How Whitlock is poisoning ESPN's "black Grantland"
 

http://deadspin.com/how-jason-whitlo...ium=socialflow

Very long read. Interesting, infuriating, sad, funny, and most likely headed to DC.

Enjoy...

Read for about 5 mins or so.....scrolled down...kept scrolling and realized tl;dr

Five minutes?

I lasted about 5 seconds before I realized I don't really care.

He and Pioli are the same person, apparently.

That's racist.gif

i read op's title and realized i didnt care

Completely this. It was the most Pioli thing ever. The "working for the white man" lecture had me laughing.

The irony being that no sports writer campaigned against Pioli than Jason Whitlock. Didn't he coin the Egoli nickname?

Whitlock was fully behind us with the Pioli disaster. He even donated money.


I will give him a break.

Agree with notorious.


But...cliff notes?

The email he wrote that woman is pretty funny. So very self-important.

Whitlock is a delusional, egotistical, insecure, unqualified, paranoid borderline 9/11 truther.

Great article. The writer beats the shit out of Whitlock.

Game truly does recognize game.

I worked for a coach a few years back that was like this, in many ways.
He had a notebook he handed over that covered every elementary thing he expected. Some of it was great, game plans, weekly schedules, expectations. Other parts were ridiculous. How to wear your hat. How to dress at clinics, etc.
I get that it's "his" and he wants to make sure it reflects his vision. But much like the HC I worked for, you hire good people, and at some point you have to allow them to do their job.

I can't decide if coaches just naturally have this uber control freak thing or the more successful coaches get there by being control freaks and had to adapt to that personality from guys or women they started off as assistants for.

I've worked for both...

I've worked for two coaches who won multiple state titles. Both GREAT guys.
They are both different as far as control. I mean, they both have imposed their will on the program, but one of them made sure he was the fact of the program, and planned everything to the nth degree. The other one has.control, but within the program you really don't feel it. Things are just what they are because that's how they are.

But I also think you don't get anywhere in coaching (or any leadership) unless you think you've got the answers no one else does, and that you need to be followed in order to succeed.

It's just been my observation from working HS sports for four years in two different avenues.

I've worked in the media business for 30 years. Having gotten thru most of the article all I can say is that Whitlock gets what makes a good media strategy. The best editors are overly confident dictators. Groupthink doesn't work as well as a single vision that has the will to make others follow. Period. Half of the magazines/websites/news shows I've worked on or owned that had a strong editor succeeded and half failed. Every one that had a weak editor failed in spectacular fashion.

I have no doubt Whitlock is as full of himself as he's presented to be in the story. And maybe he's such a blowhard his enterprise will collapse (he lacks another essential element which is trust which engenders loyalty which makes finding success so much easier). But being headstrong about what he wants doesn't make him the rotten ogre he's portrayed as in this article.

And that's coming from someone who's not much of a Whitlock fan.

I was on a plane this evening and had just pulled up this article before takeoff on my phone, so I actually read it all. It is a hopelessly rambling mess, and in the end it appears the author wants to paint Whitlock as an Uncle Tom as well as somebody who knows nothing, is out of touch with pop culture, is wildly insecure, and an egomaniac.

The last two might have truth, and the e-mails do a pretty good job of painting that picture. But the overall character assassination of this article is over-the-top and reeks of somebody who has lost all objectivity.

Guess that answers this question

http://deadspin.com/can-jason-whitlo...-hi-1586606960

Whitlock isn't poisonous, he's venomous......

Very long but worth the read.

Part of the problem seems to be the whole "black enough" measurement stick. I never got the impression Whitlock wrote for black America - he wrote for an American sports audience.

Whitlock doesn't have to explain black life to black people - he says what he does to attract attention from all people. He wasn't hired to write for only one demographic. He's trying to translate his opinions to a wider audience and while doing that things get lost in translation.

What makes him smart is that even when they take him the wrong way his talking points are headline news. The conversation happens. The matter is discussed.

I'm just a white guy but I never took it that way. I saw it more as "while you fight your enemies surrounding you don't forget about the enemy within." It's not a black problem, it's an American problem that we have of refusing any responsibility at all when there's a conflict.

Cigarette and beer companies are to blame, not my gluttony. I'm a victim of AIDS even though I ran out and slept with as many women (unprotected) as possible. We can't have smoking in bars because I don't wan't you to poison me while I'm poisoning myself.

Whitlock throws words instead of stones. People are fine with that until a word or a stone is thrown their way...

Why does It feel like Jwhit wrecks every gig he gets?

Modern media loves controversy as long as the popular opinion is behind you...

Whitlock and joe poz were the dream team of sports columnists. RedStar allowed both to leave to focus on the papers political views. Shame

The article calls Whit "the preeminent black sports writer" or something like that. Maybe I haven't been paying attention, but is he really that big of a deal?

I've never been a big fan and I'm aware of him wearing out his welcome rather quickly everywhere he goes, but the article comes off as a rather desperate attempt to attack the guy and generally difficult job of launching a new project. Whit and the writer both seem like dicks.

I thought he was just another fatso with a platform. And a quitter. The day he quit 610 sports after all the bravado from him and Maas/Grunhard, was hilarious.

deadspin and those other sites just have it out for REAL media members

Yes

How so?

And to further Ringleader's excellent analysis and post, without a vision, media ventures are doomed to fail, whether it's print, TV, film, music or advertising.

Being a dick doesn't make him wrong.

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Losing horn over Whitlock's comments says it all in response.

Deadspin writing about Jason Whitlock is like, one of the least things you ever need to read ever.

Deadspin wrote about him ruining "Black Grantland". He got booted from it today. They might have been onto something.