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*This is my open response to Rick Reilly's article titled "Jimmer Grows Dimmer" published on ESPN.com.*Tom Kirkland sounds off on SportsBeat Sunday. Listen to the interview HERE
PROVO - Rick, I enjoy your work but this entry missed as badly as Jimmer did vs UF. "Caught his last act..." you wrote but maybe that's the problem, you missed several of his "out of body" beatdowns on UNLV, Utah, SDSU, his 52 on New Mexico and Gonzaga....which is to say you saw him at his exhausted, stretched-to-the limit worst (with, as you point out, a challenged cast).
Somehow, for some reason, you just couldn't resist throwing religion in there, something I've never heard him bring up. I'm Presbyterian so don't leap to the notion that this is a Mormon rushing to defend him.
He's basically instructed to avoid defending by his coaches since he's needed to do everything else.
He's sublimely talented, shifty, surprisingly quick off the dribble, understands and loves playing through contact but only time will tell about his NBA potential. He WILL be a lottery pick, will play at least 10 years and, as you tried to bury as an afterthought, Jimmer will be the Nat'l Player of the Year many times over. But your biggest miss by not being around him is...he's tough as they come and he's a winner. No other player in college could've led this BYU team (losing 2 starters to injury and Honor Code issues) to 32 wins and within a missed free throw of the Elite 8.
Your blog had a bite that was a bit too severe and smacked a bit of "scoreboard", when it's Jimmer who owns that scoreboard, with the only exception being the one game that you saw against the Gators.
Keep up the great work on the articles, but this was not one of those.
PS: He's an above average trash-talker (which I know you can appreciate) but you'd only know that if you'd been around a bit more.
Anyway, thanks for reading this...if you did.
Please respond anytime.
Email: tkirkland@ksl.com
Twitter: @tksportsbeat
