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A Year Later, Here's What I Miss Most About Michigan

A year ago a moving van pulled our possessions off our driveway and moved them 550 miles southeast into Maryland. It's been a long, strange journey filled with some heartache, struggles and some incredible experiences, too.

So as I type this, it occurred to me I'm pining a bit nostalgic for my Michigan roots. Football season is ramping up here, but the fervor, anticipation and general excitement isn't the same. For those reasons and a few others, here's the Top 10 things I miss from Michigan.

10. Cool nights. Jesus, as if 80 inches of snow packaged in three storms of 20+ inches wasn't enough, we're already at 45 days above 90 degrees. I've worked two plate games where it was warmer that 105 when I took the lineups, over 95 when the game ended and still above 90 when I got home in the late evening. I had heard the Mid-Atlantic was hot; I didn't realize that was merely code for living in the doorway of a blast furnace.

9. Sports Town Tradition. Look, Baltimore and D.C. are great cities with their own distinct energy and passion, but like Chicago, New York and L.A., they pale in comparison to the passion that oozes from The D. That's just fact.

8. Nicknames. OK, the Baltimore Dunbar High Poets is cool, but the winningest Maryland basketball school this side of De Matha High is the overwhelming exception. We're overloaded by Cougars, Falcons, Lions, Tigers, Eagles and Patriots in Maryland. By comparison, Detroit's got Doughboys, Tars, Tractors, Thunderbirds, Maples and River Rats. We lost the Oaks and Chiefs but you can still find Shamrocks, Saddelites and Pilots, too.

7. Opinion. The local Baltimore sports media probably wouldn't look very dignified in cheerleader outfits, but if it sounds like a cheerleader and squeals like a cheerleader, why not just finish the look? I think this town is still scared to say anything that will make the owner pack up this toys and go elsewhere. The Tigers had 12 losings seasons in a row and there were songs and shirts chiding the team, and I think the Matt Millen era of Detroit Lions football -- if that's what you call that regular season scrimmage schedule-- speaks for itself. Try saying something negative about the Ravens here, and it's the media, not the fans, who shoot your argument down.

6. Driving Seven Over The Speed Limit. Note to everyone from Maryland: Driving 45 mph in the far left lane is pathetic. So is entering the freeway at 25 mph, scared to death of pushing your way into a moving lane of traffic. Slowing down to a crawl on the freeway for no absolute reason is also a swell Blue Crab state tradition. Jesus, people, we drive 45 mph in our Michigan neighborhoods, just not the nice ones, right? Get moving!

5. Football Fever. Before I chide the Navy gameday experience, I need to omit the games the Mids play Notre Dame, Air Force and Army. Those are exceptional spectacles, but your garden-variety Navy football game looks great from afar, but when you actually go to a game, you realize it's a lot of retired brass sitting on their hands awash in the three scotch n' sodas they put down in the parking lot. The 3,800 Midshipmen in the stands are into it for sure, but it's no Spartan Stadium or Big House, where each school's band thunders into the stadium and the rest of the day just gets crazier from there.

The University of Maryland? Yeah, fear the turtle...if you're trying to stay awake.

4. The Big Ten. If I had a dollar for every transposed Big 10 fan I've met from Michigan, Ohio or Penn State who is secretly rooting for Maryland to be the surprise addition to the Big 10 so they can see their favorite school once a year, I wouldn't have to look for work. If you ask the Maryland fans, they oppose joining the Big 10, but a lot of Big Ten'rs think this is fear. They know the Terrapins would struggle mightily in football and they know it; can you say Indiana East? 

Marylanders also point to the ACC and their rivalry with Duke or North Carolina on the hardwood. Well, it's only a big deal when they play Duke or UNC to Maryland, because the rest of the country doesn't care. Being a Big 10 school hasn't hurt Tom Izzo's Spartans from getting to six Final Fours in 12 years either.

3. Fight Songs. Anchors Aweigh is a stirring march to be sure, but fight songs like the Buckeye Battle Cry, On Wisconsin and The Victors, not to mention Falcone Fight (Michigan State), and Hail! Purdue are just amazing. A handful of the Big 10 fight songs are derived from Civil War hymns. How cool is that?

2. High School Football Scores. I so miss ripping open the paper or going online and pouring over the scores. Of course, before they closed, my first glance pointed to Royal Oak. Did Kimball win? How did Dondero do? The upsets. Walled Lake Western got beat by who? Farmington Hills Harrison. Dearborn Fordson. The PSL. King, Southeastern, Pershing and Denby. The trio of schools in Livonia and Plymouth. The Catholic League. Who did CC play? Did the Cubs win? Where is Brother Rice today?

By comparison, here in Anne Arundel County, which is about the size and population of Oakland County, we have 12 public schools and six private schools, and the JV plays at 4:00 on Friday before the varsity game at 6:30. Hardly the stuff of Friday Night Lights, let alone Ampipe High in All The Right Moves. Tell Bosco I'll be seeing him around!

1. Coney Dogs, Apple Cider, Sweet Corn & Driving Down The Lodge Listening To "It's The Same Old Song". Don't get wrong, Maryland Blue Crabs and cold beer is a beautiful thing, but every time I'm back in The D, I hit a coney and grab two with everything. Greek salads, too. It's just part of Detroit that I've never seen replicated. Washington D.C. has Ben's Chili Bowl on U Street (a must-see when you're in The District, btw), but it's not a true Detroit coney. And good luck finding a cider mill or a sweet corn stand on the side of the road. That truly is Pure Michigan.

~ T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries and writes sports for The Capital-Gazette newspaper in Annapolis.

The Day The Music (Words) Died In Chicago

On MLK Day in 2008, Arcadia Publishing Acquisitions Editor Jeff Ruetsche green-lighted my first book, Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, from Arcadia's midwest division office in Chicago.

That office closes on Friday. It's another stark reminder of our depressing, still-stagnant economy.

Ruetsche also gave the thumbs up for my sequel, Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries. And his office OK'd Scott Burnstein's Motor City Mafia, Paul Vachon's Forgotton Detroit and Maureen McDonald's Royal Oak retrospective, too.

This announcement's comforting words are merely spin. Closing an publisher's office in a major media market like Chicago speaks for itself.

~T.C. Cameron fancies himself on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay while pining for the good ole' days in Detroit from time to time. You can buy his books at Amazon, Borders or Barnes & Noble.

A Quiet Vindication

Yesterday I perused the new Michigan High School Athletic Association's website. In a word: Wow! Easy to navigate, lots of additional features, content and access to the MHSAA's TV network. Pretty big leap forward for the crew on Ramblewood Drive in East Lansing.

I even read MHSAA Executive Director Jack Roberts' blog. That's right, Jack Roberts has a blog! The content is straight-forward, a bit soft but summer is the slowest of months for all prep writers and I'm certain Roberts is getting his feet wet slowly. It's a new age for the MHSAA and they should be lauded for jumping on the train of new age media now instead of dragging their feet and being the last passenger to board. Yes, you read that right. I think the MHSAA should be lauded for this. Michigan needs some forward thinking in the face of some awfully parochial mindsets. See City of Detroit labor unions protesting Mayor Dave Bing as a refresher.

Then I allowed myself a small chuckle. 

Three years ago, I wanted to return to writing but I didn't have any recent clip sheets except to start a blog and practice for free. I leaped off the end of the pier into the deep water when I started my blog, vainly titled TCCameron.com. It would be almost four months until I came up with the title The Write Referee. Almost immediately a laundry list of athletic directors, coaches and fellow officials began to call and write the MHSAA about this rogue official's blog. Hell, Barry Mano told a good friend and associate of mine I was a 'loose cannon'.

OK, let me digress for a moment here. If I'm a loose cannon, what does that make Harry Carey? All I did was write a syndicated blog and author a pair of prep sports history books. Carey got plastered for years on the air and slept with Augie Busch's wife while his glasses picked up the basic satellite package from DirecTV. I love Harry Carey as much as the next guy but bottom line, I think I'm getting a bum deal here, Barry (grin).

So back to August & September of 2006. My blog was a bit wayward in those first two months. I was rusty, not having written on a regular basis in several years, and I was a bit unsure of the Do's and Dont's of blogging. Today we would title this 'Rules & Etiquette to Successful Blogging' and I'm more than qualified to moderate a national panel in New York City on the topic. Then I applied tiger training, as in "Go get 'em, Tiger!"

So, among the many I'm sure to have answered the swath of calls about everyone's favorite official was MHSAA Associate Director Mark Uyl. I was gifted a guardian angel in this regard. I'd done my homework and combed through the MHSAA Guidebook to make sure I didn't run amok of my registration, but in 2006 I didn't fully realize the water I was chugging upstream through. Mark Uyl was very fair to me in this regard. Brutally honest at times, but fair, which is all anyone can ask. Thanks.

My blog did cost me a lot. Cost me some assignments to be sure. Made some enemies of friends and rivals of acquaintances, etc. My blog cost me an assignment with Referee Magazine. But it gained me two book contracts. That my name would be associated with an ISBN registered in the Library of Congress is something I couldn't have imagined in the summer of 2006. Gained me membership into ASJ&A and SPJ. Helped land me a job with Cliff Keen, where I wrote a lot of copy for their national branding & advertising campaign. My blog opened the door for me to right a wrong from the fall of 1994, too. You won't get many opportunities to repair a broken bridge like this. In short, I got the better end of the stick.

I'm certain Jack Roberts' blog won't garner him the same criticism I've endured, but I've not had to stare down the barrel of gender-equity's change-the-world-for-the-better mentality, either. Can you tell I'm not convinced Michigan's prep sports season change fiasco was positive for female student-athletes in 'The Mitten'? 

On the front page of the newly-designed MHSAA site, there's an open invitation to follow the MHSAA on FaceBook and Twitter for those enamored with social media networks. Amazing, isn't it? Did anyone think the MHSAA would be on FaceBook or Twitter three years ago? It's a brave, new world and the MHSAA is definitely ahead of the curve here, but to Jack Roberts, I have just one question:

Just who do you think you are, T.C. Cameron?

Regards...

~ T.C. Cameron will be signing copies of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries at the Northville Barnes & Noble on Saturday from 2-4 p.m.

Getting Sacked Gets Four-Figure Response

In officiating, it's always good when your game fee check has a comma in it. I suppose the same can be said for writing and hits, and I'm not talking about the kind of hits Ty Cobb or Pete Rose counted.

I was rather ubiquitous yesterday, as my Citizen Journalism post got a lot of run among local and national journalists, and that tells me two things. Journalists are still passionate about their craft or reading and writing. Second, there's a lot of e-banter being circulated about my post -- journalists have figured out how to use today's e-social tools seamlessly -- why can management do the same?

A few hearty souls from The Ann Arbor News took issue with my review of their publication and I do respect their spirit for sticking up for their paper. Jim Carty's cleverly-titled blog, Paper Tiger No More, linked me and offer a sweet-n-sour review of my writing. Thanks for the link, Jim. No hard feelings.

I was also linked at Fade To Black, a media watchdog site. Other links include Inside Out, a writer from Flint, Michigan who writes about Michigan media happenings, and the same writer's Wired Journalists site.

It's sad this is happening but it's also an absolute truth of the information age we're all living in. Hell, Carty quoted Jason Whitlock's Facebook page and a one-line quip about The Ann Arbor News's recent announcement it will shutter as a point of merit for discrediting me. I was both amused at the reference and saddened by the laziness it represents, because there was no context to the quote. Whitlock's quote really could have meant anything.

For the record, I don't hate The Ann Arbor News and I do think it's terrible they're closing. I do hate what they did to the Ypsilanti Press and how they tried to fool the good people of Ypsi into thinking they actually cared about Ypsi, the schools, city government and Eastern Michigan University with their ill-fated Ypsi Press edition of The Ann Arbor News. Many staffers at the current 'News' aren't aware in November 1994, The Ann Arbor Observer printed a freelancer's highly-detailed look at the 'culture of fear' at The Ann Arbor News. The piece was titled "The News Loses A Star" and detailed Jason Whitlock's hastily-summoned departure, the ugly fallout from scraping unsavory review of the city's annual art fair in favor of wire copy, the ways the paper painted certain African-American writers through the paper's self-promotion and the shameless reporting of a nationally-known infant custody battle, the subject being baby Jessica DeBoer, now known as Anna Schmidt.

Any real newshound can find the article if they want -- it's at the Ann Arbor district library and can be viewed and copied free of charge. I've kept a copy since the day I read it almost 15 years ago. The freelancer who wrote the piece? Well, I won't name him specifically but his initials are John Bacon.

Sacked By Citizen Journalism

Yesterday I was told my syndicated version of The Write Referee blog would be sacked by The Oakland Press in favor of citizen journalism.

Citizen journalism is the ingenious creation of editors lacking for legitimate journalistic resources and the financial inducements to compensate said legitimate journalists. As advertising revenue plummets, so does pay for real writers. What newspapers and an endless list of Internet blog sites offer is byline stardom in return for copy. The byline is the payment for the copy. All the newspapers pay for is the editor responsible for making sure it's true -- that's code for a once-over to make sure all the key facts of the story seem to be in place -- and the online platform they publish within.

I was fired in an e-mail, only to be e-mailed back and told I should look at the decision not as a firing but rather, an obvious inability to pay for content. In the next sentence, I was offered the same opportunity to be a citizen journalist and blog for free in the same manner I was previously paid for. No thanks. I already blog here for free.

No hard feelings.

Thankfully, I have a handful of key accounts to sustain me. I have a successful book writing endeavor that invigorates me. And, as you can see from the picture, I have a couple other hobbies to make that blue feeling feel a little more green.

I'm not mad. The Oakland Press was very good to me and payment wasn't substantial to begin with. Newspapers are in disarray nationally and locally, the consequences are beyond dire. Royal Oak's Daily Tribune closed their Royal Oak office a few months ago. The 'Press' is in bankruptcy. The Ann Arbor News is closing forever and the Detroit dailies are fighting for their very existence.

The Ann Arbor News isn't that big of a loss. Ask syndicated  sports columnist Jason Whitlock or author John Bacon what they thought of The News in the 1990s and you'll probably get a sarcastic laugh at the thought of journalism and The News in the same sentence. It's one of the reasons the paper's extensive look at the University of Michigan's football program two years ago -- one that exposed a culture of fraudulent academia in return for athletic excellence -- garnered little more than a slight yawn when it was published with a heavy dose of self-promotion. This is a paper that halted the presses containing their staff's critical review of the city's annual art fair in the mid-1990s in favor of mindless wire copy. The Ann Arbor News stopped being viable years ago.

What does sadden me is the continued resistance to understand and embrace the Internet age from the newspaper management at-large. Oh sure, the papers all have online sites, but newspaper platforms lag, almost languish, behind the cutting edge of the Internet age. The papers haven't figured out how to seamlessly interweave advertising with copy. They don't have any proprietary knowledge of what to charge for Internet advertising beyond using the sacred 'Hit' totals and most savvy with the 'Net know those totals can be very misleading. I think we all know a 'hit' doesn't always equate to a 'read'.

To survive, newspapers need to embrace their long history of credible journalism to re-make themselves into a trusted source to be an all-points information source. However, the panic that ensues from the thought of you clicking on a link and not returning to their site makes nearly every managing editor squirm, so most paper sites don't list many competing links and in return, most readers start elsewhere. The 'hit' totals suffer and not surprisingly, ad revenue falls short.

Further, with every print edition, resources are bled from the online edition and vice-versa. Already suffering from heavy operating losses makes available cash infusions for an online conversion difficult to tender.  All of this contributes to the thinning of the herd in the daily publication business.

The new age of media arrived long ago -- will the papers figure it out before they're out of business for good?

(Picture courtesy Oakland University, May 2005)

Holiday Respite For The Write Referee

The Write Referee is taking some time off. Be merry and be safe as you and those close to you welcome in the new year. See you again on January 3, 2009.

Detroit Making Waves Nationally Online

Yesterday's historic announcement by the joint-management team of The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press has garnered the attention of nationally-known editorial boards, chat rooms and Internet-based news gathering sites.

First is the bold masthead regarding Detroit's historic decision found at Editor&Publisher.com, one of the nation's most trusted media-on-media coverage sites. Also pushing these links was MediaBistro.com, who slotted Detroit's news just below Oprah Winfrey's decision to guide her production company, Harpo Productions, away from ABC to HBO for a broader spectrum of programming opportunities.

There's even a piece that features the well-reasoned opinions of former Freep Editor/publisher Heath Meriwether, who now lives in New York and works as a writing coach.

James Rainey of The Los Angeles Times chimes in with a healthy bit of disdain for why the papers in Detroit would cut off their most loyal readers at the expense of those who read it for free online.

Also of interest is the many respected media market analysts who openly question if the cuts are deep enough, something many of us with firsthand knowledge of Detroit's horrific business climate have speculated about in local forums for some time.

Go The Distance...

Detroit is on it's way to being a two-paper town without a paper to be found.

Detroit's daily newspapers undertook the bold move Tuesday. To hear them tell it, it's the brave act. However, they didn't do it to lead the way, but rather to crawl out from under the piano of financial and structural overhead that so many other publishers and managing editors would like to do. Detroit's dailies will only be delivered in-home three days a week and online editions will no longer be free.

That's just a start. If the paper's joint-management team had its' way, the presses and the delivery would all go away. It's a sad truth in Detroit, a town that labor built, that the large overhead is now largely obsolete. There's paper to buy from monstrous mills, and production cost that's no longer a thrill. There's manpower for staffing and benefits to be paid. There's editorial boards and advertising dollars to be made.

There's delivery to mailboxes and the coffee house's deep pockets. The problem is, by the time the paper is here, the next day's news is near. And the cash flow inward no longer matches the cash going out.

Get the point? Detroit's joint-operations management is starting the ebb away from paper and towards exclusive online production. The Detroit Free Press reported an 85% jump in online hits this year as compared to last, if reporter M.L. Elrick's numbers are true as reported by a local Detroit television station two days ago.

I haven't purchased the paper is several years, because the Internet is always on and I don't have to leave the house, much less open the door. I say go the distance, with apologies to Kevin Costner, and finish the job. Go online for good and make it a cash cow.

The buggy whip was popular in it's day, too, but the car changed everything and the automobile grew. We're on a new cusp of society-altering change. Papers have long been running two editions too many. It's one or the other, and online is winning, why delay the inevitable as the paper keeps thinning.

I say rock out the Internet; put that paper down. Detroit's leading the way to the paperless crown. 

Detroit Leads Change In America's Daily Paper Medium

Detroit's two major daily newspapers became the first major newspapers in America to curb daily delivery to three days a week.

The paper will be delivered for home-based subscription on Thursday, Friday and Sundays only starting sometime early in the new year as the combined management of The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press aim to curb overall payroll by 9% before the end of the first quarter of '09.

The papers, managed under the umbrella of a joint operating agreement (JOA) since 1989 that pared each paper's holiday and weekend responsibilities in half, opened an 11 a.m. news conference with a paper-produced video that highlighted the paper's first 200 years as an innovative pioneer in the media industry. Self-plaudits included the first women's section, first paper-owned radio station, first Sunday paper and first paper-owned plane.

However, the overriding message was the admission that the digital age has made traditional paper production a dinosaur. With costs spiraling upward for manpower, availability of paper, and energy costs for materials, production and delivery, the newspapers are highly-motivated to pioneer the answers to what plagues the newspaper industry nationwide.

The JOA management also announced the online editions, free for the past several years, will be available for $12 a month. The $144-per-year subscription cost is aimed at saving both papers in terms of content, platform and brand.

Progress Means Sacrifice For Daily Tribune Address

Holding on to the past is a great and noble ideal, as long as it doesn't impede progress. I walked by the editorial offices of The Daily Tribune last evening in Royal Oak, or should I say, what's left of the Tribune.

 

It's gone, like so many other markers of this region's past. The Trib's former offices are now littered with trash spilled from desks and filing cabinets moved to different locales, counties and zip codes. I'm not upset, just a bit melancholy at the unceremonious departure of another Royal Oak institution. Oh, the paper's still being published. The editorial department is now under the umbrella of The Macomb Daily. It's simply another stark reminder of how much things have changed in south Oakland County. While Macomb County is an emerging community filled with new subdivisions, teeming high schools with massive numbers filling their sports teams, south Oakland schools are trudging along as shells of their former selves while half-filled or empty condominium units shadow the region's footprint. While Macomb is opening new schools,  older schools are being shuttered and razed in Royal Oak.

 

But this is progress, right? Would you believe that my mother's childhood friend while growing up on Maplegrove in Royal Oak circa 1950 was a little girl who's own mother had been handed off the sinking RMS Titanic at two months of age? In the middle of the dark night, awaiting imminent death in the icy North Atlantic Ocean, her parents knew enough not to hold on to the past, because the past was sinking to the bottom of the ocean, destined to pull approximately 2,200 other passengers with it. Life goes on and they were lucky enough to ensure life for their daughter.

 

This past week was the annual anniversary of Pearl Harbor's bombing from the Japanese. I'll bet most of America looked entirely different on December 7th, 1911 than the same date in 1941 for all the reasons other than the obvious. Likewise, I'm betting the 1971 was nothing like '41, and 2001 was nothing like '71, either. In '71 the World Trade Towers in the lower battery of New York City were still only seen in completion on the drawing boards of a architect in Troy, Michigan; In 2001, they were lying on the ground with the slurry walls containing New York's Harbor in ruin as well.

 

The trade towers alone ought to illustrate my point. They've become an icon for American spirit and resolve -- and rightfully so -- and yet they were with us for less than 30 years.

 

Things change. Life goes on, and I don't miss the old wall-mounted, avacado-colored, rotary-dial phones any more than the next guy.

 

The Daily Tribune is simply a victim of an era long since passed. There was a time when the Tribune boasted a daily circulation of 80,000 homes but today the Sunday subscription numbers barely pass 10K. Detroit News columnist Joe Falls used to speak glowingly of the Tribune as one of our area's best-produced newspapers, and Falls knew a little about progress. He came to the News when the now-defunct Detroit Times passed into memory some 50 years ago.

 

Newspapers are changing and the new template they're using today to publish editorial content and procure advertising is the same vehicle you're using to read this column today. The physical buildings that gave us the comfort of knowing our local paper was there for us is now largely part of a newspaper business that's passed on. That physical address is now replaced with a web address.

 

The Tribune used to be South Oakland County's daily bible -- now we're writing part of her own obituary -- the Royal Oak address part, anyway.