NY Times story on UK beatwriter Jerry Tipton

Pretty neat story on longtime UK beat writer Jerry Tipton.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/sports/ncaabasketball/jerry-tiptons-kentucky-basketball.html?_r=1


UK fans are cucking frazy. Tipton takes it all in stride. Guess when you have been around that long it'd be par for the course.

 

Anyone who's ever been on any SEC basketball coach's teleconference has heard this phrase before:

"Hi (coach's name), Jerry Tipton again, one more thing ... "

 

When I met Tipton for the first time, I told him he had written my favorite lede of all-time from the Georgetown-Villanova title game, and he said something to the extent of, "Nice to meet you, even if you clearly have questionable taste..."

I know some on here are not fans of his, but I am a big Tipton fan. Coming up with college football stories year-round while not easy, is nothing compared with coming up with college basketball stories to write year-round. Most papers don't even try to do it and Tipton does an amazing job doing just that.

 

Wow! A big-time writer covering a massive program gets hate mail?? Shut the front fucking door!

 

The lede, if you please ...

 

Snowballs 2, Hell 0.

 

That's a valid point. There is a difference between hate mail and death threats, but I would bet that anyone who has covered a SEC team for more than a few years has received a death threat.

If Alabama football fans are the craziest in the country, Kentucky basketball fans might be a close second.

 

That's pretty damn good.

 

That is awesome. One of my favorites is from Jimmy Bryan of The Birmingham News, after Alabama beat Vanderbilt 66-3 in 1979, when the country was on the verge of the early '80s recession:

"Inflation killed Vanderbilt on Saturday. As soon as the football was inflated, the Commodores were dead."

 

Best game story lede IMO in my time at the Herald was turned in by Harvard beat writer Mike Globetti. They lost to Penn by like 45-6, and Globetti wrote, "Ten thousand men of Harvard and not a football player among 'em."

 

Now, now. We've already had that thread: http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/53446/

Jerry Tipton earned a nod from another member in that one:

 

Jerry once drove Bob Holt and I around Lexington on a sort of behind-the-scenes tour. I quipped I was keeping company with the godfather of the SEC East (Tipton) and the godfather of the SEC West (Holt). Both have covered Kentucky and Arkansas, respectively, since the early 1980s.
Jerry showed us Memorial Coliseum where Kentucky practiced. We ran into Tubby Smith, who said hello. It was an awkward encounter, but memorable.
Jerry is one of the nicest guys in the business, and I was pleased to read this story.
Thanks for sharing.