UGA blog finds new home
Morning all. As I’ve said a couple of times this week, we’re converting this blog over to a WordPress platform and it will be a permanent move the first of next week.
Those of you who are regulars probably know that I’m not what you’d call techno-wizard when it comes to these things. But from what I understand the technology offered in this new format should make the blogging and commenting experience better for all. Of course, I’ll be learning as we go along, too. But I’m hoping to provide more pictures and video and things like that which should bring the blog more to life.
Of course, this blog is nothing without all you guys so I want to heartily invite (read: beg) you to come over to the new site by CLICKING HERE ON THE NEW ADDRESS and save it in your browsers. As of Monday, Feb. 23rd, this will be the permanent home of the UGA blog you so love or, in the case of some of you, love to loathe. If you’d prefer to copy and paste or just memorize, the new address is: http://blogs.ajc.com/uga-sports-blog/.
See at the new place!
AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2008 > July > 14
Monday, July 14, 2008
I, too, would rather write about football
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Let me preface my remarks today with one statement: I don’t like writing about arrests.
I didn’t get into the business of sports writing so I could spend every day perusing the police blotter for names of the athletes I cover. I got into it because I enjoy sports and the spectacle of it and writing about the people, places and personalities that encompass that world. My father was a youth-league football coach and played football and baseball and soccer pretty much from the time I could walk until I went to college. And I probably started writing about sports then mainly because I could no longer compete in them.
So that’s just to make it clear to anyone out there who thinks we relish times like those that have befallen Georgia this summer. In fact, I can’t think of any sports hack (affectionate term within the business) that enjoys that side of the job.
That said, it is a necessary part of our work these days. The Internet Age we live in makes for a 24-7 news cycle and virtually all information nowadays is public. So every day I click on a little icon in my browser toolbar that says “jail log” and check to see if any of the athletes that we effectively glamorize daily has fallen off his pedestal (nothing today by the way). I do so with the hope I’ll see nothing. Most of the time, however, the news of an arrest of a football player has already gotten out before I have a chance to click.
That’s been too many times this year. Seven Georgia players — or an average of one per month so far — have found themselves on that jail log. The latest, and the saddest, was Michael Lemon.
By now everybody knows Lemon is accused of slugging a UGA student much smaller than himself and apparently in a defenseless position over a misunderstanding about a girl. That momentary lack of judgment cost Lemon dearly. And while I feel sorry for the victim in this case, DeMarius Jackson, I also must confess I also feel sorry for Lemon.
Lemon, lest we forget, just a year and a half ago lost his mother in a terrible, senseless tragedy. Phaba Lemon, 39, was killed by an ex-boyfriend who burned down the Lemon’s house to conceal the crime. On top of that, in high school, Lemon saw his best friend die in a car wreck. It was way more than any teen-ager should have to bear.
And who knows how much all that hurt may have contributed to Lemon’s actions? That in no way justifies anything Lemon did on that Saturday night in Athens. But you can never be sure how grief and pain may manifest itself in young people. And this story is nothing but sad. For the moment, Lemon has lost a college education and the football opportunity of a lifetime and Georgia has lost a good player.
We also live in a much more litigious society today. Confession: I was attending college in the mid-1980s and was at a party where there were a lot of football players (OK there might have also been some beer). One of them didn’t like the fact that I was dating a girl that he used to date (or was dating, that was never made clear). He confronted me about it and punched me square in the nose when he didn’t like my response. Never once did I consider calling the police or even his coach. Perhaps I should have but it just wasn’t how we handled things back in those days. A short time later he apologized, I accepted and we left school as friends.
The point is, I’d much rather be writing about football. And if we can ever get out of these dog days of summer I hope to be doing nothing but that.
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