Example of the Post Gazette's anti Pitt and pro PSU coverage bias

[HailtoPitt]

(I hope this doesn't get deleted, as it clearly is related to the topic of Pitt football and includes evidence backing my claim.)

The story where Jay Paterno sent letters asking Urban Meyer and Dana Holgorsen for a job was covered by:

NBC Sports
Allentown Morning Call
Fox Sports
The Philly Inquirer
ESPN
USA TODAY
Penn Live
Sports Illustrated
Yahoo Sports
Chicago Sun Times
StateCollege.com
Onward State
Johnstown Tribune Democrat
Reading Eagle
Lancaster Online
ABC

and many, many other sources both local in PA and national. This was a big story when it came out, as it was covered everywhere, except the Post Gazette.

In fact, in a recent chat session, PG Sports Editor Jerry Micco was asked why there was such a lack of coverage with this story in the PG when the PSU beat writer had time to crank out lots of "fluff pieces". Here is Jerry's response.

"Hardly news, but a couple papers did run short stories on it. No one major really commented on it."

So either the PG's sports editor is completely delusional, or has a clear intent of helping PSU while harming Pitt. I think we all know it is the later, especially since I was able to find at least 8 different Post Gazette articles pertaining to Tyler Boyd's arrest.

8 different articles about Boyd's arrest. 0 articles about Jay Paterno's letters.

It should be pretty obvious that Jerry and the PG have a clear intent to help PSU football and do harm to Pitt.

Jerry Micco clearly can't provide unbiased coverage in the PG as its sports editor. He should be replaced.

 

[9nationalchampionships]

Somebody get this to AD Barnes! Clearly the PPG does not need PITTsburgh so we should pull all ads and only let info out to other news agencies, athletic or academic.

 

[deepelemblues]

The institutional arrogance of the PG is very much alive.

It will never be pro-Pitt, unless Pitt repeats the Jackie years and is ranked in the top 10 or top 5 all the time for years in a row. Until that happens and Pitt consequently becomes popular enough that it would hurt the PG's subscriber numbers and website hits to continue giving Pitt the short end of the stick, there is no point to expecting it will change. It will continue to be PSU Pravda.

 

[load1079]

(I hope this doesn't get deleted, as it clearly is related to the topic of Pitt football and includes evidence backing my claim.)

The story where Jay Paterno sent letters asking Urban Meyer and Dana Holgorsen for a job was covered by:

NBC Sports
Allentown Morning Call
Fox Sports
The Philly Inquirer
ESPN
USA TODAY
Penn Live
Sports Illustrated
Yahoo Sports
Chicago Sun Times
StateCollege.com
Onward State
Johnstown Tribune Democrat
Reading Eagle
Lancaster Online
ABC

and many, many other sources both local in PA and national. This was a big story when it came out, as it was covered everywhere, except the Post Gazette.

In fact, in a recent chat session, PG Sports Editor Jerry Micco was asked why there was such a lack of coverage with this story in the PG when the PSU beat writer had time to crank out lots of "fluff pieces". Here is Jerry's response.

"Hardly news, but a couple papers did run short stories on it. No one major really commented on it."

So either the PG's sports editor is completely delusional, or has a clear intent of helping PSU while harming Pitt. I think we all know it is the later, especially since I was able to find at least 8 different Post Gazette articles pertaining to Tyler Boyd's arrest.

8 different articles about Boyd's arrest. 0 articles about Jay Paterno's letters.

It should be pretty obvious that Jerry and the PG have a clear intent to help PSU football and do harm to Pitt when possible.

Jerry Micco clearly can't provide unbiased covered in the PG as it's sports editor. He should be replaced.

Thanks for pointing this out...the amount of major and national publications that ran the story clearly show Micco was full of it in his response. Someone should post this info on his next chat to see if he'll respond.

That being said, while the PG definitely seems to paint everything Happy Valley in a positive light, I don't know that the Boyd coverage wasn't warranted. Football star from the local college getting arrested is a much bigger story locally than the best example of nepotism I can think of pathetically begging for a job by name dropping his dad. JayPa's a bigger national story though.

That doesn't explain why the PG didn't run this at all though. It's almost laughable how many Paterno worshipers they have, even Pitt grads like Smizik, who I otherwise think it pretty reasonable (I know I'm in the minority on that).

 

[TIGER-PAUL]

RobertL: Jerry, Audrey sure has been cranking out the nice, fluffy Penn State pieces now that you are back (coincidence?). Just curious why she hasn't written anything on the bizarre letters Jay Paterno sent to Urban Meyer and others in search of employment. Other major papers have commented, why silence from the PG?

Jerry Micco: What might be fluffy to you is news to a lot of other people, so I'll take that for what it's worth. Penn State had a huge player availability during their Lift for Life fundraiser and when we get that opportunity at any of our colleges we take advantage. As for the Paterno letter, it was a job request to Urban Meyer after last season. Meyer has been very supportive of PSU and Joe Paterno over the years, so that's not really suprising. And Jay wants to coach again, though the jury's out as to whether he's good enough at the high D1 level. Hardly news, but a couple papers did run short stories on it. No one major really commented on it.

 

[HailtoPitt]

Thanks for pointing this out...the amount of major and national publications that ran the story clearly show Micco was full of it in his response. Someone should post this info on his next chat to see if he'll respond.

That being said, while the PG definitely seems to paint everything Happy Valley in a positive light, I don't know that the Boyd coverage wasn't warranted. Football star from the local college getting arrested is a much bigger story locally than the best example of nepotism I can think of pathetically begging for a job by name dropping his dad. JayPa's a bigger national story though.

That doesn't explain why the PG didn't run this at all though. It's almost laughable how many Paterno worshipers they have, even Pitt grads like Smizik, who I otherwise think it pretty reasonable (I know I'm in the minority on that).

I not suggesting that they should not have covered the Boyd story, just pointing out the discrepancy. 8 articles on Boyd, and none on Jay.

 

[load1079]

I not suggesting that they should not have covered the Boyd story, just pointing out the discrepancy. 8 articles on Boyd, and none on Jay.

I agree - Jay should have been covered. That dude is a loser. Luckily he's got his dad's money to fall back on.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

This, from the same newspaper, that has run 3 different stories about James Franklin visiting the east side of Pittsburgh a couple times as a kid like that's newsworthy.

 

[Dr. von Yinzer]

This has always been my point regarding Penn State in the local media - especially the Post-Gazette. They get the best of all worlds. When they win or when they have a nice fluffy story to tell about a kid walking to raise money for sick children, that's news because they are a local team.

That's fine, I can live with that. Raising money for kids with cancer is a noble endeavor. Also, this is Pennsylvania and they do represent the commonwealth's largest academic institution and its most successful college football program over the past 50 years. Also, there are many, many Penn State fans in the P-G's readership area and it makes perfect sense to try to appeal to those readers. The P-G is, after all, a business and not a philanthropic endeavor. I get all of that, I really do.

What I cannot tolerate is that door only seems to swing one way.

When there are bad stories out there like a PSU player gets a DUI (which has happened)...radio silence.

When half the football team viciously assaults another student over an alleged off-color comment at a party, that is BIG NEWS!...except to the P-G, which buried it in a brief on page six and never followed up once.

Even during the scandal, the senior members of their leadership team conspired to cover up the raping of dozens of children and everyone covered it...except the P-G. Their coverage was much more sparse.

I'm just having a difficult time imagining them applying the same standards to Pitt were a similarly repugnant situation to arise here.

Here's the deal, if they are a hometown team they should be covered like a hometown team - warts and all. Instead they seem to get the Disney treatment where all is well all the time (even when it clearly is not) and that really warps people's perspectives on Pitt, Penn State, and college athletics in general.

 

[Dr. von Yinzer]

It is not a coincidence that when the Paterno/Sandusky scandal initially broke Penn State was completely flummoxed as to how to handle that crisis.

They had never had to deal with a hostile media before so of course they didn't have a plan for it.

Penn State SID Jeff Nelson tried to pooh-pooh it initially by announcing that Paterno would only be available to talk about the Nebraska game and would not comment on the university's internal investigation.

Obviously, that was absurdly tin-eared and oblivious to the realities that would soon engulf that entire university. However, when you have used the media as a PR arm for 40 years, of course it would shock you when they then turned around and started to act like actual reporters instead of spoon-fed children.

That is except at the P-G and in certain pockets of Culty Valley. The P-G continued to whistle right past the graveyard and hoped like hell everything would soon disappear. Do you think Pitt would have received that same treatment were the shoe on the other foot? Yeah, me neither.

That is how we ended up with Ron Cook's comically idiotic column about the healing having just begun because Penn State played a football game.

No wonder so many of their fans and admins remain so obtuse. Very few people have really held that program accountable for perpetrating the worst abuse of children in America this side of the Catholic church.

 

[ratking17]

This absolutely was a fabulous post...until later today when the nitter trolls will come and this thread will be deleted rather than the trolls' posts.

I would love for other examples of this to be researched. I agree about Boyd; very relevant and a story that needs to be covered. But Dr. Yon pointed out that the negative PSU articles for the same offenses don't get covered by the PG.

Has the PG ever covered Pitt volleyball, but they will cover PSU when they go the title game. Similar stuff I am sure if I thought about long enough would come to mind.

Why not cover PSu basketball? Oh yeah...the PG wouldn't want to remind the PSU faithful how god awful their program is...

 

[Dr. von Yinzer]

Everyone likes to talk about the 30/30 about Miami. However, the one on SMU is MUCH better, IMHO. To be honest, I think the doc about the U missed a HUGE opportunity and was basically disappointing but that is a discussion for another day.

What I found most interesting about the SMU doc was in how the SMU folks complained about how the Dallas media covered it. Their point was that everyone in the SWC was cheating their balls off and the Dallas Morning News and others could smell a Pulitzer and knew that SMU would be easier and cheaper to infiltrate/investigate than would schools in other parts of the state who were doing the exact same things and in some cases worse things than the Mustangs.

Therefore ALL of their efforts went towards blackballing SMU and it worked. The Mustangs eventually got the death penalty and they still haven't recovered from it and likely never will.

So let me ask you, how many of those editors and/or publishers making those decisions to focus their investigative efforts entirely on SMU were Texas or A&M alums? I would guess the answer to that question would be quite a few.

 

[Pitt79]

There's nothing really bad about Paterno's letters. Just he himself is Pathetic. If I had a famous father and I could USE his name to GET SOMETHING FOR ME, I'd do it too, just that he was pathetic in the execution. bad hand written letter, the main reason to cover the story is to make fun of him. It really isn't big news.

 

[TIGER-PAUL]

Agree, I think that's obvious, but pretty much anything with 'Paterno' in it generates hits.

 

[recruitsreadtheseboards]

I agree with yinz. I have accused Micco of the same and his swarmy ways of trying to poo poo or justify it. It is the same with all the senior members of the Pittsburgh media. Even Pitt's own Bob Smizik. The newer media members, including PSU grad Chris Mueller have little patience for the PSU way narrative.

I was going to start counting articles in the PG on Pitt, WVU and PSU in regards to number, content and page location, but I travel way too much to be consistent in finding the paper version. And their website totally sucks as it is hard to determine how the newspaper is laid out.

But nothing bad, EVER, is written by the PG in regards to PSU football. As yinz said, they were the last to the party to the Sandusky thing and outside of Gene Collier (PSU grad) basically calling for PSU to drop football, there was never a continued focus or an outcry by guys like Cook and Smizik. Smizik would go out of his way to delete his blog. Both guys more derided Pitt fans for "taking joy in PSU's struggles" (their words) than they were the actual crimes and coverup that went on in State College.

As much as I respect Savran, same with him. The Joe they knew was a fraud. And still they can't bear to admit this. But man, a Pitt kid gets pulled over for a beer and we can talk and write articles until the cow comes home.

Where was the PG AFTER the Sandusky trials when they hired James Franklin (fresh off of a player rape investigation) and paying him $4 million a year, and then Marc Barron who presided over FSU when Jameis Winston was getting a pass for his sexual assault? Real big city newspapers would have ripped them to shreds. But the PG would rather focus on a Pitt teenager having a couple of drinks.

And then there is the "James from State College is really one of us yinzers because his aunt lives here" story that I swear became a weekly series.

It is all BS. Again, EJ you read these boards....why aren't you guys demanding fair treatment. And remind them what school employs more readers.

 

[ratking17]

Recruits. Wonderfully said

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

Therefore ALL of their efforts went towards blackballing SMU and it worked. The Mustangs eventually got the death penalty and they still haven't recovered from it and likely never will.

I won't argue that the Dallas paper didn't give scrutiny to SMU that they weren't giving to others. But let's not forget exactly what it was that ultimately got SMU the death penalty. While on probation for paying players they got caught paying players again. But it wasn't fans or boosters or friends of the program who were paying the players. IT WAS MEMBERS OF THE SMU BOARD OF TRUSTEES. As far as athletics goes (so leaving out the covering up of child molestation) there will NEVER be a greater example of a lack of institutional control than what was going on at SMU. Pretty much by definition.

I mean imagine sitting in on that BOT meeting:

"Boy, the NCAA really came down on us for playing players. What do you guys think we should do about it now?"

"Well one thing that I know for sure is that there is no way that we should actually stop paying the kids. I mean some of those kids really need the money."

" Yeah, good point. OK, it's decided then. Keep giving the players the cash. What could possibly go wrong with that?"

 

[bwh05]

Well essentially the PPG has become PSU's Fox News. The constant fluff pieces keep the cult members buying papers and clicking on links. If they were getting fair and balanced coverage they may stop coming around because all they want to hear is how great they are.

 

[DT_PITT]

That is how we ended up with Ron Cook's comically idiotic column about the healing having just begun because Penn State played a football game.

You obviously weren't paying attention. Penn State played a football game AND lit candles. I think it was fairly obvious after that all the damage that happened to those kids was erased in those 10 seconds of candle-lit silence.

The only REAL and lasting damage was that for a whole 2 years or so, PSU faithful had to look into an NCAA record book and not see 409 wins next to Joe Paterno's name. Even though those wins have been gloriously restored, there's no way the scares and suffering of PSU fans over that two years can ever be reversed.

If there is any real justice in the world, the NCAA should grant Paterno another 200 wins. That's the only way the real victims of the tragedy will be healed.

 

[geeman2001]

Mods, sorry for the harsh (but entirely fair) opinion in my censored post. I do realize you have to function among those monsters for a living, so you can't risk offending them. I won't hesitate to continue exposing the truth about them ... but will look to do so with more of a "healing" attitude.

 

[Saboteur]

(I hope this doesn't get deleted, as it clearly is related to the topic of Pitt football and includes evidence backing my claim.)

The story where Jay Paterno sent letters asking Urban Meyer and Dana Holgorsen for a job was covered by:

NBC Sports
Allentown Morning Call
Fox Sports
The Philly Inquirer
ESPN
USA TODAY
Penn Live
Sports Illustrated
Yahoo Sports
Chicago Sun Times
StateCollege.com
Onward State
Johnstown Tribune Democrat
Reading Eagle
Lancaster Online
ABC

and many, many other sources both local in PA and national. This was a big story when it came out, as it was covered everywhere, except the Post Gazette.

In fact, in a recent chat session, PG Sports Editor Jerry Micco was asked why there was such a lack of coverage with this story in the PG when the PSU beat writer had time to crank out lots of "fluff pieces". Here is Jerry's response.

"Hardly news, but a couple papers did run short stories on it. No one major really commented on it."

So either the PG's sports editor is completely delusional, or has a clear intent of helping PSU while harming Pitt. I think we all know it is the later, especially since I was able to find at least 8 different Post Gazette articles pertaining to Tyler Boyd's arrest.

8 different articles about Boyd's arrest. 0 articles about Jay Paterno's letters.

It should be pretty obvious that Jerry and the PG have a clear intent to help PSU football and do harm to Pitt.

Jerry Micco clearly can't provide unbiased coverage in the PG as its sports editor. He should be replaced.

What is the PG?

 

[pittdan77]

I think the letters are very newsworthy given the fact that he is in the middle of an active lawsuit against Penn State because he was fired. He knows none of these guys are going to hire him so these letters will be shown in court as proof that his reputation has been damaged by Dear Ole State.

Not like any of them need a job. Family is swimming in money.

 

[IamHeisenberg]

Maybe the Pitt beat writer could actually work a little harder at doing their job. I hate all that is PSU but have to admit the PSU beat writer finds a story nearly every day. Maybe Sam should try to outhustle his peer.

 

[The Loaded Italian]

I must say....

This is one of the most well-written threads I have ever read on this forum. Pretty much saying the things I wish I knew how to put in words.

I will add one thing, and this is from a former writer of pitt that I had an interesting conversation over too many drinks one night. These reporters make crap money, they really do. Newspaper reporter was recently rated the lowest paying job in the country, and most make below a fast food restaurant worker in Seattle. This reporter told me that penn state has people that will treat reporters 'very well' to write pieces... and this is wrong of course, but just a little wrong. It happens everywhere. I am in the armor business and if I want to write a press release, that is fine... does ok, gets some views and all that. But if I want to get a word out I will pay Janes or Shephard's or armorreport.com and have them write an article about our wonderful new armor that is completely amazing. Totally looks real, and it is real... never any claims are made that is untrue, but they are clearly puff pieces. This tactic works better than anything else, the month or 2 after each article I always get calls from people that want our materials. Anyways, penn state does this with football... and Pitt should too. I mean, if our beat guys making 30k a year get a gym membership to write a puff piece? so what? Is this illegal to do? I dont know to be honest, I dont think it is. By the way, the beat writer did not take money, he wouldnt do that he said, but I would think it is only morally wrong if you are doing things that you feel wrong. Writing about Conners chances at winning the Heisman over your 6th story about Boyd's 0.03 alcohol content wouldnt be a bad thing. Pony up and buy us some reporters. It does freaking wonders. The one that got that was Fraud. He hired people to post on this very board... I know that for a fact (well, him or someone in the administration). I would bet PSU has several in their back pockets at all the outlets and of course have some cult members as employees there as well. I mean, you dont get this completely ignorant attitude to the vile and disgusting nature that is penn state without money flowing.

 

[Slick Manager of Champs]

trolling Micco's chats would be a nice start.

 

[Pghfan]

Everyone likes to talk about the 30/30 about Miami. However, the one on SMU is MUCH better, IMHO. To be honest, I think the doc about the U missed a HUGE opportunity and was basically disappointing but that is a discussion for another day.

What I found most interesting about the SMU doc was in how the SMU folks complained about how the Dallas media covered it. Their point was that everyone in the SWC was cheating their balls off and the Dallas Morning News and others could smell a Pulitzer and knew that SMU would be easier and cheaper to infiltrate/investigate than would schools in other parts of the state who were doing the exact same things and in some cases worse things than the Mustangs.

Therefore ALL of their efforts went towards blackballing SMU and it worked. The Mustangs eventually got the death penalty and they still haven't recovered from it and likely never will.

So let me ask you, how many of those editors and/or publishers making those decisions to focus their investigative efforts entirely on SMU were Texas or A&M alums? I would guess the answer to that question would be quite a few.

I liked em both.. The blatant rules violations and money was messier at SMU, Big Oil getting into a football program is a great story.. The U is great though just because of the collection of characters involved.. The one story about how a player was getting into a fight at a Miami club and a dozen players get called to help out and they all grab their guns.. These are 19 year old college kids telling stories like this..

Great point about Texas, A and M, though. Im sure Ok, Tx, a&m weren't squeaky clean too regarding getting some rich alumni from Shell giving money under the table. It sounded like the local media really wanted to knock this newcomer off the top of the mountain..

 

[bwh05]

Plus SMU was easy pickings for the Dallas newspapers due to proximity. The Pittsburgh media wasn't all that kind to us then either. Of course, they still aren't.

 

[Dr. von Yinzer]

That was my point. It is always harder for urban program to succeed than it is for a rural program. That is true on any number of fronts.

However, on the media perception front it is especially true. Schools located in or very close to big cities often face the problem of being seen as renegade programs because they cannot control the media the way their rural counterparts are able to do.

Look at the schools that have at one time been considered renegade programs and they're almost always in major cities. I am talking about schools like Miami, UNLV, USC, Washington, Tulane, Louisville, SMU, Houston, etc.

That is because it is so much easier for the media to infiltrate those schools than it would be for them to get into a more remote school like Notre Dame or Penn State or Texas A&M or any of the other 10,000 schools just like that. The schools tend to control the media that cover them because they are located in places where they are the only real game in town. They are company towns and the company is "Big State U."

Personally, I think SMU got what it deserved. They were brazenly cheating and they would not stop. The sitting governor of Texas was involved in their cheating scandal for god's sake! Believe me when I tell you that I do not shed any tears for the Mustangs, per se.

However, my point is that they were far from alone. That whole conference was cheating and they were just one of eight or nine schools doing basically the same thing. In fact, I think that documentary made the point that every single team in the Southwest Conference was on probation at one point during the 1980s - every single one of them.

For SMU to have been singled out as the lone wolf is completely ridiculous.

Cynically, I think the NCAA knew that it had a major problem in that conference and really throughout college football. So, they decided to shoot a hostage and SMU just represented the easiest pickings possible.

 

[bwh05]

In the end you just have to hope selling the benefits of being in an urban setting like Pittsburgh evens out all the negatives in recruiting. Plus we're fortunate to have a solid base of recruits to draw from.

 

[Dr. von Yinzer]

I liked em both.. The blatant rules violations and money was messier at SMU, Big Oil getting into a football program is a great story.. The U is great though just because of the collection of characters involved.. The one story about how a player was getting into a fight at a Miami club and a dozen players get called to help out and they all grab their guns.. These are 19 year old college kids telling stories like this..

Great point about Texas, A and M, though. Im sure Ok, Tx, a&m weren't squeaky clean too regarding getting some rich alumni from Shell giving money under the table. It sounded like the local media really wanted to knock this newcomer off the top of the mountain..

The Miami 30/30 was fine. It was just a little bit trite, IMHO. It's felt more like a propaganda piece made by a fan and recruiting video that it did an actual documentary.

Honestly, I just see it as a missed opportunity.

Here you have the small, private school in South Florida that had never done much of anything. However, through some phenomenal leadership and some good luck, they were able to harness the incredible natural resources they possessed to become the most dominant college football program of our lifetime. That is a fascinating story and it should've been given more room to grow.

There should've been more discussion about how difficult it is for a program like that to compete with the big boys despite being at such an enormous financial deficit.

There should've been more talk about how guns and violence was a major part of that program and not in a ha-ha funny way. I'm talking about the Marlon Barnes incident and so many others just like it.

Violence seemed to follow that program around like a black cloud and I think it would've been worth learning more about it. Why was there always so much suspicion surrounding that program? Was it jealousy? Was it something worse? Was it racism? I would've loved to have heard some perspectives on that. Instead we got a series of stories about how cool they were.

There should've also been more talk about how drugs plagued that program.

Miami's Pell Grant scandal remains one of the most egregious scandals in the history of college athletics. In fact, I would rate that just below the Penn State scandal. They barely touched on it. They were defrauding the federal government of billions of dollars! That needed to be told.

Instead they focused on things like how cool they were in the club and how their dean – who had the unenviable task of trying to reign in that zoo – was a stick in the mud and how he wasn't any fun.

They basically portrayed him as a Dean Wormer type because he wouldn't let them have guns on campus and rape the school's coeds. Where was his side of that story?

He was basically cast as the villain and did not have any opportunity to discuss it from a an adult's perspective? I would've loved to of heard his side of the story and why he felt he needed to be so strict. If he was unable or unwilling to participate, that would be fine. However, they should've mentioned that. I got the sense that they just smeared him for the sake of advancing a narrative that quite frankly doesn't hold water.

The story I wanted to hear was how much does a university have to let the tail wag the dog for it to dominate like Miami did at that time. That is way more interesting than telling story after story about all the fights that Lamar Thomas got into at clubs all over Miami.

Finally, it is no secret that Miami has struggled for about a decade now. Personally, I did not see that coming and I don't think many others did either.

I would've liked to have heard more from their people at all levels of the program on why they feel they have struggled so mightily since joining the ACC? Is it a funding issue? Is it a culture issue? Is it a facilities issue? Is it a recruiting issue? Is it a coaching issue? That would've been very interesting to learn about.

What was for my Hurricanes AD, Paul Dee? Also, Jimmy Johnson and Howard Schnellenberger – the guys who built the whole thing – were not prominently featured.

That was very weird to me.

Also, and more importantly, can they get back to the top of the mountain in today's climate? Wouldn't people have loved to have heard their people expound on that? I know I would. Nope, we needed spend an hour talking about how much swagger they had on and off the football field.

Boring.

I just think they had a chance to make something very special and instead settled for a trite, clichéd, tired story that tried a little too hard to absolve them from all of their sins by basically shrugging their shoulders, throwing their hands in the air, and saying, "Hey, boys will be boys."

 

[ratking17]

Excellent viewpoint on the Miami 30-30 dr. I agree about it viewing as a recruiting tool

 

[BigPantherFan]

Lets be realistic with the PG. The paper has gone downhill and as a former subscriber, they keep dropping free papers on my driveway to try and get me back. The PG is sliding downhill like the rest of the print papers. I have been very impressed with the love Pitt has been getting in some of the national publications. The PG has always been know to suck up to the nitters. Ignore it and it will soon fade away IMO. Cook will be kissing butt to get a job with one of the local paid sports services.

 

[Dr. von Yinzer]

Maybe it is just me. However, it turns my stomach when people just bask in the glory days of their youth. That's just ridiculous, IMHO.

For that reason I hate Hall of Fame induction ceremonies and I hate reunions for championship teams. I just think they seem sad.

One night, I was at a fundraiser and I sat next to Rocky Bleier. Turns out Rock, though a bit of an oddball, was also a very nice and thoughtful man.

He was doing what people do at events like that and basically entertaining everyone out the table. He did a fine job with that task.

Finally, when things calmed down, I politely asked him if it was weird to spend so many years of his life talking about such a brief period of his life what happened so many years ago?

I told him I hope he didn't think my question was rude. I was just trying to figure out how annoying it had to be to play professional football in this town – and to have so much success for it – then have to spend every single day for the rest of your life talking reminiscing with stranger after stranger after stranger who thinks they know you but really has no clue?

He smiled and told me that was one of the better questions he had ever gotten in that type of a setting. He asked to think about it for a second and I think he was measuring his words.

In the end, I think he could tell that I was not trying to be rude. I was genuinely interested in understanding how much of a burden that had to be not only for him but for all of the 70s Steelers.

He then acknowledged that it was part of the deal and that it was at times very frustrating. He said that he loved his time in Pittsburgh and would never want to live anywhere else. However, it could be cumbersome when he went to the mall, or to the grocery store, or to the gas station or when he had dinner at a restaurant.

I just smiled and said I have to imagine that is a two-edged sword and he smiled and said that is exactly right.

Then, he made a really good point. He said something to the effect of, "I already played in those games and suffered those injuries and won those championships. I am very proud of all of it. So, while yes, it can be annoying that for so many strangers to come up to me that is the essence of my existence, I would still rather talk about that time in my life than ignore it."

I told him that was the best answer I've ever heard in that type of a setting. I hadn't thought about it in those terms. He just smiled politely and we carried on for the rest of it was a very pleasant evening.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

DvY, the reason the Miami 30 for 30 feels like a puff piece made by a fan is because that's exactly what it was. Billy Corgin has been a huge Miami fan since he was a kid. He clearly had no intention of making a documentary like you suggested, because it would have shown his team in a much worse light.

It's no different than espn allowing a couple of the Fab Five guys to do a documentary on their team. It ended up being exactly what you expected, and much worse than it should have been.

 

[Dr. von Yinzer]

One final take away from that evening that I think people would find interesting. Bleier also talked about how he did not stay close with any members of that team.

He explained that he liked everyone just fine, and that when they get together every few years they always have a lot of fun. However, he insisted that he always saw them as coworkers, not friends.

I really liked that answer as well. It was very honest and very candid. However, a lot of people at our table did not care for that answer because they were looking at it from a Disney-fied perspective.

 

[Dr. von Yinzer]

DvY, the reason the Miami 30 for 30 feels like a puff piece made by a fan is because that's exactly what it was. Billy Corgin has been a huge Miami fan since he was a kid. He clearly had no intention of making a documentary like you suggested, because it would have shown his team in a much worse light.

It's no different than espn allowing a couple of the Fab Five guys to do a documentary on their team. It ended up being exactly what you expected, and much worse than it should have been.

Yeah, that's kind of what I figured. However, from my standpoint, then I don't have much interest in something like that. I don't watch documentaries to be propagandized. I would rather hear the whole truth - warts and all. I am a big boy, I can take it.

Honestly, I am not a Miami hater. I have long admired that program. However, they had some serious problems and I would've like to have learned more about it.

 

[Pghfan]

I think why I like The U, is that we as a society (I know I know just bear with me) really would go out of our way to condemn and break down this type of behavior immediately, if this happened today.. The U culture I am referring to. Actually, I don't think it would ever be allowed to take place to begin with. Hell, even back in the late 80's when college football was basically the Wild West, this was hard to get away with.. I mean you have an inner city, black youth stereotype that has come to life, multiplied by 100, perfectly exemplified in this program.. And they succeeded, on the field at least.. These players and this program loved playing the villain, loved that "hip hop" black image and this could never exist in this day and age..

To see this come to life and succeed, in such a dynamic way, is really interesting to me.. I would give anything to have a program like that now.. Did this documentary glorify this behavior? Well yeah but that is what was so different about it because for decades, mainstream sports media and even national media tore this down, demonized this program, told us how "rogue" it was and how bad it is for the NCAA and sports as a whole.. The rest of the country was so offended and upset about these black kids acting like thugs and not only did they not care, they actually loved it. We get into a frenzy nowadays when people are labeled as "thugs" and here is a program that took it and rode with it.

 

[Dr. von Yinzer]

One final thought on the 30/30 series.

In general, I really like them. However, some of them are just so incredibly poorly done that it ruins it for me.

Another good example of that was the documentary they did on the Big East.

Has any Pitt fan knows, there were a ton of issues surrounding that conference from its inception until its ultimate demise and rebirth.

Those issues have really been at the center of college athletics for most of the past 30 years and have helped drive conference realignment - THE MAJOR story in college athletics during ESPN's epoch.

To skip over all of those admittedly esoteric and complex issues so that you could spent two hours talking about how cool the Georgetown/Syracuse games were in the 80s was such a breathtaking mistake.

There is no question that the Big East Tournaments of the 1980s should've been featured prominently in any documentary about the league. That is what defined that league on a national stage.

However, there should've been a lot of talk about football and the stress it put on the league. There should've been some discussion about the inherent conflict that existed between all of the small, private, "basketball schools" and their larger, more well-heeled, mostly public "football school" partners.

Also, there should've been a lot of discussion about the ACCs 2003 raid and the Big East's subsequent expansion. That was the key time in that conference's existence and it is ultimately what ruined it. I would have loved to have heard varying perspectives on that period and what ultimately led to the league's dissolution.

Sometimes I think I'm just in the wrong demographic. I am an adult who would like to learn some of the behind the scenes decision making that shaped our current landscape. Entities like ESPN want no part of pulling back the curtain. They would rather still sneakers to 12-year-old kids who don't know about history and who really don't care about that either. The kids just know that the Fab Five introduced long gym shorts to college basketball and they might want to buy them.

Boring.

 

[Dr. von Yinzer]

I think why I like The U, is that we as a society (I know I know just bear with me) really would go out of our way to condemn and break down this type of behavior immediately, if this happened today.. The U culture I am referring to. Actually, I don't think it would ever be allowed to take place to begin with. Hell, even back in the late 80's when college football was basically the Wild West, this was hard to get away with.. I mean you have an inner city, black youth stereotype that has come to life, multiplied by 100, perfectly exemplified in this program.. And they succeeded, on the field at least.. These players and this program loved playing the villain, loved that "hip hop" black image and this could never exist in this day and age..

To see this come to life and succeed, in such a dynamic way, is really interesting to me.. I would give anything to have a program like that now.. Did this documentary glorify this behavior? Well yeah but that is what was so different about it because for decades, mainstream sports media and even national media tore this down, demonized this program, told us how "rogue" it was and how bad it is for the NCAA and sports as a whole.. The rest of the country was so offended and upset about these black kids acting like thugs and not only did they not care, they actually loved it. We get into a frenzy nowadays when people are labeled as "thugs" and here is a program that took it and rode with it.

That is well stated, PGH. I appreciate your insights. I just think that is going FAAAAR too light on the U and really skirts around some of the more important issues/questions surrounding their success.

To me that would be like doing a documentary on UNLV hoops and talking about the cultural impact their players had without also acknowledging their NCAA sanctions. It would be trite and at least vaguely dishonest.

I think that documentary and really that whole narrative of what Miami was all about has the same relationship with reality that Rudy had in representing what Notre Dame is all about.

That is to say that entire point of view is little more than a fairytale.

Not everyone who thought Miami was out of control or at times thuggish was a stick in the mud old white racist. Some of us thought that defrauding the federal government out of hundreds of millions of dollars was egregious cheating regardless of the color of the players involved.

As I said earlier, I was never a Miami hater. I understood what was going on and that a lot of the criticism hurled their way was at least subtle racism. People didn't need to spell it out for me when they described the Notre Dame versus Miami game as "Catholics versus Convicts."

I was rooting like hell for Miami in those games. I still think they were cheated in South Bend in 1988 when they ruled what was a clear touchdown by Cleveland Gary a fumble. That was ridiculous.

Similarly, Miami was robbed in the 2002 national championship game versus Ohio State. Had that late DPI call gone against any other team in the country there would've been a national uproar. However, because it went against the Oakland Raiders of college football, everyone sat on their hands, even though most of us knew they had just been cheated.

However, Miami clearly spiraled waaaaaaaay out of control and that should've been at least touched on even if it meant reducing the film to a mere 39 different stories about how cool they were at the various clubs around town.

I want to know how that little private school in Coral Gables was able to compete with the likes of Ohio State, Penn State, Alabama, etc.? I also wanted to look behind the curtain to see how ugly it was when the bright lights of the Orange Bowl were not turned on?

Basically, I wanted to hear the varying perspectives of what was the cost of doing business and was it worth it?

Also, what led Miami's downturn and do those various insiders think they can ever get back to where they were and why?

I am sorry but that is way more interesting than talking about all the girls Michael Irvin use the pull at the club and how he was way cooler than any Dolphins player. That's boring and banal.

I just think we ended up with something that was more of a recruiting video than an actual documentary. I understood why he did it. The guy is a lifelong Miami Hurricanes fan. I also understand that a lot of people love the flash and dash bullshit. Look at how many people still get erect every time Oregon trots out a new helmet -- which is basically weekly at this point.

I just thought they took one of the most interesting stories in the history of intercollegiate athletics and turned it into a sort of urban fairytale. It didn't do anything for me. It missed the mark.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

People didn't need to spell it out for me when they described the Notre Dame versus Miami game as "Catholics versus Convicts."

I always thought that was completely unfair. I mean what about all the Miami players who were Protestants?