Forget that Valvano was found to have no control over his team, was forced out, having let the basketball program he so loved find its way onto NCAA probation. Now we know more about the function of a sportswriter. And lessons are the same in news and sports. More than a news reporter, sportswriters are also feel-good storytellers, not unlike teachers and musicians. Sportswriters are speakers for the masses.
Sportswriters are entertainers of a sort.
During the Final Four, journalists made mortal these almighty college basketball players who were being paraded around as God-like, accepting awards, being commended by heads of state. Reporters were able to do this not by tearing anyone down. Maryland's Juan Dixon, we came to know, was human, painfully human. More important than the fact that he is a basketball player, Dixon endured the deaths of both of his parents in his teenage years. As sure as he was the leading scorer on a top-five team, he could have been dead, the victim of drug addiction, or in jail, where his parents spent most of his childhood.