane Battier gives 100% and has become a defensive monster, he deserves to be popular somewhere. I’ll take a team player like that over the T Macs anyday….

Hopfrog left this comment on this post – one of my favorites – which discussed the popularity of Tracy McGrady and then looked at why T-Mac is still popular here ever though he can hardly play anymore. The Cliff Notes on his popularity: Yao Ming and adidas.

That’s it for now. Thanks as always to everyone who reads this and comments. I appreciate it. Until next time…

First-Team All-Swindle, I

There is a catch, though. A huge, almost-six-digit catch. You see (sigh), the one-year Medill Master’s program costs (gulp) $84,000 (tear).

I recently received news that, in my mind, confirms two things beyond any doubt:

(1) I have the chops to be a real journalist, not just a nary-read blogger
(2) God or the cosmos or whatever it is that controls the world seems to have condemned me to a life of teaching English and blogging

(You can skip this bit of bio and get to the basketball-in-China stuff by going to Part II…)

In the middle of March, I learned that I was admitted into Northwestern’s prestigious Medill Master’s in Journalism program. There are few better programs in the country – or at least few programs with Northwestern’s reputation (it’s hard to tell sometimes what’s more important). The list of big-time sports journalists to go through the Medill school is staggering: Michael Wilbon of ESPN and the Washington Post; J.A. Adande of the Los Angeles Times and ESPN; Kevin Blackistone of the Dallas Morning News; Mike Greenberg of ESPN; Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated; Brent Musberger of ABC and ESPN; Adam Schefter of ESPN; yadda, yadda, yadda. The list goes on. Basically, if you’re a sports fan, there is a decent chance that you have ingested coverage from a Northwestern alum in the past week. And for me, an aspiring sports writer who is stuck in a far corner of the world, going to Northwestern would be a way to insure that I never find myself scavenging the basketball courts of Jinan, China, in an attempt to find things to write about.

There is a catch, though. A huge, almost-six-digit catch. You see (sigh), the one-year Medill Master’s program costs (gulp) $84,000 (tear). I knew that when I applied, but the number was so outrageous that I kind of shrugged it off: Sure, they may list the price at $84,000, but there is no way they can honestly expect people to pay that. Get in and get scholarships, I thought.

The instant I got accepted, I went to a local computer store and printed out the necessary paperwork to procure some financial aid – a 2009 1040 Form, the NU financial aid application, a letter explaining that, you know, I’ve been working in China and have no money. I shot it off in the mail and, six days later, called the Northwestern financial aid folks to make sure they received everything they needed to award me financial aid. They assured me they had, and for the first time since the summer of 2008, a sense of having everything in order washed over me: I’d teach through the summer, go back in August, head up to Northwestern in plenty of time for the Sept. 20 start date. Yeah, there were logistical concerns – I needed a place to live, I would probably need to buy a new camera, etc. But for the most part, I was set. I was going to the best journalism school in the country, and afterward, I’d (finally) be on my way to procuring a job. Like, a real job.

But then I saw the financial aid package Northwestern offered me, and the ray of sun that had been following me around for the past month turned to a dark, dark cloud. Of that $84,000 total, Northwestern offered me only $12,000 in grants and scholarships; the rest of it was loans. It doesn’t take an egghead to do the math on that: I’d have to swallow $72,000 in loans. And really, it’s more than that. With the help of a financial adviser, I crunched the numbers and figured out that I’d have to pay about $790 per month for 10 years to repay that debt. Because of interest, that comes out to about $94,000 over 10 years. If this were law school or medical school or an avenue into some high-paying industry, I wouldn’t blink at $72,000 worth of debt. But this is journalism, where even good jobs don’t pay that much. If I paid $790 per month, that’s roughly $9,500 per year, and I have no idea when I will have a job where $9,500 isn’t at least one-fourth of my annual salary – even with a degree from Northwestern. I’d gladly take on $30,000, maybe even $40,000 worth of debt. But $72,000? My god.

I sent out a dozen emails to various contacts I have in the journalism biz – editors, writers, friends. I asked them, basically, if it was worth it: Is taking on gobs of debt to go to Northwestern at least going to insure that I have a place in the industry. Without fail, their answers were tepid. (Well, except last one here, which basically says it would be a gargantuan waste of money.)

* If the writing market isn't there, there's always teaching. I would think that getting a grad degree would set you up on that front!…

* But does it really HELP you? Depends on what tangible evidence you can show prospective employers when you’re done with school besides a line on your resume. At the rare times I’ve gotten to hire, the work that’s been done always speaks volumes louder than the school you went to or the grades you got, and the journalism experience OUTSIDE the classroom usually proves to be the most valuable. If you want to be a reporter, what you really need are good, recent clips reflecting varied internships and experience at multiple professional organizations….

* I have a master's in Creative Writing. I acquired it through scholarships and teaching assistantships and avoided debt. The discipline of graduate school is good for you. And congrats on getting into such a respected school. But would I recommend taking on a big debt for that degree in journalism?

The honest answer is that I – [anonymous person] – would not. I love in fact that good journalists don't need the advanced degrees. But it would give you the option to teach. Or a better chance at teaching. Which is a good fallback….

* That's a really, really tough call. I am not big [on] debt (who is, right?). But that is a great school with a sterling reputation and a lot of contacts…. It's also amazing to me how many people (including my wife) have the option to teach journalism if they need tom, as long as they have a master's degree. And having a master's from such a great school could be beneficial in a lot of way….

* If this is what you really want to do, then Northwestern or any other master's program is a waste. A master's won't really impress anyone in this business. If you're hoping to teach, that might be a different story. Someone else might have better information on that. But as far as being a reporter or editor, no. A master's won't help you get or keep a job and the debt you're talking about would just be a huge burden for absolutely no benefit. If anything, this business is going to less formal education….

Of course, I don’t want to teach. That’s kind of the whole point of me going back to school (so I can quit teaching) and this blog (so I can divert my mind from teaching). I know teaching English here is different than teaching, say, high school journalism back home. But still, I don’t like teaching. I don’t have the patience to teach. I want to be a journalist.

But unless something drastic happens in the next week – like, say, I fall into $70,000 – I simply don’t see how I can justify it.

So there it is – how it’s possible to have the best news of the year turn into the worst news. Congratulations! You, the 24-year-old desperate to be a journalist, have been admitted to the best journalism school in the country (world?)! Now, here’s your piddly financial aid package. Go find $70,000 – psst…it’ll be more like $95,000 when all is said and done – and come on board!

Part of me wonders if I am just being a wuss, if I need to bite the bullet and swallow the debt if this is really what I want to do. Another part of me wonders if that is a decision that could ruin the next 10 years of my life.

Los Suns Couldn't Rise in China

This hullabaloo wouldn’t happen in China for a multitude of reasons. For one, Chinese journalists have as their Editor-in-Chief the Chinese government.

Nothing too unusual about this morning’s NBA playoffs broadcast. The Suns-Spurs game was aired on CSPN – China’s all-sports equivalent to ESPN – and presided over by a pair of commentators/analysts who were waxing on the game from thousands of miles and 10 times zones away.

As tempting as it is to rant about the Suns, my favorite NBA team, I’ll stick to the point and not get sidetracked on how awesome Steve Nash is, or how tortured the Suns’ recent history has been – especially against the Spurs. After all, the best Suns team in recent memory, the 2007 squad, was ousted by the Spurs in the playoffs in no small part because later-jailed NBA official Tim Donaghy famously and brutally fixed Game 3. I won’t talk about any of that stuff. Promise.

Instead, what struck me about this morning’s game was the idea of Phoenix’s “Los Suns” jerseys happening in China. The idea of a blatant political statement being made…on (inter)national television…highlighting and criticizing a governmental decision…and it being allowed to happen!

And not only allowed to happen, but even admiringly referenced by the president. Obama, after all, addressed a crowd Wednesday by saying, “I know that a lot of you would rather be watching tonight’s game – the Spurs versus Los Suns from Phoenix.”

The Chinese parallel would be something like Xinjiang’s CBA team wanting to wear alternate jerseys in a show of support for the region’s reportedly-repressed Uighur population; the CBA allowing (and supporting) it; President Hu Jintao taking a moment to make a quip about to the press; the story getting huge media play.

This wouldn’t – couldn’t – happen in China.

A quick background on the Los Suns thing. Arizona recently passed legislation mandating that immigrants carry documentation at all times proving that they are in the country legally. The legislation also permits law enforcement officials – “when practicable” – to ask for said documentation at any time, from anyone.

The aim of the law, according to Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, is to help identify and prosecute illegal immigrants. Brewer added that it was “another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix.” It is the most stringent such law in the United States.

Not everyone is for it, however. Obama, for instance, said that the legislation threatens “to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.” A statement from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund said that the law could spur “a spiral of pervasive fear, community distrust, increased crime and costly litigation, with nationwide repercussions.” And Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony went so far as to say the demand for immigration documents was akin to “Nazism.”

And it’s not just politicians and Mexican groups and religious figures who are against the law. The Suns are against it too, and that’s why they were wearing jerseys that said “Los Suns” – to protest the law and show solidarity with Arizona’s large Mexican population.

The Suns have been unabashed about their displeasure with the law. The team’s owner, Robert Sarver, said the other day, “The frustration with the federal government’s failure to deal with the issue of illegal immigration resulted in passage of a flawed state law. However intended, the result of passing the law is that our basic principles of equal rights and protection under the law are being called into ….”

And after Tuesday’s practice, Steve Nash said, “I think the law is very misguided. I think it’s, unfortunately, to the detriment of our society and our civil liberties. I think it's very important for us to stand up for things we believe in. As a team and as an organization, we have a lot of love and support for all of our fans. The league is very multicultural. We have players from all over the world, and our Latino community here is very strong and important to us.”

Such public displays of political discontent – and media coverage of that discontent – would simply not happen in China. Period.

There are no direct analogies to this Phoenix Suns scenario. The Chinese government has a tight handle on these things – protests, and the manner in which protests are portrayed by the media. Media in China, after all, are controlled (or at least heavily censored) by the government. So even if there were an unabashed attempt to protest a governmental decision, say, like the Phoenix Suns did, it would only become news if the government allowed it to become news. And that’s only if it were allowed to happen – which it probably wouldn’t be.

For instance, foreign protesters who unfurled a pro-Tibet flag in 2008 were arrested, jailed and then expelled from the country. Later, China closed Mount Everest as a preventative measure to thwart any more protests.

In his book Oracle Bones, author Peter Hessler writes about a religious anniversary – a day rife with protest potential – that he witnessed in Tiananmen Square in 2000:

…a small man directly in front of us drops into lotus position. Shouts, commands, people running: a half-dozen plainclothes cops. By the time they force the man to his feet, a van is already speeding toward us from a far corner of the Square…they carry him into the van. Sheets have been tied over the windows so nobody can see inside….

I wander off the Square for a few minutes, and when I return, a middle-aged woman tries to unfurl a banner in front of the flagpole. A plainclothes man tackles her hard….

So, it’s hard to protest in the first place. And if people do manage to sneak in a protest, then the media coverage is tightly governed. For example, when all the Tibet stuff was going on in 2008, foreign journalists were simply banned from entering the region. The only people chronicling the stories, therefore, were Chinese journalists, and Chinese journalists have as their Editor-in-Chief the Chinese government. Once foreign journalists were allowed to enter Tibet, the protests had been subdued and journalists were escorted around by Chinese authorities. In addition, in 2009, which marked the 50th anniversary of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, reporters were expelled not only from Tibet, but from neighboring regions as well.

And this article discusses a 2009 student protest during which “Hundreds of students from the city of Nanjing in Jiangsu Province clashed with local government security.” The article adds, “The incident was not reported in China’s national media.”

Now, I understand that a basketball team wearing contentious jerseys is different than Tibetan freedom and violent, hundreds-strong protests. But the crux of my point is that the Chinese government monitors both its citizens and the news in a way that the U.S. government doesn’t. China prevents things like Los Suns from happening, and controls vehemently how things like Los Suns can be covered if they do happen (which, again, is not likely).

Yet the media in America doesn’t shy away from controversy, nor did it shy away from the Suns’ dissenting message. After Wednesday’s game, ESPN.com’s front page simply said, “Los Winners.” Under that were links not only to the game recap, but also to an article discussing the political import of the jerseys – entitled “Suns’ Statement” – as well as a link to a copy of the governor’s post-game statement.

The governor said, among other things, “By now, sports fans everywhere have heard something about the passage of Senate Bill 1070, a measure I signed into law.” And sports fans everywhere have heard about it because of the hubbub created by Los Suns.

There’s more. The Associated Press recap of the game began, “The Phoenix Suns took a stand, and a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference semifinals.” The article – which, mind you, was a game story – went on to say:

The [immigration] bill has drawn criticism from civil rights groups and others, including President Barack Obama, who called it “misguided.”…

“The team stood up for that part of our community because I think that's the side of this bill that could open the door to racial profiling and racism,” Nash said. “and I’m talking about American citizens who are Latino. Their quality of life and freedoms could change because of this bill.”

CNN.com’s “U.S.” section on its front page had a link reading, “NBA team joins immigration fight.” The New York Times’ Web site declared, “‘Los Suns’ Join Protest, Then Stop the Spurs.” Even FoxNews.com covered the story. The notoriously right-wing outlet titled its article, “Little Reaction to Jersey Protest.” (That that headline ran on the site’s front page, however, suggests that it may be a bigger deal than they’re letting on.)

This hullabaloo wouldn’t happen in China for a multitude of reasons. First off, the team almost certainly wouldn’t have been allowed to wear the jerseys. Moreover, the president definitely wouldn’t have given legs to the story by talking about the jerseys in front of a gaggle of reporters. And, maybe most importantly, the media wouldn’t be allowed to wax on and on – and print dissenting voices – like the U. S. press has done.

This post is not meant to be anti-China; I am not anti-China. Nor is this meant to be a treatise on how wonderful the United States government and media are; I have serious misgivings about each of those institutions. Nor is this meant to read like a sermon on how American basketball has yet again entered into the political sphere. For in reality, it’s not at all commonplace in the States to have basketball teams – or, for that matter, any team at any level – taking political stands. Indeed, that’s one of the reasons that the Suns’ foray into politics garnered so much attention.

I’m do not want to sound imperial here, or come off as though I think America and its sports teams are untainted beacons of pure democracy and pure freedom. Heck, many believe the law that the Suns were protesting is itself an indicator of the contentious freedom that some Americans – especially ones with brown skin – face every day.

What I am saying: I’d bet the house that this not only wouldn’t, but couldn’t happen in China. That, and Viva Los Suns!!!

Interview Request, I

I loved telling stories and I loved writing and, more than anything, I loved editing the stories I’d written – kind of like a person with O.C.D. loves washing their hands. The interviewing still made me shudder.

I used to treat interviews the way George Constanza would treat a phone call to a woman. George, if you aren’t familiar, was hopelessly devoid of confidence. Thus, he liked to make notes before he called a woman so, if the conversation hit a lull, he would have some fodder to call upon. That was me trying to do an interview: I’d make a tedious outline of how I thought the interview should transpire in case I started stammering. I was always afraid that things would go south – a fear that was justified by numerous awkward, clammy-handed interviews.

A few years back, I hated nothing more than doing interviews. It’s not exaggerated hyperbole to say that I lost sleep over interviews. I literally did lose sleep over interviews. If there were some way to do journalism without doing interviews, I would have been all over it.

The first really good story I wrote, about my high school’s drunk-and-later-suspended cheerleading team, wasn’t all that great at first. The scoop was that 15 of the school’s 17 varsity cheerleaders were getting wasted at one of the girls’ houses, and that girl’s mom got ticked and then called the school to report the transgressions. All the girls got suspended for the season, and it was a big deal in our high school.

Well, the original draft that I turned into my high school editor, Dianne, didn’t have an interview with the mom. I was too freaked out. I talked with the athletic director and some of the cheerleaders and the school district’s Director of Something-or-Other. The mom, though? No way.

I forked over a print-out of that first draft to Dianne, knowing that the mom’s absence was a huge flaw. I was like a kid handing a report card to his parents with a big fat F, hoping that the parents don’t notice.

Dianne did notice. “The story is fine,” she said. “But you really need to talk with the mother.” I knew this was true, but I didn’t want to accept it. Finally, though, I grew a pair and interviewed the mother; that interview made the story 10 times richer than it was originally.

My aversion to interviews carried over to college. The first time I interviewed our college’s basketball coach I was freaked out; the first time I interviewed University of Colorado’s hoops coach I was even more freaked; the first time I interviewed a CU player, I probably sounded like that bumbling kid trying to explain the F on his report card. I loved telling stories and I loved writing and, more than anything, I loved editing the stories I’d written – kind of like a person with O.C.D. loves washing their hands. The interviewing still made me shudder.

But after a while, slowly, I started enjoying interviews. There was a cumulative effect – the more people I interviewed, the more relaxed I got. The more relaxed I got, the better I got. The better I got, the more relaxed I got. Eventually, the anxiety was removed from the process once I realized that, hey, all you’re really doing is talking. If you’re confident in your ability to hold a conversation, then you should be confident in your ability to give an interview.

I officially conquered my interviewing phobia while freelancing a University of Missouri-Kansas City basketball game for the Kansas City Star. That night, the Big 12 football championship was being played at Arrowhead stadium, in Kansas City, and the Star was strapped for writers. My number was called.

After the game I was summoned to the interview room. There was one other person in the room, UMKC’s sports information director, and we waited patiently for players and coaches to file inI was slouched in a folding chair with my digital voice recorder in hand. And when Dane Brumagin – UMKC’s top player – and the coach waltzed in, I couldn’t have been more lax.

In theory, it was probably the most nervous I ever should have been heading into an interview session. It was, after all, Division I basketball; the story was for the KC Star; I was on a tight deadline. Plus, with the room devoid of other reporters, I couldn’t rely on anyone to ask questions for me. I had to fish for quotes all by myself, without the cloak of anonymity. But I was ice-water cool.

My story, “UMKC moves in, gets the win,” started thus:

UMKC must have realized that the dark blue line about 20 feet from the basket doesn’t mean “Do Not Cross.”

After launching 39 three-pointers in their last outing – compared to just 26 shots from inside the arc – the Kangaroos dared cross into the Land of Two. They might just try it again after a 70-62 win against Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne at Municipal Auditorium Saturday night.

“Our first couple games we averaged over 30 threes a game,” said UMKC coach Matt Brown. “We shot half as many three against Wichita State and we win, half as many threes against Bradley and we win. There’s a correlation there: less threes, you win games.”

The Roos, 4-6, 1-1 in the Summit League, missed 25 long balls in their previous game against Oakland, an 84-78 loss, and had pumped up a total of 65 threes in their last two contests.

At least for a night, UMKC decided to ditch the three-pointer-each-minute strategy and opt for a more two-pointed attack.

Led by Dane Brumagin’s game-high 28 points, UMKC shot just 21 threes against IPFW, 3-5, 0-2. Brumagin, who came in averaging 16.4 points per game, was a perfect nine-for-nine from the free throw line.

“I think we made a point to get to the foul line and attack,” Brumagin said. “That way we were able to get some free throws and less three-pointers today.

“It’s one of those things that goes game to game. If guys are feeling it then they might string off a few, but tonight we were just having success getting the ball inside.”

As I transcribed those post-game quotes from Brumagin and Brown, I remember thinking how chilled out I seemed. And why not? Why be nervous about talking to UMKC’s best played when I’ve interviewed CU’s best player? Why get sweaty-palmed about UMKC’s coach when I’ve interviewed a former NBA coach? It was after that UMKC game when I realized that interviewing wasn’t simply not annoying. It was fun.

But now, in China, interviews are even more laborious than they were with that mom back in high school. Just with one big difference: It’s not that I’m scared that the conversation won’t be fruitful or that I’ll flub questions. Over here, I simply can’t ask questions.

Crossed Over, III

From card-carrying member of the doghouse to assistant coach in three years – almost as good as a bunch of drunken cheerleaders.

The road that led me to Jinan can be traced back to Oct. 3, 2008. There were events before and after that also helped land me here, but early October in the Year of the Rat is a good place to start.

I was inhaling barbeque and sipping beers at the American Royal Festival. The American Royal is a Kansas City tradition – an institution, really – dating back to 1899. My 62-year-old mom and her sister used to go when they were kids, and at 23, I was going myself.

At the Royal, people from across the city (and region) bring their barbeque pits to a swath of ground that used to be a livestock trading yard near downtown KC. You can smell the festivities from blocks away – a rich, palpable aroma that makes you wonder if you might gain weight simply by breathing in the air. Along with the barbeque-induced haze, the American Royal is rife with live music. There is blues, rock ‘n roll and jazz competing with the barbeque for real estate in the sky.

Attending the American Royal, some things become clear. Like, say, why the jazz tune “Goin’ to Kansas City” isn’t titled “Goin’ to St. Louis.” Or why KC is perennially one of the fattest cities in the nation. Or why Missouri ranks in the top-third in the nation in beer consumption per capita, according to the Beer Institute. Indeed, it’s an orgy for the senses: Some of the very best barbeque in the world, fun music and an eyeful of girls who know that, because it’s early October, their window for wearing warm-weather (read: scanty) clothes is closing.

So, what does the American Royal have to do with me being in China? Well, let’s pick up the action when my cell phone started buzzing in my left pants pocket. I plucked out the skinny black rectangle and checked the number. It was a 785 area code – Lawrence, Kansas – and I knew who it must be: Tom, the sports editor for the Lawrence Journal-World.

The previous summer, I had mailed manila folders to sports editors around the country, each containing a résumé and packet of writing samples. When the editors opened the bundle – assuming they bothered to open the bundle – they would be greeted with a cover letter saying that a zealous, hard-working, wannabe sportswriter had just graduated college and was looking for work. Being from Kansas City, it only made sense that I would mail a packet to Tom since Lawrence is just down the road. But I didn’t discriminate geographically. I mailed newspapers and Web sites in California, Washington, Florida, Wisconsin, Alabama, New York – anywhere and everywhere that I could see myself working. (And a few places that, frankly, I couldn’t see myself working but would have jumped at regardless. Proof: I aggressively pursued a job in Garden City, Kansas.)

Well, Tom was one of the editors who got back with me. He sent me an email saying that he liked my clips and liked the fact that I had the gumption to seek a job, unprompted, at a paper where no openings were listed. He said that he would carve out a spot for my at the LJ-World, where I could continue a newspaper career that began with a few-times-a-year student paper back in the sixth grade.

I picked up journalism for real a few years later, in high school. My four-year high school newspaper career culminated with a pair of awards after an incredible series of events unfolded at our school. One day, the classroom speakers inexplicably summoned the entire varsity cheerleading team to the office. Such a request was highly unusual; it just didn’t sound right. And indeed, something was amiss. The circumstances: our 15-member cheerleading squad got wasted at one of the girls’ houses, that girl’s mother ratted out the cheerleaders to the administration, the other cheerleaders (and their parents) got super-ticked at the mom, Kansas City-area TV and radio stations picked it up, speculation galore. It was a crazy story that I retold well enough to garner some statewide honors. I still remember the lead:

Before it was on Fox 4, wdaftv.com or 980 KMBZ, it was on the classroom intercoms. It wasn’t spelled out for the 2,200 students who heard it, but when an announcement called the entire cheerleading team to the office, stories and suspicions began to swirl.

I had a two-year writing hiatus in college, what some may call my Finding Myself Period. I hastily decided to end my semi-retirement while studying abroad. See, my roommate’s mom slipped a Sports Illustrated into a care package, and having been divorced from American sports for about two months – in the heart of college football season, no less – I hijacked the SI and engulfed it. I read all the features. Then I read all the smaller articles. Then I read the blurbs. Then I read all the crud that they slip into the nooks and crannies of the pages. I basically devoured every inch of it, loved every inch of it. It was incredible the way that magazine transfixed me. This, I thought, is what I have to do with my life. So when I got back, my first priority – after scarfing down eight pounds of barbeque and Mexican food – was to find the editor of my college paper, tell her how eager I was, and get back in the mix. And that’s what I did.

I wrote some decent stuff in college and even won another award when I again unearthed a killer story. A few years earlier, our basketball team had this hotheaded player who was nearly kicked off the team as soon as he got there. Things reached a boiling point when, while getting chewed out during a game, the player sent a flippant, don’t-bother-me flip of his wrist toward the coach. The coach yanked him, looked at him on the bench and softly said, “If you ever do anything like that again I’ll have you on the first thing smoking out of here.” Basically they hated each other. But instead of transferring – which he almost did – the kid stuck it out and eventually became an ally of the once-tyrannical coach. A few years later he wound up as that coach’s assistant. From card-carrying member of the doghouse to assistant coach in three years – almost as good as a bunch of drunken cheerleaders.

Knowing, however, that high school and small-time college papers probably wouldn’t land me a job, I sought out internships. After sending clips to papers and magazines and Web sites all over the Denver area, I secured a pair of internships for the spring of my senior year, one with the Colorado Daily and one with Rocky Mountain Sports Magazine, both based in Boulder, Colorado.

The internships were fruitful – good clips, good references, good experience. I learned how to write a warp-speed game story; in fact, the first Colorado Buffaloes basketball game I covered for the Daily went into double-overtime, tightening the deadline that much more and making for my most nerve-racking newspaper experience since I interviewed that tattletale mom back in high school. I also wrote a few cool features, including one that I especially liked for the magazine. While working on different story, I learned about this town, Leadville, which is nestled deep in the Colorado Rockies. Turned out the town nearly disappeared back in the 1980s when the nearby molybdenum mine closed; literally overnight, Leadville had the highest unemployment rate in the nation. But this wacky guy – who himself worked at the mine – decided that Leadville should boost its floundering economy by hosting a 100-mile race. That’s like four marathons…at once…in the height of the Rockies. I went up there and talked with the brains of the operation, a delightfully crazy gentleman named Ken, to ask what in God’s name he was thinking, and how in God’s name this race has been running at maximum capacity for about 20 years.

With untamed, frizzy gray locks framing his wrinkly but vibrant face, he told me that he was confident people would come stay in Leadville and pay for lodging and groceries and the race itself. He couldn’t say where this confidence came from, but he was also confident people would come back the next year and the next, propping up the Leadville economy en lieu of mining. It was a desperate ploy, and it almost never got off the ground. But two decades later, it was definitely off the ground. The mayor of Leadville, some local business owners and a few nuts who actually ran in thing corroborated the tale. I loved the story almost as much as I loved reporting on it.

By the time I finished college in May of 2008, I thought I was in pretty good shape: I had another award in tow, I accrued some good clips at those internships, I had just graduated Magna Cum Laude with an Honors Degree (and the illustrious red sash that goes with it at graduation). I was surely on my way to a small-time job, ready to work my way up the journalistic ladder. I knew I had to cut my teeth somewhere, that I wouldn’t just hop on at the Denver Post or something. But I also knew that I was good enough to get a job, and that if I took care of business at that first job then I’d be on a collision course with a fruitful profession in journalism.

I didn’t have anything lined up when I graduated, so that summer I had an internship with the Democratic National Convention Host Committee in Denver. The Host Committee was a non-partisan organization charged with planning and organizing events in and around Denver, where the 2008 DNC was to be held. I worked in the communications office, drafting press releases and talking with various media folks who were covering the lead-up to the convention. It wasn’t sports journalism, but I was writing a lot and working on what turned out to be a pretty historic Democratic nomination process.

With Tom already having told me that I could hop on in some capacity at the LJ-World at the end of the summer, things got even better in August when I got a call from the sports editor at the Colorado Daily, a guy named Eliot, who had overseen my internship.

“I just was calling to see what was up with you,” he said before asking what my plans were. I told him that I was going to finish out this internship, which would be over in about a month, that I still wanted to be a sportswriter and that I had something lined up in Lawrence.

“Well, I’m actually going to be leaving the Daily,” he said, pausing for a moment as though he knew that the news would be music to my ears. “You should write the main editor there and tell him that you want the job.”

Perfect – a heads up about a job opening that wasn’t even open yet; there literally wasn’t a person in the world besides Eliot and me who knew that this vacancy. I thanked Eliot profusely, waited a week until he had told his boss that he was leaving and then emailed the editor-in-chief. I attached some clips, talked myself up and announced my candidacy for the spot.

Eliot was a cool guy, a 25-year-old from Georgia who took me on as an intern and even finagled the Scripps Company to pay me a few hundred dollars a month. During warm-ups for a Colorado women’s basketball game in early April, with graduation looming large on my mind, I peppered Eliot with some questions about how he became the editor at the Colorado Daily. He was doing what I wanted to, so I asked him how he did it.

“A few years ago I was working in real estate and I decided I wanted to be a sportswriter,” he said matter-of-factly. “I saw a Gonzaga game on TV and then wrote a column comparing Adam Morrison” – then an All-American forward for Gonzaga – “to Larry Bird. I sent it to a bunch of papers, and there was one in Arizona that thought it was good, and they hired me to cover high school football for them. I did that for about six months and then saw this job opening listed online and applied.”

Wow, I thought. Is it really that simple? Eliot didn’t study journalism, hadn’t had internships, didn’t have any experience as a reporter, and he shoots off a column to some papers and gets a job? And here I was, having already been the sports editor for my college paper, having recently won another award, having completed a pair of internships, having covered Colorado University athletics, having written features and game stories and all the rest. And all Eliot – a real estate agent – did to crack into the industry was write that Adam Morrison is kind of like Larry Bird?

I will definitely get a job, I thought. And in a fortuitous twist, it turned out that, hey, I might even get Eliot’s job.

So on a hot Sunday afternoon in late August I drove from Denver to Boulder and interviewed with the Colorado Daily. I was eager, I told them, to stay in Colorado, and more than capable of thriving as a writer for the paper. (Turns our the features editor would be doubling as the sports editor, and the opening was simply to be a writer. That, I thought, made me even more qualified for the job.) The interview went fine, and I had the added bonus – well, at least what I took to be a bonus – of handing over some clips that had Colorado Daily written along the masthead. Hell, I’d pretty much already had the job that I was applying for. I shook the editor’s hand, and he said he’d be in touch.

The Daily was my first choice. My second choice, my backup, was with Tom at the Lawrence Journal-World. Tom had emailed me on Aug. 11 to see what I was up to. The email read:

Just touching base with you to make sure you still are interested in talking about coming to work for us part-time, as many as 30 hours a week every week. Good luck at the convention. Thanks.

I replied:

I am definitely still interested in helping you out in whatever capacity possible; I'll work as much as you'll let me. I will be out here until the end of the month working on the DNC, but I should be back in Kansas by the first of September.

So again, I would love to work for you come September. I will be in touch as the month winds to an end. Please let me know if there is anything you need from me in the meantime.

I didn’t mention the Colorado Daily thing to Tom because, really, there was no point. If I got the full-time gig at the Daily then I would take it and wouldn’t be working for Tom anyway. And if I wasn’t hired at the Daily then there would be nothing gained by having mentioned that I was gunning for another job. That’s maybe a selfish way to go about things, and if you believe in karmic retribution then maybe I’ve been relegated to China because of moves like that. I don’t really consider it that bad though.

Tom and I exchanged a few more emails, the Convention went well, I went to a few DNC-related parties and events I had no business being at, and I rolled into Kansas City on the evening of Aug. 31. On Sept. 3, I made the 40-minute drive to Lawrence to meet with Tom about a job with the Journal-World. Tom is about 55-years-old and shaped a bit like Homer Simpson. He is a hair on the short side with a waistband that almost reaches his fingers when he shakes your hand. When we met, his short-sleeved button-up shirt was about 22 percent tucked in.

He and another one of the editors took me to a local coffee shop. I instinctively ordered coffee that was way too hot for the blazing late-afternoon meeting, and true to his build, Tom ordered a chocolate muffin. I brought a packet of clips that I offered to show the gentlemen, but they assured me that they had already read everything I sent. So they asked me some questions.

“Why,” asked Tom, leaning forward with his belly up against the table, “do you want to work at the Journal-World?”

“Well,” I said with the confidence of someone who was interviewing for a job that wasn’t even his first choice, “I’ve been a Kansas Jayhawks fan all my life, and I’ve been reading the Journal-World for years to keep tabs on KU. I grew up reading it and read it all through college. It’s one of my favorites papers and maybe my favorite sports section.” This wasn’t a fabrication. “Plus, even if I was just fielding phone calls or jotting down stats or covering high school volleyball, I want to get into a newsroom, I want to work in a sports department. I just want to get into the newspaper environment.”

Tom liked this answer – he said so – and I seemed to have quickly confirmed his suspicion that I was a worthy hire. After more than a half-hour of chatting at the coffee shop, and after Tom ordered another muffin, we lazily strolled a few blocks along the sun-baked sidewalk back to the Journal-World office. I met some of the writers and editors and headed home.

During our meeting, I told Tom about the Daily job. He seemed excited for me. He has a son a few years my senior who went through the trying-to-get-into-the-newspaper-business process himself, and I think in me he saw some of his son. He understood that if I were offered that job then I would (and should) jump at it. He told me, though, that he wanted me at the LJ-World if I didn’t get the job. I told him the feeling was mutual, which it was.

The next day, Sept. 4, I sent Tom an email thanking him for meeting with me. He replied:

Thanks, David. I should get approval for the position by late Friday afternoon. I'll let you know. I don't know if I remembered to mention to you that all potential employees must take a drug test. – Tom

I can’t prove to you that Tom wasn’t yanking my chain about the job. But I’d bet anything he wasn’t. After I sent him my packet that June, he emailed me before I even had a chance to follow up with the “wanted to make sure you got me stuff” email. In August, he emailed me before I had a chance to send the “wanted to see if you still think it’s possible for me to come work for you” email. Heck, he was talking drug tests. Plus, on an intangible level, he’s a genuine dude. Again, I can’t prove anything, but I would bet all $597 that I have to my name that he was serious.

Then things got tangled. On Sept. 6, the editor from the Daily sent me an unprompted email that read:

Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about you. We haven’t made much progress yet in the job searches, and definitely haven’t hired anybody.

I am now caught between a job that I really covet (the Daily) but don’t know if I get, and a job that I’m not as hot on (the Journal-World) but could probably have. This was exceptionally foreign territory for me; I deliberated endlessly about what to do. Should I just jump at the Lawrence job? Should I hedge my bets and wait for the Boulder job? Here’s what transpired, retold through emails. From Tom, on Sept. 11:

I haven't told the guy who has to approve the position, which I'm anticipating won't be a problem whatsoever. If you don't get the job, I'm going to tell him that second, bring you in the next day to fill out an application and make a drug screen appointment. We can stay in a holding pattern another week or two, if necessary. Good luck and be confident when you talk to the guy. – Tom

From the Daily, on Sept. 19:

Just finished interviewing several more candidates this week after a long delay, and we’ll be making a decision within the next week.

From me, to Tom, on Sept. 19:

Hey, Tom. I got in touch with the editor at the Boulder paper and he said that they “would know within the next week.” So I have what seems to be a definitive time-frame, but alas it still could be into late next week.

Sorry again to keep you waiting. I hope this is OK.

Thanks

From Tom, Sept. 19:

No problem, I'm getting stalled on this end, too so it's actually working out perfectly.

The words “getting stalled” raised my eyebrows, but I was still confident. After all, I had irons in two different fires, so to speak, and both of those fires were blazing. I had already written for the Colorado Daily and had an endorsement from the former sports editor, Eliot. And if things didn’t work out with them, then oh well, because I still had the LJ-World and Tom, who had been an ally of mine for months. Tom knew what I was up against, he liked my eagerness, he wanted to help. Besides, even if he was getting stalled, things were still “working out perfectly.”

Two weeks passed, and I finally heard back from the Colorado Daily. Didn’t get the job. I immediately emailed Tom, and on Oct. 1 he replied:

I'll get back to lobbying to spring open that position and when I get approval, we'll have you in for a drug screen and to fill out paper work.

I thanked him, and he said that he would give me a call within a couple days to tell me exactly what was happening. My phone rang at the American Royal.

Crossed Over, IV

But I didn’t give up. This, after all, was before my soul was crushed, before my ambition had been reduced to figuring out ways to use the word “vomit” in my English lessons.

As tempting as it was to sit around and sulk about the Daily and fret about the LJ-World, I wasn’t going to turn down a chance to imbibe in the Royal. It really is a spectacle, a food/drink/music/fun orgy. Moreover, even though I wasn’t heading to Boulder, my journalism career would surely whisk me away to some far away city before long – you know, after my stint in Lawrence – and I felt that I should celebrate my numbered days in KC with this KC tradition.

But I wasn’t so caught up in the festivities that I failed to feel Tom buzzing in my pocket. I set down my overflowing plate – piled high with brisket, ribs, potatoes and, knowing my eating habits, probably some third animal – and found a place that wasn’t too loud to talk. I ended up wedged between a pair of moving vans which acted as a sort of sound barrier against the deafening music and chatter that was all around. Noise was still seeping through the cracks, but there were few quieter places within a 10-minute radius.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hi, David. This is Tom Keegan from the Lawrence Journal-World.” His voice was neutral, devoid of both “Welcome aboard!” giddiness and “We’re sorry, but…” contrition.

“Hey, Tom! How’s is going?”

“Fine, fine,” he said before moving on to what must have been an awkward explanation. “Hey, I’m sorry but the payroll department isn’t letting me bring on anyone.” My face was probably some grim combination of appalled and defeated. “I lobbied for them to give me 20 or 30 hours a week but they just wouldn’t budge. The entire company has a hiring freeze.”

Almost in the same breath he told me that his sports-editor friend at a Las Vegas newspaper was about to have an opening, and that he had just emailed me the guy’s address and contact information. I thanked him for that, not wanting to sound too downtrodden.

“I’m sorry again,” Tom said. “I really thought this would work out, and we really wanted to have you work here, but it’s out of my hands.”

I understand…thanks for everything…be in touch…

I was shaken and somewhat shocked. Mere days ago I had a pair of legitimate avenues through which I could enter the journalism world, and both had absolutely disintegrated. Now I was back where I was when I graduated last May, with one caveat: The United States economy in general – and newspaper industry in particular – was in a free fall. I was looking for work during the worst time to look for work in decades, and the newspaper industry was absolutely on fire. Papers everywhere were doing one of three things: If they were lucky, they simply weren’t filling vacancies and were shedding payroll via attrition. If they weren’t so lucky – which the majority of them weren’t – then they were trimming people from the staff. And if they were in real trouble, like the Rocky Mountain News or Seattle Post-Intelligencer – both of which shut down by March of 2009 – then they were simply going out of business. I know that there were very, very few good professions to be pursuing in late 2008 and early 2009, but the media/newspaper business was one of the very worst.

It would be virtually impossible to give a proper recap of the 2008-09 layoffs taking place at newspapers around the country, and difficult still to account for what was happening within sports departments alone. But because it hit close to home, I was able to keep pretty close tabs on the myriad layoffs happening at the Kansas City Star. A look at those cuts – while merely a small slice of the much larger shit pie affecting the entire industry – will give you an idea of the odds/futility of my plight.

The Star’s first big round of layoffs were in June of 2008, one month after I graduated, when 120 jobs were nixed. Among those let go was Howard Richman, a sportswriter who had been at the Star for 24 years. At the time, Richman was the paper’s Kansas State University beat writer, and he was pretty good at what he did. That someone so tenured and proficient was laid off was startling. But what made that his ouster transcend the realm of simply being a shame, thrusting it into the semi-depressing stratosphere, was that Howard had written me a really nice email the previous spring.

Being the beat writer for a major college at a major metro paper like Howard was my dream job; it still is, really. So I penned an email telling him who I was, that I ultimately wanted to do something along the lines of what he did, and asking if he had any ideas or advice for how I should go about cracking into the industry. His email began with the sentence “Thanks for thinking of me” and ended with the sentences, “Hope that helps. If there’s anything else, feel free to ask. Good luck.” I know that businesses can’t hang on to employees just because they’re nice – nor should they – and I know that responding to wannabe sportswriters’ emails doesn’t do anything for the Star’s bottom line. Howard wasn’t just a nice guy, though. He was an experienced writer who had been at the paper for longer than I’d been alive, and all of a sudden he was unemployed.

What’s even more telling about the state of the newspaper biz is that Richman’s spot wasn’t and never has been filled. Instead, the Star is now sharing a Kansas State beat writer with the Wichita Eagle, which, like the Star, is owned by the McClatchy Company. McClatchy did the inverse for the University of Kansas beat: the Eagle writer was let go, and the Star writer’s stories are published in both spots. If only that was all the turnover at the Star.

A few months later, in August, the Star instituted a furlough program for most of its employees, and one month after that, in mid-September, about 30 more Star employees were let go. An internal email from publisher Mark Zeiman said that the layoffs were “especially disappointing because we all believed the steps we took two months ago” – when Richman and others were cut – “would be sufficient to see us through the sharp revenue declines that have beset our industry during this current recession.” These cuts came one day after McClatchy announced that it would cut 10 percent of its workforce, which, according to the Kansas City Business Journal, was equivalent to 1,150 full-time positions. Fifty more Star employees were laid off in November of 2008, including Jeffrey Flanagan, another long-time sportswriter for the paper.

Think of the evolving logistics of the newspaper business: writers like Richman and Flanagan, who each had decades of experience, lost their jobs not because of their performance, but because the positions were simply being abolished. Moreover, they, like myself, were among the ranks of those looking for work in the industry. Therefore, the pool of unemployed writers was increasingly cluttered, and the number of jobs constantly shrinking.

I know that people like Richman and Flanagan weren’t necessarily gunning for the same jobs as I was, but the cumulative effect was nonetheless damning. People at small papers – papers where I could feasibly get work – would have more trouble taking that next step because (a) bigger papers weren’t hiring, and (b) there were oodles of qualified applicants. And since those people at small papers were stuck, the people at no papers (like me) were stuck as well. (The Lawrence Journal-World, by the way, had its own round of layoffs in November.) Some papers surely had it worse, some better. But that the axe was falling so hard and so frequently at a big-time paper like the Star speaks to the abyss the industry was slipping into. As you’ll see in a moment, the Star would keep slipping.

But I didn’t give up. This, after all, was before my soul was crushed, before my ambition had been reduced to figuring out ways to use the word “vomit” in my English lessons. I kept trying, opting to repeat the strategy that had come oh-so-close to working last summer: sending my work to newspapers all over America. I hit up every paper and Web site within 100 miles of Kansas City and scoured the Internet for job openings across the country (and world). In the meantime, I freelanced.

Crossed Over, V

They were going in a different direction, they said, which meant that I was going in a different direction, too: China.

The freelancing started with a pair of small weeklies between Lawrence and Kansas City – the De Soto Explorer and Eudora News. They were owned by the same company, put together at the same little office and run by the same editors. I got that gig the same way I thought I was going to get the Lawrence job – by contacting the editors and asking for the chance to write.

I first met the sports editor and head editor before covering a high school soccer game. They had told me to stop by so we could meet and talk about what exactly they expected of me. The head editor, a nice guy, probably about 55-60, was named Elvyn. He had a husky build and a throwback mustache that was so full and thick that it looked like a comb could get stuck in it. He was the one who had first corresponded with me about helping out at the papers, talking to me on the phone in his slow, rich Kansas drawl. His voice had an easy way of rolling off his tongue, and his sentences were occasionally punctuated with a gravelly “ggh” – like, “Well-ggh, we’d love for you to-ggh freelance for us.” He talked like he was transported to 2008 from a different century. I liked him before I met him.

The sports editor, Jeff, was in many ways the antithesis of Elvyn. He was about the same age as me, fresh out of KU, with scraggly facial hair and a young voice. He was nice enough, and he said numerous times that he really appreciated having another writer to help out. The appreciation, I assured him, was mutual.

When we met before that soccer game, Jeff and Elvyn explained that I’d get $30 per story and $0.00 per gallon for gas, which was a bitch because, if you remember, the fall of 2008 was when gas was hovering at around $3.50-$4.00 per gallon. And these papers were only “close” in the relative sense; it still took about 30 minutes to get to the offices. Our meeting ended about 45 minutes before the soccer game was set to kick off, so I killed a few minutes reading that week’s paper, copies of which were scattered about the office. I flipped to the sports section to get a sense of what they expected. There were two stories of the front page. These were the two leads, which ran side-by-side:

It took about 30 minutes for De Soto to utilize its team speed to score a goal Tuesday night.

And…

It took five weeks but De Soto finally got its first win of the year Friday night at Paola.

It took about five minutes to get to the high school where the soccer game was being played. I covered it dutifully, with as much zest as anyone could possibly summon for 5-0 blowout on a dreary mid-October day. In fact, I was full-bore about everything I covered for Jeff. Again, I viewed the De Soto Explorer and Eudora News as stepping stones, pit stops on my way to bigger and better. I took them seriously because I thought that they could very well lead to job – be it through connections or good clips or chance encounters. Whatever ended up happening, I was sure that in a few months I’d look back on those soccer games that I was covering for $30 and think, “Man, that’s funny.”

About a month later, I also started freelancing for the Kansas City Star. I was covering a volleyball tournament for the News/Explorer, and there were going to be some Kansas City-area teams there. So I contacted the Star, told them I was going to be at the tourney and asked if they wanted a few inches of copy. They did, they liked what I wrote (all 200 words) and they asked me to cover a few more things. Then a few more. Eventually, by late November, I found myself covering a University of Missouri-Kansas City basketball game. (Yeah, that’s Division I, baby!) I became a regular contributor to the Star and continued writing for the Explorer/News combo; I freelanced a bit for the Independence (Mo.) Examiner; I became a featured (although unpaid) columnist for Lindy’s Sports Magazine’s Web site. My path toward getting a full-time job had been stalled, but I felt that I was at least still on the path.

The Explorer/News thing came to an exasperating end – a conclusion that, in hindsight, speaks to my exasperating journalistic endeavors as a whole. As much as this may sound like bitter bitching, there is a point to the next few hundred words. Promise.

Like I said, I was looking at these papers as stepping stones, as a chance to get better, maybe get a few clips, maybe get called up to another paper within the company. As much of a drag as it was at times to cover high school soccer, I always kept my ears open for that feature story down the road. And one time, I heard some parents opining about the team’s soft schedule: they were frustrated that De Soto’s team always did really well in the regular season and always floundered early in the postseason. The culprit, they said, was a cushy schedule.

On cue, De Soto, which was 13-2, lost to St. James Academy, which was 4-11, in its first postseason game. St. James may have been but 4-11, but the record lied: it had played a murderous schedule. So when I was tasked with writing a season recap after a heartbreaking first-round playoff exit, I asked the De Soto coach about that schedule.

The soft schedule, he said, really bothered him too. In fact, he had pressured administrators from high schools around the league to change the format of the regular season so that, like St. James, his team could schedule tougher teams. Thinking this was pretty interesting – at least interesting on the small-town-soccer scale – I kept digging. I talked with St. James’ coach, with De Soto’s activities director, with another area coach whose team always had bad regular seasons and great postseasons. I triangulated my sources, had a solid angle and produced a nice, clean story, even uncovering an interesting bit about some league-wide scheduling rule changes that were spearheaded by the De Soto coach. Keep in mind I was getting $30 per story.

Losing now to win later

With eye to postseason, De Soto will take advantage of rule change and beef up regular season schedule

De Soto soccer coach Darren Erpelding likes winning, but not like this.

After posting a school-record 13 regular season wins and claiming De Soto’s first Frontier League title, Erpelding is going out of his way to make sure that the wins don’t come so easily next season.

Ironically, the fourth-year head coach wouldn’t mind seeing a few more losses.

“We could only have 10 wins in the regular season next year, but we’ll be a completely better team than we were this year,” Erpelding said.

Erpelding’s contentment with fewer wins in 2009 stems from his team’s postseason flame-out in 2008. After running away with the Frontier League championship – the Wildcats outscored their league competition by a combined 47-9 – Erpelding’s team hit an unlikely road block in first round of the playoffs: St. James Academy, which entered the game with a measly 4-11 record.

But the regular season records proved irrelevant. St. James beat De Soto 1-0 in an apparent upset – the four-win team downing the 13-win team.

The wins and losses, however, don’t tell the whole story. St. James played a murderous regular season schedule, including 6A powers Blue Valley North and Blue Valley West, as well as five-time defending Kansas 5A state champ St. Thomas Aquinas.

Aquinas blasted St. James 6-0, but St. James head coach Rick Enna hailed the game as a success.

“They (Aquinas) were a big help to us,” Enna said. “They were the first game of the year and they crushed us. But they helped us.”

Enna chalked up his team’s postseason success to its regular season trials.

“It’s good for the boys, not necessarily their record, but it’s good for them to see the standard of play that they need to aspire to,” Enna said. “I think if you get a taste of that standard of play...you’re much more prepared when the postseason arrives.”

“When your job is to put together your best team in 10 weeks,” Enna added, “ I think what you want to do is try to put together the best game plan to prepare for postseason. And if you can give them that look at a higher level opponent early on, it’s a big benefit.”

St. James’ fourth-place finish at state – despite their pedestrian regular season record – inspired Erpelding to propose changes to the Frontier League schedule at the league’s postseason coaches’ meeting last month.

Traditionally, each Frontier League team played every league opponent twice – once at home, once of the road. With eight teams in the league, the home-and-away format accounted for 14 games. Most teams, including De Soto, play a 15- or 16-game season, meaning close to 90 percent of a team’s competition came from within the league.

This was a problem for Erpelding because some Frontier League teams provided little resistance last season, which allowed De Soto to breeze by without having to play quality soccer.

Eudora, for example, went 0-15 last season; De Soto won each of their meetings with the Cardinals 5-0. And Eudora wasn’t the only doormat. De Soto plastered 3-12-1 Spring Hill by a combined 12-0 and bullied 5-10 Baldwin 2-0 and 4-0.

“There were eight games on the schedule that I knew we were going to win,” Erpelding said. “When you know that you are by far better than your opponent, it’s hard for you to get excited for that game and to work on getting better. This isn’t a knock on Eudora or Baldwin, but it’s just not the same...

“There were a lot of times playing some of those league games where the kids were literally going through the motions. And I don’t like coaching those games. Those six or seven to nothing blowouts may look good, but they don’t necessarily prepare you for the playoffs.”

So on the heels of Erpelding’s proposal, Frontier League coaches and administrators approved a big change: league teams will only play each other once in 2009. In addition, there will be a single-elimination league tournament at the beginning of the season.

With those tweaks to the schedule, each squad will have about six games against opponents of their choosing instead of just two. De Soto activities director Steve Deghand was one of the administrators who endorsed changing the scheduling policies.

“I think the more often you play the better competition, the better you can become,” Deghand said. “So I think it’s a great opportunity to go up against other good schools.

“I think that everybody likes to win, but you also want to do good in the postseason. And if you think you need some stiffer competition in the regular season to do better in postseason then that’s fine.”

Erpelding plans on taking full advantage of the open dates. Perennial 4A power Kansas City Christian – winner of four of the last seven state titles – will be on the slate. Erpelding is also looking to add 5A Lansing as well as 6A Lawrence Free State, Lawrence and Olathe Northwest.

KC Christian does not belong to a league, which allows them to play an array of different opponents. And instead of packing their schedule with cupcakes, coach Joe Hirleman said that it is their policy to schedule the best teams around.

“We’ve been pretty intentional in trying to track the bigger schools to play,” Hirleman said. “For us, and I think most coaches would agree, your record doesn’t really matter when you head into the playoffs. Generally, if you get through the first couple games you’re going to see one of the better teams anyway, so seeds don’t really matter.”

De Soto is evidence of the irrelevance of seeding. Their No. 1 seed in regionals earned them the right to play St. James, a team whose record belied their potential.

Next season, Erpelding will gladly trade some lumps in the regular season for wins in the postseason. After all, he got to see up close how well it worked for St. James.

Pretty good, right? Well, Jeff didn’t see it that way. And when my story was published, all but the De Soto coach’s quotes were removed. The story went from about 950 words to about 400. Now, you might be thinking, “Well of course the story didn’t run as it was – it was way too long.” Fair enough, but this is the kicker: that same week, Jeff published a story that was 950 words long himself. And here’s the double-kicker: 660 of those 950 words – well over two-thirds – were simply quotes. And here’s the part that makes me want to vomit like that little girl in class: of those 660 quoted words, there was only ONE source. At one points in Jeff’s story, there is a 276-word segment of which 238 words are quotes.

I was despondent – a quality clip and about 10 hours had been stolen from me. But I was still unfazed. I took a part-time job at a local library and continued to freelance for anyone who would let me. I knew I was a writer, and I knew if I simply kept writing then I’d get my break.

But by February, 2009, I was beginning to break. There was simply nowhere for me to go. No one was hiring. I was working part-time at a library. I was living at home, fielding questions like, “Have you thought of maybe trying to do something else?” with increasing frequency.

It was around this time that I sat down for coffee with one of the Star’s Kansas City Chiefs beat writers, Adam Teicher. We met up at a coffee joint not far from where he had just dropped his daughter off for some sort of sports practice – fencing, if memory serves. He was sitting lazily against at a table when I arrived, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, one hand on his cup of joe, the other resting in his lap. Maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I remember him sporting a look of contentment, enjoying some coffee and avoiding the cold in what seemed like total comfort. Of course the Chiefs beat writer is happy, I thought. Why wouldn’t he be – he’s got it made.

I ordered some coffee myself and joined him. He had told me to bring some clips and a résumé; his interest in me didn’t seem feigned as I laid my things in front of him. He scanned quickly but knowingly and made a few comments about my résumé (there probably was no point in listing my high school newspaper, he said). He set my things down, grabbed his coffee and leaned back.

“Man, I just don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “With these clips and your experience – if this were 10 years ago you’d have a job by now. How long until you need to move out of your parents’ house?”

“Four months ago,” I replied, inducing a chuckle.

“I would say to just keep doing what you’re doing, keep freelancing and making contacts, but I just don’t know. I mean, I could lose my job next week. I wish I could be more optimistic. I don’t want to sound so negative, but there just isn’t a lot to be optimistic about right now. The newspaper industry is just so bad.”

There was tangible support for that claim. The flames engulfing the newspaper world, a world that I was hell-bent on joining, were burning stronger than ever. In March, the high school sports editor who gave me my first chance at the Star – a genuinely nice guy who had been there for ages – was let go amid yet another round of staff cuts. He was one of a few editors who got axed, along with some writers. More: the Chronicle and Rocky Mountain News shut their doors, and an Associated Press writer who I met at a CU basketball game told me in an email that the AP would be cutting 10 percent of its writers within the year.

Bottom line: there were fewer jobs available, and – per the layoffs – more qualified unemployed writers out there than at any point in recent history. The math wasn’t working in my favor. I applied for and didn’t get about 638 more jobs, and realized that I was approaching the one-year anniversary of my graduation and still wasn’t gainfully employed.

Just in case you’re wondering, I wasn’t too naïve or too principled to try my hand at the online journalism world. I contacted countless Web-based media outlets couldn’t get even a nibble. They weren’t immune to the economic meltdown, either, and if they weren’t shedding people, they at least weren’t bringing any on – at least not me. Plus, take a look at online-only sportswriters, and see where they got their starts. It’s newspapers. Sites like Yahoo! Sports and ESPN.com and SI.com do indeed have a bevy of writers, but almost without exception those writers cut their teeth at newspapers. An insightful (albeit depressing) article in Business Week felt all too biographical:

Bright, eager—and unwanted. While unemployment is ravaging just about every part of the global workforce, the most enduring harm is being done to young people who can't grab onto the first rung of the career ladder….

For people just starting their careers, the damage may be deep and long-lasting, potentially creating a kind of “lost generation.” Studies suggest that an extended period of youthful joblessness can significantly depress lifetime income as people get stuck in jobs that are beneath their capabilities, or come to be seen by employers as damaged goods.

I started having nightmares about the term “hiring freeze” and eventually became resigned to the fact that my first job after college – save part-time librarian – would be as an English teacher in China. The hiring process was brow-furrowingly easy; from the time I applied to the time I got hired was maybe two weeks. But even after I decided that having a job I didn’t like in China would be better (or at least more interesting) than having a job I didn’t like in Kansas City, I couldn’t in good conscience stop trying for the journalism biz. I figured until I bought a plane ticket, I could still renege on the commitment to China. So I kept up with the same old routine: writing a ton, sending out clips and résumés, hoping.

I thought I caught my break in early June with the Idaho State Journal, in Pocatello, Idaho, which is home to Idaho State University. I asked the sports editor at the Star if she had any ideas, and a few days later she wrote back that she was privy to an opening at the State Journal. So I sent them my things and dropped that Star editor’s name. About a week later I heard back that I was a candidate for the job, and that they wanted to have a phone interview. This was euphoric news.

I had a good, long interview with the State Journal sports editor, pacing around my bedroom for the entirety of our 60-minute chat. Even though my optimism had long since eroded, I couldn’t help but think that things were fortuitously arranged: The writer who had the job for which I was interviewing was from Kansas City. There would be some outdoor coverage involved and, hey, I wrote for an outdoor sports magazine. The sports editor wasn’t turned off by my philosophy degree because he was an English major and hailed the value of a liberal arts education. He said that the piece about the player-turned-assistant was one of the better things he had read from any applicant. I got an email a few days later saying that I was a finalist – a finalist!!! – for the job. I hadn’t bought that Chinese plane ticket yet, and it looked like I might not have to.

The final step was to interview one of the sports writers over the phone and write a story about him on a two-hour deadline. Having reread it a million times, I have no regrets about what I wrote. I researched the person who I was going to interview, read his bio on the paper’s Web site, peeked at his Facebook page and had an angle before the interview even started. I pursued that angle with my questions and churned out a totally serviceable story for the two hours which I was given.

A week later, that Pocatello area code popped up on my phone. They were going in a different direction, they said, which meant that I was going in a different direction, too: China.

(Dastardly, salt-in-the-wound footnotes: The writer whose job I thought I’d get in Pocatello was later hired by the Star to cover the Kansas State University beat. Also, the Star also recently promoted a former Journal-World writer as a lead columnist. Kill me.)