Perspective, Neon and Green Tea

Want a little perspective over the flap you read about recently pertaining to OU Athletics and sports supplements? Try this.

If the Sooner strength and conditioning staff decided to kick things up a cultural level or two and replace sport drinks with green tea, the OU compliance staff would have to file precisely the same NCAA self-report notice that the Associated Press "unearthed" earlier in the week.

That's right; green tea is on the list of supplements that universities cannot provide to student-athletes. To do so is to commit an NCAA violation, one that the NCAA would almost certainly classify as secondary, but one that must be reported just the same.

You probably think I am making light of the supplement rule itself. Hardly. We all know the danger of supplement and substance abuse and if green tea is on that list, as silly as it may seem to you and me, there is probably a good reason.

No, what I am making light of is the "little boy that cried out `fire' in the crowded theater" mentality that exists among some, not all, members of the media.

These same reporters know that each year the NCAA receives thousands (yes, thousands) of self-reported secondary violations and that nearly all of them are so mundane that they never reach the public's eye.

They also know that they can take the letters O and U, combine them with the word "substance" and write a story or a headline that will spike your blood pressure and, in turn, their ratings.

If the audience doesn't take the time to notice that the substance being reported is green tea-like, a reporter might just earn a badge for, in my best Walter Cronkite impersonation, solid reporting.

Even with a small collection of accurate facts, reporting cannot rate as solid unless it includes perspective and context.

I could write the fact that I have a hang nail with such dramatic flair that you'd swear I need surgery. It's called sensationalizing.

We all have intricacies in our jobs that rate as routine to us, but might come as a surprise, albeit a false one, to outsiders. If you don't work in a college athletics department you can be victimized by someone that takes our routine and outlines it in neon.

For those of us that do work in this environment, secondary violations rarely reach that level. It's frustrating when someone else takes them there and then we have to talk our fans back in off the ledge and work to recover precious ground in the areas of reputation and recruiting.

When this or any athletics department really, truly steps in "it" from a rules standpoint, the media and public at-large have every right to scrutinize procedures, people, etc. But when media take the basic and attempt to transform it into the major, it simply isn't fair or accurate.

You deserve to know the story, just make sure you're getting all of it, even relative to what happens at other schools, and insist on the kind of reporting that belongs in or on your favorite hard news source and not in the grocery store checkout line.

While you're doing that, I'll warm a pot of tea. And, no, Courtney Paris, you can't have any.

Mossman Prophecies Archive

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Kenny Mossman, Associate Athletics Director for Communications, provides his perspective on Oklahoma Athletics in his regular column on SoonerSports.com.

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