Jerry Tipton Gets His Reward

If I were a reporter for the New York Times, I can think of several interesting angles for a feature on the Kentucky basketball team. There's Doron Lamb, who is from Queens, New York. There's Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, of Somerdale, New Jersey. There's Anthony Davis, who is likely to be the number one choice in the NBA Draft. But today, the New York Times has a big feature on . . . . Jerry Tipton, the UK beat writer for the Lexington Herald-Leader, who is best known for his longtime hostility toward the Wildcats.

I can't imagine that a single person in the greater New York region has any interest in the story of Jerry Tipton. I actually had a mild amount of interest, because I was hoping the article would explain why Tipton hates UK so much. And, indeed, I do think there is a story of general interest there -- I can't imagine any other beat writer in the country is so hated by the people who are supposed to read him. Personally, I would love to see an honest explanation of why it makes sense for a newspaper to keep someone on a beat, despite the fact that his writings offend almost all of his potential readers.

But of course the whole piece is basically just a love letter to Tipton. You get the sense that the reporter sat down with Tipton for about 30 minutes, took down a bunch of his war stories, checked with a couple of other media types, and wrote it up. While the article does make clear that Tipton is loathed by almost everyone in Kentucky, the Times's readership is assured that this loathing merely reflects Tipton's honesty in reporting hard truths.

And in a sense, I guess this is the answer to my question. For over 30 years, Tipton has always wanted to make clear that he is no shill merely supporting the local team -- he's a journalist, dammit! (Even if Andy Katz of ESPN was the one who seemed to break all the big stories about coaching changes at the program in recent years.) In other words, Tipton always carried himself as if he were about to be profiled in the New York Times. Today, he got his reward. I hope he enjoyed it.