In the sporting world there exists several personalities who seem to elicit fawning feature stories that get hashed and rehashed. Pretty much every lengthy feature story about Pete Carroll reads the same. Great coach. Mild ADD. Fantastic recruiter. Positive to a fault. Fantastic hair. Pisses thunder. God's gift to LA. It's like writing a feature story about the President. It's been done.
This first story by ESPN's Eric Neel falls into this category. He doesn't really bring us anything new or reward us for reading the whole story. It's nice, but I really don't care about Pete Carroll in the film room. It's good, but not great.
[ ESPN.com: Pete Carroll Story ]
Contrast that story with this story, which appeared in LA Magazine. It's an (Un)feature about Carroll, with what appears at first glance to be similar access. But the writer brings us something fresh -- at least I'd never read about Pete Carroll cruising South Central LA. I also like that the writer is self-aware enough to realize that the Pete Carroll feature has been done before -- then knocks it out of the park. It's long, but read to the end. It's worth it.
[ LA Magazine: 23 Reasons why a Pete Carroll feature won't appear in this space ]
1 comments:
"still haven’t had anything to drink."
That line makes me want to be a USC fan.
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