Which pro athletes are good people? Which ones are not?

Maybe couch this in terms of personal encounters? Ahdunno...

 

"friend of the show" is a classic. Means he comes on every now and again.

 

Using this criterion, off the top my head, my first thoughts are Sam Mills, Jason Witten, Kevin Hartman and … John McEnroe.

 

Unless someone committed a crime, or I saw them engage in very bad behavior I found it better for my mental health and I believe accuracy of reporting to divide the people I covered as interesting or dull rather than good or bad. I'm far more capable of accurate judgments in the former divide than the latter.

 

Years ago, our female columnist wrote that Elton Brand held the door for her when she went into the Clippers locker room.

 

"Thanks for giving us a couple of minutes" - every sports talk show host at the end of a 10 minute interview.

 

OK. Is this a criticism? Does anyone think it means something different?

 

I think one mistake that many sports journalists is they canonize anyone in print who is friendly to them as worthy of sainthood. I think, for example, Michael Jordan is someone that most people who dealt with him thought was a jerk but he did treat reporters well and hence was treated as a great person.

 

No - just really puts some of these hosts in a tough spot when a "friend of the show" ends up in hot water for something. Also - if they were a true "FOTS" - they'd probably come on and explain what's up and perhaps apologize, explain or defend themselves instead of ducking for cover and suddenly being incommunicado, which is almost always the case.

 

A woman I used to work with in newspapers and then at a public relations firm, had this to say about why she had changed her hair color from blonde to red, “that scumbag Aaron Rodgers get propositioning me and making comments about hot blondes were.” This was about four years ago. I feel like I saw the future via her comment.

 

Josh Allen seems like a good dude. He does a ton of charity work for the Buffalo Children's Hospital, and did a real solid for his Laramie wings guy several years ago so he could get entered in the annual Buffalo wings competition.

 

Just watching the Madden special, now that's what I call a "good dude." What he did for the turducken guy alone, wow.