"Johnny Manziel needs to mature"

From ESPN.com

Review by Tim Young in SRM 334 (section 1)

The main article I used for this project was “The Trouble with Johnny,” written by Wright Thompson for ESPN The Magazine. This article is an in-depth account of 12 hours in the life of Johnny Manziel. There is commentary from Johnny as well his family members. The thoughts and feelings of his father, Paul Manziel, are highlighted throughout the piece. The time Thompson spent with the Manziel family came four days after Johnny tweeted about how he can’t wait to leave college station. This tweet came out because Johnny had parked his car in the wrong direction outside the house and instead of the police just leaving a ticket they knocked on the door asking who was the owner the car. Something that is seen as borderline harassment by the Manziel family, especially since as Paul mentioned in the article, the police know where Johnny lives because they drop him off after every game. “The Trouble with Johnny” goes a long way to paint a picture of Johnny that the media hasn’t been portraying. Thompson shows Manziel as the average kid that he is, and shows how much his new found fame and success has changed things for everyone in his family. Family is a main theme of this article; it is very obvious that Johnny’s success has had a huge influence on his family. This article really adds a dimension to Johnny Manziel as a person; he doesn’t seem like the arrogant and rebellious wild child that most media outlets display him as. He seems more like a regular person who has just been in the wrong place at the wrong time in a couple of instances and is now trying to deal with a level of fame that most 20 year olds can’t fathom. This article is relevant to this class because it shows that there are always two sides to every story. Many of the major events that happened in Johnny Manziel’s summer are addressed in this article, and many of them are told differently coming from Manziel then other media outlets. It seems that sport media created a hero in Johnny Football and then after the Heisman Trophy was awarded they tried to turn that hero into a villain. Most news about Manziel these days is negative, showing him as someone who doesn’t respect authority. This article however shows a different, more relatable Manziel; one that is a normal person that rose to fame and now needs to deal with new pressures, especially that his mistakes and flaws will be broadcasted on national television if he slips-up.

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Review by Kevin Hoagland in SRM 334 (section 1)

Going back to August of 2012 Johnny Manziel was just a normal nineteen year old college kid trying to win the starting quarterback job for Texas A&M. In just over a year he has gone from a nobody to the Heisman Trophy winner, and is also one of the most criticized athletes in all sports. One of the main reasons he is so criticized is because of the growth of social media in the recent years. Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram athletes have to watch what they say or do because fans have so much more access to content in todays world. For example, just two weekends ago during the opening game of the season after Manziel scored a touchdown he started trash talking to a player and was seen pretending to give the player autograph. When the media got a hold of the incident everyone was saying how cocky Manziel was, and how he needs to start showing more respect on the field. Immediately after the game the first headline on ESPN was “Manziel Taunting.” As a society we shouldn’t jump to conclusions so quickly because after the game the player that Manziel taunted at went on Twitter and said the only thing Manziel said was “Nice hit nick.” So even though the goal of the media is getting the content out the public as soon as possible they aren’t always right. I believe what we see happening with Johnny Manziel is relevant to this course in many ways. In class we have been learning how media has grown over the years, and you can see it when it comes to Johnny Manziel. Back in day the media wasn’t out to scorn or attack athletes, the example was used when two news reporters saw Babe Ruth running through a train car naked. They didn’t report it because they it had nothing to do with Ruth’s performance on the field, and they weren’t out to ruin his reputation. Today's sports media is completely different because all media outlets are so concerned about getting the most viewers possible that they will report anything they can. In today's world Johnny Manziel just happens to be the scape goat of the media. He is only a twenty year old college kid making mistakes just like a lot of people did when they were that age. Even though a lot of people say he’s bringing it on himself I believe if the media didn’t blow up everything he does the criticism on Manziel would go down a lot. Plus, when it comes to a news story as a society we are more likely to tune in if the media is portraying an athlete as a villain rather than a hero. The more “juicy” the content is the more we are going to want to know about it.