| FTBL STEWART MANDEL SAYS COVID TWEETS WERE ‘CONDESCENDING’, ASKS FOR RESET

Longtime college football writer Stewart Mandel opened his mailbag at The Athletic today with a note acknowledging the “condescending” tone he has had in tweets about Covid-19 to readers and asking for a reset. Here’s the full text of what he wrote:

Before I get to your questions this week, I wanted to address something that’s been weighing on me — and many of you.

Writing and tweeting about college football in the time of COVID-19 has been the greatest challenge of my career because the topic is so emotional and has become so divisive. I’ve been accused at times of being too negative, or even that I’m trying to bring down college football due to some political agenda. Up until recently I mostly brushed off those comments. Once in a while I would snap back.

But over the last couple of weeks the tenor intensified — both from myself and my readers/followers. I’ve caught myself on a few occasions having to delete tweets that were just plain condescending. On Monday, after the preseason AP poll came out, I published a seemingly fun and innocuous piece making “predictions” on how the now-canceled marquee September matchups would have transpired. When the comments section quickly deteriorated into angry readers blaming me for those cancellations — and those comments getting lots of “thumbs ups” — it was time to stage a self-intervention.

The simplest explanation I can give you is, I’ve still got a lot of fears about COVID-19, both for myself and my family members. I live in a part of the country (California) that is still being super cautious (bars and indoor dining never reopened, outdoor gatherings are still severely limited), and every university in my time zone has canceled football. So it definitely feels foreign and alarming when I see pictures/videos of students at bars or news that a school is going to be allowing 20,000 fans at its games. And so I’m probably projecting some of my own fears in my tweets/comments about that kind of stuff.

Although my concerns aren’t going away (yet), I don’t think I’ve done a good job of taking the time to understand and accept that my reality is not necessarily the same as many of yours. I’m aware that in the South and elsewhere, people are increasingly returning to regular life (albeit in masks). High schools are playing football games. My brother’s ’90s party band in Cincinnati played in front of a socially distanced crowd at a bar last weekend. For many people — myself included — college football returning will be the most seminal milestone yet. And though I assure you I have neither the desire nor the influence to prevent that from occurring, I haven’t been reading the room with some of my more flippant tweets recently.

So, what do you say we hit the reset button? While I’m not going to stop reporting/commenting on pertinent COVID-related news, I’m going to be more mindful of my tone. Also: There are games being played barely more than a week from now. We at The Athletic are rolling out a lot of season preview content this week and next.


Though there is no singular tweet from Mandel that especially sticks out in my memory as condescending, I do recall feeling that way at moments when some of them crossed my timeline. Mandel was hardly alone there; he deserves credit for the introspection here. I read his anticipation of the return of what’s left of college football as an acknowledgement that cooler heads are prevailing.



Will anyone else follow Mandel’s lead?
 
I do think Stewart Mandel is an arrogant asshole because he simply thinks he's more intelligent than everyone in the room. Mainly because he has a column and pedestal to voice that without having to necessarily interact with responses to him. With that being said, I do think he is an intelligent guy and I have enjoyed his mailbag dating back YEARS ago to when he was with Sports Illustrated. I haven't followed him since he left there as much because it was outside of my routine internet surfing. I applaud him for assessing the current environment, explaining his feelings, and accepting that others are not forced to have his same feelings. That is very respectable and you simply wish millions of others out there had the ability to be an adult and do the same.
 
While I applaud him for admitting he was off base, I'm skeptical on his overall level of sincerity (maybe that's not fair of me, but it's the truth). Normally I would give the benefit of the doubt, but this hasn't just been going on for a couple weeks, he's been beating that drum made of dead horse hide since March. To just now come to an epiphany as some schools get set to kickoff the season? Meh. My take? The Atlantic was bleeding subscribers, partly from the lack of sports coverage and partly from their shift to wokeness (brought on mostly by the former). Stewart or someone above him realized the smart thing to do was issue an apology of sorts, try to be more positive overall, and lure some folk$ back into the fold. Won't work with me, I cancelled/didn't renew in early July, but maybe it will with others.
 
His assessment of what's going on Cali or the Pacific coast has provided me much more insight as to how much different the perspectives are around this country. I've lived in AL, TN, MI, & GA (for most of my life) so I haven't been in a complete bubble. There are certainly differences but it is becoming so clear that folks in CA, OR, & WA are on another planet.
 
His assessment of what's going on Cali or the Pacific coast has provided me much more insight as to how much different the perspectives are around this country. I've lived in AL, TN, MI, & GA (for most of my life) so I haven't been in a complete bubble. There are certainly differences but it is becoming so clear that folks in CA, OR, & WA are on another planet.
And what is interesting with all of those precautions California is one of the worse hit states.
 
While I applaud him for admitting he was off base, I'm skeptical on his overall level of sincerity (maybe that's not fair of me, but it's the truth). Normally I would give the benefit of the doubt, but this hasn't just been going on for a couple weeks, he's been beating that drum made of dead horse hide since March. To just now come to an epiphany as some schools get set to kickoff the season? Meh. My take? The Atlantic was bleeding subscribers, partly from the lack of sports coverage and partly from their shift to wokeness (brought on mostly by the former). Stewart or someone above him realized the smart thing to do was issue an apology of sorts, try to be more positive overall, and lure some folk$ back into the fold. Won't work with me, I cancelled/didn't renew in early July, but maybe it will with others.
I'm with you here. I hate to be so skeptical since I do my best to maintain an optimistic outlook on everything. I have a hard time believing someone above Stewart (at The Athletic) saw the 'error of their ways' when they continue to employ one of the worst race baiters we see in sports reporting.

Most, if not all of us know the quotation, "by their fruits you shall know them." {sic} I see rotten. I saw the condescension when Maven and SI joined together but that was in a different context. It's still the same at its core; looking down on others and their opinions as being below theirs/his.

But what do I know. 🤷‍♂️ I'm racist because of the color of my skin. I'm deplorable because I didn't vote for Hillary. And now, I'm a domestic enemy because I don't support, or believe in, the agenda and platform presented by the Democratic party. And I'm not a registered Republican voter.
 
He may want to use a synonym for reset. That word has a rather negative connotation, seeing has how the left wants what they refer to as "reset lock downs" for the country.
 
Good on Stew for resetting. I got tired of all the COVID talk on twitter regardless of the position taken. But the morons here and on social media wanting to make it political and ascribing one belief to a political party they don't agree with takes the cake for stupidity.
 
Good on Stew for resetting. I got tired of all the COVID talk on twitter regardless of the position taken. But the morons here and on social media wanting to make it political and ascribing one belief to a political party they don't agree with takes the cake for stupidity.

Someone has a lot of estrogen pumping through their system today. Real soft talk.
 
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