Hype – what is it good for? Absolutely nothing

Sometimes the line between being a journalist or reporter gets in the way of fandom, and even the best of us get blurry vision at times when that line creeps up on us.

 

It turns out it’s an actual medical condition, called “hype-rventilation.”

 

Those in the media these days tend to get caught up in the ebb and flow of public hype surrounding certain stories, and end up pushing the issue farther and longer than its natural life span would have allowed.

 

Sometimes it’s a big game that all the pundits huff-n-puff about and other times it’s scandals of varying degrees. Not too long ago, it was the Tiger Woods disgrace that was leading the topic of discussion around the country with the ethics of marital infidelities. Now the discussion has moved to something much more evil and sinister — the issue of coaches and their molestation of young boys.

 

When the Tiger Woods scandal broke, you would have thought it affected the very existence of everyone in the country with the size and scope of the coverage that it garnered. Jerry Sandusky and Barry Fine and their scandals at Penn St. and Syracuse, respectively, have figuratively dropped the proverbial hammer on all our collective ‘me-isms’ and squashed our selfish worries.

 

I challenge you to come up with more than a handful of sporting events that have actually lived up to the hype. A lot of the time, the most amazing games come out of the blue and have more shock value than pre-game hype. Take the USA hockey team versus communist Russia in the miracle on ice, or BYU over SMU in the Miracle Bowl as examples.

 

More often than not, the games with the most hype end up on the bottom of the scrap heap of sports history. This year, No. 1 LSU played No. 2 Alabama in what was built up as a clash of the titans, but turned out to be a game of field goals and defense.

 

I don’t care what anyone says. So what if they were the two of the best defenses college football has seen in decades? It’s never one of the greatest games to ever be played if neither team found the end zone.

 

Just a word to the wise, if something is full of too much hot air coming from the four-letter network, it’s not worth your nerves or ulcers to get too caught up in the excitement. Even if a game does live up to the billing, it’s a 50/50 shot that the team you get all huffy-n-puffy about will win.

 

In the spirit of full disclosure, this may or may not be a response as a Detroit Lions fan to the emotional infant Ndamukong Suh, and his inability to control his temper and single handedly torpedo the first season to excite me since the Barry Sanders era. The Irish may have luck, but Lions fans own defeat.

 

Jonathan Boldt can be reached at jonboldt@gmail. com. You can also follow him on twitter @jboldt24.