Sportsmeat

The New York Times has gotten into the habit of choosing some oddly news-deficient political stories for its front page (Obama’s friends say he wasn’t a cokehead; McCain’s aids may have confronted him on an affair that looked like it might have, could have maybe happened; Hillary Clinton wrote letters in college – to a boy!). The trend now seems to have spilled over to the sports pages with the revelation that a man named William Wesley has many friends, including some in the Memphis basketball program. The story seems to suggest that something shady is happening with Wesley (or “Daddy Wes,” as Kriss Kross once called him), and he may have even admitted as much, off the record. But the story reveals nothing:

What does Wesley do? How does he make his money? How did he become so influential? The questions are often greeted with more questions.

And a D1 feature should answer at least some of these questions. The only one the story makes an honest attempt to address is the third – how he became influential. He worked at a popular sneaker store, became friendly with athletes, and simply hung around as often as possible. Now, he turns up everywhere – on the court at the Final Four, in team USA’s quarters on the Queen Mary II in Athens, courtside with LeBron. A nice life, for sure, but why do I care?
And why did this story run in Saturday’s Times? My best guess is that they were on the trail to revealing something more concrete and simply ran out of time. Memphis was facing elimination, so they wanted to strike while the iron was, er, warm-ish. And now, all we know is that William Wesley is someone influential who we hadn’t heard of before.

Labels: new york times, william wesley