An Open Letter to Dirk Chatelain: Oh No You Didn’t!
This is an open letter to Omaha World-Herald Staff Writer Dirk Chatelain in response to his October 12th article ‘Chatelain: Revisiting critiques of quarterback Martinez,’ where he apologizes to Nebraska QB Taylor Martinez for the negative things he wrote about him last week, prior to the Ohio State game (link to article).
Oh no you didn’t. Man, they got to you! So bad so sad, but that’s the price for being a corporate writer.
Dirk, nothing you said in that article necessitated an apology on your part. And when you threw in the “too harsh for a 21-year old line” you completely lost me.
The YOUNG MAN is a college QB playing BIG-TIME football. He is a public figure and fair game. That’s the price high profile athletes pay. It’s brutal but it’s reality! And Martinez and Bo know it.
Moreover, what you wrote in your column last week was pale in comparison to what many corporate journalist from around the country have written about Martinez – not to mention what has spewed from the mouths of the talking heads on television and radio and of course from a blogger like me.
Oh, and let us not forget the strong chorus of boos that rained down from Memorial Stadium last week at the end of the first half. Most of them were directed squarely at Mr. Martinez. That’s reality!
Credit Martinez for having the fortitude to withstand all the pressure and negativity from the Wisconsin loss and then come out swinging 10-10 at the start of the game. Credit Martinez for having to endure being booed by his own fans on his home turf and then come out swinging again in the second half like Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.
That kind of hell sometimes makes great men! And that’s why people in the media should never refrain from the kind of deep probing honest criticism like you provide. Maybe – just maybe – it was those words you wrote in your column that stung Martinez so deep inside his soul that it brought out the best in him last Saturday!
Nevertheless, when I saw all those negative comments posted to your original article I figured that the powers that be would yank your chain.
Please don’t let it be so. Because you are too good at getting to the marrow of the bone and sucking out all its precious nutrients.
Those are precisecly the kind of writers that make things happen. See what I mean.
Bo Pelini is not going to stop being who he is so why should you.
Post Script: I found the opinions Dirk expressed in his article ‘Chatelain: Chips are down for Pelini, Martinez’ to be deftly profound and brilliantly laid out (as usual). Therefore, immediately after reading the column which would later prompt Bo Pelini to vehemently chastise Chatelain during the Ohio State postgame presser, I took a moment to send him the email that appears below. I knew his words would cut to the bone – Intelligently delivered raw truth sometimes has a way of doing that:
Dirk Chatelain:
Man, I love reading your stuff. You’re hands down the best sports writer on a very strong staff at the Omaha World- Herald.
‘Chatelain: Chips are down for Pelini, Martinez’ is another epic piece of work.
Sincerely,
Will Cummings
