Thursday, February 10, 2011

Kevin Kietzman: Evil Genius

Let me start with an admission—I actually like "Between the Lines" on 810 radio in Kansas City. My evening commute puts me in the fortunate position of being able to choose sports talk radio from any of four ABSOLUTELY FREE local channels—580, 610, 810 and 1410 on the AM dial. I don’t have to listen to Kevin Kietzman. I choose to do it, because time-and-time again, his show is the best. It sounds professional, they generally know what they’re talking about and they all have the experience it takes to run a successful sports program. They consistently destroy whatever it is the competition throws up there in the time slot—the variety show of crap 610 runs across the waves has been either sad or comical, depending on how you look at it (although I do like Nick Wright in measured doses from time to time).
 
So I FULLY ADMIT that I have no one to blame but myself for this. Don’t have any pity on me. I choose what goes into my ears, and I live with the consequences.
 
Nine times out of 10, I understand why Kietz says the things he does. He wants to be provocative. He wants to get people riled up a little—it makes for good radio. He has no personal pride when it comes to these things—Kietzman knows that half (or more) of his listeners think he’s a douche. He doesn’t care—they keep tuning him in, which drives his sponsorship opportunities, which makes money for him, the station and his advertisers, and allows Kansas City to have the last QUALITY, FREE entertainment medium in their cars every day. It’s a WIN-WIN for everyone involved.

But when it comes to the pure venom that can occasionally leak out of his brain and onto the radio dial when it comes the University of Kansas, sometimes it’s almost more than even I can bare, and I even "get" the guy. I can’t imagine what the people who don’t usually listen to his show thought when they tuned him in yesterday.
 
Let me set it up—this is Segment Two of Kevin’s weekly conversation with Mitch Holtus. The conversation is on Curtis Kelly. Mitch is playing it cool—he’s not falling for Kevin’s traps that everybody smokes pot and it’s no big deal, and some schools just care about this more than others and blah, blah, blah.
 
You can just FEEL the frustration that Kietz is having with his own alma mater right now. It’s tangible—he’s backed into a corner. And the only way a man as stubborn as Kietzman knows how to get out of a corner is to come out swinging with offense of his own.
 
SO
he turns to countless back-handed "compliments" lobbed at the University of Kansas, all with the intention of making the atrocities going down in Manhattan not seem so bad, by comparison. Let me PARAPHRASE for a second (although these are not far off from exact quotes):
 
Kietz
: What we’re seeing is Frank Martin taking a page out of Bill Self’s book, right? You know, over at Kansas we see this time and time again. Guys breaking all the rules and Self finding a way to keep them eligible and in school, etc., etc.
 
Mitch makes an attempt to settle Kevin down a little at this point. He tells him that he knows that the Kansas program has stringent rules and requirements for the behavior of their athletes, etc. Back to paraphrasing Kevin, here (although the part about the Morris twins might be an EXACT QUOTE. Check the tape at the 5:29 PM mark, if you fell like looking at the archives):
 
Kietz
: Yeah, but they don’t keep their own rules. You got Morningstar with DUIs, Mario Little assaulting women, the Morris twins shooting little old ladies with B.B. guns out their window, and they all still find a way to stay on the team….blah, blah, blah….
 
OK, so Kevin accomplished his goal. He got listeners, like me, thinking about something other than the crap Kelly has pulled and the disgrace it would be if he actually plays basketball again at Kansas State. Kevin is forcing me to mentally correct errors in his facts, and to make the defense that what Self has done in the past does not compare to this particular situation. Game, set, match---Kevin Kietzman. His douche-baggery got the job done, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
 
Let me say this—there have been NO thrice-suspended Jayhawks on Bill Self’s watch that went on to play another game for him (not to mention the trouble that went into Kelly getting booted from UConn, in the first place. He started his time at KSU with two strikes, in my book).
 
There were no "Morris twins" shooting little old ladies with B.B. guns. There was ONE twin (Markieff) who let an errant Air Soft round (plastic, mind you—boys shoot each other with them all the time) hit the mother of another student athlete. Hardly the dual-pronged assault on the AARP that Kevin described.
 
The only time we’ve ever seen significant repeat offenses off the court resulted in two starters (Giles and Giddens) being exiled to lesser programs for their troubles.
 
The saddest part of all is that I know what Kietzman is and what he does, and that he occasionally has the power to piss me off like no one else on the dial.
 
And I’ll tune him in again tonight. Kevin, I wish I knew how to quit you.

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