There are no villains in sports writing
The moment a writer starts outfitting someone with a black hat, they're leaving themselves open to bias and rank homerism.
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There are feuds in sports. There are grudges. There are rivalries.
There is cheating and cursing and lies. So many lies, mostly of omission, but occasionally of the bald-faced variety.
There are no villains, though. At least not in the literary sense, and any time someone in sports media tries to paint someone as a villain they are leaving themselves open to their own biases, prejudices and abject homerism.
I came to this conclusion over the weekend after being pointed to a most unfortunate column in the Los Angeles Times, previewing last Saturday’s game between LSU and UCLA in the women’s NCAA Tournament.
Uh-oh.
Oh no.
It got significantly worse from there.