Final Four ghosts in long story on Kentucky’s Julius Randle

April 5, 2014 By Bobby Ross Jr.

While in Arlington, Texas, on Monday for my beloved Rangers’ season opener at the newly named Globe Life Park, I noticed a big banner outside the Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium next door.

Apparently, Jerry Jones’ gigantic shrine to losing football is hosting some sort of college basketball tournament this weekend. If I understand correctly, it’s called the NCAA Men’s Final Four and involves a malady known as “March Madness.” Hopefully, there’s a cure, but everyone involved probably would appreciate our prayers.

Speaking of the aforementioned tournament, The Dallas Morning News has a big profile — 2,000-plus words — out today on one of the teams’ players. Julius Randle, who played high school hoops in Texas, is a big star for the Kentucky Wildcats and, it seems, could win a lottery ticket from the NBA. (I’m not endorsing gambling. I’m just reporting what I read.)

In all seriousness, there’s a lot to recommend about the Morning News’ profile, headlined “How a Dallas billionaire helped Plano’s Julius Randle become Kentucky’s biggest star.” On one level, the writer does an excellent job of digging below the surface and helping readers understand the unique path that Randle has taken to tonight’s big stage:

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Visibly drained, Julius Randle ambled into Kentucky’s $30 million basketball facility. Reporters awaited. Randle knew the drill.

Towering above his inquisitors, he leaned his 6-9, 250-pound frame against a wall, the one facing eight national championship banners. It
was a surreal contrast from his very first interview, with his hometown Dallas Morning News.

Back then he was 6 foot, 145 pounds. He was 11.

“Yeah, I remember,” he said with a soft laugh.

On Saturday night, the local kid will re-emerge in North Texas as a 19-year-old man in the grandest possible basketball homecoming, with Kentucky facing Wisconsin in the Final Four semifinals before an expected crowd of 80,000 at AT&T Stadium.

A national TV audience no doubt will be reminded that Randle is the only locally produced player among a Final Four of out-of-state teams, having led Plano Prestonwood Christian to three TAPPS state titles, the most recent in March 2013.

Later that month, having already signed with Kentucky, he attended the South Regional at AT&T Stadium, watched Michigan beat Florida to make the Final Four and visualized himself playing in the vast stadium this year.

But as I read the otherwise compelling piece, I found myself frustrated by the religion ghosts (if you have no clue what a religion ghost is, check out GetReligion’s primer on “Why We’re Here”).

In keeping with the theme, I’ll rank my Final Four ghosts:

— No. 4 seed: Mention of Plano Prestonwood Christian.

Yes, it’s entirely possible that an extremely talented basketball player would be recruited to play at a Christian school and that there would be no real religion angle. But Randle’s association with a school that’s a ministry of Prestonwood Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist megachurch, made me wonder.

A quick Google search might even turn up this Baptist Press headline:

Randle takes ‘solid’ faith into Final Four

— No. 3 seed: Mention of billionaire Kenny Troutt’s vision going beyond basketball:

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Got news? Looking at key facts in the Chris Davis timeline

September 29, 2013 By tmatt

It’s the last day of the regular baseball season and for fans of the Baltimore Orioles there was a very bittersweet taste to the year. What does that have to do with religion-news coverage? While many will argue that baseball is a religion (click here for a classic), trust me that I will get to the real religion hook in this post soon enough.

While our O’s narrowly missed the playoffs, the team did have another winning season and made life uncomfortable for the Boston Red Sox. Do the math, people. It’s hard to have a winning season in the American League BEast. Cleveland Indian fans should feel thankful they are where they are.

Of course, one of the other big stories here in Charm City was Chris Davis and his Babe Ruth-ian season in terms of extra-base hits and home runs.

Although Davis has been a moon-shot slamming muscle man since high school, the rate at which he hit the long ball over the past 18 months or so raised predictable questions about performance-enhancing drugs. However, insiders noted that the big man actually lost weight entering this year and increased his foot speed, trends that rarely are linked to steroids.

So, if drugs weren’t the story, then what was the X-factor that helped calm down this anger-management case, allowing him to get his act together?

Simply stated, there is the baseball side and the personal-religious side. You would think that the two stories could be blended into one, but that does not appear to be a task The Baltimore Sun team is willing to attempt, other than the occasional tiny dose of vague God talk.

Here’s my question: What if it could be argued, looking at the timeline of the Davis lift-off into superstardom, that his marriage and his return to practicing the Christian faith of his youth were actually — in terms of on-the-record facts — crucial to this sports-news story? Should a newspaper go there, asking journalistic questions about those aspects of his life and including them as PART of the story?

With that question in mind, let’s look at the new Sun story about Davis’ year. Here is the overture:

Hank Aaron never hit as many as 53 home runs in a season. Neither did Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, Frank Robinson nor Mike Schmidt.

So with 53 homers going into the final game, Orioles first baseman Chris Davis is not only the most prolific single-season slugger in club history. He’s part of a select group that includes just 17 power hitters in baseball history.

As the Orioles wrap up their season Sunday, short of the playoffs, it’s worth reflecting on what a rare show Davis gave Baltimore fans in 2013. He found that hard to do himself, talking about his season the day after the Orioles were eliminated from postseason contention. “It’s hard to reflect and look back on personal accomplishments right now, because I still have a sour taste in my mouth,” Davis said.

So what happened? Can Davis keep it going?

Davis knows he will enter next season facing a level of outside expectation he’s never experienced. If he returns to his 2012 level — 33 home runs would’ve placed him top 10 in the majors this year — fans will crinkle their noses. But he doesn’t seem concerned.

“I’ve expected it for myself for a long time,” he said. “I had struggles in Texas, and I think that’s where I got away from it. I tried to be a player that everybody else wanted me to be instead of the player I knew I was capable of being. Obviously, when you hit 50-plus home runs in a season, you’re going to draw some attention to yourself, but I just hope that everybody counts on me to be there every day and compete. The numbers are going to be there at the end of the season.”

So that’s one valid way to write the end-of-the-year story. It’s the baseball exclusive approach. What would the personal approach look like?

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About those steroid whispers and slugger Chris Davis

July 15, 2013 By tmatt

http://youtu.be/K0l6OK_1IBk

If you have been following major-league baseball this year, then you probably know a little bit about Baltimore Orioles first baseman Chris Davis, the guy with 37 home runs at the All-Star Game break. If you wish, you can check him out tonight in the All-Star Home Run Derby (while pondering the question of whether Texas Ranger fanatic Bobby Ross Jr., will cheer for Davis or against him).

Now, here are a few basic facts that are highly relevant to the Twitter trouble that surrounds “Crush” Davis.

Davis is 6-foot-3-inches tall and weighs about 230 pounds. Those numbers have been roughly the same during his years in the minor and major leagues and, throughout that time, he has been known as a guy who could hit the ball about 450 feet without working up a sweat, while striking out at an even more rapid clip. He has always been a high contact-to-damage-ratio guy.

There are reports that Davis came into camp this year 10 to 15 pounds lighter and it certainly appears that he has improved his speed on the base paths, as well as his ability to hit baseballs that are pitched down and away. He has, as a left-handed hitter, developed quite a knack for hitting opposite-field golf shots (as opposed to monster blasts) into the first few rows in the stands. He is no longer trying to tear the cover off the ball during each and every at bat. His strike outs are way down and he’s batting .315.

What does this have to do with religion?

Actually, these are the kinds of numbers that matter when a slugger is being accused of using steroids. It is rare, you see, for people to lose weight and gain speed while using steroids that allow them to hit moon shots.

The religion angle — tune in any Baltimore talk-radio station or hit Twitter — is that @ChrisDavis_19 is a Christian who, especially since he got married a year or so ago, has become quite outspoken about his faith and even the possibility that he could end up working in some form of ministry.

Religion and steroid chatter? That’s a volatile mix.

As a Baltimore guy who closely follows the Orioles, I find it interesting that the religion angle of this story is EVERYWHERE when it’s addressed by the public, yet the key news story addressing this topic in The Baltimore Sun did not include any references to faith. Is Davis lying? Is his faith a sham? If one assumes that he is using PEDs, and some people do, then this would also mean that this born-again slugger is a hypocrite or worse.

It’s impossible to separate these issues. Right? However, The Sun team managed to completely skip the religion angle. Here’s the opening of that story:

Orioles first baseman Chris Davis understands that there are going to be whispers, and that those will grow louder if he continues his torrid home run pace.

He is, after all, a muscle-rippling power hitter with video-game home run totals. He knows the steroid accusations are inevitable and will accompany his pursuit of home run records this season.

“I think it sucks that guys in our day and age have to answer for mistakes that guys have made in the past. But it is part of it,” said Davis, who has 33 home runs in his first 92 games for the Orioles this season. “That’s what happened when Major League Baseball started addressing the issue. We knew we were going to have to deal with it.”

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Evangelicals and immigration: Real data, real voices

April 11, 2013 By Bobby Ross Jr.

A quick review before I get to the point of this post:

• Back in January, I complained that CNN failed to provide any hard data to back up a breathless, one-sided report of “many” evangelicals warming to the need for immigration reform.

• In February, I complained that a similarly vague Tampa Bay Times story — splashed across the front page — presented Scriptural references as if the Bible has a single, simple-to-understand position on the U.S. immigration debate.

• That same month, I complained that a front-page Dallas Morning News story — using the same conservative-Christians-changing-their-position template as CNN and the Florida newspaper — backed up its storyline by citing “a recent survey.” Believe it or not, that’s as specific as the attribution got!

• In a twist, I also complained about a story from the Deseret News, a Salt Lake City newspaper, that took the opposite tact and reported that rank-and-file evangelicals largely oppose immigration reform. Once again, my concern was purely journalistic. My question: according to whom?

So, in other words, I’ve complained a little — OK, a lot — about media coverage of evangelicals and immigration reform.

But this week, the Wall Street Journal published a front-page story on the issue that I mostly liked. (If you click my direct link, a pay wall may come up. If that happens, do a Google search for “Evangelicals Push Immigration Path” and see if a link comes up for the full story. It worked for me.)

The top of the story:

IRVINE, Calif. — Senior pastor Kenton Beshore said the first sermons on the plight of illegal immigrants didn’t go over well with many members of his evangelical church, which sits on a 50-acre campus in Orange County and has a 3,400-seat sanctuary, sports facilities, restaurant and a man-made lake.

“We took a hit on it,” said Mr. Beshore. “We had people who walked out and whose giving went away.” It was part of the reason the church ended 2012 with a $500,000 budget shortfall, he said.

But much has changed in the two years since—both at Mr. Beshore’s 14,000-member Mariners Church and at conservative evangelical congregations around the U.S.

After decades of sitting on the sidelines of the debate, evangelical Christians are prodding Republican lawmakers to support a path to U.S. citizenship for the nation’s illegal immigrants, based on their reading of Bible teachings. Evangelical pastors from pulpits across the U.S. cite Scriptures about welcoming strangers. Some compare illegal immigrants with modern-day lepers, who should be treated with compassion by Christians.

An estimated 300 evangelical leaders, including Mr. Beshore, plan to convene in Washington next week to lobby lawmakers of both parties for an immigration policy overhaul, an issue that has divided voters, lawmakers and church congregations.

Yes, it’s the same basic angle that other media have covered.

But here’s what I like about the WSJ report: It actually quotes evangelicals on opposite sides of the issue. It actually broaches the possibility of the Bible being interpreted different ways on immigration reform. It actually cites historical survey data to gauge how evangelical attitudes have changed.

For example, there’s this bit of balance:

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Football, family and … faith? That’s a definite maybe

February 28, 2013 By Bobby Ross Jr.

If you read GetReligion with any frequency, you know the drill.

We critique mainstream media coverage of religion and often point out holy ghosts in news coverage. What are holy ghosts? Let’s go back to tmatt’s description at the very beginning:

They are facts and stories and faces linked to the power of religious faith. Now you see them. Now you don’t. In fact, a whole lot of the time you don’t get to see them. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

Some of our regular readers understand the concept quite well. In fact, we depend on readers to submit links to stories deserving of attention. Typically, readers provide a few quick takes on the item submitted, and your friendly neighborhood GetReligionistas take it from there.

Then there are readers such as Ken Fallon, whose submission on a front-page Oregonian story says just about everything that needs to be said. (I really hope Ken isn’t trying to take my job. Granted, it’s a part-time gig, and I’m not getting rich off it, but I do enjoy writing for GetReligion.)

Let’s catch a flavor of the 2,500-word Oregonian feature before reviewing Fallon’s analysis:

SPRING BRANCH, Texas — Lawrence Mattison finds it odd that anyone would look up to him.

Not in the literal sense, of course. Strangers often wonder aloud, glancing at the teenager’s 6-foot-1, 230-pound hulking presence, “Is that guy in high school?”

But the little boy who approached Mattison last fall after a Smithson Valley football game caught him off guard when he handed up a picture he had drawn in school, shyly saying, “I wanna be like you, No. 21.”

“To shake a little kid’s hand, to hear him say he wants to be like me, it’s crazy, it’s humbling,” Mattison says. “This kid wants my life?”

Mattison, who signed a letter of intent at Oregon State this month, may be the best running back to ever play at Smithson Valley, a 2,000-student high school on the northern outskirts of San Antonio. But he’s also the kid who slept behind a gas station when he had nowhere else to go, the guy who punched two holes in the wall when he lost his cool, the one who got handcuffed and wondered if he had just blown his chance at a better life.

Seventeen-hundred miles away in Corvallis, Mike Riley and his staff have built a top 25 program where they preach trust, family and relationships. Lots of coaches talk about a family friendly atmosphere but it’s a way of life at Oregon State, where coaches’ children and wives hang out at practice and eat lunch with the players, where it’s not uncommon for Riley to stop a fan outside the Valley Center, put a hand on the person’s shoulder and ask, “Hey, how you doing?” then stick around to hear the answer.

If you have time, go ahead and read the whole thing and then come back for the critique.

In his submission to GR, Ken noted that the profile “hints at matters of faith while managing to avoid exploring them whatsoever.” (Did I already mention the concept of holy ghosts?)

Let’s hear directly from Ken:

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Church, Lone Star State and #RNA2012

October 5, 2012 By Bobby Ross Jr.

As Mollie mentioned, the GetReligion team — which mostly hangs out together in cyberspace — has assembled in human form at the Religion Newswriters Association annual meeting in Bethesda, Md., just outside Washington, D.C.

Mollie, George, Sarah and I already have convented a brief, impromptu GR meeting where laughing was the primary agenda item. (By the way, Sarah did an excellent job this morning on a panel dubbed “50 Shades of Evangelicalism: Diversity Among Young American Evangelicals.”) So far, I have not seen tmatt — he may be teaching or something this morning (or perhaps he’s off worrying about his Orioles having to face my Rangers tonight).

Much to my surprise, the first person I recognized when I arrived at the convention hotel was Carla Hinton, who succeeded me 10 years ago as religion editor for The Oklahoman. We both live in Oklahoma City, so it’s ironic that we had to travel 1,300-plus miles to run into each other at the elevator. At breakfast this morning, I sat next to Jeremy Weber, news editor for Christianity Today, who edits my freelance pieces for that fine publication. Suffice it to say that I’m enjoying seeing old friends and meeting some Godbeat pros for the first time.

If you watched this morning’s session on religious freedom (carried live by C-Span.org) and spotted a middle-aged dude with a balding head and a blue polo shirt with a Christian Chronicle logo, that was me. For details on that discussion (and other RNA sessions), I’d recommend following the #RNA2012 hashtag on Twitter. In a roomful of journalists, you can imagine that there’s a lot of smartphone tapping, laptop clicking and assorted other “live tweeting” going on.

Speaking of religious freedom, I posted earlier this week on a clash in an East Texas town over high school cheerleaders displaying banners with Christian messages at football games. The New York Times reported on the Texas case today, so I wanted to revisit that topic.

The top of the Times story:

KOUNTZE, Tex. — The hand-painted red banner created by high school cheerleaders here for Friday night’s football game against Woodville was finished days ago. It contains a passage from the Bible — Hebrews 12:1 — that reads: “And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.”

That banner, and other religious-themed signs made by the high school and middle school cheerleading squads in recent weeks, have embroiled this East Texas town in a heated debate over God, football and cheerleaders’ rights.

School district officials ordered the cheerleaders to stop putting Bible verses on the banners, because they believed doing so violated the law on religious expression at public school events. In response, a group of 15 cheerleaders and their parents sued the Kountze Independent School District and its superintendent, Kevin Weldon, claiming that prohibiting the students from writing Christian banner messages violated their religious liberties and free-speech rights.

The Times piece doesn’t till a whole lot of new ground. However, as I read the story, I kept wondering if it would elaborate on the “law on religious expression at public school events.” I wanted to know: What law?

To its credit, the newspaper tackles that crucial question:

Mr. Weldon and school district lawyers said his decision to prohibit the messages was based on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Texas case, Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, which established that prayers led by students at high school football games were unconstitutional and had the improper effect of coercing those in the audience to take part in an act of religious worship.

While testifying on Thursday, Mr. Weldon — he and school board members had been subpoenaed, though Judge Thomas later nullified those subpoenas — said two lawyers he contacted, a district lawyer and a lawyer for the Texas Association of School Boards, advised him to prohibit the students from writing Bible verses. But he said that he supported the cheerleaders and that, as a Christian, he agreed with their religious viewpoints. …

One of the lawyers representing the students and their families, David Starnes, argued that the cheerleaders’ Bible-themed banners were protected private speech, not government-sanctioned speech, and that the Supreme Court’s ruling did not apply in this case because it had nothing to do with prayer. Cheerleading practice as well as banner-making occur after school on campus, and the squads are led by students, though adult advisers monitor and assist them. No school funds are used to purchase the banner supplies.

I could say more, but the noon hour has passed on the East Coast, and I don’t want to miss the next session — or the lunch that goes with it. I’m sure my fellow GetReligionistas will be sharing much more from #RNA2012. Stay tuned.