In today’s soundbite and meme-laced world, it’s easy to empathize with someone whose ten seconds of fame came because of a misunderstanding. It’s easy to feel bad for a reporter whose name, when it was brought up, was invariably used as an example of asking a stupid question. Inspired by his death a few days ago, the true story of sports reporter Butch John is starting to come out. I saw this story reblogged by Barry Petchesky on Deadspin.com but its source is reporter Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinal.
The myth of Butch John is so unbelievable that it’s hard to comprehend it having lasted as gospel truth since 1988. In that year, the Washington Redskins faced the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl. Washington’s quarterback was a man named Doug Williams. Williams was the first black man to quarterback his team to the Super Bowl and in the weeks leading up to the big game, that fact became the subject of many stories, television segments, and interviews. During the fateful press conference, Williams was getting a lot of questions about the topic, and he answered them dutifully until Butch John supposedly asked this hum-dinger, “How long have you been a black quarterback?” Now, this is a silly question. As we all learned from Mean Girls, you can’t ask someone why they are (or how long they’ve been) their race.
Of course, this isn’t what John asked. What he actually asked, according to Mike Bianchi, was this, “Doug, it’s obvious you’ve been a black quarterback all your life. When did it start to matter?”
I’m sure that if Williams had heard the question correctly and responded truthfully, he would have said, “it has always mattered and it always will.” I’m sure if we could ask him, Butch John would deny it mattering whether people think he asked a dumb question once upon a time. But I think it matters and so do his former colleagues like Rick Cleveland who writes in an obituary for John:
He wrote well and he wrote often. He was a fine writer and he worked hard. He was versatile in that he handled news, features and columns with equal proficiency.
Better late than never, I suppose, but it’s another lesson to think twice about the stories we read and hear. Things are not always what they seem.