T.O. Doesn't Deserve to Dominate Headlines

I began listening to the Colin Cowherd show on ESPN Radio 860 Wednesday morning, and as expected I had to sit through an entire segment of talk about Terrell Owens and his alleged overnight depression-induced suicide attempt. When the segment was completed and the commercial break ended, I thought..."Finally, now maybe we can get to some actual sports talk." No such luck. The next segment was spent talking about T.O. The segment following that was spent talking about T.O. and every segment for the remainder of the show was spent talking about T.O.

As "The Herd" was concluding and I was just moments away from the start of "The Dan Patrick Show", I felt a sense of relief. I figured..."Dan Patrick's been around a long time. He's a saavy sports journalist. He must realize that despite it's inherent news value, the T.O. story doesn't have to dominate every minute and every second of sports news today." Again, no such luck. Dan Patrick announced within the first half-hour of his show that the day's scheduled guests, Emmitt Smith and Dan Marino, were being rescheduled and that they would be going to Cowboys coach Bill Parcells press conference as soon as it began. Later, they broadcast T.O.'s press conference with his publicist live and the few remaining segments of the show were dedicated to talking about all the T.O. "stuff."

I took the rest of the afternoon off from sports news, knowing what I was probably going to get. No more sports talk radio. No ESPN. No internet. Nothing. Late last night I finally finished all of my studying and clicked on ESPN. SportsCenter was about to start. It was no surprise that the T.O. saga led off the show. What was surprising was the fact that T.O. news and reactions took up more than half of the hour long show. It took 33 minutes for ESPN to show a single baseball highlight. By this point of the day, all I could ask is...."Why?"

Why do we continue to give so much attention to someone that can't get enough? Why do we continue to give headlines to someone that makes them for all of the wrong reasons? Why do we have to wait for sports news that we actually do care about in order to analyze someone we don't? Why must T.O. become a distraction to my life just because he's become a distraction to his own team?

Since the end of the 2005 Super Bowl, T.O. has made ten times as many headlines with his off-the-field antics than he has with his on-the-field play. Sports news producers and programmers have to realize one thing...some sports fans are actually tired of T.O.