Rolling Stone Profiles Bill Simmons'

Tony Kornheiser, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his sportswriting, and a host of ESPN's lively Pardon the Interruption, calls this "a Golden Age for sportswriters," though not a Golden Age for sportswriting. In spite of all these opportunities — or maybe because of them — sportswriters have never seemed more unhappy. They bicker like Real World cast members, and beef like gangsta rappers in the Nineties. And Simmons is often in the middle of these tiffs, partly because people only beef up, and partly because Simmons' name guarantees website traffic, especially if he replies.

Deadspin is to mocking Simmons what Michael Jordan is to basketball, so I asked Tommy Craggs, the site's editor, to summarize the case against him. Craggs denounced Simmons' "chuckling, incurious, cleverest-guy-standing-around-the-Phi-Delt-keg writing voice," and dismissed him as "nothing more than a dispenser of dull, honkified conventional wisdom about sports." He also said Simmons had been smart in not hiring Bill-Jr. clones at Grantland, adding that a site full of Simmons-ish prose "would suck."

Really good read, and that pretty much sums up sportswriting all together. It's astonishing that Grantland manages to be the antithesis of its founder.

But he's very smart, he's wittier than all the people who imitate him, and he has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the NBA.

#nope

There's a Deadspin companion to the article by the author. 18 Things Rolling Stone Couldn't Fit Into Its Bill Simmons Profile.

http://deadspin.com/18-things-rolling-stone-couldnt-fit-into-its-bill-simmo-1569216946

6) He's a Stone Temple Pilots defender.
"Their stuff has kind of aged pretty well."

Word, Simmons.

I can agree there, listened to their albums on Spotify recently and they're excellent. Especially the one no one liked because it was different.

Oh, those first two STP albums are great. Core is pretty fantastic top to bottom. I'm very pro STP, so good job by you, Billy.

Except for STP's current incarnation with Chester Bennington. I refuse to acknowledge this is a thing.

Tiny Music etc.. was the one I was thinking of. Holds up very well.

Anything after that I've not really listened to, let alone the new shit with that douche

Tiny Music has some rad tracks like Pops Love Suicide, Big Bang Baby, Trippin on a Hole in a Paper Heart. Yeah, it's solid. I actually liked their last album a lot, the self-titled one.

There's a Deadspin companion to the article by the author. 18 Things Rolling Stone Couldn't Fit Into Its Bill Simmons Profile.

http://deadspin.com/18-things-rolling-stone-couldnt-fit-into-its-bill-simmo-1569216946.

10) Not only did he not force Magic Johnson off NBA Countdown, he thinks Magic will come back.
"I don't know if I would've come back for a second season of Countdown if I knew Magic wasn't coming back. I was really on the fence—I made a pro-con list and everything. I genuinely liked him, and I think he liked me. I thought it was funny that I was blamed for him leaving the show. He's one of the three or four most competitive basketball players of all time. Is he gonna get pushed out by me? Ridiculous. But the reality is, the people who run ESPN don't like the perception that I have a lot of sway. They're not like, 'Gee, I wonder what Bill Simmons thinks.' The real world doesn't work that way. And by the way, I still think there's a chance Magic comes back at some point. My guess would be that he misses it."

A whole year without Magic talking over everyone and including the Lakers in every discussion was great. I can't go back.

I thought this kind of read like a hatchet job in parts. "Look at this dumb brosports guy he disrespects gender rights big frat ego etc." I thought they framed a lot of his quotes in a way that made him look as loutish as possible. But knowing his voice, I think the way they're showing him in print is a misrepresentation, his self-effacing side outweighs that,

And he doesn't get enough credit for creating a platform for highbrow sports writing in Grantland. Yes, it has the occasional dumb piece of pop-culture flotsam like the The ‘If I Fought This Rapper, Would I Win?’ Chart, and a formula that demands one "insert zeitgeisty TV show" reference per article. (When you see the third shoehorned Game of Thrones reference in one day it gets a bit jarring). But on the whole there's nothing else like it - it's the only site I'll send sports related articles to non-sport friends from, and they usually come away with a high opinion. The likes of Deadspin don't deserve equal mention.

When the Dr. V thing happened, the public debate was really split. Even after the apology, I don't buy the notion that her sex change wasn't part of the story - she was living a pack of lies as part of a criminal endeavour, and her assumed identity as a Vanderbilt daughter was an integral one.

The gender debate is a healthy one, but the way it's framed by parties looking to monetize it is not. Part of the problem with these issues is that the gender advocacy community picks a rule and then retroactively decides that not following it has forever and clearly been evil incarnate, and everybody knows this. Unless they're an asshole. Media outlets fall in line with this because the Twitter/Facebook fallout from the outrage blog industry is totally not worth it.

I'm still not entirely sure what problem some people have against Bill Simmons.

I'm still not entirely sure what problem some people have against Bill Simmons.

The criticism usually boils down to one of two complaints:

A) He said something jokey and mean about my favourite team.

B) He's just a fan, he's not a real analyst.

He's popular and spouts off cliche like its fact, and because he's so popular this misinformation spreads.

He's only ever written like 3 articles and he just regurgitates them over and over.

He relies on the same tired references over and over.

He tries to act like an authority on all sports but he's obviously pretty ignorant of everything that isn't the NBA and even then his knowledge is questioned.

He went from shitty blogger to corporate super power.

Take your pick really.

I thought this kind of read like a hatchet job in parts. "Look at this dumb brosports guy he disrespects gender rights big frat ego etc." I thought they framed a lot of his quotes in a way that made him look as loutish as possible. But knowing his voice, I think the way they're showing him in print is a misrepresentation, his self-effacing side outweighs that,

And he doesn't get enough credit for creating a platform for highbrow sports writing in Grantland. Yes, it has the occasional dumb piece of pop-culture flotsam like the The ‘If I Fought This Rapper, Would I Win?’ Chart, and a formula that demands one "insert zeitgeisty TV show" reference per article. (When you see the third shoehorned Game of Thrones reference in one day it gets a bit jarring). But on the whole there's nothing else like it - it's the only site I'll send sports related articles to non-sport friends from, and they usually come away with a high opinion. The likes of Deadspin don't deserve equal mention.

When the Dr. V thing happened, the public debate was really split. Even after the apology, I don't buy the notion that her sex change wasn't part of the story - she was living a pack of lies as part of a criminal endeavour, and her assumed identity as a Vanderbilt daughter was an integral one.

The gender debate is a healthy one, but the way it's framed by parties looking to monetize it is not. Part of the problem with these issues is that the gender advocacy community picks a rule and then retroactively decides that not following it has forever and clearly been evil incarnate, and everybody knows this. Unless they're an asshole. Media outlets fall in line with this because the Twitter/Facebook fallout from the outrage blog industry is totally not worth it.

ya the negative reaction to doctor v thing was reactionary, moronic and infantile

basically he got the full brunt of upsetting the tumblr/social justice demographic, which he probably didnt even know existed

the shit piling on him afterwards by his media contemporaries was p deplorable

"nothing to do with the story" my ass

I thought this kind of read like a hatchet job in parts. "Look at this dumb brosports guy he disrespects gender rights big frat ego etc." I thought they framed a lot of his quotes in a way that made him look as loutish as possible. But knowing his voice, I think the way they're showing him in print is a misrepresentation, his self-effacing side outweighs that,

And he doesn't get enough credit for creating a platform for highbrow sports writing in Grantland. Yes, it has the occasional dumb piece of pop-culture flotsam like the The ‘If I Fought This Rapper, Would I Win?’ Chart, and a formula that demands one "insert zeitgeisty TV show" reference per article. (When you see the third shoehorned Game of Thrones reference in one day it gets a bit jarring). But on the whole there's nothing else like it - it's the only site I'll send sports related articles to non-sport friends from, and they usually come away with a high opinion. The likes of Deadspin don't deserve equal mention.

When the Dr. V thing happened, the public debate was really split. Even after the apology, I don't buy the notion that her sex change wasn't part of the story - she was living a pack of lies as part of a criminal endeavour, and her assumed identity as a Vanderbilt daughter was an integral one.

The gender debate is a healthy one, but the way it's framed by parties looking to monetize it is not. Part of the problem with these issues is that the gender advocacy community picks a rule and then retroactively decides that not following it has forever and clearly been evil incarnate, and everybody knows this. Unless they're an asshole. Media outlets fall in line with this because the Twitter/Facebook fallout from the outrage blog industry is totally not worth it.

ya the negative reaction to doctor v thing was reactionary, moronic and infantile

basically he got the full brunt of upsetting the tumblr/social justice demographic, which he probably didnt even know existed

the shit piling on him afterwards by his media contemporaries was p deplorable

"nothing to do with the story" my ass

From what i know of it, i'm surprised Grantland weren't sued or prosecuted by some media regulatory body. I assume the only saving grace is there isn't one for online media.

The persons gender, or more specifically, their gender surgery, had nothing to do with the putter. It was a pretty grotesque act of lowbrow journalism. It's akin to someone having a fat wife, or a mentally retarded child. They may, but in 99% of situations, that's hardly relevant, and would never need to be printed.

There's no real defense.

I know you love to just take the anti stance for the sake of it, but don't.

If you want to discuss why the person felt so much shame being a TG, and how they shouldn't have, society shouldn't, etc. Entirely different, but it's also entirely personal to the individual involved.

I thought this kind of read like a hatchet job in parts. "Look at this dumb brosports guy he disrespects gender rights big frat ego etc." I thought they framed a lot of his quotes in a way that made him look as loutish as possible. But knowing his voice, I think the way they're showing him in print is a misrepresentation, his self-effacing side outweighs that,

And he doesn't get enough credit for creating a platform for highbrow sports writing in Grantland. Yes, it has the occasional dumb piece of pop-culture flotsam like the The ‘If I Fought This Rapper, Would I Win?’ Chart, and a formula that demands one "insert zeitgeisty TV show" reference per article. (When you see the third shoehorned Game of Thrones reference in one day it gets a bit jarring). But on the whole there's nothing else like it - it's the only site I'll send sports related articles to non-sport friends from, and they usually come away with a high opinion. The likes of Deadspin don't deserve equal mention.

When the Dr. V thing happened, the public debate was really split. Even after the apology, I don't buy the notion that her sex change wasn't part of the story - she was living a pack of lies as part of a criminal endeavour, and her assumed identity as a Vanderbilt daughter was an integral one.

The gender debate is a healthy one, but the way it's framed by parties looking to monetize it is not. Part of the problem with these issues is that the gender advocacy community picks a rule and then retroactively decides that not following it has forever and clearly been evil incarnate, and everybody knows this. Unless they're an asshole. Media outlets fall in line with this because the Twitter/Facebook fallout from the outrage blog industry is totally not worth it.

ya the negative reaction to doctor v thing was reactionary, moronic and infantile

basically he got the full brunt of upsetting the tumblr/social justice demographic, which he probably didnt even know existed

the shit piling on him afterwards by his media contemporaries was p deplorable

"nothing to do with the story" my ass

From what i know of it, i'm surprised Grantland weren't sued or prosecuted by some media regulatory body. I assume the only saving grace is there isn't one for online media.

The persons gender, or more specifically, their gender surgery, had nothing to do with the putter. It was a pretty grotesque act of lowbrow journalism. It's akin to someone having a fat wife, or a mentally retarded child. They may, but in 99% of situations, that's hardly relevant, and would never need to be printed.

There's no real defense.

I know you love to just take the anti stance for the sake of it, but don't.

If you want to discuss why the person felt so much shame being a TG, and how they shouldn't have, society shouldn't, etc. Entirely different, but it's also entirely personal to the individual involved.

sued for this? online watchdog? maaaaate. what are you on about. land of the free doesnt have press watchdogs.

besides, what is there to be sued for anyway? her right to privacy was not legally breached, and even if it hypothetically was, well, she was dead. the dead dont have civil remedies. if there was an indication that he harassed, or compulsed her into suicide youd better believe there would have been a lawsuit long ago, because they could take ESPN for millions. but he didnt. he just asked her some questions, found out some things that were a matter of public record, and that was it. she chose her response on her own.

i have no idea how you can think your above stance is remotely intellectually honest tho, and i have no idea why anyone thinks that removing the fact that she was transgender would be a honest way to tell the story

her identity was expressly related to the story. why? because she made it related. she had fabricated her identity, and it led to her gaining a business advantage, among other things. she fabricated vast swathes of her life, and the fabrications directly impacted her credibility with regards to the putter.

the value of the putter, her business, her credibility as a physicist, her "experience" as an engineer that led to her getting this business deal... these are all related to whether the putter was a thing that worked, or whether this was a business built upon a con. how can you divorce the putter's story from her own? i mean i guess you technically could give it to john brenkus to do a sport science episode on it, but thats not the real story

so what do you when you find out, as the writer, that she doesn't have DoD connections, that she doesn't have the working experience she says she does, nor the physics acumen, and finally the reason as to why she absolutely, positively cannot be a vanderbilt like she says she is? you sit on it? get the fuck out of here. you cant. you cant sit on it because this might essentially amount to the story of a con artist. and you, the writer, cant tell this story without telling people the reason you know she cant be any of the things she says she is.

so you might say, her not being a vanderbilt doesnt have anything to do with her not being a biological female, he could have left out her transition while leaving the fact that she lied about her identity. except what does that do? it amounts to a lie of omission, and its effect would be to basically confirm that she has to be a con artist, because why else would she lie about these things? and why would else would she have killed herself, other than finally being found out as a con artist?

but she might not be a con artist! she actually may have had a different reason to lie, and lie repeatedly! and, because of her deep depression and general unhappiness, kill herself. but now, by hiding the fact that you know these other potential reasons, youve painted the recently deceased as a pure con artist. and she might not have been!. we dont know.

thats the story. was this person a con artist who happened to be transgender, or was she a transgender person with deep mental traumas who got locked into maintaining her secret to the point where it required a series of other lies? or was she both?

the article was written SO carefully to avoid being libelous. but it makes it very clear that the writer thinks its incredibly likely that she WAS a con artist, who was also a depressive person who was transgender. it makes her business partner whats his face look pretty complicit, since he goes from confirming her DoD connections early in the piece, to looking sheepish and stupid later when questioned about the fact that we know they cant be true. at best, hes a moron. at worst, this is a con he was in on.

the whole thing was v fascinating and wasnt at all "oh throw the tranny to the wolves to get more hits". her identity was crucial to the story. the fact that she might have been a con artist seems to have gone over everyones head, especially the crew that somehow looks at her as a victim of the writer.

so ya, not being a purposefull contrarian here u diq

edit: wow that was long what the fuq

didnt seem that way when i was writing it lmao

Lowe and Kirk Goldsberry are the shit.

Let's go and compare the costs and benefits:

-Reveal the trans status of Dr V despite her not wanting this to be known. As a somewhat important note, trans individuals are so hated and persecuted by society that a fifth of trans individuals end up killing themselves.

-Don't do that and commits a "lie of omission."

The "lie of omission" hurts...........Well, I can't think of anyone it would hurt. He tells everyone "hey, this woman doesn't have the credentials she says has" without bringing up her identity and, well, every positive aspect that could be brought to light by this story is brought to light anyway.

Lowe and Kirk Goldsberry are the shit.

Grantland is a great site overall.

Brian Phillips and Bill Barnwell do work too.

I'm not even a baseball fan anymore and I still like to catch up with stuff via Jonah Keri.

Let's go and compare the costs and benefits:

-Reveal the trans status of Dr V despite her not wanting this to be known. As a somewhat important note, trans individuals are so hated and persecuted by society that a fifth of trans individuals end up killing themselves.

-Don't do that and commits a "lie of omission."

The "lie of omission" hurts...........Well, I can't think of anyone it would hurt. He tells everyone "hey, this woman doesn't have the credentials she says has" without bringing up her identity and, well, every positive aspect that could be brought to light by this story is brought to light anyway.

I really disagree. This was a journalistic investigation into a crook. The core question of the article was "if Dr. V doesn't exist, then who is this person?" If somebody is under an assumed name, then reporting their birth name is the correct and standard course of journalistic action, especially because this individual had a history of harming others prior to the reassignment. From there, the sexual reassignment becomes an unavoidable part of the story, though how much is obviously variable.

Using the notion that a person might harm themselves has never been valid rationale for not exposing illicit activity. And it can't be. The idea that this article caused her to kill herself is not true; her own self perception, shame and unprocessed issues did. This was obviously somebody who had spent a long time hurting those around her.

And it's deeply problematic to assume that self harm is so endemic to the trans identity, that it's such a near-inevitability that it supercedes - even morally, if not legally - freedom of the press. Again, I'm not saying 'outing' anyone for prurient reasons is okay, it's not. But reporting that somebody has undergone sexual reassignment surgery, if it's germane to a topic which is in the public interest - which I think this was - is not a de facto immoral act.

Further, codifying the idea that this has to be maintained as a deep dark secret codifies that sense of shame around it. It makes an assumption that the individual's default position should not be ownership of their entire life's story, only a part of it. You're cutting them off from part of themselves. It underlines the otherization, rather than normativizing the trans individual.

Lowe and Kirk Goldsberry are the shit.

Grantland is a great site overall.

Brian Phillips and Bill Barnwell do work too.

I'm not even a baseball fan anymore and I still like to catch up with stuff via Jonah Keri.

Jonah Keri is a great writer. I really need to pick up his two books. Actually given that I've been needing something new to read I might do that this weekend.

Let's go and compare the costs and benefits:

-Reveal the trans status of Dr V despite her not wanting this to be known. As a somewhat important note, trans individuals are so hated and persecuted by society that a fifth of trans individuals end up killing themselves.

-Don't do that and commits a "lie of omission."

The "lie of omission" hurts...........Well, I can't think of anyone it would hurt. He tells everyone "hey, this woman doesn't have the credentials she says has" without bringing up her identity and, well, every positive aspect that could be brought to light by this story is brought to light anyway.

I really disagree. This was a journalistic investigation into a crook. The core question of the article was "if Dr. V doesn't exist, then who is this person?" If somebody is under an assumed name, then reporting their birth name is the correct and standard course of journalistic action, especially because this individual had a history of harming others prior to the reassignment. From there, the sexual reassignment becomes an unavoidable part of the story, though how much is obviously variable.

Using the notion that a person might harm themselves has never been valid rationale for not exposing illicit activity. And it can't be. The idea that this article caused her to kill herself is not true; her own self perception, shame and unprocessed issues did. This was obviously somebody who had spent a long time hurting those around her.

And it's deeply problematic to assume that self harm is so endemic to the trans identity, that it's such a near-inevitability that it supercedes - even morally, if not legally - freedom of the press. Again, I'm not saying 'outing' anyone for prurient reasons is okay, it's not. But reporting that somebody has undergone sexual reassignment surgery, if it's germane to a topic which is in the public interest - which I think this was - is not a de facto immoral act.

Further, codifying the idea that this has to be maintained as a deep dark secret codifies that sense of shame around it. It makes an assumption that the individual's default position should not be ownership of their entire life's story, only a part of it. You're cutting them off from part of themselves. It underlines the otherization, rather than normativizing the trans individual.

To add to that same point, didn't some Enron execs kill themselves after they were charged and it went to trial? Does that make the United States culpable in their suicide, because if they never charged them with a crime...

Miss having Jay Kang write stuff for the site. Even if he's a dirty Tarheel.

Grantland has the most diverse representation of perspectives out of all the culture/sports blog sites out there.

Jonah Keri is a great writer. I really need to pick up his two books. Actually given that I've been needing something new to read I might do that this weekend.

His Expos book is terrific. Highly recommend it.

Grantland is funny... and they know some of the stuff they write is bull crap and acknowledge it. That's what makes it great, unlike ESPN who tries to play the "we know everything" card when they clearly don't.

Wait, how is Dr. V being trans germane to the important points of the story?

My edit of Caleb's disaster:

"After some digging through her background, I found that she had changed her name, lacked the credentials she said she had, and was committing fraud."

It's pretty easy to get at the points that damaged the lives of others without directly damaging her life through revealing her trans status. It's like if journalists investigating Enron found out that the CEO had changed his name due to being molested as a child, and he did not want that to be revealed due to feeling shame, but the journalists decided to include the molestation detail in with the details about fraud (obviously not comparing being trans to having been molested, just trying to demonstrate how irrelevant personal secrets can be to a story). If that had happened and the CEO had committed suicide, I would say that the journalists would be to be blame for the event.

What also codifies trans status as being some deep, dark secret is a guy rambling on for ten paragraphs (I mean, jesus fuck, why was that article so long either?) about how freaky it is that this woman is trans and including her trans status as a reason for her being "disturbed."

When I read that story I got from it the whole point was that the author, when trying to find out who Dr V was and whether or not the credentials that lent some legitimacy to the putter actually exists, he couldn't do it. Exactly why that was the case was pretty central to the whole story, IMO. I never understood the 'what does it have to do with anything' angle. That entire piece centered around the mystery of who she was.

Tony Kornheiser, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his sportswriting, and a host of ESPN's lively Pardon the Interruption, calls this "a Golden Age for sportswriters," though not a Golden Age for sportswriting. In spite of all these opportunities — or maybe because of them — sportswriters have never seemed more unhappy. They bicker like Real World cast members, and beef like gangsta rappers in the Nineties. And Simmons is often in the middle of these tiffs, partly because people only beef up, and partly because Simmons' name guarantees website traffic, especially if he replies.

Really good read, and that pretty much sums up sportswriting all together. It's astonishing that Grantland manages to be the antithesis of its founder.

I don't hate on Simmons, but Kornheiser is fucking wrong.
Kornheiser is ten times the writer Simmons has ever hope to be (as are many of his generation).

Simmons is okay as "the voice of the fan on the street", but his writing ability is super limited, we need one like him, sadly, he spawned a fucking generation.