By John Feinstein
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, October 1, 2007 4:19 PM

In July of 1979, when I was the kid reporter on The Post's sports staff, I was assigned to cover Washington's local tennis tournament. On the afternoon of the final between Guillermo Vilas and Victor Pecci, the temperature on court was well over 100 degrees. So it wasn't that surprising when Pecci collapsed late in the second set suffering from heat exhaustion.

As soon as the match was declared a default, I started down to the court from the press box, wanting ask the doctors attending to Pecci exactly what was wrong with him. To be honest, being the eager young reporter that I was, I also wanted to see Pecci close up: Would he be able to stand on his own; what did his eyes look like; might he say something when he finally stood up? I was also hoping for a word with Vilas, who was famous for fast exits after matches but was, at that moment, standing a few feet away from Pecci.

I made it down to the entrance of the court but was stopped by a guard.

"No media on court during a match," he said.

"There is no match anymore," I explained. "The match is over."

Before the guard could answer, a local TV crew came along and the guard, without a word, stood aside to let them pass.

"Why did you let them on the court?" I asked.

"TV's different," the guard said.

That was the first lesson I learned that long-ago day: Most people think TV is really important, think that being on TV makes YOU important and are awed by people who are on TV on a regular basis.

A moment later though, I learned a far more important lesson.

Angry with the guard, I climbed onto the fence next to the court and shouted back to the press box area, looking for help from the tournament's public relations director, Charlie Brotman.

"Hey Charlie," I yelled, standing on the fence. "Tell the guard down here to let the print media on the court!"

I never heard Brotman's answer. That's because I was shouted down by boos and angry fans yelling things like, "screw the media," and "get off the fence, you [expletive deleted]."

It was the first time in my life that I had a sense of the hostility many people -- perhaps most -- feel toward the media. We are America's whipping boys and girls. As Peppermint Patty from the "Peanuts" comic strip once explained when asked why she hadn't done her homework, "I blame the media!"

She's not alone.

I thought about all that again this past week in reading the reactions to the Mike Gundy incident. If you're a sports fan, you are not only familiar with it by now but have probably seen it at least a half-dozen times. On Sept. 22, Gundy walked into his postgame press conference after his Oklahoma State team had completed a stirring comeback to beat Texas Tech, 49-45, and began berating Jenni Carlson of the Daily Oklahoman for a column she had written that week about quarterback Bobby Reid. In the column, she questioned his toughness and, using anonymous quotes, asserted that he, "didn't have the stomach" to be Oklahoma State's starting quarterback.

The irony was that Gundy was staging a media event to attack the media. Clearly, he had planned ahead. He brought a copy of the newspaper to hold up; he went on for several minutes, claiming that Carlson never would have written what she had written if she were a parent. You can almost picture him replaying the tape when he's in recruits' homes this winter saying, "I will stand behind your son if he plays for me."

I don't know Jenni Carlson and the column in question isn't going to be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. There are times in journalism when you have no choice except to grant sources anonymity: Watergate was one example. When lives are at stake or a source might lose his job for divulging information involving a scandal, it's okay to do it.

To me, it is almost never okay in sports. There isn't anything going on that's so important that you allow people to hide behind anonymity. My general policy is that I NEVER use an anonymous quote as a means to criticize someone. On a rare occasion you might protect someone who provides you with important information. Anonymous quotes expressing an opinion are a cop-out for both the source and the writer.

Carlson had a lot of anonymous quotes and assertions in the column. Okay, someone should have told her to get those people on the record. Gundy may even have had a right to call her out and tell her he thought the column was unfair to his player. I once had a coach spend his entire postgame press conference attacking something I had written. Because all the quotes I had used were on the record, he used the old, "quoted out of context," line until I finally said, "Coach, how is 'we're never going to beat a really good team if we don't throw the ball more often,' out of context?"

At that point he decided to change the subject and talk to me in private. Which I was more than happy to do.

Here's why Gundy was wrong to do what he did: First and foremost, in putting forth his personal agenda, he made certain that his team's dramatic victory would be ignored. The story that day wasn't the Cowboys fighting back to win, it was Gundy going ballistic. This Oklahoma State team, regardless of what it does the rest of the season, will be remembered for Gundy's tirade, not for any success it has on the football field.

Coaches talk all the time about wanting to do what's best for their players, about how much they care about their players. In claiming he was protecting one player, Gundy forgot about the other 80.

Beyond that, the argument that college football players are "amateurs," and thus not subject to criticism is totally bogus. College football players on the division 1-A level may not (note the word "may") receive cash for what they do, but they receive all sorts of perks, beginning with a full scholarship. The school they attend charges people to watch them play; accepts contributions to its athletic fund (actually solicits them) in order to help them win more games; takes television and corporate money willingly and treats them entirely differently than normal students.

A division 1-A college football player, especially one who succeeds, receives benefits during and after college that 99 percent of college students can't even think about. With all of that comes some responsibility for the way you act and for the way you play. Gundy might have made the case that Carlson went over the line in questioning Reid's toughness, but the notion that she had no right to question his play because he is an "amateur" is absurd.

But what is most fascinating about this incident is the way most of the public has reacted: almost no one seems to think Gundy was over the line in any way. Most people think he was right to "defend" his player and humiliate Carlson. I have been asked a number of times in the last week why "you" (the media) always stick up for one another. I don't have the sense that there has been any knee-jerk defense of Carlson. There has been some questioning of Gundy's questionable tactics, but that's about it.

And yet, one thing is clear to me in all this: we're still the bad guys. Which is fine. Those of us who do this for a living receive a lot of perks, just like athletes do. With that comes responsibilities, ones that most of us take seriously. Getting ripped -- whether you are standing on a fence or sitting behind a computer -- is part of the job.

As is often the case, Peppermint Patty speaks for the majority. Most people blame the media. That is one thing that will never change.