It was literally part of the curriculum at the j-school.

Posted on: March 24, 2017 at 08:07:38 CT

Remember that many students come to the MU jschool from out of state, many far from out of state. Then remember that most guys who want to write about sports were far more likely to be the kid picked last at the playground than to be a kid with athletic abilities. Then remember that since the '60s journalism schools have a taught a kind of advocacy journalism, a New Media, that encourages the idea in young journalists that they are the last man standing between the tyranny of the powerful and the righteous little guy.

At MU and any University, the AD is the Powerful. So kids with no ties to MU, with a chip on their shoulder about jocks to begin with, are taught to distrust the powerful and the easiest target at MU is the AD.

But in the real world they learn that the advertising department doesn't like it when they take on the local sacred cow. So attacking the MU AD remains their last pleasure, an homage to their idealistic days of youth. And no one is going to get mad at them for attacking an AD in the middle of nowhere especially when in St. Louis and KC there are other centers of Power that like it when MU is attacked.

Thus you get Vahe Gregorian, a bulldog with a taste for MU flesh while at the PD, turn into a lapdog licking the hand of kU when he moves to the Star.

And every other grad who leaves Columbia maintains their hardon for the Tigers as a way to scratch that original itch.