Jason Whitlock broadsides Mitch Albom…is it out of envy?

Normally, winning an award is a pretty cool thing.  So when Mitch Albom received the Red Smith Lifetime Achievement Award from the Associated Press Sports Editors organization, you’d think it would be nothing but tulips and lollipops for the guy.

Instead, Albom’s recognition led to some of his peers telling us how they really feel about him.  Dave Kindred jumped in first, writing a restrained criticism where he pointed out that Albom once wrote a column in which he said Jason Richardson and Mateen Cleaves attended a Michigan State Final Four game in 2005.  The trouble was, they didn’t.

But where Kindred just threw a few light jabs toward Albom, Jason Whitlock came out hurling haymakers that Hitman Hearns might consider excessive.  This is what Whitlock dropped in the Big Lead:

Associated Press Sports Editors, the political, ass-kissing organization that pretends to be sports writing’s selfless guardian, built King Myth Albom’s throne, celebrating his money-quote-filled narrative schmaltz year after year with enough plaques to build an ark.

When I took a job in 1992 at the Ann Arbor News, I had a front-row seat during King Myth Albom’s glory years. My main job was covering the Fab Five. Albom’s main job seemed to be creating a Fab Five narrative that would fit neatly into a best-selling book.

Not surprisingly, most of my Michigan sports-writing peers watched the Fab Five pull up to practices and games in expensive SUVs and assumed C-Web, Jalen, Juwan and Co. weren’t exactly starving while pursuing higher education. I spent an entire day playing video games inside Webber’s beautifully furnished apartment. Years later, nothing about the Ed Martin investigation and the hundreds of thousands of dollars funneled to Webber surprised me.

Only Myth Albom, the “journalist” given the most access to the Fab Five by head coach Steve Fisher, was shocked by the good life Webber lived on UM’s campus. In his Fab Five book, Albom lamented the “fact” that Webber couldn’t afford McDonald’s while the university made millions off the sale of his jersey.

Feel-good narrative fiction bullshit was Albom’s money-maker long before he published Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven. (The Big Lead)

That’s pretty much the written equivalent of Lando Calrissian and a few X-Wing pilots blowing up Death Star Part 2.  Damn, Jason, that was STOUT.

But something rubs me the wrong way about this diatribe.  Whitlock basically takes Albom to task for turning a blind eye to the rule breaking going on with the Fab Five.  Hell Jason, why didn’t YOU write any scathing exposes on this same subject back in the day?  I guess you were too busy logging Sega Genesis time with C-Webb and the crew.

Hey, I love Whitlock, I think the guy’s brutal honesty provides some extremely entertaining material.  But did something other than his feeling that Albom isn’t nearly edgy or innovative enough drive Whitlock to write this?

Saint Albom is a cottage industry, he’s used sportswriting as a means of climbing up to bigger and better things.  An awful lot of people who don’t give a shit about the Tigers, Fab Five or anything else sports related buy the crappy, schmaltzy books that Albom writes.  The dude’s no longer a columnist or a reporter; he’s a best selling author (whose work I don’t care for, but that’s neither her nor there).

I’m not implying that Kindred and Whitlock are wracked with jealousy over this fact, but I do think there’s a little bit of envy going on here.  Albom might not be innovative in his approach to sports journalism, but he was innovative enough to step outside of that box and be successful doing so.  On some level, that’s gotta sting the guys who’ve been flogging him this week.

If you read the entirety of Whitlock’s piece, it’s as much a lament about the sad state of the newspaper business as it is an attack on Albom.  Hey, Whitlock’s afraid, and I don’t blame him.  From this standpoint he’s almost like an American textile worker seeing his industry completely disappear from these shores.

There’s no question he’s crafty and talented enough to carve out a new niche once his industry crumbles.  But maybe he should call Mitch for some advice from someone who’s already done so.

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