As a long time hater of Gordon Monson, it pains me anytime I see people hate him incorrectly. Some in this thread seem to get it but some don't. It is important to understand the subtleties of Monson hatred---what he is and what he is not---so that he may be hated properly. He's like a fine, stinky cheese. I therefore offer these few tips as what I hope will be a handy reference.

1) He is not anti-BYU or anti-Utah
Monson is equally loathed by BYU fans and Utah fans alike, and the unfamiliar on each side tend to claim he is a homer for the other. He is not. You must give him that. The stuff he does that you hate, he does to both sides. His writing IS driven by a key bias (see #3) but it is not based on a BYU bias or a Utah bias. (Note, there may be one slight exception to this rule---see Appendix A below for more details.)

2) His job is to make you click
In the age of internet journalism its all about the clicks. The more times you click, the more ads you see. Monson, by all accounts, gets more clicks than anyone at the Trib. Certainly anyone on the sports page. Monson was already a blowhard before the internet, but the internet has had a peculiar way of crystalizing and intensifying his blowhardedness. He understands you hate him (though not why---see #5 and #6), and he loves that you hate him, because he knows it makes you click. And click. And click.

3) He loveth himself
This is the only bias that really matters in any discussion of Gordon Monson. Monson is truly and deeply in love with Gordon Monson. It's a love that knows no encumbrances, running the full gamut of the Four Loves---Storge, Philia, Eros, Agape---from romantic to unconditional. Monson loves the little things about Monson; he loves the big things about Monson. He loves the sweet melifluous sound of Monson's voice and the razor-sharp wit of Monson's prose. In short, he approves unceasingly of the dulcet, heavenly smell of his own gaseous emissions, be they in print, on radio, or anywhere else.

4) He's a horrible writer
Monson is a hack. He makes lame analogies. He says "dude" too much. You get dumber every time you read one of his metaphors. He does this little parallelism thing where he says the same thing four different ways and thinks it's poetry, except that it was stupid the first time. His writing is a kind of caricature of sports journalism, wherein he often seems to believe that his readers are this audience of beer-swilling neanderthals with fat, hairy guts poking out of their undersized fan t-shirts, and that he, though he is an intellectual, must speak their "language" in order to educate them. The irony is that he believes he is an amazing writer (see #3) and his skill at getting clicks (see #2) allows him to remain secure in that belief.

5) He thinks he's a contrarian
This is almost as fundamental to understanding Monson as #3. Almost. Well, okay, scratch that. It's not even close to #3, but it IS in second place. You see, Monson believes that he is a sort of "truth-teller," if you will. He thinks that his special gift lies in his ability to run contrary to popular opinion, to say the thing that needs to be said when nobody else has the guts to say it.

6) He's not a contrarian
The irony is that he is not a contrarian. On the contrary, no one is better at gauging the public mood and jumping on the bandwagon than Monson. His special skill is his ability to wait for a moment when a particular coach or player is especially vulnerable, and then jump in and kick that coach or player right in the crotch with a hit piece he'd have never had the guts to write when they were going strong, but writing it as if he alone saw the problem all along. The reason people hate Monson is not because he's contrarian, but because of the particular way that he is not a contrarian. This recent Anae piece is a nice example. He has a way of taking a bunch of information that everyone already knows and then repackaging it with just the right amount of self-importance and over-simplification so that it annoys you, even if you basically agree with what he's saying.

7) He's effective
Admit it, you read his stuff. We all do. I'll admit it. Those who say they ignore him are lying. The fine art of Monson hatred is the duality of understanding what an unbearable windbag he truly is, while being unable to stop reading his work. He is, as was said of Kramer, "a loathsome, offensive brute, yet I cannot look away."

Appendix A: Exceptions to the Rule vis a vis Monson's Bias
It can be argued that, while he is not biased against BYU, he IS biased against any outward expression of religion in sports, for which he has an utterly irrational contempt. This grows from his apparent belief that God is only capable of loving one person at a time, so if one person believes God helped him, it must mean that person also believes God undermined the other guy, where "God loves me" is a secret code for "God hates you." He seems to think religion and sport should be as separate as religion and state. Any outward expression of faith by a coach or player can be counted on to earn a swift rebuke from Monson, which will be as predictable as it is idiotic.

That is all. I hope this guide may serve as a handy reference to anyone new to the Utah sports media market, or to Monson hatred in general. Part of hating Monson, in a way, is growing to love him. What is it the Jazz front office used to say about Malone? "He's a pain in the butt, but he's our pain the butt"? Something like that?

Happy New Year to you all, and Happy New Year to you too, Monson, if you're out there. Hack.
--Foosman