Deford is my idol

I know I’ve already kind of talked about how one of the only things I like about the Internet is how it makes useful information much more accessible and its actually one of the most obvious observations that one could make concerning the web but its all I’ve really got in terms of saying anything good about non-meatspace. So I’ll share with you a positive Internet experience I have had in the last few weeks.

About a month ago I was talking to my mom on the phone and she was talking about the latest article I had written for the Orion that she had read online (yea she’s probably more computer savvy than me). And she told me (and this was a compliment so large that it could only be from a mother to her child) that my voice in my opinion reminded her a little of the great sports writer Frank Deford who she listens to on National Public Radio every week. Wow. I knew who Deford was obviously and I had read a lot of his articles in Sports Illustrated and even have a copy of one of his books, “The Great Old Game” but had never even given though about how his commentary could be any way similar to that of my own.

So I looked him up online and got all kinds of stuff, I read through many of his past blogs and found myself agreeing with almost every thing he had to say. Not that I could ever put any of it as comically or cleverly as he does, but his work had me very intrigued so I continued reading his work. On one site I found a schedule of towns that he would be visiting to give his lecture on, “The Hype and Hypocrisy of Sports” and to my thrill, Chico was on it. So I went and herd him talk and loved every minute of it and I must admit the dude and I have pretty similar philosophies about America and sports. Some of the stuff he said about soccer, the NFL and Steroids were right on par with my opinions.

So even though (besides my Mom) my voice may never actually remind anyone of Frank Deford’s, he certainly isn’t a bad role model to have when it come to sports journalism. And thanks to the Internet I will continue to follow his work.
Deford blogs