I've seen several columnists put together lists of failed column ideas when the going gets tough and there's nothing to write about. Well, right now, the going is tough because I have no further insight on the men's basketball program (though I did see Gillen at St. Maarten's double wing night) or the Final Four.
For most of these ideas, I thought they were too self-serving, but sometimes they're just really bad ideas. Here's a few of the ones that are entertaining ideas but probably never would have worked, in the first (and hopefully last) installment of "Things Bart Didn't or Shouldn't Write."
Many columnists use their column to do things they've always wanted to do but wouldn't get to do otherwise. This is the "Paper Lion" tradition of column writing, continued by Rick Reilly in "Sports Illustrated" whenever he goes to a swimsuit shoot and The Cavalier Daily's own Joe Lemire when he practices with the Virginia dance team (the Thursday, March 3 edition of The Cavalier Daily). Yes, Joe can hide behind that "isn't it funny when I try and dance," but we all know he's been putting on leg warmers and cranking up the Gloria Estefan since he was an infant.
Anyway, I thought it would be funny to do something like that but make it something I actually hate (unlike Joe's love affair with coordinated group dance). I hate running, always have and likely always will. In fact, the last time I ran for an extended period of time, I threw up in front of my girlfriend and her mother -- on my first trip to their house. Awesome impression.
So a couple of weeks ago, I e-mailed the Virginia track coach with the idea that I could attempt to learn the steeplechase, which involves jumping over a pit filled with water. I was convinced that a simple description of me falling into that pit, which was bound to happen, could have carried the column.
Unfortunately, track coach Randy Bungard didn't write me back, probably because he knew how frustrating it would be to watch me flop around in the water and run something like a 10:50 mile. But, if any member of the track team is reading this and would enjoy watching me run slow and fall down, give coach Bungard a copy of this, and let's make it happen. I'm still up for it.
Another trend in sports writing is the "why I hate this guy" column, that almost anyone sitting around on their couch could write. I wanted to use this space to write about how much I hate Randy Moss.
So I started writing the column, and I realized the reasons I shouldn't be writing it. First off, there was absolutely no connection to Virginia sports, and there are plenty of things to hate that are much closer to Grounds than Moss. Also, besides his obvious character flaws, I only really hate Moss because he played for the Minnesota Vikings and would occasionally torch my beloved Packers. After that realization, the column became an "I hate Randy because he's on the Vikings" piece and that just sounded bitter, so I dropped it.
Another idea that would have never worked is a column that is centered (loosely) around a single hard screen from a women's basketball game twelve people watched on ESPN2. Oh wait, I did that last week. See, sometimes these ideas do make it to print, and everyone suffers.
While I like the idea of a story in which I attempt to run the steeplechase and a 'why I hate Randy Moss' column would have been cathartic, the story idea that I've mulled over and even attempted to write more than any is what I call the "journey to reconciliation" column. I've always enjoyed the idea of Virginia renewing an old football rivalry with West Virginia University, rooted in the problems the pep band caused, or at least contributed to, at the 2003 Tire Bowl. This rivalry had all the makings of a great one, because even West Virginia Governor Bob Wise stepped in to call for an apology for the pep band's antics.
The "journey to reconciliation" column, in one of its many incarnations, involved my friend and me traveling to Morgantown and staying with our buddy from high school in an attempt to heal the wounds of a rivalry that never particularly existed. It never worked out, largely because everything that was actually entertaining had to be made up.
While that can be funny, this isn't one of the two hundred literary magazines at Virginia -- It's a newspaper.
So, as you can see, despite evidence to the contrary, I'm not just writing whatever I want. I'm carefully considering what the readers want to read during their Sociology 101 lecture; which was most likely one paragraph of this before you skipped to the Wonderword.
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