The IHSA wrestling finals held at the State Farm Center are a truly awesome event. For athletes, of course, this is the culmination of a lot of hard work and the chance to be recognized as one of the top individuals in the state; for fans, the finals are a grand spectacle, featuring the grand march of state qualifiers and an impressive array of as many as six simultaneous matches throughout the long weekend.
Yet, for all the pomp and circumstance around the finals, the event is still an exhibition of high school athletes. As such, the emotions and hormones of the young men participating in the finals are bound to have an impact on the proceedings. On Saturday, that very thing happened to one wrestler, a senior from a high school near Decatur. After losing the championship match by a 1-0 decision (which, I imagine, has to be the most difficult way to lose a wrestling match), he blew up at reporters seeking to interview him, unleashing a tirade of profanities and brandishing a middle finger for good measure.
By all accounts (including this comment from the wrestler’s father), the wrestler’s behavior was reprehensible, but considering the age of the offender and the circumstances under which the behavior occurred, it is hardly newsworthy. Yet that didn’t stop Fred Kroner, the Executive Sports Editor at The News-Gazette, from writing a blog post specifically calling out this wrestler for his behavior.
I worked with Fred Kroner, briefly (very briefly considering the years he’s spent at The News-Gazette), and found him to be an exceedingly helpful and friendly person in an office that often lacked in those areas. And, considering Kroner’s body of work for The News-Gazette, I would say he has done immense good for C-U and the surrounding areas.
When Kroner wrote his blog post Saturday night, however, he was only one thing: wrong.
The most glaring thing wrong about Kroner’s post is that he singles out the wrestler. There were other journalists seeking to interview the same wrestler on Saturday, including Aaron Bennett from WCIA and Josh Getzoff from WICD. Instead of shaming the young man on television that night, however, those reporters simply aired footage of his match without any interview. Their tactic was the right thing to do, and the only person really hurt by that was the wrestler himself, who got less screen time than other area athletes because he was uncooperative. Because he was childish after his loss, the adults covering him for local television did the adult thing and ignored his behavior. It’s pretty simple.
But being an adult wasn’t the simple thing for Kroner, apparently. Are we to assume that, in his 38 consecutive state finals, he never encountered a disrespectful young man? It’s hard to imagine that’s the case, and if it were it still wouldn’t justify this tasteless article.
Playing devil’s advocate, I can imagine why Kroner would want to publish this blog post: the lessons to be learned here, “Sportsmanship. Pride. Dealing with adversity. Grace…” are good ones. But those lessons are neither singular to this particular wrestler nor other wrestlers. They are universal for athletes of all stripes.
So, why was this published? If you look at the time stamp on the article, 1:20 a.m. on Sunday, it’s easy to surmise that it was written and posted in the heat of the moment. Kroner felt slighted by an athlete and got to have the last word by shaming him with a moralizing open letter. But if Kroner had taken out the wrestler’s name and written a more general column about sportsmanship, I’d certainly have no reason to write this response. In fact, if that column were written, I’d probably applaud it, or at the very least give it a “Like” on Facebook.
Instead, a young man’s silly, immature and brief tirade has been rebroadcast to the world and archived so anyone with a basic knowledge of how Google works can find it and judge him for as long as the article is available. That is not right, and it is not representative of the Fred Kroner I knew. I have hope that the blog post will be removed and Kroner apologizes to the wrestler and his family. Until then, it’s Kroner who should be ashamed.