On Feb. 21st, a young 10-year old boy from Detroit fell through the ice on a frozen river. He died, and his funeral was this past weekend. Larry Foote had played on that same frozen river many times himself as a 10-year old, so he felt like helping out the family. He payed for the funeral, despite not knowing the family or the boy. It's a random act of kindness.
It's the kind of act that we've noted on this site before. In general the number of athletes that do charity work or make large contributions to charitable causes is under reported. Harris writes about how this story didn't get any press in Sportscenter, didn't get any play from the media:
There are Larry Footes in every sport -- good people doing good things. The media has a professional obligation to tell the public the whole truth, not just the juiciest stories.
Unfortunately, some of the best stories featuring some of the biggest names in sports go virtually ignored.
Indeed, it's one of the biggest beefs we have with the sports media in general. But we do want to take a second to recognize that there are a couple of the large sports websites trying to at least highlight some of these types of stories. The Big Lead linked to this Harris article, giving it much needed recognition. We've noted before that True Hoops sometimes has links to stories about current and former NBA players doing good deeds.
Of course not all of the big sports sites make the effort to link to these kinds of stories.
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On a similar note, it always bothers me that there is this perception of NBA players as "thugs", on that too many in the media are quick to perpetrate. Sure, there are those in the media that will condemn such "bias" thoughts held against NBA players, but then alot of them also do nothing to help the situation. They don't post or write anything showing the human side of players, preferring to take the lazy approach and turn every player into a one-dimensional stock character. Or they'll be the first to write "punk" and "thug" as soon as a fight breaks out at a game, despite never taking such strong tones when a fight breaks out at a football or baseball game.
Anyway, I was reminded of this double-standard in coverage of basketball players when reading Doug Smith's blog for The Toronto Star this weekend. Not that he did anything wrong... in fact, he said something positive about basketball players that I thought to myself "damn, this is often forgotten by the press". Check it out:
As you may know, I don’t do a lot of pucks, but it’s been my experience over many years that basketball players are generally more entertaining and insightful, than most other professional athletes. Maybe it’s because they’ve all had at least one year of college and get solid media training from their teams and the NBA; maybe it’s because they are more used to dealing with the media (there’s far more attention paid to college basketball than there is any minor hockey or minor baseball league).
It was just a throwaway line in response to a question from a reader, but it is important to note. NBA players are the most insightful, quotable, and personable of American athletes, for the most part. And the most accessible.************
Finally, along the lines of doing good work... I did a post last week which featured the song sample by Jay-Z in his latest hit (Roc Boys), called "Make The Road By Walking" by the Menahan Street Band (of Bushwick). I got a comment that pointed me in the direction of this Bushwick organization called "Make The Road". They do alot of community oriented stuff in New York (especially Bushwick, but also throughout the rest of the city, including Queens and Brooklyn), promoting everything from equal rights issues to helping low-income New Yorkers, and doing community organizing. There are adult education related programs, plus legal and support services. I just wanted to point out that aspect of the song title that I was previously unaware of....
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Caught this post from my Google alert for "athletes doing good".
You are center target on positive stories going unnoticed or ignored in large part by mainstream sports media.
As a freelance radio and tv talent getting into sports media, my passion is for telling stories of athletes doing good and the power of sport to create positive social change.
Thanks for this post.
this was a really quality post. DateJust,
The Doug Smith quote is interesting and I'm interested if most journalists feel the same way
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good stuff as always SML... I've always believed that the abscence of positive information is always more damaging than all the negative stuff. The Doug Smith quote is interesting and I'm interested if most journalists feel the same way...