Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth.

• Genesis 7:6

Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people.

• Genesis 25:8

Now Israel’s eyes were failing because of old age, and he could hardly see.  So Joseph brought his sons close to him, and his father kissed them and embraced them.

• Genesis 48:10

Call it the curse of social media, but it seems that many uninformed individuals who have no charity in their hearts are simply given wider platforms in which to speak.

I may be guilty at times, but I try to do my research.

But lately, the online newsfeeds have had titles of “This sportscaster must go!”  Since I like the sportscaster in the photo, I read the article.  I could name names, but I will not.  There have been several sportscasters who have been identified as being either partisan to one team with lopsided commentary or they are simply too old.

As for lopsided commentary during a game, it all depends on who you are rooting for.  If the comments are for your team, you will never notice.  If they are for the other team, you notice and get angry.

I watched an Ole Miss – Georgia game maybe nearly thirty years ago, played in Georgia, when Ole Miss had not beaten Georgia for many years.  Ole Miss was a single point behind Georgia as the clock was ticking down.  Ole Miss was driving, and the receiver was well within field goal range.  Ole Miss had an excellent kicker that year.  It would have been a chip shot for the win.  The Georgia defender lifted the receiver off the ground and flipped him over, driving his helmet into the turf… and then the pass flew by, right where the receiver had been.

There was no whistle.  No penalty flag.  I went “boooooo” at the television screen, not having any social media to vent my uninformed opinion.  I worked with Georgia fans at work at the time, and I knew that they would torment and even torture me due to Ole Miss losing, although I had never done any trash talking.

Okay, back to the play.  It may not have been THAT bad of a no call.  The Georgia player mugged the Ole Miss player, granted, slightly before the ball arrived, but as an Ole Miss fan, I did not see it that way.  There was room for the referee to make a judgment call, and he allowed Georgia to win the game with no further plays other than the kneel down in the victory formation.  If the Ole Miss receiver had not been interfered with, he might have dropped the ball anyway.

Then, I showed grace and mercy toward the referee.  He was between the hedges at the Georgia stadium.  Those same crude and rude fans, that were going to torment and torture me for a week, might have been waiting for the referee in the parking lot after the game, with baseball bats, ready to open a can of whoop – (some body part that will remain unmentioned) onto the referee, whose whistle could have just cost Georgia the game.

Note:  I refer to Georgia “fans”, not graduates, fans who probably had a third-grade education that think with their muscles and never with their brains.  I have met several Georgia graduates who are well-educated, refined, polite, and a joy to be around.  I have learned things that were useful to learn from these people that I consider friends.  And every school seems to have a few hooligan fans, some schools more than others, especially the powerhouse schools that draw the fans only because they usually win.

My point is that if you think the sportscaster is giving lopsided commentary, it is probably due to a few things.  1) You have a lopsided viewpoint due to being a fan, which is short for fanatic and definitely not unbiased.  2) The game is lopsided and your team has done nothing worthy of commentary, unless it is bad.  Or 3) The network is feeding the sportscaster the comments to hype an upcoming game – keeping the viewers tuning into that station.  There could be more options, but rarely is the sportscaster trying to be lopsided.

So, now let us move on to those who are too old.  Noah was 600 years old, but he built a very large boat.  Abraham had many sons … Sorry, an old song came back to me there.  Abraham had children well after reaching the age of 100, children with Hagar, and Sarah, and Keturah.  Israel (Jacob) was also very old when he passed away.  It is in the Scripture from Genesis 48 that gives any credence to a sportscaster being too old.  He may not be able to see that well.

They have occasionally moved a beloved color commentator (a former player that comments on the aspects of the previous play, as opposed to the play-by-play announcer, who comments during the play) …  They have occasionally moved one of their former best to the halftime desk.  That way they comment on highlights of the first half, all scripted ahead of time.  But even then, one of the commentators that is under attack is part of a scripted pre-game show.  It could be that this commentator had no scripted lines and relied totally on ad-lib comments.  That could get a bit awkward if you have lost a step in your thought processes.  The commentator could stare at the camera and draw a blank.  Granted, but if the comments about how bad he has gotten are true, he should be drooling and making incoherent noises instead of stammering on occasion when the word escapes him.  Shoot!  That happens to me, but I can pause from my typing to research the word that will not come to mind.  I am not live on television.

And that is the point with all these people who talk about other people being too old.  They probably could not do the job at all.  Anyone with fingers and a phone or computer can make comments these days.  Probably every hater that wants this commentator or that sportscaster fired for being too old is incapable of doing as good of a job, and the hater may be in his/her prime.

And with social media, they can make their opinion known to hundreds, thousands, millions of people almost instantly.  Their opinion is just like mine, an opinion.  There could be no facts to support their opinion.  Before social media, they would be taking their foam brick (old Howard Cosell non-fans should remember those.  I was tempted to buy one, but I never did,) and throwing it at the television.  No one, except for the close friends the next day after a few beers, would ever know their opinion. Now people you never met know your opinion.

How does this advance our society?  In almost every way, it degrades our society.

But what is worse is that the online news media pick up on the unqualified, unsubstantiated, inane, biased rants on social media, and then they copy them to a news feed stating that the “public” is calling for the sportscaster’s head on a platter.  The ten million positive comments, that could be posted, are ignored.

It is no surprise that I would write negative things about the mainstream or online news media, but this is beyond yellow journalism.  It is stupid.  And maybe a few sportscasters need to look into lawsuits about defamation.  But then again, they are probably used to criticism.  They have an opinion.  Otherwise, they would not be asked to give it on air, live, during the game, and getting paid to do so.

Maybe why the courts are not filled with defamation lawsuits is that these sportscasters know what forgiveness means.  They know about mercy and grace.

Give these sportscasters a cheer and a thank you for their opinions, even when they are wrong.  They are doing a lot better than I ever could, and probably most of you.

And for those haters of one sportscaster or another, when in doubt, NEVER press SEND, because most of the time when you have no doubt at all, you should probably refrain from doing so.

Will there be peace in the valley some day?  Will we ever be able to get along with each other?  Yes, after Jesus has defeated evil in the final battle.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.