March 5, 2015
Quick Slant is an array of brief insights and occasionally opinionated overviews of collegiate athletics in general and the Vanderbilt Commodores in particular.
With the hair trigger of social media and the nature of today’s lightning fast news cycles, my role as Vanderbilt’s communication director has evolved from one that once upon a time largely focused upon games and student-athletes to dealing with the flash crisis of the moment. Sometimes, these short-lived fusses are absurd but it is still astonishing how a couple retweets of somebody’s opinion or misrepresentation of facts can ignite a communications brush fire.
Somebody better remind the weatherman that we are hosting the men’s Mason Rudolph Invitational April 3-5 at the Vanderbilt Legends Club. Our Top 10 golf team – one of the favorites to win the Southeastern Conference championship – will be on public display as will other SEC and regional powers. Admission is free.
Speaking of weather, best we can tell we’ve had our bowling team stranded in Houston for four days, our lacrosse team stuck in Philadelphia an extra day, the baseball team unable to get to the west coast on time, tennis matches rescheduled, our home bowling tournament reformatted – and no doubt we are missing a few other inconveniences during the seemingly unending winter of 2015.
Last week we mentioned that Tim Corbin was being honored with the Fred Russell Distinguished American Award from the Middle Tennessee chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame. He had warned organizers that with a late afternoon game he would run late but no one could have predicted an hour rain delay and a 12-inning game meant the banquet was over before he left the diamond. Chapter president Bob Sullins (a former Vanderbilt gridder) informed the large crowd of Corbin’s status and said the group would be pleased to present him the award in person next spring.