This man speaks with a relaxed, calming presence. Every couple of minutes, he cracks a joke.
It may come as a surprise, but I am referring to highly opinionated CBSSports.com columnist Gregg Doyel.
He commonly bashes coaches and players with the labels “failure,” “lousy,” and “embarrassing,” but in this instance he refers to himself.
The 40-year-old says that often times he fails to convince his readers that the opposite stance he takes on a subject is right. Most of them despise him, but they continue to avidly read his articles and interact with him.
“I’m thrilled they do, but I can’t explain it,” he responds frankly. “The ones that comment at the end of my stories and rip me do seem to really not like me, but they keep coming back.”
Doyel is notorious for his weekly “Hate Mail” in which fans voice their opinion and he responds with intense and sometimes witty comments.
From: Max
Barry Bonds is probably wiping his ass right now with this article.
If he goes to the pokey after his federal trial for perjury, he'll have lots of people wanting to help with that.
Doyel grins as he says “Hate Mail” is one of his more popular pieces. As a columnist it would be more fulfilling for him to receive credit for his longer, well-developed articles.
“ ‘Hate Mail’ is a little bit embarrassing, because I get the most compliments for ‘Hate Mail’,” Doyel says bashfully.
Contrary to popular belief, Doyel doesn’t speak arrogantly when referring to himself; nor does he have a false sense of his writing ability. He says that he accepts he is not one of the elite writers in the business, while humbly taking pride in that he is one of the better columnists.
“This is the damn truth, to sit here and pretend that I’m not would be an absolute insult to me,” he quickly shoots off. “It would be lying, it’d be false modesty. I don’t need anybody to tell me I’m good. I know how good I am.”
Doyel’s speaks in the same tone readers hear in his writing.
“A combination of conversational and confrontational. I want to write like I talk,” he says with the slightest trace of a southern country accent.
The Mississippi native has a unique style of writing that is rare for today’s industry. “There is no point in telling the audience what they already know, so typically my articles are bound to be disagreeable,” he says.
“That is the safe way to go through life and I don’t want to do that,” Doyel explains. “Most things I write are going to tick off a portion of the people. I look at it is as a prosecutor; I am laying out my case.”
When he is not covering an event, he works from home in the suburbs of Cincinnati, where nearly a hundred media passes can be found dangling on his wall. Buried in the thick of the lanyards are credentials to some of the world’s greatest sporting events including: the Super Bowl, World Series and the Masters. Hanging next to his passes, is a framed 1983 Letter to the Editor of Sports Illustrated from Doyel at the young age of 13. A plaque he insists that his wife nailed up.
Doyel has long been known for never backing down to anyone.
“He is not afraid to speak what’s on his mind and he makes you think,” says Mo Egger, former co-host with Doyel on the radio program 1530 Homer. “And he is not afraid to go after sacred cows in sports.”
He has criticized an unending list of names with the biggest ones being: Rick Pitino, Jim Calhoun and Chad Ocho Cinco.
Egger describes a situation where they interviewed former Reds manager Wayne Krivsky.
At the time Jay Bruce at the time was hitting .400 in the minors but was not starting for the Reds, Egger says. Doyel asked the coach what he was waiting for, for him to hit .600.
“He challenged him in a way that I don’t think most media people in town would, Egger says. “That really woke a lot of people up.”
Confrontation is the name of the game for Doyel. In one instance, he gutted Hall of Fame Coach Jim Calhoun in an article and drove two hours to an Indiana basketball game to meet with him face-to-face alone in the visitor’s locker room. Calhoun then gave Doyel a heated response.
“There is nothing more to that than being able to feel good about yourself,” he says. “It didn’t change the way I feel about him, it just made me feel good that I’m tough.”
Doyel appears tough too. He hides his age with a baldhead haircut, a small distinct goatee beard and a physical stature that is maintained by his hobby acquired four years ago.
They are scattered across his office floor: a pair of fresh sweaty boxing gloves, bag and head brace. Doyel doesn’t let people forget the fact that he is 4-0 as an amateur fighter, by showcasing four of his trophies prominently on display as you enter the room.
In the professional realm of sports journalism, it is critical to remain unbiased and to not fall into the fan categorization. Doyel successfully maintains objectivity
“Gregg is pretty upfront, he doesn’t care who wins and who loses,” Egger notes.
Another method behind the madness for the way Doyel writes is that a softer style will draw a smaller audience.
“People like to read anger, they don’t like to read happiness,” Doyel notes. “They’d rather read someone telling me I should die in a fiery crash and me [saying] okay, but you go first.”
Egger says that he learned a whole new way of thinking about sports and gained a different prospective from Doyel.
“Greg always asks what more there is to it than meets the eye. He taught me without trying how to.”
Located across from Doyel above his laptop are four pictures of Salvador Dali paintings. In one of them, emerging from a cracked, dark globe overcast by shadow is a man whose blood has seeped onto the lifeless terrain. This unique and unsettling form of art personifies how Doyel tries to write and serves as a memoir.
Doyel says the sporting event he loves covering most is the Ultimate Fighting Championship. It is the one competition every year that he tells his boss he would prefer to write about.
“He was the first person on the air to really talk about (Mixed Martial Arts),” Egger reminisces. “He was really on the radio at the forefront of that right when it was taking off.”
Doyel’s personality is different in a lot of ways from the way he is perceived on paper. He has an uncanny sense of humor.
“He is a funny guy, hanging around him, he makes you laugh,” Egger explains. “He works really hard. I really respect how far he’s gotten.”
Doyel is well aware of how he is perceived by his readers and it fuels his apathy towards them. It doesn’t stop him for sustaining his aggressive, authentic stroke.
“It doesn’t bother me that readers generally think I’m a jerk,” he explains, “because I know I’m really not, but for some reason Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde comes out when I write.”
His intense voice was a spontaneous development that occurred overnight when he was asked to write columns for CBS Sports.
“It came out of nowhere,” he exclaims. “I had no idea what my voice was going to be. I thought I was going to be conversational but in an amusing way.”
Doyel says his goal was never to become a controversial writer but that it is his natural way of expressing himself.
“I didn’t try to become this and I don’t try to do it this,” he sincerely says. “It just came out.”
He uses hand gestures to emphasize certain points and fluid, convincing eye contact to support his statements.
One of Doyel’s dislikes is Sports Illustrated, and he has said that he would not work for them. This statement spans from a number of reasons.
“I’m not sure I can write for them from a pure talent standpoint,” he notes.
But he is referencing the SI that he wanted to contribute to when he was younger.
The quality of SI has also dropped over the years according to Doyel. Part of this presumption is attributed to the lay offs that the journalism realm is trying to withstand.
“What I dislike about Sports Illustrated is it used to be the best magazine in the world,” he explains. “It used to have 15 of the best writers in the country. I could write for Sports Illustrated now. I don’t want to read a magazine that I am good enough to write for. I want to read a magazine like the SI was when I was growing up.”
As a columnist Doyel also writes with a distinctly different swing than a magazine publication. He states his opinion, and his voice is always constant. In SI, there is a more narrative and descriptive approach.
“They tell you stories, where as I want to tell you what I think about stories,” he explains. “It’s a very egotistical way to write and self-centered, but I am good at it. I’ve got this natural voice that wants to be very antagonistic.”
Another obstacle SI and all sporting magazines face is timeliness. In an online age, a lot of people want their news and they want it right after it concludes. This is part of the reason why Doyel contributes to a website.
“They’re a weekly magazine, so Rick Rielly can tell me who won the Masters eight days ago. I already know that,” he points out.
Doyel says he would prefer reading about the event the same day it happens even if the quality isn’t as good.
ESPN The magazine has become the juggernaut that SI was in the late 20th century according to Doyel.
“ESPN has a staff of 60 while SI only has 15,” he notes.
Doyel attempts to distance himself from the similarities between him and Jay Mariotti. He talks with anger and a touch of hatred when mentioning his name.
“It’s an easy comparison because Jay Mariotti is a flamethrower and is always mad at somebody,” he explains. “I typically am a flamethrower too. It is also wrong because he is very gutless. From a long way away he throws his flames, where as I will go right up to them and tell them.”
He speaks openly and friendly, but sometimes a touch of passion and intensity will come out.
Doyel is prideful about the way he does business. He can handle criticism, but if you question the way he does his job, that’s when you bring out the inner beast.
“The difference between me and Mariotti is this, he plays a tough guy on TV,” he clearly states. “I am a tough guy. To be compared to him pisses me off.”
Doyel has rarely been spotted in public by a fan or critic.
“One time at a stupid gaming convention,” he remarks. “It took a dork at a gaming convention to recognize me.”
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