Ding dong the witch is dead…no doubt that is how some will view the departure of Jason Whitlock from the KC Star. Over his career the man has obtained the ire of many KC sports fans, specifically Chiefs fans. However, love him or hate him Jason Whitlock was integral to the rise of the KC sports reporting scene. Whitlock put KC sports on the map and was the rock star of the sports page that helped turn the KC Star sports section into perennially one of the best sports sections in the country.
Despite his ability to make the natives restless Whitlock could always be counted on to present a topic and provide a different angle on things than most people were putting out there. Even when the Chiefs were in their “glory days” in the mid-90’s to early 2000’s Whitlock did not just accept the status quo and let the Chiefs slide by because they would win 9-11 games every year and flame out in the playoffs. Before it was the chic thing to do Whitlock pointed fingers and demanded people like Carl Peterson were held accountable for the failure of the Chiefs many promising seasons in that time frame. This is when Whitlock started to divide the fanbase. There were those who agreed and wanted to question “King Carl” and then there were those who were happy with the status quo and thought Whitlock was just stirring the pot. Either way, he made people stand up and take notice.
While he was provoking people with these new topics, Whitlock was doing it all in style. His topics were divisive and not necessarily always completely factual, but they didn’t have to be. He was a columnist and was being paid to express his opinion, which he did with great bravado. Every article Whitlock wrote was written with great style and interesting prose. There is a reason he was nationally recognized and sought out by ESPN, FoxSports, and the like. Whatever the topic was, he wrote about it with intelligence and skill. He was widely recognized as one of the best sports writers in the country.
My love for sports and ability to develop and express my own sports-related opinions were extremely influenced by Jason Whitlock. In my formative sports years when I was younger my favorite part of the day was riding to school with my dad and listening to Whitlock’s morning radio show on 810 radio. This was the height of his stardom and talent. He was able to voice his opinions on all the topics surrounding the KC sports scene. Agree or disagree, his ability to approach topics from a different angle was something that I hadn’t really been exposed to and helped me develop into the excellent blogger/writer I am today (right…).
His radio show was also the beginning of the end for Whitlock. It was on his show where he began to bring race into nearly every topic and play the race card. This was very frustrating for me because, although I still believe race is an issue in America and sports, everything didn’t boil down to just race. Not to mention, even if you are concerned with race, it is not necessary to always hunt for the race issue embedded in the topic. Sometimes the situation is what the situation is and race isn’t a factor, when you bring that to the forefront (especially as a minority journalist) it just makes you look lazy and desperate for a story. This is where Whitlock started to fall out of favor with me. He began to look for the easy story instead of figuring out a new angle on a story and go that route. Maybe it was him with a chip on his shoulder, maybe it was laziness, either way, it became frustrating for me as a fan of him and the notoriety he brought to KC.
Eventually this is how his career would go. He would continue to expound on the same old stories (“King Carl,” the race issue, Mangino’s weight, etc.) and it would erode his career. I am guessing people began to get sick of the same old, same old, and tried to get him to change, which he was resistant to and ended up making him angry. How did he take out this anger? He would continue to write about these topics even more vigorously as if to prove he could out some sort of arrogance or spite.
I would no longer consider myself a fan of Whitlock. Because of my previous fanhood of him I would say I am neutral to Whitlock but don’t think he added as much to the KC sports reporting scene as he once did. I think some point within the last 5-7 years Joe Posnanski surpassed him as a journalist, with the KC Star, and from a national perspective (and rightfully so in my opinion). He has been losing his footing around KC and nationally and I think yesterday’s events were just a culmination of the inevitable that was set in motion a few years ago. I would be lying if I said that my writing and sports opinions weren’t influenced by him. I would also be lying if I said I strived to be him from a sports writing perspective. No, rather I would take his talent but go a different way with it. I have always wished I had the talent to approach topics from a different angle and write a very coherent well written story that captivates readers no matter the topic and whether they agree or not. I do my best but I am writing on a blog with 16 followers (although I am grateful for you all) and he has national recognition for his skill. You can’t argue that…
Better or worse, the KC sports reporting scene will not be the same without him.
Your fan base provides an incredibly loyal readership, though. Yet, I've been hearing some mild rumblings on the street that the fan base is a bit aggravated that the J-Baby Pirahna 3-D exclusive hasn't hit the blog.
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