Jason Whitlock’s decline isn’t something to be celebrated
The longer I read the sports pages — in print and online — the more I become convinced that the window for great sports writing is as fleeting as that of athletes performing at their peak abilities. During his 16-year career with The Kansas City Star that ended in August 2010, Jason Whitlock was a bombastic, sarcastic columnist who forced people to consider opinions that made them uncomfortable. He was a beautiful counterpoint to Joe Posnanski, a columnist who has defined the art of covering transcendent athletes and games by refusing to give in to the easiest of instincts: mockery. Both were earnest — one in his pursuit of challenging stereotypes and the other in search of the next great moment. It worked because they had each other.
To see Whitlock at the center of a storm of a controversy is nothing new; however, the way he got there — courtesy of this tweet about New York Knicks’ sensation Jeremy Lin — is a bit disheartening.
