A visit from Mr. Thompson...

Getting the opportunity to meet Wright Thompson and hear him speak was definitely one of the highlights of my stay here at UMass and one of the more interesting experiences I have ever had in an academic setting. I must say that I learned a great deal in the short amount of time he spent with our class and I can honestly say that I won’t forget it anytime soon.

Before he came to speak to our class, I had heard of him in passing but I had never seen him on television or laid eyes on a photograph of the man. When I finally did lay eyes on him, I was initially taken aback by his appearance.

He didn’t look like your typical journalist.

While I am not certain of how a journalist is supposed to look, but the vast majority of those I’ve come across have been clean really clean-cut and “professional” looking. Thompson was anything but that.

He had what could be described as fairly long hair and he looked as if he hadn’t shaved in several weeks. He had a very rugged and somewhat mysterious appearance unlike anything I’d ever before in a journalist.

He came across as somewhat of a rebel and I was pretty intrigued by that.

What fascinated me the most about him was how informal his lecture was. He spoke very naturally and loosely as if we were all in a bar having a drink and not in a classroom somewhere. I found him to be engaging, hilarious, genuine, down to earth, charismatic, reflective, and certainly irreverent.

I was also fascinated by his ability to be brutally honest and candid about his past experiences, such as the time he spent in Miami trying desperately to track down an obscure boxer in his “Shadowboxing” story or the time spent interviewing and just hanging out with Michael Jordan.

Ultimately I was very amazed at how well he was able to connect with people, and ultimately humanize them. To me, that is the real beauty of Mr. Thompson’s work and it is very evident in “Michael Jordan Has Not Left the Building,” his most recent article for ESPN. It was also cool to see the manner in which he went about composing the story. I had never realized how important of a step outlining was until he spoke to our class.

The very next day, I woke up rather early and tuned into ESPN and lo and behold I saw Mr. Thompson discussing the content’s of his Michael Jordan piece on Sportscenter. It was quite surreal to see him on national television in the exact same clothes he wore when he spoke to our class. This might come across as childish, but it felt as if our class had been let in on some sort of secret or that we had been apart of a special moment in time. As I watched the segment, I couldn’t help but feel as if I was apart of that moment. It was a pretty special feeling. I just remembered being grateful that I had the opportunity to meet the man and hear him speak and ultimately learn some very important lessons in the process.