One (championship) ring to rule them all, one (championship) ring to find them, One (championship) ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them… at least there’s still something that unites.
Daily Archives: January 23, 2023
Bipartisanship at work
Filed under Georgia Football, Political Wankery
This is the way you do awards.
Congrats, Stetson Bennett!
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UPDATE:
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UPDATE #2: Anyone who still has their panties in a wad over Stetson’s speech at the celebration ceremony should read this:
And he says took a few days to look back at his Georgia career which gave him a new appreciation about that journey and the sometimes topsy-turvy relationship with the fans. He went from walk-on in 2017 to junior college transfer to returning on scholarship to eventually winning the starting job for good in 2021.
He likened the 65-7 thrashing of TCU in the national championship game on Jan. 9 in Inglewood, Calif., as something like “The Last Waltz,” a 1976 farewell concert by The Band.
“I hope everybody can remember what it was like on that ride because it was nuts, it was nuts,” Bennett said Monday on a Zoom after he was named Manning Award winner for nation’s top quarterback. “Them hating me. Me hating them. Us falling in love together, coming back, playing football. It was special. I wouldn’t change a single thing. I don’t think I’d be here without it being that way. I hope that everybody who was there and everybody who was with me and everybody that I was with, just knows I appreciate the heck out of it. Everything.”
Filed under Georgia Football
Alex, I’ll take no effing way for $200.
Matt Hayes: “Can Charlie Baker save college sports?”
Dude, are you serious?
So how does Charlie Baker make sense of it all, and more important, make it work and fit?
It begins with involving the players in every step, every decision, along the way. You’ve gone 150-plus years without getting input from players.
Maybe it’s time to roll with player input over the next 150.
If Baker can succeed in getting 2 diametrically different political parties to work together, he certainly can get the NCAA and players to make nice.
Apparently not. Because nobody in their right mind thinks the schools hired a guy to represent the players’ interests, even if just to facilitate a deal that would bring some needed structure to college athletics. Because if that was the goal, they could have done that already.
Thanks for asking, Matt.
Filed under The NCAA
Rara, we hardly knew ye.
From the transfer portal into the fire…
This has all the makings of a short-lived Georgia career. At the least.
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UPDATE: This, shall we say, doesn’t sound promising.
Georgia athletics released a statement Monday afternoon on the arrest.
“We are aware of a reported incident involving conduct by one of our student-athletes,” it said. “While we are limited in what we can say about the incident, the report is disappointing and not reflective of the high standards we have for our student-athletes on and off the field. In addition to following internal Athletic Association policies, we will be working closely with our administration to ensure we cooperate fully with all law enforcement and campus protocols.”
Filed under Crime and Punishment, Georgia Football
News is newsy.
The AJ-C can smell that Pulitzer coming. The bodies are barely cold in the ground and the paper is already deeply in the hunt on reporting how it happened. And why we need to know. Don’t believe that? Hell, the editor comes right out and tells us:
Why are we writing this story?
Managing Editor Leroy Chapman Jr. answers the question “Why are we writing this story” about the Jan. 22, 2023, publication of “Strip club visit raises questions about fatal UGA crash.”
WE ARE PURSUING THE FACTS. Here is what we know so far. On Sunday, Jan. 15, our state woke to tragic news: Four young people — two University of Georgia athletic department employees and two football players — were in a deadly, single-vehicle accident. Two died and two were injured.
We soon learned that the rented SUV carrying the four was driven that morning by 24-year-old university employee Chandler LeCroy, who died from her injuries. Devin Willock, a 20-year-old sophomore offensive lineman, was a passenger who died at the scene.
WE ARE ASKING ACCOUNTABILITY QUESTIONS. LeCroy was driving a rental car. The university rents such vehicles to drive recruits on campus visits. Police say speed contributed to the accident. Why the four occupants of the SUV wound up together that night is important to understand. Those facts will determine who is ultimately accountable and what role the university’s decisions and policies might have played. The university is responsible for ensuring the safety and well-being of student athletes.
Now, the AJ-C doesn’t usually run rationalizations at the end of their stories unless there’s something significant they believe their readers need to understand. At least that’s one way to interpret that ponderous explanation. Another way, one that I think better fits the occasion, is that they know they’re pushing the envelope of what’s newsworthy. It really doesn’t take much of a leap to reach that conclusion, because they tell you straight out in the header:
Then, they nail the finish with this lame attempt at pathos.
I would ask Chip Towers how that last paragraph enlightens us as to “events that led to deaths of two”, but I’m afraid that would take us to a discussion of to whom the paper assigned the prestigious Toppers beat, something I really would rather not know about. Besides, that gets away from the most egregious point of his tweet. “Led” is doing a shit ton of heavy lifting there, because led implies causation. Even the article acknowledges that the reporters don’t know when Bowles and LeCroy met up with McClendon and Willock, let alone whether LeCroy was under the influence when she was driving. All they can say is that the four left the club together in the wee small hours of the morning.
The rest of the piece is speculation about the roles Bowles and LeCroy were playing, interstiched with timelines and charts in an attempt to fuse the speculation with gravitas. And, of course, those Toppers references. Because while most don’t care about whether LeCroy was driving a rented vehicle paid for by the school, a little appeal to others’ prurient interests never hurts to draw eyeballs.
Speaking of the school, the reporters tried hard to coax some comments from UGA but, disappointingly no doubt (“University officials have not responded to detailed questions about the crash from the Journal-Constitution. “), received only this from a school spokesperson:
“Our primary focus remains on providing comfort and support to the families and friends of Devin, Chandler, and the two others who were injured, as well as everyone impacted by this tragedy. Out of respect for the individuals and their families, we will not comment further at this time on the accident or the ongoing investigation.”
Perhaps the AJ-C should have taken the hint. But then, that’s not news, is it?
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UPDATE: Mr. Towers be doublin’ down.
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UPDATE #2: Some related thoughts…
Investigating what happened that night is certainly a story worth pursuing. But it doesn’t mean a story must be written. As far as we know so far, the four hanging out together — no matter where it was — was not illegal and doesn’t necessarily suggest it was a reason for the accident.
Filed under Georgia Football, Media Punditry/Foibles
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