8A — Thursday, October 5, 2017
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Dueling Columns: 2017

R

especting our opponents in 
this “touch” football game 
has become very difficult.

Every year, The Michigan Daily 

plays The State News. And every 
year, your staff 
continues to 
degrade itself.

Maybe I 

should have 
expected 
that, but to 
be honest, as 
a New York 
native, the 
Michigan-
Michigan State 
rivalry was entirely foreign to me 
four years ago.

With all due respect to Cortland 

and Ithaca’s annual matchup, 
my home state isn’t exactly the 
epicenter of college football. It took 
much convincing on my brothers’ 
part for me to come to Michigan at 
all. The only memory I had of the 
Wolverines’ football program was 
their loss to Appalachian State in 
2007.

It didn’t take long for me to catch 

up on the history, but the first real 
taste I had of the in-state rivalry 
didn’t happen within the confines 
of a football stadium.

I worked in a deli the summer 

before I came to Ann Arbor for 
the first time. And on my last 
day of work, I was ringing up my 
final customer. I turned to hand 
a woman her bags, expecting 
the interaction to be no different 
than the hundreds like it that I’d 
experienced that summer. I was 
wrong. 

As it turned out, she was a 

Michigan State alum. I handed her 
the bag, she glanced at the block ‘M’ 
hat I was wearing and looked me in 
the eyes.

“Don’t start thinking you’re 

better than everyone else,” she said, 
“just because you go to Michigan.”

I didn’t then. I don’t now.
At that point, I never planned 

on contributing to my university’s 
student publication. But after 
joining the Daily during my first 
year here, I have come to realize the 
rivalry between our newspapers is 
what I really care about.

As a freshman, I watched one of 

your players get ejected for tackling 
one of our writers to the ground 
and punching him in the head. 

Later in the same game, I watched 
members of your staff — and your 
adviser, for that matter — laugh at 
my friend after he tore his ACL.

A year later, having not spent 

a minute actually playing in the 
game, your editor-in-chief had 
some choice words for me at the 
50-yard line. Sorry to disappoint, 
but the one-sided dialogue isn’t fit 
to print here. Children might be 
reading.

And last year, your team still 

found comic relief in an injury, 
making a backhanded comment 
to one of our staffers about his 
“daddy’s health care” as he 
struggled to walk off the field.

But that game — the Daily’s 12th 

consecutive win — did have one 
redeeming moment. After we won 
on your field, one of your football 
beat writers came to our sideline 
and thanked us for making the trip 
to East Lansing.

I appreciated the rare case of 

sportsmanship — almost as much 
as I appreciated the column he 
needed to write two days later, 
clarifying the headline printed 
on The State News’ front page 
following Michigan’s 32-23 win 
over Michigan State.

That headline read, “Defeated 

with Dignity – MSU lost the Paul 
Bunyan trophy but prevented a 
blowout against U-M.”

That’s quite the spin, so much 

that I had to go back and make 
sure Michigan State still had that 
journalism school State Newsers 
always talk about.

In the second and third 

paragraphs of his column, he wrote:

“Upon filing the story, I left 

the spot for the headline blank, 
as I usually have no say in the 
process of titling an article. I left 
the newsroom after the story was 
complete, long before it ever went 
to print.

“By the time I woke on Monday, 

I saw the headline and was 
disgusted.”

He went on to write critically 

about Michigan State’s effort and 
performance to that point in the 
2016 season, and he wrote it well. 
Somehow, though, somebody in 
your newsroom thought — or, it 
seems, desperately hoped — that 
headline was indicative of the 
game.

But here’s the thing: that debacle 

wouldn’t happen at the Daily. Not 
only do our writers create their own 
headlines, but we have a thorough 
editing process to ensure we aren’t 
hopelessly biased. Apparently that’s 
not the case in East Lansing.

Our writers are given the 

opportunity to chase a passion 
and make this newspaper what it 
has been for 127 years, whether 
that’s by covering a soccer team, 
a volleyball team or, eventually, a 
football team.

When it comes to our football 

game, some may take exception to 
the size of our staff — claiming that 
it has contributed to our success 
over the last 12 years. But it’s for 
that same reason that we don’t need 
a journalism school.

Our staff is given the chance 

to learn through the experience 
of publishing a daily newspaper. 
That requires individuals to work 
collaboratively until 1 a.m. every 
night. Sitting in a college lecture 
hall, or publishing a print edition 
just twice a week, can’t replicate 
that.

At the end of the day, the broader 

rivalry can be boiled down to my 
interaction in that deli.

Students at Michigan make 

assumptions about their 
counterparts in East Lansing. 
Students at Michigan State 
make assumptions about their 
counterparts in Ann Arbor.

I’m not here to make 

assumptions. I haven’t grown to 
know anyone at Michigan State 
well enough to make any sweeping 
declarations about your student 
body.

What I have grown to know 

pretty well, though, is The State 
News. And I think I’ve gathered 
enough knowledge to say this: I 
don’t think I’m better than you. 
But I know my newspaper — on 
a football field and in every 
journalistic sense — is.

We’ve defeated you 12 years in a 

row. We’re going to defeat you again 
Friday night. And the saddest part 
is, if past games are any indicator, 
you won’t be able to claim dignity 
this time, either.

Santo is a co-Managing Sports 

Editor and football beat writer at 

The Michigan Daily. He can be 

reached at kmsanto@umich.edu 

and on Twitter @Kevin_M_Santo. 

N

ote: Most of you are likely 
confused because I am not 
a football reporter, a sports 

editor or a man. This column over the 
years somehow became dominated 
by one type of person, so welcome to 
my readers.

I’m reminded of “Mad Men” 

Season 5, Episode 8. Michael Gins-
berg approaches Don Draper livid 
about a call 
Draper made 
during a pitch 
meeting.

Ginsberg 

attacks 
Draper for his 
choices, his 
role and more 
importantly, 
his character. 
He finishes 
his frustrated 
exaggeration with one final jab and 
says, “I feel bad for you.”

In a calm, almost soothing voice, 

without looking Ginsberg in the 
eye, Draper says, “I don’t think 
about you at all.”

The State News, only in this 

sense, is Draper. The Michigan 
Daily is Ginsberg. That is the best 
way to explain how The State News 
feels about the Michigan Daily.

We don’t think about you. We 

don’t care what you do.

But, the last year of name-calling 

and “fake news” made me decide 
that we can no longer afford to 
ignore you. News organizations 
need each other for both 
competition and camaraderie. We 
are under attack in some respects.

By attacking each other we not 

only show our immaturity, but we 
don’t get anywhere. We’re tearing 
each other down and people are 
already trying to do that enough.

My mom always says you should 

say what you believe, but it is all a 
lie if you don’t walk the walk. So, I 
donated $5 to the Michigan Daily.

No, seriously.
I believe in what all of you do, but 

I do think you can do it a lot better. 

We serve our community. We work 
hard. We do all of this quietly, no 
fuss. Despite what all of you may 
think about us, you can learn from 
our newsroom.

As an investor, here are some of 

my thoughts.

The digital age is here and your 

newsroom needs to adapt better. 
I admire the diligent connection 
to a print product. I read two print 
newspapers a day. However, your 
content needs to make better 
shifts to online. Infographics and 
interactives are a perfect example 
of where you can succeed. Instead, 
I see screenshotted infographics 
made for print.

Event coverage — you do plenty 

of it. One more story on a panel and 
I will scream. Trends and issues 
stories are in short supply.

One of my favorite stories from 

your newsroom was reported by 
your editor-in-chief and it delved 
into mental health issues on your 
campus. The in-depth reporting 
made an impression, and more 
importantly it shined a light on a 
real issue.

Your sports section is, as usual, 

the part of your newsroom which 
receives the most attention. 
Don’t ignore that. Hold athletics 
accountable. In some ways you do, 
but both of our newsrooms need to 
shift our focus to that conclusion.

The State News is not perfect, 

but I’ll tell you a secret: neither 
is the Michigan Daily. We are 
learning our craft. Regardless, 
collegiate journalism is essential to 
our audiences.

People like to pit us against each 

other. Despite what all of you might 
think, I don’t hate you. In most 
ways, I root for you. I would hope 
all of you could get over yourselves 
enough to root for us, too. We’re 
on the same team, just on opposite 
sides of the field. In my mind, the 
rivalry is a technicality.

I suppose I didn’t really write a 

dueling column, which might upset 
some, but I’m fine with that. I spoke 

my truth. That’s all I want to do.

My last piece of advice: If 

you want to stand on someone’s 
shoulders and call yourselves tall 
that’s fine, but you’re better than 
it. We both need to be better than 
that.

A few years ago, during my first 

football game, I realized something.

After your players scored the 

final touchdown and all of you 
rushed the field, I was upset for a 
split second and then it hit me — 
like that elbow which broke one of 
our player’s teeth, still waiting on 
that apology, but I digress — this 
game means so much more to all of 
you than it does to all of us.

I looked back at my comrades 

who were exiting the field. All of 
them appeared disappointed, but 
then like a switch they started to 
smile and congratulate each other.

After that, you left my mind for 

good.

You can have your football 

games and ivory towers because 
even when you win, you lose. 
There are always people like you, 
but nobody roots for you. No one 
ever will until you understand 
what is so much more important 
— your newsroom – even if the 
“impossible” happens and you lose 
on Friday.

I have a group of scrappy kids 

who work hard for me every day. 
They make me better version of 
myself.

You take your track record, your 

numbers and your shiny fields, I’ll 
still take my underdogs any news 
day.

I like my pick. I hope you like 

yours.

Stay vigilant, my rivals.

Fradette is the editor-in-chief of 

The State News. She can be reached 

at rachel.fradette@statenews.com.

Editor’s note: This column is 

subject to the editing team and style 
guide of The State News. The Daily 
has published it as presented.

The Michigan Daily and The State News engage in a 
war of words before their annual touch football game

KEVIN 
SANTO

RACHEL 
FRADETTE

