Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

When you have an artist in your home

The way our kitchen was designed, there’s a countertop to the left of the stove. It is a fine food-prep area which is surrounded by a little wall, about a foot higher than the countertop, which acts as a backsplash of sorts. The top of that is also designed as a countertop, and it occasionally holds a cup, or random junk I’ve put on it, or a cat. Beneath these countertops are seven drawers. Three of the large sizes (the random utensils drawer, tupperware and a place to store extra paper towels and ephemera which we’ll wonder about in 2029) and four of the smaller sized drawers, which hold things like Ziploc bags and kitchen towels and so on. This counter top does not end in a wall. Rather, it just sits there, across from the refrigerator. This is the main walk through of the kitchen. And on the exterior wall of those cabinets, facing the fridge, is a chalkboard.

It’s great for positive affirmations, silly messages, a creative place when someone brings a child over and, of course, our very own art.

My lovely bride made that. I suggested, after counting the reindeer, Rudolph’s nose. She went subtle there. I would have played it far too big.

Taking a cue from that, I filled in one tiny little spot later, just to complete the illusion, but also to say that it was a joint masterpiece.

But, really, there’s only one chalk expert in this house.

Grading the livelong day. I finished, last night, the work for my social media strategies class. I wrote them a nice note yesterday, as well. Nice, for them, meaning shorter than usual. I started in last night on grading the final in my Criticism in Sport Media class. A few last night, quite a few more today. I’ll finish tonight or tomorrow.

The exam involved them watching a particular episode of a sports show and answering a bunch of questions about it. Everyone is doing well so far. I am resisting the temptation to think I need to make it more difficult just because. (I could, but I never said stumping people was an objective for that class.) I do know how I’ll do about a quarter of it differently next term. It came to me in a flash today.

So, really, the last two weeks of that class have been hugely productive in figuring out what I need to evolve out of that course.

Also, earlier this week for that class, I compiled a list of accidental answers I received on their last reflection paper. I say accidental because we’d talked, ever so briefly, about how people who aren’t taking a class like this could benefit. How do you help them? So I posed a little question about that and got these sorts of answers. After I read the first few, I went back and started collecting them. If I had to code and characterize it, I would say students are really craving this. Those answers, across the whole of the class, ran five pages. I look at that document of gathered answers and think: we might be on to something here.

In my criticism in sport media course, I asked students to write about the class' value, what they would tell others about classes like this, and media criticism and news literacy.

I collected FIVE PAGES of excerpts. Students are very much interested in this. A sample …

#medialit #medialiteracy

— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.bsky.social) December 12, 2025 at 3:06 PM

"(I)t makes you a stronger, smarter media consumer. It helps you understand the stories you love and it gives you skills that make your own writing clearer and more thoughtful. This course doesn’t just teach you about the media, it also teaches you how to think.”

— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.bsky.social) December 12, 2025 at 3:06 PM

"(I)t honestly makes you smarter about the media you consume every single day…It gives you skills that go beyond sports like critical thinking, analysis, and awareness, which are all useful no matter what field you’re in. It’s one of those classes that actually changes the way you see the world.”

— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.bsky.social) December 12, 2025 at 3:06 PM

"I discovered that media should not be viewed as neutral, but rather as a developed creation. This change made it easier for me to understand that media critique is a way of thinking that allows us to deal with an informative environment much more thoughtfully and responsibly."

— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.bsky.social) December 12, 2025 at 3:06 PM

"I would recommend this class as one of the more important courses I have taken. While this course is centered around sports media, the content discussed in this course is relevant to anyone who consumes any form of media … This has been one of the most practical courses I have taken."

— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.bsky.social) December 12, 2025 at 3:06 PM

"My appreciation for the craft and practice of media criticism has definitely evolved over the course. Learning different ways to break down readings and to think more critically while reading media has evolved my learning and understanding of media criticism."

— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.bsky.social) December 12, 2025 at 3:06 PM

"You should take a class like this because it doesn’t just change the way you look at sports media, it changes the way you look at society … Sports may be fun, but they also reflect big issues—power, race, gender, politics—and this class makes you recognize how important that really is."

— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.bsky.social) December 12, 2025 at 3:06 PM

This, and the improvements I have planned for next term, make me excited to get back to this class again. Now, to convince people it should be a regular and permanent offering …

photo / Thursday — No comments
11
Dec 25

That’s no space station

All of my online class feedback has been sent out to the various hard-working student groups. They’re making mock up plans for the social media accounts of local non-profit organizations. Some of the groups are in terrific shape. One or two have a little way to come, but there are still a few days, left, and there’s always the last minute miracle.

What I was looking at today and yesterday was the print version of their plans. The good ones are about 15-17 pages. One or two went a bit longer. A few were just under. I try to give some substantial feedback, best I can, given that I don’t know the operations they’re working on nearly as well as they do. Also, there’s some formulaic strategy in preparing such campaigns, but there’s also some art and subjectivity, too. Sometimes, the advice I can offer is about what you’ve missed. Or what you might miss if you aren’t prepared for it. Sometimes it feels like the Rumsefeld matrix, the unk-unks of the military industrial complext, the stuff you’d talk about in project management and strategic planning.

So I prattle on, hoping something in there can be useful to the groups that are diligent enough to read a few hundred words.

You’d be surprised.

I say that, because I am surprised, all the time.

Today the finals for my media criticism class were all turned in. Now I’ll be grading them. Tonight and tomorrow. On Monday, those social media finals will appear. On Tuesday, the finals from the org comm class will be waiting for my attention.

At some point, I have to work on next semester’s classes, too.

Anyway, this is the starscape from the back step just now. That’s Jupiter, right in the center of the photo.

That planet is some 402.7 million miles from us right now. That light took 36 minutes to get here. You could put 1,000 earths inside a hollow version of the gas giant.

I could tell you these stats all night long, but I’d still have work to do when I was done.

photo / Rowan / Wednesday — No comments
10
Dec 25

The ghosts of professors past

I had a mid-day meeting with students about a project in my online class. They were delightful and are prepared. They were also kind enough to indulge what, I am sure, sounded like an end-of-the-year ramble or two on my part.

This mysteriously appeared overnight from the office.

That wasn’t there last Thursday. Or last Friday. Or Monday. Or yesterday. I know because I was there each of those days, and I considered that very wall. It is conspicuous in its usual blankness. But, now, that sign.

Local lore has it that the campus spirits put it up, each term, just before commencement. The legyou listen carend is that the ghosts of old professors always walk with the graduates. If you listen carefully, you can hear their rustling, dusty robes.

Between the student group meeting and the next meeting I started spreading that story that I just made up. Maybe it’ll gain some traction. Especially if no one ever sees that sign come and go.

There was also a faculty meeting today. These are the things we know. These are the things we don’t know. Here is a brief recounting of some other meetings. And here are the next meetings you are encouraged to attend, including one next week!

Anyway, back to grading. The students in my online class, Social Media Strategies, are preparing for their final submission for the term. It is a visual presentation of a social media plan they’ve been working on all semester. Each group has a local non-profit they’ve been observing, and our assignments have grown through there. Now, a little extra feedback on their penultimate assignment may help them prepare that presentation.

But only if i can get that feedback to them.

The semester’s first final, meanwhile, will be turned in tomorrow.

photo / Rowan / Tuesday — No comments
09
Dec 25

The semester’s last lecture

The last day of classes. We talked about the future of streaming media in the criticism class. We did an image repair exercise in the org comm class.

I’ve got this speech I give. At the beginning of the term I say that being at the front of the room gives me the opportunity to, from time-to-time, go off track from the class. I have this down to three speeches, two at the beginning of the semester and one at the end of the term. And today I remind them of the first two speeches. The first speech is about my hope to be a small part of them discovering the true value of education: the joy of learning. The second speech — particularly selfish, but they are my captive audience and this is my gimmick — is about being mindful of cyclists and other vulnerable road users when they drive.

Both groups nodded along that they remembered both speeches, which I gave on separate days in September. And then I launch into the third and final speech. I talk about the open mind you need in class. Next door to an open mind, I say, is an open heart. And around the corner is compassion.

I say to them, there is a time in life when the only thing of value you can give another person is your compassion. And there may be a time in your life — and I hope it is many, many, many years from now — when the only thing of value another person can give you is compassion. If you look at the world around us, I say, you can see that the world needs more compassion. It’s always been that way, and may always be that way. And so I ask them to nurture that compassion within them, so that when they are called upon to do so, they are ready to give it freely. That, I say, is why I end each class the same way. “Thank you for your time. I’ll see you next time. I hope to see you next semester in class or around campus. Until then, be safe, and be kind.”

And, then, for some reason, the students all clap at me, and most of them make a point of thanking me.

I don’t need those things, but I’m gratified to know that something here has meant enough for them to do so.

Some of our colleagues have decorated their doors for a holiday party tomorrow. This is my favorite one.

And here’s the sunset from the sixth floor. A sunset at 4:44 p.m.

And now it is finals time. My last final went online today. It is also meeting time. I have a faculty meeting tomorrow. I have a bunch of stuff to grade, too. Guess what I’ll be doing for the next week?!?

memories / Monday / photo — No comments
08
Dec 25

It was July of 2002, maybe August

I was taking the garbage out last night, because that’s one of the things I do on Sunday evening. My mind wandered back, because that’s one of the things that it does on most any day, to a conversation I had in the summer of 2002.

I was talking with my news director about this and that and he said to me, “You have to look after yourself, because no one else will do it as much or as well.”

It was one of those things that made sense at the time, and felt more right the more I thought about it. This was what it was to be accidentally deep. Two weeks later, I walked back to his office and offered him my resignation. Not because he was right, but because I was already on my way out the door. And, also, he was right, of course. Since I think far too much about work, I’ve always thought of that as professional advice. Maybe that’s the way that he meant it.

But there I was, standing in the drive, in the dark, and just as I walked under the motion sensor and the flood lights clicked on I thought, What if he was talking about everything in your life? The fun stuff too? The rewarding stuff? The valuable stuff? What are the things we’re all looking to fill our days with to have a day well spent? What is that thing?

It’s a part of a long-running puzzle. Some passive part of my brain has been working on that for, I don’t know, seven, eight years. And I did not figure it out tonight, standing there in the driveway. It’s too cold for all of that.

But, yes of course a conversation from almost a quarter of a century ago came to mind. You don’t do that? I remember precisely where I was standing when it happened. Right where this dot is.

Every now and then, over my many years working with students and young journalists, I’ve found a way to work that same advice into conversation. Most of them are well equipped to realize that already, but it is worth repeating. That guy, my former news director, is working in Nashville now. He’s been there … for more than a decade, which is a substantial amount of time in one spot in his line of work. He seems very happy there, but he’s one of those relentlessly happy sorts.

What do those guys know, anyway? Aside from occasionally stumbling into good greeting card caliber advice, I mean.

Let’s have a look at the kitties, who are insisting that I get back on the schedule. They make a good point. They’re the most popular feature on the site, and Monday is traditionally theirs. Why mess with what works?

So here’s Phoebe, getting in the holiday spirit.

And here she is, getting all cuddly and cozy under a blanket. What a cute little face.

Poseidon, meanwhile, is ready for his closeup.

But, also, his pink nose is cold.

When they sleep like that it just kills me.

Maybe I should ask them about living right. They know how to spend a day.