Davis column goes way beyond sports

Interview transcribed and edited by Danny Bobbe, Web reporter

It’s rare for journalism students to complement their four years of study at the University of Montana with four years of hands-on experience at the student newspaper, the Montana Kaimin. But Danny Davis has done just that. Davis, who will graduate in May, has climbed from volleyball beat reporter to becoming, arguably, the face of the Kaimin. With his iconic portrait appearing next to his popular weekly column, “The 19th Hole,” Davis is the face many people associate with the Kaimin.

Davis has gone beyond writing courtside and locker room stories to observing some of the bigger issues facing our society, particularly those issues involving other black Americans. Web reporter Danny Bobbe sat down with Davis recently to talk about his column.

Danny Bobbe: Four years of grinding it out in the J-School basement, putting out the student newspaper four times a week, is nearly coming to an end. How will you feel when the last issue hits the stands?

Danny Davis: I might be a little bit emotional, but for right now, I’m just ready to get out.

DB: Was there any point during your time at the paper when you thought: “I just can’t go through with this any longer”?

DD: I actually hated working for the paper my first two years here. When I was hired I was the only person from my class, so it was me and a bunch of juniors and seniors who I didn’t relate with. For Kaimin parties, we would go to someone’s house for a little bit then everyone would be like, “Go drop Danny off before we go downtown.” I didn’t have any friends and didn’t like hanging out in the office at all. But once people from my class started getting hired I started relating a lot more with my co-workers.

DB: Let’s talk about some student reactions to your work. Something that caught my attention in your latest column was the suggestion that the UM’s women’s basketball team would defeat the men’s if they ever shared the court together. Do you receive a lot of hate mail?

DD: The response to that has been funny. I didn’t say that they would beat them; I thought that they would give them a game. I’m an RA in the dorms, and the two kids that live next door to me are basketball players, so all last night that was all I heard about. Also coach [Wayne] Tinkle was giving one my reporters some flak when she interviewed him the other day. But I was talking to a player today and he was like, “Did you write this?” I told him “Yes,” and he was like, “Well it’s probably true.”

photo by Danny Bobbe

Kaimin columnist Danny Davis stands by the First Amendment

Yeah, you get lots of hate mail but that lets you know you’re doing a good job. Because if everyone agrees with what you write, there’s no point in being a columnist. The point of being a columnist is to evoke discussion. If you’re writing middle-of-the-road stuff you shouldn’t even be in the business.

DB: I want to touch on an editorial you wrote last semester after comedian Michael Richard’s racist outburst. It started rather boldly, I thought, with one of the most racially discriminatory words in the English language, followed simply by a period. Then you went on to talk about some of the hypocrisy associated with the word and its use. I wonder what this column was like for you to write.

DD: There are certain things you write for the paper. For the most part, what I write for “The 19th Hole” is really for the paper and is designed for a certain audience to read. But that column, I wrote that one for me. I couldn’t care less if no one read it. It was written for me and I didn’t expect a lot of people to understand it, or where I was coming from. Sports affect a large portion of the people on campus because [it is something they care about] but with the debate about the “n-word,” that affects me and the couple hundred other African-Americans on campus. I started off with something like the “n-word” because it makes a point. And there are certain ways you can dance around it and ease into it, but I like to grab people’s attention early and that was the best way I could deal with it.

I think it spurred a lot of discussion. I had a professor drop me an e-mail telling me [his class] had spent an entire period just talking about my editorial. And that’s what you want to hear. You want people to look at it, then look at it again, then turn to the person next to them and start talking about it

DB: I heard you recently on KBGA, our college radio station, talking sports. It seems like a lot of print journalists that cover athletics make the transition to either radio or television broadcast. Do you think you might have a future in it?

DD: I write. I’m a writer. I’m not a radio personality or a pretty face for TV. No offense to the broadcast students — I’m sure they do a good job here, but it’s not what I do or am about. I’m a writer, not a big TV star, though if someone wants to give me a huge check I may reconsider.

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