We really don't have to do this

Up until Wednesday of last week I was blissfully unaware of the social-media invention that is Baby Gronk.

Oh, those were the days.

Then I noticed a series of references about Baby Gronk “rizzing up”1 Livvy Dunne, a collegiate gymnast from LSU who has made a great deal of money from sponsorships owing in large part to her wildly popular TikTok account. I discovered — through this helpful explainer — that Baby Gronk was neither a baby nor actually a Gronk, but a 10-year-old who was purported to be very good at football and also had a social media account featuring recruiting-style promo pictures in which he was clad in the attire of various college programs.

Being someone who sincerely wants to be an upstanding member of society, I vowed to have no opinion on this. He’s 10, and if he and/or his family found this to be an enjoyable activity, go with the Lord, young man. May you “rizz up” many a charming lass for photo opportunities in the course of your travels.

That desire for neutrality was interrupted on Friday afternoon:

Now even before I clicked on this story from The Athletic, I had a fairly strong idea that I wasn’t going to like what I read.

Either this was going to be something that talked glowingly about the talents of this football player, in which case I was going to be aghast because he was 10, or it was going to be a story that examined how ludicrous it was to forecast football ability at that age, in which case I would also be aghast because the kid is 10.

To be fair, the story was not either one of those things. It was a Q&A with the father, which was a conscious decision by the reporter and his editors, and instead of trying to characterize their motivations, I’m going to refer to a Tweet the reporter posted last week in response to someone who believed the story should not have been published:

I can understand the justification; I just disagree with it. Ultimately that comes down to the fact that we’re talking about a 10-year-old who’s not legally responsible for his own actions let alone those of the adults involved in this. Namely, his father — who is generating a huge amount of attention (and potentially some money) using his son — and a reporter whose story gained a great deal of attention.2

I recognize that there is a valid premise to this story. It is a case study in how it’s possible to grab attention using social media, and it demonstrates all of the different entities that become attracted to that attention from sponsors to marketers to potentially even college programs. There’s also the much deeper question of how grabbing all of this attention affects the person that it’s heaped upon.

The value of the story, however, is eclipsed by the reality that the person at the center of this attention is 10 years old. He’s not responsible for the decisions that are being made about the way he’s marketed. He’s not driving to these schools or arranging for these photo shoots or agreeing to a Q&A that will be published by The Athletic and promoted by the New York Times.

It’s more than just the potential harm, though. The story presents the kid as a viable football prospect. Now, it’s his Dad that is making those statements regarding his skill level and his training and his diet. But still, those assertions are being made, and the next logical question to wonder just how realistic this is unless you’re like me, in which case you know how utterly unrealistic it is. At the age of 10, you can’t forecast how good a player will be in high-school football let alone at college.

And here, I’ll turn to Jim Nagy. Now, I met Jim when he was part of the Seahawks’ scouting department. For the past five years or so he’s worked with the Senior Bowl, which is crucial event for the evaluation of draft prospects. He Tweeted something about the story on Friday that I thought was especially insightful regarding how little experience matters when it comes to evaluating football prospects. As an example, he pointed to Ziggy Ansah, who had never picked up a football until 2010. At the start of the 2012 season, Ansah was playing primarily special teams for BYU, and when Nagy — then working for the Chiefs — inquired about any draft prospects at the school. He was told there were none. Over the final eight games of the season, Ansah compiled 4.5 sacks, earned an invite to the Senior Bowl and wound up being picked No. 5 overall. Nagy’s moral to the story?

But again, we’re talking about a 10-year-old, and it just seems unnecessary and ridiculous to offer a reality check on on his ambitions especially when he’s not the one who’s responsible for pursuing the attention that put him on the radar to begin with.

It’s not that there’s no reason to do this story. There are several valid justifications from looking at the way social-media can impact youth sports to the even bigger questions about development in youth athletics. However, I don’t think any of those reasons are good enough to offset the fact that at the end of the day we’re talking about a 10-year-old, and you can just choose to not do the story because 10-year-olds really shouldn’t be getting anything other than orange wedges and encouragement for playing sports.

Godspeed Baby Gronk. You have my best wishes. The adults in this story, however, should take a good long look at themselves.