“Jim Murray-esque” is a column by Sean Campbell that highlights all facets of USC Athletics in the style of former Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray.
After 10 of these columns, I have not yet explained why I made the choice to follow in the footsteps of a man who was dead before I was born.
Jim Murray is hardly a top-of-mind figure at this point — despite being the most acclaimed and (second-)best sports columnist in history. I add that adjective in parentheses because, despite my hubris, I can’t yet say I’m greater than Murray.
As I close out my first collegiate semester, I wanted to cap the column off with an explanation, just in case this is my last one.
In some ways, I am a miracle child — though I don’t think even my loving parents would give me that generous of a descriptor. I was born over a month early and weighed less than five pounds. Whether self-caused, real or a mixture, that fact — which set me back physically for years — gave me the mentality that I was always behind, something I have yet to shake.
Growing up, I played a lot of sports — don’t worry, I promise this will get interesting soon.
As I moved into high school I specialized in baseball, but something always felt like it was missing. I could work as hard as possible on my swing, my submarine slider or my double plays, but it was just never enough. “I’m not an athlete,” I would, and still do, say. Maybe if I had done a better job at flipping my perception of myself — or double plays— I could have stuck with it, but that just wasn’t my fate.
I think by the time I got to ninth grade and weighed less than an average sixth grader. I had realized my fate. And, thanks to time, I have more than accepted it.
This is normally the part of the story where the guy walks out of the dugout and looks to a press box illuminated by the sun and says, “While I might not be athletic enough to play a sport, I can still write about it.” For me, that was never the case.
I had removed myself from the sports world and was content with that. It was pure luck that threw me back into it, albeit begrudgingly.
Out of the blue, I was offered a sports-writing internship at my local paper: The Davis Enterprise. As an aspiring journalist, I only saw the option to accept. Fifty articles later, I had a whole new view of sports.
As much as many say otherwise, sports are the epitome of story. I recently coined a phrase when talking to myself — an infrequent occurrence — that I believe Murray would have agreed with: “The game is what draws us in, but the stories are what keep us around.”
While Murray was as true a sports writer as it comes, he often wrote about things that felt beyond the game itself. It was like he knew something we didn’t. It was all a grand venture for him. Every athlete, from a two-star colt in El Paso to Magic Johnson in Los Angeles, seemed to have a story worth telling. Every city had something to sh*t on.
The essence of a Murray-like approach was present at The Enterprise — I once opened an article on a track star with a Hank Aaron comparison — but it wasn’t realized just yet.
Bruce Gallaudet, my former editor, was my first stylistic mentor. You can credit him for my all-too-frequent use of dashes or gamer nut grafs with standings rather than a lead-all quote, and, of course, an insistence on a personal life section in features.
I suspect Gallaudet took a few things out of Murray’s book (perhaps the same one I read over the summer).
In all honesty, I can’t take credit for finding Murray. My grandparents, Bob and Linda Campbell, gifted me a few of his postpartum tribute books.
Those might’ve been — definitely were — the only books I’ve read in their entirety since elementary school. Those books were chock full of great inspiration, but even better stories.
If not for a chance Slack ping and a crazy idea, that inspiration probably would have stayed abstract. To be honest, I found it hard to see my life without some kind of sports coverage in it despite taking a large news-writing commitment at the Daily Trojan. While I had already been accepted as a volleyball beat writer at Annenberg Media and was content with doing that, the column application lit a spark inside of me.
Now, months later, I have referred to myself as a Jim Murray impersonator more times than I can recall. But is that really what I am?
I will admit, this column has had its moments of blatant attempts to recreate things in a way Murray would have, which have been fine. Though I had to pay tribute to his favorite Jack Nicklaus references, where I think this column has shined most is when it is distinctively not Jim Murray-esque.
Murray didn’t make movie references too often, nor did he mention his high school’s football team or best friend’s golf swing. Yes, this column definitely tries to be funny in the same way Murray did effortlessly, but I have also tried to tell stories in a different perspective: that of someone perceived to be below these figures and events rather than an equal.
That is where I have created my own identity. In real life, I make a lot of pop culture references. I like to think I’m funny and I am very self-deprecating. I am not Murray.
Murray was a celebrity. I am not.
I’d be surprised if any of my interview subjects remembered me. Murray was unmistakable.
As much as I couldn’t have written his ode to Ben Hogan, I don’t think he could’ve come up with the battered corpse of Ben Hogan line I used in my first column.
In a way, I have come out of the shadow of my idol by being actively less-than and, in turn, becoming something new.
If I were to bring this column back — despite initial hesitations — I would keep the name the same. At least to me, the emphasis has been shifted from “Jim Murray” to “esque” and on this platform I have built my own way to tell stories.
I don’t know what the future of my sports writing looks like — too many factors are still at play — so I thought I would end this off with an ode to both Murray and the athletes I have written about this semester in my newly developed style.
When Jack Nicklaus shanks a 1-iron. When Ezra Frech becomes a mortal. When Brad Keller smiles after a loss. When a common man can stop a water polo shot. When Trojans don’t tailgate. When Helena Sampaio botches an assist. When Mia Tuaniga’s serves don’t spin. When Jasmine Koo stops hitting driver off-the-deck. When a team decides a one-goal lead is enough. When Jayden Maiava stops throwing up contested passes. When the “Muss bus” gets a flat tire. This writer won’t have a joke to crack.
“Jim Murray-esque” runs every Thursday.