A Happy Ending

I'll give you an update of my first week at work, but first:

A happy ending - Honor and forgiveness go together

I wrote an editorial about my thoughts on Brandon Davies returning to BYU after his famous Honor Code suspension in March. My immediate reaction to the news was that I hope people notice that even though BYU and the LDS Church might hold people accountable for breaking rules that aren't recognized by the rest of the world, we can still give second chances.

Courtesy of The Daily Universe

One thing that was unique about the writing process on this was that the current opinion editor, Allie McCoy, actually wanted me to make it longer! That doesn't happen to me very often.

The rest of my week has been filled with running the website. Since Sunday night, a lot of the stories you see and the photos that go with them were put on the website by me! It's been busy, but pretty easy and fun.

One of the coolest things I got to do was a Cougar football podcast. I'm finishing up with editing that, and we'll post it on The Daily Universe website soon.

BYU and the ESPYs

I didn't watch all of the ESPY awards last night, just the important parts.

First, Jimmer won the award for Best Male College Athlete. I thought he gave a great speech and handled himself very well. Of course, compared to other LDS kids or BYU kids, it might not be that special. But in the real world, Jimmer still proves to be an impressive young man. (And his girlfriend Whitney looked good and modest, way to represent.)

I can't find a video of his acceptance speech yet, except for this home recording of a news report on Fox 13:



Another big reason for watching the ESPYs is Seth Meyers, I'm a big fan. He's usually hilarious on SNL Weekend Update* and even funnier as the show's head writer, and he killed at the White House Correspondent's Dinner.

Back when the Brandon Davies news broke out in March, I was disappointed by the response from both The Daily Show (skip to 1:47) and, as a matter of fact, Weekend Update with Seth Meyers (skip to 2:53). I wasn't too offended by the jokes, I just thought they weren't that funny. Jon Stewart and Seth Meyers let me down.

But, Seth redeemed himself at the ESPYs with the first funny Brandon Davies joke I've heard. (It only took four months.)

(Skip to the 11:00 mark for the Brandon Davies joke.)

*This is Seth Meyers' rant about the Arnold Schwarzenegger sex scandal, so naturally there is some PG or PG-13 rated humor. Just to warn you.

Early Edition from N'Awlins

Hey there, everybody.

I'm blogging directly from the Hilton Riverside in New Orleans, Louisiana, here for BYU's first Sweet 16 game in 30 years.

Although I'm here with a crew of broadcast students, it kind of feels like I'm in solo mode. Which is strange. I sure have a lot of work to do! I did two stories before I even got to the hotel, and Thursday I'm expecting to do three more.

Here's what I did for the day before the game:

Cougars will need best effort to defeat Florida

Viewpoint: Thanks for the respect

I spent a lot of time on the last one, but I think it's turned out to be one of my best editorials so far. It's basically a response to "With honor," an editorial written in Florida's student newspaper. I was very impressed with the Florida campus way of handling BYU, especially when contrasted with the San Diego State way. And Florida coach Billy Donovan and player Chandler Parsons had some nice things to say in today's press conference...and by that, I mean they had nothing to say. A reporter tried to get them into a discussion about BYU and the Honor Code and how it wouldn't work at Florida or any normal college, and Donovan and Parsons declined to participate.

(I thought the reporter was trying to maybe stir up some controversy or something...but instead, he used the non-answers to write an article that actually makes BYU look pretty good: "What if Billy Donovan, Gators had to live by the Honor Code?" I especially like the article's last line.)

I'll briefly give you the story of how I finally ended up in New Orleans:

- I tried for a 12:55 a.m. flight from Salt Lake City to Atlanta. But since I fly standby (thanks to my dad, a Delta Air Lines mechanic), there's always a risk that there won't be a seat for me. And that's exactly what happened. No seat for me.

- So, I found a corner to curl up in and slept for a few hours at the airport before a 7:05 a.m. flight to Atlanta. I did get a seat on that flight.

- For some reason, as we were taxiing to the gate in Atlanta, I started feeling really sick and miserable. I was sure I would throw up. Fortunately I didn't, but I did get super sweaty and queasy. After finally reaching land for a while, I started to feel better.

- I touched down in New Orleans right in the middle of BYU's press conference at the New Orleans Arena. (I would have made it in time if I got on that 12:55 flight.) I was pretty frustrated about missing the press conference, but thanks to modern technology I knew I could find the audio online. But then, even better, the transcripts of the press conferences were emailed to me personally! That was nice. I worked on the preview story for a while at the airport, then I got picked up and taken to the arena where I finished up both stories.

- I was there later at the arena for a long time, until there weren't many media people left. One guy who stuck around working was none other than Andy Katz from ESPN. I wanted to introduce myself, and I even thought maybe he would sort of know who I was. But I still looked like someone who had spent the night in the Salt Lake airport, so I decided against it. I hope that wasn't my only chance to meet him though!

- Then, I rode the shuttle to the labyrinth of a hotel. I couldn't figure out how to get to wherever I wanted to go. But I think I have it down now.

- Tonight, I went for a walk down Canal Street and a little bit of Bourbon Street until I couldn't handle it anymore, haha. Here are some photos:

The view outside New Orleans Arena.

Statue in the hotel lobby. Also, the namesake of New Orleans' international airport.

Riverboat!

Catchin' up in Vegas

Now that the long day is over, I think I'll relax and do a blog update or two.

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First, I'll follow up on my brief stint as a celebrity. Since my last post about it, not too much has happened other than I did the Israel Sports Radio interview with Jasmine Marcus. It was a lot of fun, and it was great to talk to someone who was so interested. You can listen to the interview here (look for "Jumpshots with Jasmine- BYU sports editor JJ Despain, Ari Bluestein, Cornell squash club Dan O’Connor and YU basketball star Jeremy Pressman").

Oh, on my way to Las Vegas I was catching up on my podcasts. And I was sort of mentioned in one! It was the ESPNU College Basketball podcast, with Dana O'Neil and Eamonn Brennan. What was cool was that it was Dana who called me last week, but Eamonn who brought me up in the podcast. It's cool to think of all these people in Bristol talking about me.

Go to the podcast here and go to the 6:47 mark if you want to skip all the way to where I come in.

Also, a couple of friends from the newsroom are involved with a project called "Her Campus: A Collegiette's Guide to Life." It's like Seventeen magazine, but online and for college-age girls. Tiffany, Lauren and Darrian are involved with BYU's HerCampus.com site, and they have a "Campus Celebrities" section (not to be confused with the "Campus Cuties" section, haha). Anyway, Darrian asked me a few questions and I guess I'll be on their site! That should be cool. By being featured on a site somewhat linked to Seventeen, I'm well on my way to Justin Bieber's path to stardom.

The last thing is that I got some feedback from Cory Giger, the DJ at ESPN Radio 1450 AM. He sent me some direct messages on Twitter:

That was nice to hear from him again, although it's too bad he doesn't have that audio available. And it's nice that, even though he doesn't like the Honor Code, he's respectable about it.

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This weekend, I'm in Las Vegas for the Mountain West Conference basketball tournament. I'm here as a sports columnist representing The Daily Universe. And I've already cranked out three editorials!

1) Not down and out, just turning out

This one I wrote literally in the van while we were pulling into Las Vegas. I was very impressed to see how many BYU students were planning on coming to the tournament and supporting their Cougars, instead of writing off the season after the Brandon Davies announcement and the embarrassing New Mexico loss that followed.

2) Rams win would be a Cougars win too

Yesterday and this morning I was probably thinking more about the Colorado State vs. New Mexico game than the BYU vs. TCU game, to be honest. For some reason I've just been really intrigued by coach Tim Miles and the Rams this season. I was rooting for them to get into the NCAA Tournament, although it looks now like they've definitely missed that chance.

Anyway, I wrote this viewpoint to discuss how Colorado State could win against New Mexico (and why that would be good for us). I knew that the viewpoint would only be relevant for about six hours, haha. In fact, I don't know if it was ever published on the website, just on my blog. But I wrote it for fun, and now you guys can read it if you're interested.

3) Back on track to break the curse of the Lobos

This is what I wrote after it turned out Colorado State lost to New Mexico (after a really good fight). During both the BYU game and the Colorado State game, I was sort of struggling to think of what to write. But this is what I finally came up with. Hits newsstands in about six hours, but you can read it here first!

And it's too bad Colorado State didn't win, because I wrote two different beginnings to my editorial so that I would be ready for either outcome and I liked my Colorado State winning one better:

The Colorado State Rams overcame the New Mexico Lobos __-__ yesterday, even though they trailed about __ percent of the game.

Around the 12-minute mark in the second half, Wes Eikmeier made a big three that kept the Lobos from running away with a win. Eikmeier's shot was followed by a steal and breakaway layup from Pierce Hornung to take back the lead and make the score 47-46. ... New Mexico kept the game close, very close. The Lobos even grabbed the lead __ more times. But CSU coach Tim Miles and his Rams persevered and kept their finesse until the final buzzer.

While the Rams celebrated their miracle win, BYU was probably celebrating just as much.

During the conference season, BYU swept every team in the league but could not get past New Mexico. Fortunately for Cougar Nation, Colorado State nicely pushed them out of the way for us.

The Week of Davies

I am rapidly becoming the national media's resident expert on the BYU Honor Code.

The announcement came Tuesday night that Brandon Davies, BYU's third leading scorer, would be suspended for the rest of this season because of an Honor Code violation.

I was actually on my way to a Real Salt Lake match when it happened. I had never been to one, and I thought I'd take a chance to go before I graduate and no longer can represent The Daily Universe. (I still need to get to a Jazz game.) Anyway, here's the story I did (didn't end up making it into the paper, haha):

Real Salt Lake makes history

Anyway, back to the basketball bad news. I knew immediately that I would write a viewpoint on it on Wednesday. But it turns out I would be depended on for a lot more.

I was in the DU newsroom when there was a call on the phone for me. It was none other than Pat Forde of ESPN.com. He was looking for a campus perspective on the Davies news, and after calling somewhere at BYU was eventually routed to the campus newspaper and then to me. Forde used some of what I had to say in a column:

BYU puts principle over performance

Pretty cool to see my name on ESPN.com!

Then, I wrote my editorial, which is in today's paper:

Honoring the Code

As I was leaving the newsroom, I saw that an e-mail came from Deseret News looking for someone to do a campus story for them. I decided I was too busy, but I handed it over to our man Chuck Krebs who did a great job.

Fans' reaction to Brandon Davies suspension
(We had it in The Daily Universe too, but it looks like it's not on the website yet.)

The rest of the night I stayed in a pretty depressive state while I watched the game.

This morning, I saw that I had a Facebook message from Jasmine Marcus, who introduced herself as the host of Jumpshots with Jasmine, a radio show at Israel Sports Radio based out of Jerusalem. How 'bout that, huh? After going back and forth, I'm scheduled to be on Jasmine's radio show next Tuesday at 9 a.m. MST. From the looks of the website, it looks like you'll be able to listen there, if not live then at least soon after. Be sure to listen in!

Then, today at work, I got a call on my cell phone from Dana O'Neil, another ESPN.com writer. She wasn't writing anything else, she said she just had some questions out of curiosity. She said she got my number from Pat Forde, and that I've become ESPN's go-to guy about the Honor Code.

After that, I got a call from Cory Giger, a DJ for ESPN Radio 1450 AM in State College, PA. I wanted to call me back about a half hour later to go live on his radio show out there. Even though I wasn't too nervous to talk to Pat Forde, Jasmine Marcus, or Dana O'Neil, I was a little nervous to be on live radio. But excited at the same time. Then, I looked him up on Twitter, and he seemed like he might have some animosity toward the Honor Code and maybe toward me. So I got nervous again. Fortunately though, if he had any animosity he didn't express any of that toward me. It went well.

(One interesting question, and probably the most confrontational: He asked me what percentage of students I would predict are out having sex even though they did sign the Honor Code. I told him I know the sex and the alcohol exists around here, but to be honest I wouldn't even know where to look for it. Maybe I just don't know where to look, but I really think it's minimal around here.)

Unfortunately, I don't know where to listen to it online. The 1450 AM website is very outdated. It looks like it might show up at this UStream site eventually, but so far I haven't seen anything. I'll be sure to spread the word the moment I know.

So, even with a website and two radio shows down, that wasn't the end.

Now, there's a possibility I might be on TV.

I got a Facebook message from Sheryll Lamothe from Inside Edition. From what I know about Inside Edition, it seems a kind of gossipy, E! channel style of journalism. But Sheryll was very respectful and interested in what I had to say. She said she read my Daily Universe editorial and was interested in interviewing me for the show. All she has done so far is put me on her list of possible interviews, so nothing is set up yet. And I'm not sure how I would be on TV unless someone from Inside Edition comes to Provo. I guess that will come up later. Anyway, I'm on a TV producer's list!

As far as my actual thoughts on the whole situation, it's basically summed up in my Daily Universe editorial. There's not a whole lot to add other than that.

Originally, I thought that although Davies will be missed, I didn't think it was enough to change game outcomes. We might win by less, or lose by more, but I didn't think it would change Ws to Ls and vice versa.

But after last night, that view might not be accurate. The game against New Mexico was pretty atrocious. I don't think it was a direct result of Davies being missing, but probably indirectly. The whole team was pretty dead. And I don't blame them, I felt pretty dead too. (It doesn't help either that New Mexico was doing really well.) I hope the team can shake this off soon.