Respecting Debate and a Free Press

2-5-90

Perspective: Civics 101: Respecting Debate and a Free Press

It was a pretty good week for Cobber sports. The hockey team rolled on. And the Lady Cobber basketball team inched closer to their February 14th showdown with St.

Thomas. Both Cobber teams were trying to, among other objectives, create some sporting news.

But the reporting of the sports news itself became a bit of an issue this past week. There were several stories which gave some of us a chance to examine the value of public debate about delicate subjects.

Being one who has, on occasion, raised some hackles by writing about touchy subjects, I paid some attention to these stories.

The first story was quite local. A student writer for our campus newspaper took the liberty of raising questions and offering unflattering opinions about our men's basketball program. His article was responded to by other members of the campus community with spirited defenses of the coach and the program. Nothing earth-shaking there.

But, interwoven among the passionate arguments and counter arguments about the merits of our men's basketball program, there was a certain anxiety expressed as to whether the subject itself was an acceptable one for public debate.

There were other stories floating around the sporting world, here and elsewhere, which also called attention to our confused feelings about public debate and the role of a free press.

Duke's basketball coach apparently used some flowery language to chew out the Duke campus newspaper for not being an unquestioning cheerleader for his program.

Bobby Knight ran another reporter out of a Hoosier practice to express displeasure with some of the reporter's previous commentaries.

Finally, our local Fargo-Moorhead media devoted substantial coverage to a mini-brawl which broke out after an NDSU-Omaha basketball game. NDSU coach Erv Inneger took some heat for his part in the incident.

Coaches, myself included, love to read fawning articles about ourselves, our programs and our players. We invariably feel that such articles are well-written and thoughtful.

But, when something less-than-flattering is written about us, we are often quick to circle the wagons, tell our team that it's us-against-the-world and do what we can to see that the offending reporter knows that he or she has crossed some line of acceptable commentary.

The sporting world has, at its core, an authoritarian structure. Many coaches run their teams with dictatorial authority. And players, quite often, have a choice between being blindly loyal to the coach or walking away with a label of "trouble-maker." These coaches also have a habit of carrying that thinking into their dealings with fans and the press. Either support us or shut up.

This authoritarian mindset is sometimes successful in terms of producing wins. But it is seldom fruitful in training young people to be critical thinkers, willing to challenge that which they feel is wrong or stupid.

When this authoritarian mentality tries to survive and flourish on our college campuses, the place in our society where the virtue of public debate and questioning is supposed to be most cherished, there should be conflict. And the authoritarian approach should lose every time.

The temptation to stifle and punish dissent infects us all from time to time. Be it as parents, coaches, administrators, employers, teachers, or editors, we all face the irritation of having to answer unpleasant questions and defend our decisions or our record. The urge to just say "shut up!" can be overwhelming at times. But, like we tell our children, it's wrong to say "shut up."

Admittedly, arguments within the sporting world seldom have great worldly significance. Indeed, their ultimate irrelevance is part of what makes sports, for better or worse, so engaging. We can argue with passion about whether Bobby Knight is a jerk or whether Bill Musselman can coach or whether Maris should be in the Hall and know that, in the end, we are debating theater, not life and death.

But, though the substance of most sporting debates may be trivial, the quality of those debates can teach our children the virtue of responsible, passionate public discourse.

Somewhere between tabloid sensationalism and never- question-the-status-quo pablum lies the proper arena of public debate. As writers, fans, coaches and citizens, we owe it to ourselves and our children to not only stay within that arena but to also celebrate its existence in a free society.

Neither NDSU's Erv Inneger or Cobber basketball coach John Eidsness could have been expected to agree with or enjoy all the things written and said about them last week. But, to their immense credit, neither of them, as far as I could tell, questioned the right of people to write and say it. That may not seem like high praise.

But it is.

These pages are maintained by Jerry Pyle pyle@cord.edu. These articles are copyrighted © and may not be published or reproduced without the express permission of Jerry Pyle.

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