Gary Smith

consensus?
and not a single person voted for selena roberts? or leigh montville? tim keown? SL Price? Mike Farber?

everybody voted for smith? whoa. a consensus.

 

Consensus does not denote unanimous. It is a generally agreed upon view. Not necessarily unanimous, though. Thanks for the smart-assery though.

 

And someone else gets tragically hit over the head with facts.

 

Mr Hondo,

Funny, I've always thought of Gary Smith as Frank Deford-Red Bull.

YHS, etc

 

Smith is good. I think DeFord was better.

 

Mr Hondo,

I would say that's the one thing we disagree about but I'd be lying. I don't think Larry Craig is gay either.

YHS, etc

 

I' m not Josh, but I was in Anderson, S.C. when he wrote the story. I also had kids who went to T.L. Hanna and I know all the coaches, etc. that were the basis of the story, including Harold Jones. For what it's worth, Josh has moved on to better things and is fine with the way everything went down now -- since he was given a line of credit at the end of the movie. But I stand by what I said about the anecdotes and Smith lifting a couple that Josh had witnessed. Granted, Radio's eating the cooler of sandwiches wasn't one of them. That's a favorite of anyone who knows Radio.

 

Has the whole ethos of giving credit changed over time, from what used to be only from fears of plagiarism to now the much more casual tips-of-the-cap popularized by blogs?

It wasn't that long ago that editors frowned on attributing something to another publication -- they took it as a sign that their reporters weren't working hard enough. They would rather have their people call the very same sources and ask the very same questions, rather than use something already "out there" and cite where it came from.

But using something already out there and citing where it came from is pretty much a core value of blogging, right? Nobody accuses the blogger of not doing "his own work." They might accuse the blogger of not being a journalist or of not reporting, but no one gets upset to see links.

In this day and age, maybe Gary Smith's article could have cited Josh's piece or even given a link. Ya think?

 

Here's some background on Gary Smith (which was the original thread topic).
He married Sally Wilson, who was a pretty fair writer herself at Atlanta Constitution and Dallas Morning News. After they married, she entered medical school and I believe she is now a doctor of psychology. I believe their oldest child was adopted; they found her while traveling in South America. Gary is from a pretty large family (8 to 10 brothers and sisters, I believe).

 

I believe he's writing a ditty on Miami coach Randy Shannon this week.

 

I like some of Smith's stuff, but I thought DeFord jumped the shark a long time ago.

Give me a good S.L. Price story any time. And I thought William Nack was the best of the bunch. His stuff on Secretariat was incredible.