Selena Roberts back page debut for SI (new column on Pg. 2)

Re: Selena Roberts back page debut for SI

Just making sure everyone knew that I do know she's talented, successful, etc., etc. Sometimes threads like this can go downhill in a hurry.

That being said, if I'd have read this five years ago, it would have ruined my writing and self-confidence for a month, because I would believe you have to try to write like this to be a Writer. Now I know that writing conversationally is a skill in itself.

It's the same thing that used to make me think that Philip Roth could write but Elmore Leonard and Stephen King couldn't.

 

Re: Selena Roberts back page debut for SI

She is talented but in the right conditions. With Selena as a columnist the Peter Principle is alive and well. When she did columns for the Times I would say that 1 out of every 5 was good.

 

Re: Selena Roberts back page debut for SI

She's better than that, Boom. When she stretches for a stretch's sake, it can backfire, but taken as a whole, don't look to knock the body of work.

 

Re: Selena Roberts back page debut for SI

Ben - don't get me wrong I've been a big Selena fan from the time she took out coach Cal .

It just seems to me though that she became over exposed at the Times and was trying to hard to create "the perfect Selena with every column. Many like this one became a stretch.

 

Re: Selena Roberts back page debut for SI

Perhaps conversational style just isn't her thing. I wonder if this is how her Christmas cards and emails to friends read.

Reminds me of one of my favorite Onion jokes, the one where David Foster Wallace writes a 33-page break up letter to his girlfriend -- with footnotes.

Usually I'm a fan. But this? Meh.

 

Re: Selena Roberts back page debut for SI

Yeah, what you said. I've always thought Selena needed more editing than she's ever gotten, more than most very good writers, which is what I consider her to be, if that makes sense.

As far as posting the Coach Cal/Garcia story, what's up with that? It was a news story that 97 out of 100 of us could have written. Big deal. (Must be an inside joke here or something.)

 

Re: Selena Roberts back page debut for SI

Love the private school aspect of your post. When John Thompson was at Georgetown and was criticized for his almost all black squads in an almost all non black school, for his style of play, for his ties to Nike, for his large salary, he would respond, if at all, that he had to answer only to Father Healy or Father O'Donovan, the schools presidents. And apparently, off the record, he told a number of reporters that if they didn't like it they could kiss his large black ass.

One of the benefits of a private institution is the ability run it as you choose, within Constitutional limits.

 

Re: Selena Roberts back page debut for SI

Short version of the column:

"College Sports - Its a contradiction"

The End

 

Re: Selena Roberts back page debut for SI

Muddled mess. And, hell, nothing - I mean nothing - in college football begins to touch the horseshit that went down at Baylor - a Christian school - a few years ago with Dave Bliss.

But Selena Roberts will be fine. Just fine. She'll write some dandies within the year and this will be forgotten.

 

Re: Selena Roberts back page debut for SI

On the record, his teams were the chippiest, roughest Big East outfits going . . . until he left.

 

Re: Selena Roberts back page debut for SI

That was bad, but it wasn't as bad when SMU, that bastion of Methodism, got the death penalty.
My feeling on the column is that it read like something in the paper. Muddled, but no worries, the columnist gets another chance the next day.
With SI, you have the whole of the world to write about and your topic was something lame about Jesus and football and something about something that didn't make much sense.

 

Re: Selena Roberts back page debut for SI

Others were doing far worse than Smooo . . . but Craig James? Eric? Little school, out of line? Whack 'em.

Meanwhile, Alabama goes on and on.