Sporting Madness

Here's the third and final companion interview to this piece , with John Chidley-Hill of The Canadian Press, who helped put the Fast Break conference together. This is the one that particularly motivated me to run these separately, as John had a lot of great things to say about the conference that I wasn't able to squeeze into the story. To me, it's very important to see these kinds of conferences, and they're a terrific idea, so I wanted to make sure John's comments on them in somewhere. I got on-the-record responses from John to four questions: What was your role in putting this together?  How do you think it went?  Are these sorts of events useful for young journalists?How'd Jones' comments sound in person? Here's what he had to say. What was your role in putting this together? Nadine [Liverpool] and I are both graduates of Centennial's sports journalism program and we sit on the Program Advisory Council as alum. She brought up the idea of do...

Continuing the companion interviews to this piece , here's what Steph Rogers , author of the J-Source recap that got me interested in this story, had to say. I quoted the part of her recap that stood out to me, then quoted Jones' response, then asked for her side of the story. Here's what she had to say: (I'm a little surprised that there was any issue that arose out of Chris' advice, but I nevertheless, I'll hope that the purpose of your piece isn't to crucify me.) As a journalism student, a lot of the advice that I often hear given by people in the industry is very helpful, but also a lot of the same. I thought Fast Break provided an extremely honest perspective from all four of the panelists as moderated by Nadine, and particularly Augustine and Jones on likability. I'm amazed at the things I see said on Twitter, Facebook, and in the comment section of articles. Rude and malicious remarks are common practice because people feel the internet ...

I wrote a pretty in-depth look at context and criticism over at Awful Announcing that was published today. Doing interviews is rewarding, but you often wind up with more material than you can use, and it would seem a particular shame to take anyone out of context in a piece about context. It's also a good chance to show those interested just how the sausage gets made. (Hilariously, the origin of that quote itself is in dispute .) Thus, continuing the On The Ground interview series , I'm using this space to post my questions and the full on-the-record responses I received. First up, my interview with Chris Jones of ESPN The Magazine/Esquire, whose comments as relayed in this piece started this whole thing. I first just asked him if there's additional context I should consider. Here's what he had to say. Glad you're writing a piece about that night. It was fun. I'd say, first off, make sure you read the rest of the quotes from me in that story. I think I...

The CFL draft is coming up [ Jaime Stein , CFL.ca ] this Sunday (noon Eastern, TSN). It's always an exciting time of the year, particularly from the perspective of watching CIS stars making the jump to the pros. To get you excited for it, here's an e-mail interview I just conducted with Shomari Williams , the Queen's defensive end who led the Gaels to the Vanier Cup this year and is ranked first overall by the CFL's scouting bureau. We talked about the CFL, CIS, the NCAA and his up-and-coming business helping recruits. My questions and his responses are below (slight edits for clarity). Andrew Bucholtz: You've made a pretty meteoric rise up the CFL Scouting Bureau rankings, from #15 at the start of last season to #4 in December to #1 earlier this year. Do you pay any attention to the rankings, and if so, what did it feel like to take over the top spot? Shomari Williams: It felt great being named the top prospect in Canada. I worked real hard all season and ...

To get some material for the Vikings section of this preview of today's NFC championship game, I spoke with Dan Zinski . Dan does a great job of covering the team for Fansided's The Viking Age . My questions and his responses are below. Andrew Bucholtz: At the start of the year, did you think the Vikings would be in the NFC championship game? How about at the start of the playoffs? Dan Zinski: I'm not embarrassed to admit I thought the Favre experiment would be a flop. I figured he'd stink or his arm would drop off and we'd limp to the finish with Tarvaris Jackson as our quarterback, and not even make the playoffs. Once we made the playoffs, however, I thought we had a good shot to beat whoever we faced in the divisional round, just because we've been so dominant at home. I was surprised we crushed Dallas as bad as we did but I wasn't surprised that we beat them. A.B.: Adrian Peterson seems to be getting less attention these days, as much of i...

As part of this preview of today's NFC championship game, I spoke to my Fanball colleague Mark Hooper of Who Dat Blog to get his thoughts on the Saints. My questions and his responses are below. Andrew Bucholtz: The Saints didn't finish the regular season particularly convincingly, but they turned in a very impressive win over the Cardinals last weekend. Were you expecting more rust from them, or did you see that kind of dominant performance coming? Mark Hooper: To be honest, I didn't see that coming. I expected more of a track meet, and I thought that first play from scrimmage set the tone. I really was thinking the Saints would do their normal slow start then finish strong, but they were cranking on all cylinders from play one. Drew Brees had arguably the best game of his season balancing the running and passing game, keeping the Cardinals on their heels all day. The Saints could do anything they wanted at any time. A.B.: Both the Saints and the Vikings have ...

I had a difficult time finding a Colts blogger who was available for an interview for this piece , but I found a great pinch-hitter in Samer Kalaf , a colleague of mine from The Rookies and the editor of the excellent NFL blog Second-String Fullback . . Samer really knows his football and gave some great insight into the Colts' matchup this weekend. My questions and his responses are below. Andrew Bucholtz: The Colts were criticized heavily by many for playing some backups in the last few weeks of the season, including against the Jets, instead of going for a perfect season. What did you think of the decision at the time, and has your opinion changed at all since then? Samer Kalaf: I feel like that the decision by Colts head coach Jim Caldwell to rest the starters against the Jets was an incredibly terrible decision. I wrote long-winded posts about it, and how I feel it disgraces the history of the NFL, but I'll try to condense it. The Colts had a chance to be the se...

For the part of my AFC Championship preview focusing on the Jets, I spoke with my Fanball colleague Joe Caporoso . Joe's a great writer who runs Turn on the Jets and knows the team as well as anyone. His Turn On The Jets TV episode focusing on this weekend's game is particularly worth a look. My questions and his answers are below. Andrew Bucholtz: At the start of the season, did you think the Jets had a chance to make it to the AFC Championship Game? How about at the start of the playoffs? Joe Caporoso: At the start of the season, I picked the Jets to go 10-6 and make the playoffs as a wild-card team. I figured they might steal a game in the playoffs, but back in August, it was hard to picture a team with a rookie head coach and rookie quarterback going to the AFC Championship Game. At the start of the playoffs, I felt confident because of how well they were running the ball and how their defense was playing. Also, I loved the matchup with the Bengals in the first rou...

I'm finally back from this weekend's softball tournament in Golden, B.C. It was a lot of fun, and our team won our division, placing fifth overall out of 16 teams in the process. Anyway, I should hopefully have some fresh content up tonight. Until then, here's the final part of my interview series for my unconventional thinking piece at The Good Point . Today's instalment features my full interview with Frank Mineo (drinkyourmilkshake) of the great Steelers' website, Behind The Steel Curtain . You can also check out my full interview with Minnesota Vikings blogger Brandon Peterson over at his excellent site , Vikings' Throne . Read on for Frank's thoughts on the Steelers, Dick LeBeau 's defensive innovations, the zone blitz and the 3-4. Andrew Bucholtz: Many have attributed much of Pittsburgh's success over the last couple of decades to Dick LeBeau 's zone blitz scheme. How important do you think it has been to the Steelers? Frank Mineo: D...

In the next instalment in my extended interview series for this piece on innovation in the NFL for The Good Point , I present Steve Sheiner of the Miami Dolphins site Blog With A Porpoise . Steve is also a senior editor at Fanball.com , the network I run Canuck Puck for. He had a lot of interesting comments on the Dolphins, the Wildcat offence, former B.C. Lion Cameron Wake and innovation in the NFL in general. Read on for the full interview! Andrew Bucholtz: The Dolphins obviously made a huge turnaround last year, going from the league's worst record to AFC East champions. How much of that success do you attribute to their implementation of the Wildcat offence? Steve Sheiner: I certainly think that played a role in their success as they caught a lot of teams off-guard that were ill-prepared to defend against such an unfamiliar attack. But more realistically, the Dolphins had one of the cushiest schedules in 2008 and the loss of Tom Brady in the division certainly didn’t hur...

Once again , I've written a massive piece for The Good Point on the NFL. This one looks at the role of unconventional thinking in the league, specifically with reference to the Wildcat offence, the zone blitz and the 3-4 defence. For this piece, I spoke with Steve Sheiner , the senior editor of Fanball.com and the editor of the Dolphins' site Blog With A Porpoise , Adam Best , the senior editor of the Fansided blog network and the co-founder and senior editor of Arrowhead Addict , Frank Mineo (drinkyourmilkshake) of Behind The Steel Curtain and Brandon Peterson of Vikings' Throne . As before, I got some great information from them that I wasn't able to squeeze into the article, so I figured I'd continue my On The Ground interview series with some of the extra information from each interview. First up, Adam Best . The other full interviews will follow later this week. Adam's a very knowledgeable sports fan, as anyone familiar with his blogging at Fan Ad...

Time to continue my series of supporting interviews for this piece I wrote for The Good Point on the importance of the left tackle. Today's interview subject is Bruce Raffel , editor of the excellent Ravens' blog Baltimore Beatdown . The Ravens' tackle situation is quite an interesting one; they used the first draft pick in their history in Baltimore on Jonathan Ogden , who turned out to be a great franchise LT. Recently, they brought in Jared Gaither to replace Ogden after his retirement. This year, they drafted possibly the most famous left tackle out there, Michael Oher of The Blind Side fame, 23rd overall. Raffel has some very interesting things to say about the Ravens' moves at tackle over the years, so read on! Andrew Bucholtz: How important do you consider the left tackle position, especially compared to the other positions on the offensive line? How important is a good left tackle to a team's overall success? Bruce Raffel: While the center position ...

For the last couple of weeks, I've been working on a piece for The Good Point about the importance of the left tackle in the NFL, particularly concerning the different views espoused by Michael Lewis and KC Joyner . I finished it up this morning, and editor extraordinaire Austin Kent already has it posted, so you can check it out here . It features interviews with Joyner, a famed author who also writes for ESPN and The New York Times , Brian Galliford of Buffalo Rumblings , Jason Brewer of Bleeding Green Nation and Bruce Raffel of Baltimore Beatdown . As with my previous piece for The Good Point , I got a lot of interesting information that I wasn't able to fit into the piece, so I've decided to again present extended interviews as part of my ongoing On The Ground interview series. I'll present my full interview with Joyner today, with Raffel's to come Wednesday and Brewer's on Friday. Almost of Galliford's quotes made it into the piece, so there ...

After I wrote my initial post on the commenting apocalypse over at Deadspin, I got an e-mail from site editor A.J. Daulerio stating that Gawker head honcho Nick Denton wasn't involved. I asked Daulerio to elaborate on the rationale behind the move and his wording that seemed to suggest a Gawker Media management conspiracy, and he just got back to me with his responses. They illuminate much of what has gone on so far, so I recommend reading on for the interview if you're at all interested in the situation. I'll have my own thoughts on his comments at the end. Andrew Bucholtz: "What's the goal behind the process you mentioned [on Sunday]?Reducing the absolute number of commenters and starred commenters, getting rid of certain kinds of lazy comments or jokes, removing people for offensive jokes, or something else completely?" A.J. Daulerio: "The goal of this bloodbath -- we'll call it that, I guess 30 or so people does constitute a bloodbath -- ...

Photo: Steven Pyeatt of Save Our Sonics. [Photo from http://stevenpyeatt.com/ ]. As part of the preparation for Judge Pechman's decision [Greg Johns, Seattle Post-Intelligencer ] later today on the future of the Sonics, here's the next installment of On the Ground, featuring an interview with Steven Pyeatt, the co-founder of Save our Sonics . Steven has been one of the most influential figures in the fight to keep the team in Seattle, working with co-founder Brian Robinson and the impressive team they've pulled together (including former Sonics star Slick Watts). He's helped organize rallies (including the one I covered ), e-mail and letter-writing campaigns, and much, much more. If the Sonics do survive in Seattle, his efforts will be a large part of the reason why. There's an excellent Seattle Times profile on him by Ashley Bach. Anyways, here's my questions and his answers. Q: What’s the mood like in Seattle? Do people still feel there’s a chance to keep...

Photo: Jim Moore, Seattle Post-Intelligencer sports columnist. [Photo from the Seattle Post-Inthttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif elligencer ]. Without further ado, I present the second installment in the On the Ground interview series. The subject this time is Seattle Post-Intelligencer sports columnist, . Here's my questions and his answers: Q: What’s the mood like in Seattle? Do people still feel there’s a chance to keep the franchise, or are they resigned to losing it? A: The mood here isn't good. I think people are hopeful that the city has a good case but are more resigned to the thought that the Sonics will win and leave town soon. Q: Do you think the rallies and popular expressions of support will make any difference in the end? A: No, I don't think the rallies or fan support matters. Hate to say that, but I don't. The judge even intimated during the trial that fan sentiment wasn't her chief concern. Q: What do you think was the city’s strongest argu...