Nov. 11, 2010
Quick Slant is an array of brief insights and occasionally opinionated overviews of collegiate athletics in general and the Vanderbilt Commodores in particular.
- Rumors! In my chair I hear quite a few but one circulating earlier this week claiming Vanderbilt has already been courting a specific football coach was a short-lived beauty, the result of listener error. A talk show host was talking in hypothetical terms about who he thought might be a good fit as a coach here (remember we already have a coach!) and he brings up one of his favorites. For the listener who hears the set-up from A to Z, this is easy to comprehend. But those who tuned in a bit late or were distracted listeners misunderstand and assume they are hearing inside news. And off we go with another rumor!
- Here’s a real journalistic fumble: last weekend’s ESPN.com report that Vanderbilt and Robbie Caldwell are currently working on a multi-year contract was flat-out wrong. The reporter apparently missed a key word in an interview; there’s a big difference between working UNDER a multi-year deal and working ON a multi-year deal.
- If there are rumors here, I can only imagine what my colleague at Auburn must be going through. I have no idea about the facts of the Cam Newton controversy and I might be the only person writing an on-line column to admit that. Some will call me naïve to think some or all allegations might be false. I would suggest that those believing everything they’ve heard and read are cynical and gullible. There are problems – and some cheating — in college athletics but it is not the Wild West as some portray it to be.
