Dan Wetzel on McCoy and Gilbert last night

Great discussion....compliments to jaredk for raising the bar on intelligent debate. Nothing picky or cynical about it.

I suspect few readers will ever ask 'how did he know?', mainly because it's such a great read, and they'll blow through the story without stopping to wonder. But I did wonder how Wetzel knew Gilbert cried. Didn't bother me so much that it ruined the story, but it caught my attention. A leap of faith I'm willing to take with a writer of Wetzel's caliber...not so much with others. (Insert Albom digression here, etc etc).

 

While it's a worthy conversation, doesn't this indicate neither argument applies to Wetzel's column?

 

Wetzel implies the lockerroom was open during the father-son; why was he the only writer who got the story?

 

Most other writers were likely on deadline. Perhaps he was able to stick around and talk to not only McCoy (like most) but his father or assistant coaches or anyone else who was around. Perhaps he waited until after the scrum around McCoy thinned to ask his questions.

I've done that before. I've had a feature to write and I'll wait until after the herd has thinned around a given player to get through my questions.

 

OK. I know that's true, and it was probably a bad example to use in defending the Wetzel piece. (I also know I should be done, too, but what the hell.)

This isn't composite characters, or anything like that. It's a well-reported piece that might have taken a narrative stretch. Again, in my opinion, we're talking a couple of "he saids" from being what you think it should be.

I guess the bottom line on this is that I think you would have no narrative writing without meticulous attribution. I simply say it's a matter of degree, and it's a judgment call (not a rule) as to where that line is.

 

If he decided at that moment he was going to write about McCoy no matter what, he could've bird-dogged him the rest of the night while others were tethered to watching the game. Not saying that's definitely what happened, but it's one explanation.

 

This thread reminds me of that Disney movie Pocohantas. People were complaining about the historical inaccuracies, but didn't have a problem with the singing animals.

 

I'm not even really sure what that means, but it's a hell of a line.

 

Yep, yep, yep. Hands down best college columnist around.

 

I like this piece, I said.

 

Doublecheck the attribution, please.

 

Locker rooms open during the game? I am curious about that.

I don't think it's an ethical issue to set a scene. Anybody who has been in this business for more than six months has written this sort of thing. (Although not as well.) Anybody who goes on an ethical Jihad on this had better be sure he or she hasn't' done similar scene-setting in the past.