Richard Deitsch of SI.com did a nice breakdown this morning on the issues with Josina Anderson’s shower story involving Michael Sam.

While Anderson took the brunt of the fallout, Deitsch’s post is a reminder that these reports don’t happen in a vacuum at large news organizations like ESPN. It is a process that involves producers, editors, and even the director of the news operation.

The direction of Anderson’s story could have been stopped or altered along the way.

Deitsch writes:

Also, Anderson was not solely responsible for the piece making air. If she followed protocol, which it appears she did, she would have had to have been in contact with multiple producers in Bristol as well as ESPN’s news desk for a review of whatever content she had. Given this was sensitive information, multiple people had to green-light the report.

Later, Deitsch wrote:

Furthermore, Anderson was hurt by the decision by SportsCenter producers to run the piece live instead of taped, especially given the nature of the reporting. One ESPN source said someone in production should have saved the reporter from a difficult live segment that needed more than 120 seconds. ESPN’s initial response and subsequent backtracking didn’t help Anderson either. The network initially justified the report by saying it was in response to recent questions about Sam fitting in with the Rams, but no players, coaches or league officials publicly were asking about the impact of Sam’s showering habits on the Rams. The intro to her report starts with Sam’s chances of making the team before transitioning into an ESPN-driven question on how he was fitting in. Once Rams defensive lineman Chris Long called out ESPN on Twitter and the heat started coming, the network switched course and apologized.

Deitsch also slams ESPN for not making Anderson available to talk about her reporting for the story. Maybe it is me, but I find it extremely hypocritical when news-gathering organizations, who depend on access from players, coaches and executives, turn around and deny the same when it comes to their people.

Deitsch writes:

ESPN did Anderson no favors by declining to make her available. An explanation of the reporting process would have, if nothing else, helped her with reasonable people interested in how something like this makes air. It might have also reduced some of the social media vitriol she’s had to deal with last week. It was a missed opportunity for clarity in exchange for attempting to jettison the story.

Congratulations to a couple of Chicago guys on some well-deserved honors.

Dave Eanet, the voice of Northwestern sports for WGN-AM 720, received a surprise Saturday.

From Robert Feder:

During halftime of Saturday’s home opener in Evanston, Eanet’s alma mater christened the Ryan Field radio booth in his honor. In addition to unveiling a plaque designating “The Dave Eanet Broadcast Booth,” they presented him a cake inscribed: “Congratulations on 25 years, Mr. Cat!”

“They got me good,” Eanet later said. “Totally caught off guard . . . but it was a terrific honor.”

******

Meanwhile, WGN honored Hughes in what will be the station’s last year with the team.

He will enshrined in WGN’s Walk of Fame on Sept. 24.

“Pat describes baseball with such an air of joy and detail, you feel like you’re seated behind home plate every time you hear his voice,” Todd Manley, vice president of content and programming at WGN, said in a statement. “To celebrate the vivid pictures he’s etched in our minds, we’re proud to carve his name in stone among WGN’s greatest talents.”

“I am greatly honored to be included in the WGN Radio Walk of Fame,” Hughes said in a statement. “I have been privileged to work on WGN for 19 years as the voice of the Chicago Cubs. To think that the memory of my work will be preserved for posterity is truly special.”

Apart from his basketball skills, Michael Jordan will go down as one of the greatest trash talkers in sports history. Yet there was one athlete he couldn’t throw off his game: Ian Poulter.

Mark Rolfing tells the untold story of how Jordan tried to distract Poulter during the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah in “Road to the Ryder Cup” Sunday at 2:30 p.m. on NBC. Poulter, though, got the better of Jordan and the U.S., winning a key match for Europe on Saturday afternoon. The momentum carried over as Europe rallied to retain the Ryder Cup on Sunday.

The story also re-airs Wednesday on the Golf Channel at 6:30 p.m.

On his weekly radio show on SiriusXM, Poulter recalled his mind game with Jordan earlier this year:

Poulter:  “ [Jordan] loves his golf, he loves Ryder Cup.  He’s always there.  He’s always been a helping hand to the Americans.  He was right there.  I was there on 13 and I remember walking off the tee box at 13, looking over and he kind of wagged his – I don’t know if you can call it a finger, it looked like an arm – this big finger comes up and he was wagging it at me pulling a face as if to say, ‘We’ve got you.’  So Rory [McIlroy] holed that massive putt on 13 to start the comeback trail.  I holed a nice birdie putt on 15 and there he was, Jordan standing there again, and he’s just looking at me, staring at me.  And I’m like, this is amazing, this is what I live for, this is what makes sport great.  I’m a little golfer, Ian Poulter, playing golf in the Ryder Cup, and there’s legend basketball player Michael Jordan psyching me out in the Ryder Cup!  And you know what?  I said, ‘Screw you, I’m gonna hole this putt.’ (laughter)  But you know what, he’d done that for so many years on a basketball court, he hit the shot time and time again.  I said to myself, ‘I’m not allowing him to get in my space.’”

Poulter:  “He was playing his basketball game and, you know what, it was my court and he’s not playing ball.  … 16, that putt, Dufner missed his putt, I fist pump that one home, Rory’s first-pumping, Terry, my caddy, is fist-pumping, JP is fist-pumping.  We’re walking off that green and there he is, 6-foot-8 however tall he is, Jordan standing right in my space.  I’m walking to the 17^th tee, this claw hammer of a fist of his, he just keeps it out in front of him and he kind of wags his finger and he gives me a little jab in the chest with his fist.  It was like a sledgehammer hitting me! … So I’m not going to tell you what I said to him at that point! (laughs)  And that’s a sign of respect in a way.  I respect Jordan as a basketball player, as the player that owned that game for so long, watching things unfold, respecting the game of golf.  I wasn’t intimidated.  I felt privileged to be in that situation, to be in the heat of the moment, the power-packed point under the spotlight with everybody watching.  And the pressure to hole putts and the pressure to deliver was immense.  And I was able to come up with the right putt at the right time and take it to the U.S. team and hole putts and hole the right shot at the right time to be able to give us a glimmer of hope going into that Sunday’s singles.”

There’s a chance Ken Harrelson might cut back on his schedule next year.

The White Sox announcer told Bruce Levine of WSCR-AM 670 that he is considering cutting back on doing road games next year. During the season, Harrelson, who will be 73 next week, does a four-hour commute from Granger, Ind. for home games.

“I have a 10-year-old and 7-year-old playing ball in South Bend, and I am missing a lot of it,” Harrelson said.“If I told you I was not thinking about (cutting back) I would be lying. I am thinking about it. I have not made a decision, but it will be one that my family will help me with. I really don’t want to miss my grandkids growing up. They are old enough now to know I am known by a lot of people and they really kind of like that.”

Harrelson wouldn’t be the first veteran announcer to reduce his schedule. Vin Scully and Bob Uecker are among those who have cut back on road games.

I did a review for the Chicago Tribune’s Printers Row section on the new book by Dave Revsine of the Big Ten Network: Opening Kickoff: The Tumultuous Birth of a Football Nation. Highly recommended.

From the review.

*******

Quick quiz: When was this quote said about college football?

“Football today is a social obsession—a boy-killing, education prostituting, gladiatorial sport. It teaches virility and courage…but so does war.”

This could be a critic of the game in 2014, right? In fact, it dates back to 1905 when University of Chicago professor Shailer Matthews weighed in on the violence that was plaguing college football.

In “Opening Kickoff: The Tumultuous Birth of a Football Nation,” author Dave Revsine documents the roots of football in America. He shows how from humble beginnings in the 1860s, the game grew into a full-blown spectacle on college campuses by the early 20^th Century. Big games drew huge crowds, making the coaches and players sports’ most popular stars long before pro football burst on to the scene.

Yet what stands out in the book is Revsine’s contention that all the controversies that plague the modern version of the college football are hardly recent developments. The problems were there from the beginning: cheating to secure top players; academic fraud; debates about amateurism; an over-emphasis on maximizing revenue; and the physical toll football takes on young athletes.

Revsine, the lead anchor for BTN (The Big Ten Network), writes: “Any modern-day football fans yearning for a return to a simpler, halcyon time when the game was enjoyed by well-mannered and cultured Ivy Leaguers should quickly disabuse themselves of that notion. There was no such time.”

*******

Still, even early on, there were concerns about the emphasis on profits. “Money, money money seems to be the cry,” wrote author Caspar Whitney in 1894. “It will be the curse, if indeed not the downfall of honest university sport.”

Indeed, scandals about illegal payments to players, along with other forms of cheating, would make headlines in the first decades of the 20^th Century. University of Illinois coach George Huff said in 1905 success of major programs “depended upon the ability of the colleges to sustain men by devious means.”

I had the honor speaking twice to Arthur Ashe: Once in person and another time in a long conversation on the phone.

It remains two of the most memorable moments of my journalism career. You knew you were talking to a man who not only changed sports, but also had a profound impact on society.

I definitely will set the DVR for the Tennis Channel’s new documentary on Ashe. So should you.

Please check out this clip of Donald Dell’s letter to Ashe from the show.

The rundown from the Tennis Channel:

******

Tennis Channel will celebrate the illustrious career of tennis pioneer, devoted activist and Hall of Famer Arthur Ashe in Signature Series: Arthur Ashe during the 2014 US Open. The newest edition to the network’s original Signature Series documentary lineup – Ashe’s first authorized television biography – will debut Sunday, August 31, at 11 p.m. ET at the conclusion of Tennis Channel’s US Open coverage. A complete schedule of episode airdates can be found on the channel’s website at www.tennischannel.com/schedule.

Signature Series: Arthur Ashe delves into the brilliant tennis career, passionate activism and untimely death of one of the most respected athletes of all time. In a pantheon with other 20th Century agents of change like Jackie Robinson, Jesse Owens and Muhammad Ali, Ashe is remembered as a man who broke color barriers and affected human rights issues. With perhaps nothing more important to him than education and the opportunities it can afford people of all walks of life, Ashe took a leading role in advancing this cause of using the locker room as a means for promoting the classroom. The dignity and grace with which he led his life, on and off the tennis court and in the face of his own mortality, remain respected around the world.

“Arthur Ashe’s legacy transcends tennis and even sports, and this is a story that simply had to be told,” said Ken Solomon, chairman and CEO, Tennis Channel.  “For the first time television audience will experience Arthur in the context of history and learn why he was one of the greatest social leaders our world has seen.”

An eventual World No. 1, Ashe began as an outsider in tennis, an African-American unable to play junior tournaments – or even walk onto the same court with a white opponent – because of racial segregation laws n his home state of Virginia. He went on to lead the University of California Los Angeles’ championship tennis team, and became the first African-American to play for the U.S. Davis Cup team in 1963. This landmark “first” was one of many in a lifetime of firsts for Ashe. He later became the first man to win the US Open in 1968, its inaugural year. In doing so, he also became the first – and to this day only – African-American man to win the singles title at the US Open or the U.S. National Championships, as the tournament was known before the Open Era.

Ashe added to his place in history with championships at the Australian Open in 1970 and Wimbledon in 1975, also firsts for an African-American man. Even today his Wimbledon championship upset of Jimmy Connors is considered a match for the ages. Ashe remains the only black man to win singles championships at the US Open, Wimbledon or the Australian Open. He also, with 1983 French Open winner Yannick Noah of France, became one of only two black men to win a major tennis singles title. He finished his career with 33 titles overall.

This documentary, however, charts the story of not only a Grand Slam champion, but also a lifetime leader, humanitarian, philanthropist and human rights activist who worked with three different U.S. presidents. Known for his character, Ashe’s passionate and tireless leadership translated into many causes – both politically and socially. He protested South African apartheid, championing human rights and serving as a beacon of hope to the people suffering under segregation there. Ashe became such a virtuous example to South Africans that they nicknamed him “Sepo” or “Hope.” After decades in prison, future South African president Nelson Mandela immediately sought a meeting with Ashe upon his release. Ashe was also committed to protesting U.S. crackdowns on Haitian refugees. He was arrested twice while demonstrating his beliefs regarding these issues. Above all, Ashe was a fierce advocate of educational empowerment, and gave back to the community throughout his life. Paramount among his achievements may be his role as a founding member of National Junior Tennis and Learning, a non-profit dedicated to helping underprivileged youth through tennis.

“We are humbled to be able to honor Arthur Ashe’s memory in this edition of Signature Series,” said Laura Hockridge, vice president, original programming, Tennis Channel. “His actions as a player have helped to mold the sport as we know it today, and his convictions as an activist continue to inspire people and motivate positive change in the world.”

In 1992, Ashe announced that he had contracted AIDS during a blood transfusion years earlier while receiving treatment after heart surgery. In doing so, he became an early and public face for raising awareness about the disease. Ashe, with his wife Jeanne, helped to bring attention to AIDS by founding the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS, which generated funds for study into treating, curing and preventing the disease, with the eventual goal of finding a cure. He continued to bring light to the plight of AIDS victims by speaking before the U.N. General Assembly, inciting a call to action for delegates to increase funding for research and see the virus as a global issue. At a local level, Ashe also founded the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health. He designed the institute to address poor health care delivery issues amongst urban minorities. Ashe died in 1993 of AIDS-related pneumonia.

“The greatness of Arthur Ashe was not his tennis. It was the way he carried himself and what he tried to create. He represented so many good ideals and values … and I always believed that America lost a great deal when we lost Arthur Ashe,” said longtime friend and agent of Arthur Ashe, Donald Dell, in an interview that appears in the documentary.

Spending nine years in the World Top 10, Ashe contributed more to the sport than just great match play and big wins. In response to tennis’ growing popularity and the stalemate of tennis professionals’ earnings, he co-founded the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) with Jack Kramer and others in 1972. The ATP was formed to represent the interests and rights of the men who made their living on the pro tennis circuit. Ashe served as president for two years and went on to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1985. Today he is the namesake of the main venue at the US Open, “Arthur Ashe Stadium,” the largest tennis arena in the world. It was Ashe’s dedication to promoting equality and championing human rights – both in his professional and personal life – that keeps him in the hearts and minds of the public.

Ashe’s family, friends and contemporaries have joined together to help Tennis Channel honor the tennis great by speaking about their fondest memories of him on camera. Each was asked to write a personal letter to Ashe from the present, addressing the ways in which his legacy lives and the changes in the world today because of him.  Read in “Dear Arthur” segments throughout, the letters form the pillars of the film’s structure. His brother Johnnie Ashe, Ambassador Andrew Young, prize-winning sports writer Frank Deford and tennis icon Billie Jean King are among those featured. Other interviewees include contemporaries like all-time great Rod Laver and Cliff Drysdale, and tennis chroniclers Richard Evans and Steve Flink.

Signature Series: Arthur Ashe is a part of Tennis Channel’s ongoing Signature Series documentary lineup. Other tennis personalities and subjects have included Rod Laver, Andre Agassi, Vitas Gerulaitis, Martina Navratilova, Pete Sampras, Rene Lacoste, Bud Collins and the sport’s centuries-old origins.

A big “Whoa Nellie” for Chris Fowler.

Fowler walks into some big shoes this year as the new lead play-by-play man for college football on ESPN. And since the network will air the new playoff format, including the title game, that makes him ostensibly the new voice of college football.

Fowler now will occupy the role once filled by the legendary Keith Jackson and more recently, Brent Musburger. He will work with Kirk Herbstreit on the network’s primetime games that air on ABC.

Fowler might be the best studio host in the business. However, he wanted to scratch the play-by-play itch. If things go as expect, and they should, it will be his voice stamped on the next generation of college football’s biggest games.

For starters, don’t expect Fowler to utter any “Whoa Nellies” or any other signature catch phrases.

During a conference call, I asked him about his approach to doing play-by-play.

“I don’t put a lot of thought into trying to cultivate a style,” he said. “I would say our booth will sound very conversational, comfortable. I try not to sound announcer-y. I don’t try to make it about me or catch phrases. I just try to document the action, stay out of the way when you’ve got good drama and entertain people if the drama on the field is flagging a little bit.

“I think it will sound like two guys who are very, very passionate and enthused about it and hopefully are describing really exciting games and staying out of the way when the action on the field commands your attention.”

Fowler still will retain his role as the long-time host of ESPN’s “GameDay” pregame show. On some Saturdays, that means he will do the show from one location and then fly immediately to another place to call the game that night.

While Herbstreit has been doing that routine for several years, there is considerably more effort required in navigating through a three-hour show as the host.

Fowler, though, said he will be up to the task thanks to his work on tennis tournaments for ESPN.

“I’ve had good training for this,” Fowler said. “Tennis makes you do five-, six-hour matches sometimes and you call matches in the afternoon and call another long one at night. So I feel like I will be able to do that with no problem. Time management during the week is a challenge, but I’ll sort that out.

“I’ll be able to pick my head up after about two weeks combining the U.S. Open and these two football responsibilities and once I get a breath the rest of it will seem pretty easy.”

My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana looks at the first year of Fox Sports 1.

From the column:

******

I rarely watch anything on the new Fox Sports 1. Judging by the ratings, I am not alone in making that statement.

This isn’t a complete indictment of Fox Sports 1, although in a way it is. However, there’s a larger issue at play.

The struggles endured by Fox Sports 1 since it flipped the switch just over a year ago underscores how difficult it is to launch a new network with new programming in today’s marketplace. This is a challenging game, not for the faint of heart or those with small wallets.

Just ask ESPN. Long before the Bristol, Conn., campus became the biggest cash register in television, the network struggled in its infancy by showing all sorts of odd sports that were far beyond the mainstream. I must confess I do miss Australian Rules Football.

Just ask NBCSN and CBS Sports Network, which still face uphill battles for eyeballs against the ESPN monster. And away from sports, let’s not forget “Seinfeld,” the most popular TV show ever, almost got cancelled in its first year because of poor ratings.

With rare exceptions, these things take time, provided executives grant that precious gift.

The main obstacle for a new network is getting viewers to change their habits. That applies to me and others. When I’m surfing on my remote, my fingers automatically punch in 173 for ESPN, 410 for MLB Network, 169 for NFL Network, 200 for Comcast SportsNet Chicago, 199 for the Golf Channel, among others.

Even after a year, I’m still not programmed to click 408 on my system for Fox Sports 1. It requires a conscious effort to remind myself to go over there. And I’m barely conscious when I’m watching TV.

Even worse, my teenage boys consume massive amounts of sports on TV, much to their mother’s chagrin. And I never see them watching Fox Sports 1. That’s quite a telling statement.

However, I would flip over more often to Fox Sports 1 if the options were better. Quite simply, the new network’s new offerings have failed to measure up.

*****

And here’s the link to the rest of the column.

It didn’t take long for Patrick Mannelly to find a new job.

The recently retired Bears long-snapper will be Matt Spiegel’s new partner on the 9 a.m.-1 p.m. show on WSCR-AM 670, beginning Tuesday. He replaces Dan McNeil, who departed after failing to agree to a new contract with the station.

Mannelly was among several potential candidates who filled in for McNeil during his absence. With the Bears driving ratings on sports talk radio in Chicago, the idea of hiring a former player with close connections to the current team was a natural choice for WSCR.

“We feel the timing is great for Patrick and the Bears,” said Mitch Rosen, WSCR program director. “He’s only been out of the locker room for a short time. Patrick will give us fresh insights and thoughts on the Bears and NFL.”

“To be able to share my perception of what is taking place both on and off the field is a very exciting move for me,” Mannelly said.