A young girl recently asked her father: "What's a dinosaur, Daddy?"

There's the standard answer to that question...which the girl's father dutifully provided.

And then there's the other answer I thought of...which of course pertains to sports.

A dinosaur, at least in terms of late 20th-century sports programming and sports journalism, is an individual who doesn't enjoy, and/or perhaps doesn't quite understand, the puffery that pervades the print and electronic coverage of the world's sporting events and sports personalities.

C'mon, if you're reading an Internet-based sports page, you're a consumer of sports-related journalism and programming, and you know what I'm talking about.

For starters, consider the personality-oriented coverage of the Summer Olympics, brought to you by St. Louis resident Bob Costas and NBC...

...the coverage that presented the Olympics as a dramatic mini-series, rather than as a celebration of sports.

...the coverage that, so help me, seemed to drain every last bit of spontaneity out of what should have been the most spontaneous and wondrous of all athletic gatherings, the Summer Olympics.

...the coverage that attempted to shape the way its viewers approached the subject.

...the coverage that tried to make its viewers feel good about what they were watching.

You know...kind of like your average Oprah show.

But I sometimes sense, when viewing Oprah, that her guests' stories don't always add up...that there's more to each vignette than meets the eye.

But wait a minute.

That manner of coverage enabled NBC to garner record ratings (including women) and earn millions in profits.

And Oprah Winfrey is said to be the wealthiest female entertainer in America.

So it looks like I'm behind the curve on this matter.

Far enough behind to be called a dinosaur?

For seconds, consider the coverage of the 1998 All Star game...courtesy of NBC.

The NBC game coverage began with a lengthy under-the-stands shot of the son and wife of Rockies SS Walt Weiss.

You probably recall that the young boy suffered from a near-fatal bacterial infection contracted at a north suburban Atlanta wave pool.

Anyone with even one ounce of heart recognized the essential goodness in the story--a seriously ill youngster recovers sufficiently to watch his father play in the All Star game...

But darn it...I sat down, malted beverage in hand, to watch a baseball game...not to have my heartstrings tugged!

Once again, though, remember that NBC is a unit of the General Electric Company, an outfit that grosses, each year, more than the GNPs of every country in the world, save seven.

So those boys and girls at GE--they're smart.

Looks like this former GE employee (honest!) still doesn't get it.

That's me again, then...a dinosaur, perhaps?

And finally, St. Louisans had a chance to experience this sort of sports coverage in their very own Post-Dispatch.

In an article that appeared on page D9 in the 2.7.98 Sunday P-D (written by Mike Eisenbath; click here for the link), Vanessa Hughes, the mother of ex-Billikens star Larry Hughes, was featured.

The headline? "It's Still a Family Affair."

Eisenbath traveled to Philadelphia, home of the 76ers (Hughes NBA employer) and the entire Hughes family.

Perhaps.

Eisenbath, an accomplished P-D staffer whose feature work has graced the front page of the paper during last year's Mark McGwire HR chase, put together a nice piece that focused mainly on Vanessa and Justin Hughes (Larry's younger brother, and a heart transplant survivor).

It's a feel-good story, and includes a great deal of verbiage that aimed, at least to this reader, to glorify the life and times of Vanessa Hughes, and therefore, of Larry Hughes.

But section D, in last Sunday's paper, was the SPORTS section...and that sort of out-of-the-ashes-self-esteem-beat-the-odds story, oh, I don't know, it just seemed wrong in the same section as the box scores and transactions.

Now I know you've decided I'm extinct.

But the Vanessa Hughes article stuck with me as being particularly one-sided, out of place, touchy-feelie, and generally too good to be true.

Especially because of the following--

In the thirty-sixth paragraph of a forty-two paragraph homage to the Hughes family, Eisenbath quotes Vanessa, who mentions that her son, Larry Hughes, has a four month-old daughter.

There's no mention of the mother of Larry Hughes' daughter...no mention of the woman's place of residence...and no mention of Larry Hughes' marital status.

It's as if this particular piece of the Hughes family puzzle doesn't quite fit the intended image.

It's as if the mother of Larry Hughes' daughter does not exist, at least not in Vanessa Hughes' life.

Just as, apparently, Larry Hughes' father hasn't existed in Larry's life, either.

Golly, even posing these questions makes yours truly feel jurassic.

After all, in the 1990's, when someone is out to make you feel good, even if it strikes you in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable, or worse, is totally against your will, shouldn't you, to paraphrase Bob Knight, just "sit back and enjoy it"?