{"id":4145,"date":"2017-07-28T15:20:09","date_gmt":"2017-07-28T23:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/kateohare\/?p=4145"},"modified":"2017-08-03T08:08:00","modified_gmt":"2017-08-03T16:08:00","slug":"seahawks-cb-richard-sherman-on-competition-and-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kateohare\/2017\/07\/seahawks-cb-richard-sherman-on-competition-and-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Seahawks’ Richard Sherman on Media Perception vs. Reality: ‘Iron Sharpens Iron’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Trust in the media is rapidly eroding, and a lot of it is the media\u2019s own fault.<\/p>\n

In his latest column<\/a> at The Players\u2019 Tribune<\/em>, Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman \u2014 a whipsmart communications grad from Stanford and a Christian<\/a> \u2014 talks about his offseason (mostly chasing two little kids around and baby-proofing his house) and how his relationship with team QB (and fellow Christian) Russell Wilson has been portrayed, rightly and often wrongly, in the press.<\/p>\n

\n
Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/iframe><\/div>\n\n<\/p><\/div>\nEven in preseason practice, head coach Pete Carroll expects the team to give 100 percent, and Sherman is no exception.<\/p>\nHere\u2019s a taste:<\/p>\n<blockquote>So you could take that moment when I picked Russell off and chirped back at him, and you could take it out of context and say, \u201cOh, there must be discord in Seattle.\u201d<\/p>\nOr \u2026 you could recognize it as a competitive moment.<\/p>\nIron sharpens iron. One person sharpens another. And the corners on Sundays aren\u2019t going to go easy on Russell. So why would I go easy on him during the week? That\u2019s not helping him prepare for Sunday. That\u2019s not making him better. And I know that there\u2019s nothing he\u2019s going to face on Sunday that he will not have already seen in practice, because we practice how we play. We compete. So no matter what happens in the game, he\u2019ll know how to respond.<\/p>\nAnd that day at practice? After I made that pick? He did<\/i> respond. He turned it up a notch. The whole team did. And after practice, it was all love. All handshakes and, \u201cGood practice, bro.\u201d All the way around.<\/p>\nThat\u2019s how we practiced all season.<\/p>\nAnd it helped get us back to the Super Bowl.<\/p>\nThat\u2019s the thing: You can take a snapshot of a competitive moment \u2014 any moment, really \u2014 and build an entire narrative around it. You can build a narrative of competition and unity, or discord and division. And the media today has gone Hollywood. They put the movie magic into their stories to make them more dramatic. So they want discord over competition, and division over unity, because \u2026 clicks. And sometimes, they\u2019re creating a story that isn\u2019t there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nReporters sometimes act as if they believe that people in other professions should behave better than they probably do in the newsroom or their own lives. They often spend inordinate amounts of time trying to read tea leaves rather than just looking at what\u2019s happening in front of them.<\/p>\nSome people hint and send signals; other people just say and do. Some telegraph a warning; others hit as if from nowhere (hint: it\u2019s never from nowhere; you just don\u2019t know from where). If you don\u2019t take the time to learn which people are which, you\u2019re going to get a whole lot wrong.<\/p>\nOr, you just obstinately refuse to take anyone in context, because that would upend a juicy narrative.<\/p>\nSometimes a CB yelling at a QB at practice means something, if the CB is the sort of guy who never yells at anyone, or he and the QB have a serious personal problem, or the QB is touchy and sensitive.<\/p>\nOther times it means absolutely nothing.<\/p>\nAs Sherman says, \u201cSometimes, family members fight.\u201d<\/p>\nAs do we all.<\/p>\nBut, I don\u2019t want to speak for Sherman. Click<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theplayerstribune.com\/richard-sherman-seahawks-offseason-rumors\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\"> here <\/a>to read the whole thing, and he\u2019ll tell you exactly what he thinks \u2014 because he\u2019s that kind of guy.<\/p>\nImages:\u00a0Wikimedia Commons; Getty Images (Embed)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nDon\u2019t miss a thing: head over to my other home, as Social Media Manager at\u00a0<a class=\"ext-link decorated-link\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/familytheaterhcfm\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" data-wpel-target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\">Family Theater Productions<\/a>; and check out FTP\u2019s\u00a0<a class=\"ext-link decorated-link\" title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.familytheater.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" data-wpel-target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\">Faith & Family Media Blog<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman offers a lesson to the media on how to tell competition from conflict — if they interested in truth, that is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2174,"featured_media":4147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,4,16,15],"tags":[1004,1003,253,123],"class_list":["post-4145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-media","category-nfl","category-sports","tag-pete-carroll","tag-richard-sherman","tag-russell-wilson","tag-seattle-seahawks"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Seahawks' Richard Sherman on Media Perception vs. Reality<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman offers a lesson to the media on how to tell competition from conflict -- if they're interested in truth, that is.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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