Celebrity college athletes by and large have mixed feelings about the drones of journalists who follow their every move and criticize their every botched spike, failed touchdown and missed slam dunk.
Lizzy Fitzgerald, the UW volleyball team's star senior setter, says she feels fortunate and comfortable with the amount of media coverage that her award-winning play garners.
\I think we are really lucky in the amount [of coverage] we get and I don't think we would ever complain about getting too much,"" Fitzgerald said. ""Our sport needs it and we appreciate it.""
For the most part, this is the sentiment of many to most famous collegiate athletes, according to the Los Angeles Times' sports editor, Bill Dwyre.
""The college athletes are not thinking about meeting us as they haven't formed this huge dislike of us yet; they need a few years in the pros to do that,"" Dwyre said. ""[In college], they're much more accessible, they're much more willing and eager and kind of pollyannish in their approach to things and it's refreshing.""
Some athletes do resent the media, however, this resentment manifests itself in press interviews and other interactions with reporters and editors, according to Dwyre.
""You have some sullen, overstuffed prima donnas at the college level too, but usually they haven't reached their peak of sullenness yet,"" he said.
A number of factors play into the new collegiate athlete-media relationship, according to those interviewed. For example, fan expectations play heavily into the pressures of being a successful college athlete. In addition, monetary concerns of modern professional sports recruiting play into the media's hyping of a specific college player.
""The economics of pro sports have changed it somewhat,"" said Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News Sports Editor Cecil Hurt. ""Because when you're dealing now with what you call a celebrity college athlete, you're also dealing with guys who are on the verge of being instant millionaires.""
Tuscaloosa is home to the University of Alabama and its Crimson Tide, a program that is as close to an organized religion as any collegiate program in this country could be. Despite the sacred status the team enjoys in the city and state, Hurt says he has observed little strife between the local media and UA players.
""That's really part of the fabric here, is that Alabama football players have been heroes for longer than I've been alive,"" Hurt says. ""I haven't had too many cases where somebody was just really too big headed or too in the clouds to deal with.""
The Sporting Life: College Athletes and FameThis is part of a four-part series examining the lives of student athletes.
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Members of the media do approach reporting on college athletes differently than they do professional sports stars, however.
Professional athletes, because of their more prominent status and higher paychecks, are more accountable and far more reportable than college players. There is ""more consideration"" given to collegiate sports stars, Dwyre says, and he is quick to point out that there is a huge difference between a 19-year-old collegiate celebrity and a 39-year-old millionaire professional.
Athletes can be overplayed by media outlets in their daily coverage, an assertion that Hurt attributes to a medium other than his own.
""I think sometimes there's hype, there's Heisman hype and NBA hype,"" he said. ""I think television has a lot to do with that.""
Hurt points to Shaun Alexander, UA's former star running back who graduated in 1999, as a collegiate sports hero who handled the media limelight well. Alexander, who now plays for the Seattle Seahawks, ""had no problems"" with his fame and was a ""joy to deal with from a media standpoint,"" Hurt said.
""It's hard for some kids to handle being in the public spotlight and other kids really thrive on it, so it just varies from player to player,"" he said.
Dwyer said he worries that the press attention could sour an athlete's college life, a time that should be reasonably carefree, in his view.
""When things are going well, when the team is winning and going to a bowl and nobody's cheating, it's an idyllic situation,"" he said. ""To interject the realities of NCAA violations and guys driving around in cars provided by agents and things like that, it's tough, it's very tough.""
This is the third in a four-part series examining the life of student athletes.
