ESPN's lack of Sammy Wanjiru coverage

I agree I went to ESPN yesterday multiple times to see what they were reporting and nothing anywhere on the front page for an olympic champion dying. While at the same time they will waste countless articles on this drug cheat and that. It is a shame but shows how little respect running truly has.

I will say USAToday had a good article on their front page.

It's not just ESPN. I tend to go to CBS Sportsline for my sports news (I hate ESPN), and even that site had nothing on any of its pages about his death. Nor did SI.com either. I know marathoning is a fringe sport, but it's a pretty popular activity among Americans AND, it's a pretty bizarre story. So, I'm surprised there has been almost no coverage.

Certainly seems as if ESPN would have something on this. Someone there pays attention to Bolt, so they must get track news from some source.

No one cares about running.

1. The general public doesn't care about running. Let's all take a minute and come to terms with that.

2. Both Harmon Killebrew and Wanjiru were great athletes, but ESPN is commenting on more than his athletic prowess. Killebrew was a great ambassador for his sport. Wanjiru was a great ambassador for domestic violence and illegal firearms. Also Killebrew died of cancer, Wanjiru died by hurling himself off of a 20 foot balcony in a drunken rage.

The following quoted from ESPN's coverage on the respective deaths.

On Harmon -

Killebrew's nickname was "Killer," but that was simply a play off his last name and as much of a misnomer as calling a bald guy "Curly.'' He was one of the nicest, gentlest men you could ever meet in baseball.

"There are so many Harmon Killebrew stories that are all positive. There was not a negative with Harmon. There can't be. Can't be,'' Bert Blyleven, his former teammate, said. "That's what I'll miss most about Harmon. Not his playing but his personality and the way he treated people.''

Former Twins media relations director Tom Mee said Killebrew treated everyone "as if they were his next-door neighbors.'' Blyleven agreed: "If you came over for milk, he would give you milk. He would give you coffee. Whatever you need. Harmon was that type of guy.''

"He didn't differentiate how he treated other people based on their status or social standing,'' Molitor said. "Whether you were an 18-year-old minor leaguer or a clubhouse worker, you got the same Harmon. And that was a pretty good Harmon to get.''

On Sammy -

"Wanjiru came home with another woman friend at around 11:30 p.m. and then when his wife came home and found them she inquired who the lady was," area police chief Jasper Ombati said. "They got into an argument. His wife locked them in the bedroom and ran off.

"He then jumped from the bedroom balcony. He is not here to tell us what he thinking when he jumped. We do not suspect foul play. In our estimation we think he wanted to stop his wife from leaving the compound."

Surprisingly enough, FoxNews had a article linked on the front page of their website. I saw several articles on Google News also. I'm not sure what other media in the US covered the story.

If you followed the message boards on this site yesterday you would have noticed that a suprising number of posts had nothing to do with Wanjiru (or even running for that matter). With that kind of response on a running message board, do you really expect ESPN to treat this as a major story?

AG14 wrote:

Killebrew died of cancer, Wanjiru died by hurling himself off of a 20 foot balcony in a drunken rage.

You targeted the reason I thought this would actually make the news. The way this went down was so "juicy", it seemed to be right up the alley of what tends to catch America's attention these days.

I came to terms with running not being a popular sport a long time ago. But it's pretty rare for a reigning gold medalist to die at age 24 under these particular circumstances.

I agree, in that sense it certainly should be news worthy. I was more responding to the OP's insinuation that Wanjiru's death should be of more note than Killebrew's on a sports website because he was greater in his sport. Not to diminish what Sammy did as a runner, but regardless of running being a fringe sport I think the life of Harmon Killebrew is more worthy of celebration for who he was off the field (or track and roads in the case of our sport).

Just my opinion, but could have something to do with ESPN's selective coverage.

Did ESPN mention the hockey player who recently died? I don't recall mention of that situation. ESPN does not cover NHL so therefore it never happened.

The main reason: wrote:

No one cares about running.

Pretty much correct. It might not have been on the front page, but I bet it was on their Olympic pages.

what are you talking about? there were a lot of threads and a fair number of posts in these threads. Does every thread on the site need to be about Wanjiru in order for it to be an "important" enough story for a major news source to cover it?

Senor Fulano wrote:

If you followed the message boards on this site yesterday you would have noticed that a suprising number of posts had nothing to do with Wanjiru (or even running for that matter). With that kind of response on a running message board, do you really expect ESPN to treat this as a major story?

I was shocked that is made my local paper this morning... Considering that the local paper normally includes photos of 17-minute 5K runners signing to go to the local college and photos of people holding up the turkey they shot, combined with photos of random people in local road races without results, I was stunned that Sammy rated enough around here to make the news...

AG14 wrote:

2. Both Harmon Killebrew and Wanjiru were great athletes, but ESPN is commenting on more than his athletic prowess. Killebrew was a great ambassador for his sport. Wanjiru was a great ambassador for domestic violence and illegal firearms. Also Killebrew died of cancer, Wanjiru died by hurling himself off of a 20 foot balcony in a drunken rage.

Plu-leeze.

sorry but this doesn't fly given the amount of coverage ESPN give to drunk, wife-beaters, crimminals who happen to play football, baseball or basketball. And maybe 1/2 the time they MIGHT make a judgement that what they are doing is bad. Unless they are making great plays.

You're defense of ESPN is laughable.

I read a fair number of overseas news websites and most of them mentioned the tragedy.

Dr.S wrote:

I was shocked that is made my local paper this morning... Considering that the local paper normally includes photos of 17-minute 5K runners signing to go to the local college and photos of people holding up the turkey they shot, combined with photos of random people in local road races without results, I was stunned that Sammy rated enough around here to make the news...

Local newspapers focusing on locals--what a shocking concept.

Harmon Killebrew's likeness is THE LOGO for major league baseball. America's pastime.

What is ESPN?

I've never heard of them.

People who watch ESPN would say "why the f--- is this on espn who gives a sh--" if they put it on their site.

Brian Wave wrote:

Did ESPN mention the hockey player who recently died? I don't recall mention of that situation. ESPN does not cover NHL so therefore it never happened.

This is the correct response. When espn showed hockey games, they had nightly shows about it, advertised it all the time and always had 4-5 "less than avg" shots in the top 10.

When they lost the games, you would never know it is still being played. They have done this to numerous sports over the years.

I don't know why anyone would care if something was on the Endless Sports Propagandist Network anyway. I haven't watched except for actual games in 3 or 4 years. The games are almost unwatchable too if you have the sound up and have to listen to most of the announcers bash every player and team they can in the course of the game.