Category Archives: Sports Illustrated

And another thing, Jason: SI using named sources in Oklahoma State stories

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Received this tweet from Dan Levy of Bleacher Report:

did Whitlock complain about anonymous sources when ranting on an article where, best I read, there aren’t any

Indeed, Levy is right. Jason Whitlock and others can rip on Thayer Evans all they want. And they did.

However, it is fairly difficult to dispute that Sports Illustrated is using named sources in its Oklahoma State stories.  Multiple name sources.

From today’s installment on academics.

“The philosophy, the main focus [of the program], was to keep [the best players]  eligible through any means necessary,” says Fath’ Carter, a safety from 2000 to  ’03. “The goal was not to educate but to get them the passing grades they needed  to keep playing. That’s the only thing it was about.”

“Online classes are the easiest way for [players] to keep their grades up,” Cole  says. “If you didn’t do the work, you can email [the instructor] and can almost  talk them into giving you a passing grade anyway.”

Is everyone lying? Were they all misquoted?

In fact, it is hard for me to remember a series of stories on this scale that had so many named sources. Usually, anonymous sources are prominent when the dirt starts flying on college campuses.

Named sources equates to greater credibility in our business.

People can believe what they want to believe. In my mind, having names behind those quotes makes me believe Oklahoma State is looking at some tough times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jason Whitlock needs to brush up on Pulitzer Prize winner George Dohrmann’s credentials

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When Sports Illustrated broke its story on Oklahoma State yesterday, Jason Whitlock went trolling via his Twitter account for Oklahoma radio stations to call him.

Sure enough, the Oklahoma City Sports Animal found him. Whitlock, as only he can, went to great lengths to debunk SI’s package.

His reason? One of the co-authors is Thayer Evans.

Kelly Hines in the Tulsa World had the diatribe, which included this:

“But then in addition to that, having worked with Thayer Evans at Fox Sports, having followed his work for some time, I am completely and utterly flabbergasted that a legitimate news outlet would allow Thayer Evans to be involved in some type of investigative piece on college football that tears down a program, and particularly one that tears down Oklahoma State when it is no secret what a huge, enormous, gigantic Oklahoma homer Thayer Evans is. This is just incredible. Knowing the lack of competence that’s there with Thayer Evans, knowing the level of simplemindedness that’s there with Thayer Evans, to base any part of the story on his reporting is mind-boggling.

And then it gets worse with Whitlock concluding:

“ … Let me end by saying this and I honestly mean this without malice. It wouldn’t shock me if Thayer Evans couldn’t spell cat and I say in all seriousness.”

Oh, I’m sure Evans didn’t see any malice in that statement.

Whitlock also had this statement:

“ … I can’t disparage (other writer George Dohrmann) because I have never worked with him. I have never seen any of his raw copy or anything like that.

Oh yes, George Dohrmann. Take a look at this excerpt from his bio, Jason.

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED senior writer George Dohrmann is the rare sportswriter to have won a Pulitzer Prize. He earned journalism’s top honor in 2000 while at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The Pulitzer cited his “determined reporting, despite negative reader reaction, that revealed academic fraud in the men’s basketball program at the University of Minnesota.”

Jason, George won a Pulitzer Prize. You know, the same prize that you openly campaigned for last year.

I would say winning a Pulitzer gives Dohrmann fairly solid credentials to tackle this kind of story, especially since that Pulitzer came from his investigation of a college program.

And Jason, Dohrmann wrote the story. The entire package was overseen by SI executive editor Jon Wertheim, who has some impressive credentials in his own right.

In a Q/A with Anthony Slater of NewsOK.com, Dohrmann addressed the reporting that went into the story.

DG: How credible do you think the sources are?

Dohrmann: Very credible, or we wouldn’t write these things. These are players who spoke to us on the record, who we found. They didn’t come to us, they didn’t come and say, ‘Oh, I got a story to tell.’ We had to track them down and go to them and then hear their stories. This wasn’t something where, I think there’s a perception that, a lot of people who talk about their school is bitter because they got kicked off the team or they didn’t start. But you played the game, a lot of guys aren’t bitter at all, sometimes they are just years removed from this experience and you go and see them and they have time on their hands and you show them attention and you’re curious about their experience and they share it with you. Sometimes it’s not a guy sitting their spewing venom about a school he once attended.

Whitlock, though, isn’t impressed with what he calls the “brand of sports writers who love doing these investigative pieces.”

They are not hard to do these days in terms of so-and-so got this money under the table. We’re into this area where unnamed sources can say anything, any of these he-said, she-said stories. I don’t respect the entire brand of investigative journalism that is being done here. It’s not our job to go out and do NCAA policing.

“ … There’s some cute girl on campus who is a hostess who may have slept with one of these players. This has been going on for years and it goes on in the frathouses and the academic corruption they are going to talk about goes on in the frathouses and all across campus. We are singling out these athletes. It’s a good story. It will get you a promotion. It will get you on SportsCenter. It will get you talked about on this radio show and all over Twitter. But it’s bogus. It’s a trick for clicks.

Ah yes, SportsCenter. ESPN has several highly regarded investigative reporters who break stories on college improprieties all the time. Now that Whitlock is back at ESPN, it will be interesting if he has the same assessment when one of his colleagues uncovers dirt on campus. And it becomes the lead story on SportsCenter.

The local radio stations of the school should be sure to give Whitlock a call. He’ll be available for comment.

 

Sports Illustrated unloads on Oklahoma State football; 5-part series uncovers much dirt

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Good morning, Oklahoma State. Actually, it isn’t so good.

Sports Illustrated just unveiled the first of a five-part series that alleges Oklahoma State cut some corners to rise to prominence in the 2000s.

Cheating in college football? To quote Capt. Renault, “Shocked.”

Interesting to note that SI’s story will be handled on all of its platforms, and not just the magazine. Yet another example of a new day at SI.

Here’s the official rundown from SI:

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“The Dirty Game,” a SPORTS ILLUSTRATED special investigative report that looks into the transformation of a struggling college football program into a national powerhouse, is set to launch tomorrow morning on SI.com. The series is the result of a comprehensive 10-month investigation into the Oklahoma State University football program. It includes independent and on-the-record interviews with more than 60 former OSU football players who played from 1999 to 2011, as well as current and former OSU football staffers.

The findings will be presented in a five-part series across SI’s family of platforms, beginning with Part 1 (money), which launches on SI.com tomorrow at 9 a.m. ET and is this week’s magazine cover story, on newsstands and tablets Wednesday. Additional live coverage can be found on SI Now, SI.com’s live daily talk show (weekdays at 1 p.m. ET) and across SI’s social media outlets.

After 11 losing seasons in 12 years, OSU turned itself into one of the top programs in the nation. Since 2002, OSU has had 10 winning seasons, earned its first Big 12 title and went to its first BCS Bowl. The report reveals that OSU went to extreme measures to build a winning program, with an increased willingness to cut corners and bend rules. The transgressions began under former coach Les Miles, who was the head coach in Stillwater from 2001 to ’04 and is now the head coach at LSU, and continued under current head coach Mike Gundy, who was promoted from offensive coordinator in 2005.

SI executive editor Jon Wertheim, SI assistant managing editor Hank Hersch and SI.com executive editor B.J. Schecter oversaw the investigative report, which was written and reported by senior writers George Dohrmann and Thayer Evans.

“We wanted to take a comprehensive look at a big-time program, particularly one that made a rapid ascent,” says Wertheim. “There’s obviously a steady drumbeat of scandal in college sports – improper benefits here; a recruiting violation there – and plenty of rumor and hearsay about the unseemly underbelly. For this piece, we were more about venturing inside the factory and seeing how the sausage is made.”

Parts 2 — 4 of the report continue on SI.com this week and the series culminates in next week’s SI issue and on SI.com. In addition, SI.com will feature videos of former Cowboys talking about their experiences in Stillwater. SI Now will have live coverage and reaction throughout the week. The series will run as follows:

Part 1: Money (On SI.com Tuesday, 9/10 and in the 9/16/13 SI issue): SI finds that OSU used a bonus system orchestrated by an assistant coach whereby players were paid for their performance on the field, with some stars collecting $500 or more per game. In addition, the report finds that OSU boosters and at least two assistant coaches funneled money to players via direct payments and a system of no-show and sham jobs. Some players say they collected more than $10,000 annually in under-the-table payouts.
Part 2: Academics (On SI.com Wednesday, 9/11): Widespread academic misconduct, which included tutors and other OSU personnel completing coursework for players, and professors giving passing grades for little or no work, all in the interest of keeping top players eligible.
Part 3: Drugs (On SI.com Thursday, 9/12): OSU tolerated and at times enabled recreational drug use, primarily through a specious counseling program that allowed some players to continue to use drugs while avoiding penalties. The school’s drug policy was selectively enforced, with some stars going unpunished despite repeated positive tests.
Part 4: Sex (On SI.com Friday, 9/13): OSU’s hostess program, Orange Pride, figured so prominently in the recruitment of prospects that the group more than tripled in size under Miles. Both Miles and Gundy took the unusual step of personally interviewing candidates. Multiple former players and Orange Pride members say that a small subset of the group had sex with recruits, a violation of NCAA rules.
Part 5: The Fallout (On SI.com Tuesday, 9/17, and in the 9/23/13 SI issue): SI finds that many players who were no longer useful to the football program were cast aside, returning to worlds they had hoped to escape. Some have been incarcerated, others live on the streets, many have battled drug abuse and a few have attempted suicide.

 

Will Peter King’s MMQB site not use Redskins? Time has come for all to drop nickname

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Saw this via Jason McIntyre and Big Lead.

Apparently, Peter King’s new MMQB site is considering not using “Redskins” in its copy about that team in Washington. In an email, King told McIntyre a final decision hasn’t been made.

However, in a radio interview, MMQB’s Robert Klemko said:

“I know that our site, we’ve talked about it, and we’re not going to use Redskins in our writing,” Klemko said on CBS Sports Radio’s MoJo with Chris Moore and Brian Jones.

“We’re going to say ‘Washington football team,’” Klemko added. “And it’s not something we’re going to publicize or write about. We’re just not going to do it.”

Sorry, Robert, but an entity as large as Sports Illustrated isn’t going to be able to fly under the radar with this decision. If the magazine and its sites don’t use Redskins in its coverage, it is going to make major news.

I might be wrong, but I can’t imagine King can act unilaterally here. How would it look if SI continued to go with Redskins while MMQB didn’t?

The Redskins nickname easily is the most vile in sports. No explanation required. The fact that it represents the NFL team in DC, where an African-American president is sitting in the White House, is even more outrageous.

The Washington Post never would refer to a Native American congressman “as the redskin representative from Arizona.” Yet it writes about the Redskins daily in its sports section.

Washington owner Daniel Snyder is defiant about not changing his team’s name. He says it is about tradition, although surely marketing factors in there too.

King is noble in his desire to not want to use the Redskins nickname. However, he and SI shouldn’t have to go at it alone.

It is time for other news organizations, including ESPN, to stop using the nickname. As I said in regards to the Washington Post, it should be a matter of policy consistent with what takes place elsewhere in these publications or on these sites.

Only in the NFL would it be allowed for someone to be called a “Redskin.” It can’t be tolerated anymore.

 

 

 

 

ARod’s legacy: Last 2 SI covers have been steroid related; long fall from first SI cover

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Alex Rodriguez is featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated for the seventh time this week. There might be an eighth if he is suspended for life.

ARod’s last SI cover was in 2009 when everyone first learned that his amazing career numbers weren’t exactly pure.

Below is his first cover when everything about ARod still was full of wonder and anticipation. Talk about ruining a career and a legacy.

 

Hey, there’s a Sherman on cover of this week’s Sports Illustrated

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Nope, it’s not Ed Sherman. However, I did have my picture once in SI. I was shown interviewing Martha Burk.

Story for another day.

Seattle’s Richard Sherman is featured on the cover. He also will write a regular column for Peter King’s MMQB.SI.com site. Here is his first entry.

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The write-up from SI:

(NEW YORK – July 24, 2013) – On Monday Sports Illustrated launched The MMQB (TheMMQB.com), a new, digital franchise led by award-winning SI senior writer Peter King that is devoted to NFL coverage. This week’s SI, on newsstands now, introduces one of The MMQB’s new featured columnists—Seattle All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman. The Seahawks’ voluble star, who appears on his first SI cover, is profiled by senior writer Lee Jenkins. Sherman’s first TheMMQB.com column is also featured in this week’s SI.

“I’m excited about getting a player’s view of the game out in the media,” writes Sherman. “Hopefully it will give you an unfiltered look into my life, my team and the lives of all NFL players.” Read Sherman’s entire column here.

Jenkins chronicles Sherman’s rise from growing up as a shy, skinny kid in Compton, Calif., to a confidant motormouth who was selected in the fifth round by Seattle in the 2011 draft (a slight that still motivates him today). Jenkins says, “He is the rare player who has provoked the ire of Jim Harbaugh and Pete Carroll, who has taunted Tom Brady, who has been punched by an opponent while congratulating him on a good game.” (PAGE 48)

In just two NFL seasons Sherman has 12 interceptions—but  he has also labeled Harbaugh a “bully,” called Falcons receiver Roddy White “an easy matchup”, urged Darrelle Revis on Twitter to “Get ya picks up!” and after a win over the Patriots last October, retweeted a picture of himself yapping at Brady, along with the caption, “U MAD, BRO?”  “I used to tell him to quiet down,” says Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor. “Then I saw the results.” (PAGE 48)

Sherman now headlines one of the best defenses in the NFL and has become the face—and voice—of the NFL’s fiercest rivalry between his Seahawks and the defending NFC Champion 49ers, who happen to be coached by Jim Harbaugh, Sherman’s coach at Stanford. “I’m not the type to let a sleeping giant lie,” Sherman says. “I wake up the giant, slap him around, make him mad and beat him to the ground. I talk a big game because I carry a big stick.”

On why he chose to attend Stanford over local favorite USC (coached at the time by his current coach Pete Carroll):  “I wanted to make a statement,” says Sherman, who finished second in his high school class with a 4.2 GPA. “It was weird. It didn’t sound right. But I had to prove it was possible: Compton to Stanford.” (PAGE 50)

Sherman says his verbose ways are all part of a plan. “It’s part of a greater scheme to get some eyes, to grow the market, to grow Seattle,” he says. “Now people are paying attention, and they’ll probably be disappointed this year because I will be a lot more reserved.”

 

 

 

Q/A with Peter King on new MMQB site: ‘An attempt to stay ahead of curve and not get crushed by curve’

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Peter King was straining to remember the name of the movie.

“You know the one where Robert Redford runs for office,” he said.

The Candidate?

“Yeah, The Candidate,” King said. “Remember when he wins the election and goes to a top aide, ‘What do I do now?’ That’s how I feel about this.”

This is the launch of King’s new site, MMQB.SI.com. Sports Illustrated officially hit the button to go at 8 a.m. this morning.

It appears to be SI’s version of the Bill Simmons-inspired Grantland with one difference: The content will be limited to the NFL. Much like Grantland, don’t expect to find tick-tock stories on who’s going to start at quarterback in Philly and a mountain of stats.

King explained in a debut post this morning:

We’ll be the thinking person’s site for pro football. If you follow us this season, visit TheMMQB.com three or four times a day between now and the Super Bowl, read our stories, watch our videos and listen to our podcasts … and if after doing that you don’t think you’ve been enlightened about the sport America loves, well, then I should be fired.

Indeed, this is an expansion of King’s highly successful Monday Morning Quarterback concept. SI gave King an open slate and told him to create a site on America’s most popular game.

Here’s the complete rundown in a post last week.

King, 56, says, “We’re all trying to figure out ways to be reinvented.”

Kings’ way is a bit more ambitious than most. I talked with him last week about the goals and hopes for the new site.

This thing is really happening. How does it feel?

It’s a little bit like when I was a kid on the night before opening day. I was a big Red Sox fan and I’d sit there like a nerd and write out the lineups for both teams. Now I’m deciding what stories to run. It’s sort of like making a starting lineup.

It’s different for me. It’s the next thing I was hoping to do. To be able to make some decisions and to run something my way. Fortunately, I have a lot of smart people around to help me.

Why did you want to do your own site?

The ability to say this is what I would like to do and here are the people I would like to do it with.This is an attempt to stay ahead of the curve and not get crushed by the curve.

In 1997, I got asked to do “Monday Morning Quarterback.” They needed content for SI.com. I had no idea it would be as widely read as it was.

That taught me a lot. Any time there is something new offered to you, you better consider it. You don’t know which way the media is going. Pay attention to new trends. If you don’t, you die.

What is your vision for the site?

What I like to do, and part of the excitement in this, is to bring people inside the NFL. Access. If you look at what I’ve done at Sports Illustrated, that’s a big part of it.

(This week), we have a story about a guy who got cut from Jacksonville in June. I asked him if he would do it. He said he really didn’t want to. Then he decided to do it. I think it is riveting. It takes you inside what it is like to be cut by an NFL team.

This is what I want to do: Experiential journalism.

What will a typical day look like for MMQB?

Once we get into the season, we’re going to post new stories or videos, or a combination of both at 8, 11, 2, and 5 (ET). Obviously, if there’s news, we’ll check in. During training camp, we won’t be as tied to the clock.

We’ll have regular features such as a 3 questions, 3 at 3. Our first subject is Joe Namath.

What about statistics and game coverage?

We’re not going to run NFL statistics. There are plenty of places to find that. We’re still talking about how we’re going to cover fantasy football. We don’t know if we’re going to cover games. We’re still making the decision.

It’s all about figuring out what the consumer of the NFL wants. I don’t know what the consumer of the NFL wants, but I have a gut feeling they want us to get to as many games as possible.

You’ve hired three writers (Robert Klemko, Jenny Vrentas and Greg Bedard), two of whom are in their 20s. What does that say about the direction for the site?

They’re young. They have new ideas. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t have half of the answers. I want young people telling me this is what we should do. I want their ideas.

You are going to use Richard Deitsch to write about the NFL and media. Don’t know if you’ve heard, but you might have to ride herd on him.

Thanks for the heads up. Richard is going to do a weekly column and then longer pieces about the business. TV and radio, and TV in particular, is how the vast majority of people experience football. We want to make sure he has the opportunity to do the stories he wants to do.

You had options to go to other places. How important was getting the site in your decision to stay at Sports Illustrated?

I could have done this elsewhere. Sports Illustrated wasn’t the only place that gave me the opportunity.

I have a loyalty to Sports Illustrated. I know why I am where I am. I wouldn’t be in this position if not for the platforms Sports Illustrated allowed me to have. Sports Illustrated is the right place to do this.

This is all new. Do you envision the site might look different a year from now?

We’re still making a lot of decisions. We’re still a work in progress. We want to make sure we don’t repeat mistakes if we think we’re making them.

You mentioned The Candidate in talking about this new site. Does that mean Robert Redford will play you in the movie version?

Of course.

 

MMQB: Peter King’s new NFL site makes it debut Monday

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You will want to check this out if you are an NFL fan, or a Peter King fan for that matter. Looks very promising.

I will have a Q/A with King on Monday. Until then, here’s the release from Sports Illustrated with the details about the new site.

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SPORTS ILLUSTRATED today introduced “The MMQB” (TheMMQB.com), a new, digital franchise edited by award-winning SI senior writer Peter King that is devoted to NFL coverage. The franchise, an offshoot of King’s popular Monday Morning Quarterback column, will deliver insight, access and analysis from a team of reporters that will set a paradigm for future multimedia NFL coverage.

“We are aiming to be the thinking man’s website dedicated to covering the NFL in a more modern way,” said King. “We will combine the great SI storytelling style with an added emphasis on video, social media and photography.”

King, who will continue to write Monday Morning Quarterback in addition to producing other stories and videos each week, will be joined by SI newcomers Greg Bedard, Robert Klemko and Jenny Vrentas to form the nucleus of The MMQB editorial team. Bedard will focus on trends in the game and write a weekly Friday notes column. Vrentas will write feature articles and contribute regularly on the critical health, safety and legal issues confronting the NFL. Klemko will concentrate on the league’s most important news stories and go inside the lives of players off the field. “10 Things I Think I Think”, a well-known component of King’s MMQB column, will become a Monday through Friday feature, put together by various writers with many of the entries fewer than 140 characters to encourage sharing on Twitter. And for a feature called “3@3”, an NFL player, coach or executive will respond to three questions, which will be posted Monday through Friday at 3 p.m. ET.

Other regular contributors include SI media reporter Richard Deitsch, who will look at how the NFL is covered and how it interacts with fans through media; SI senior writer Don Banks will dive into the league’s hottest issues on and off the field in a column called “The Conscience”; SI senior writer Jim Trotter’s column “The Takeaway” will focus on what’s happening on the West Coast; and former Green Bay Packers executive Andrew Brandt will write a weekly column that provides insights into the business of football and the inner workings of NFL front offices. In addition, SI’s video group will fully support TheMMQB.com by producing short- and long-form original stories and companion pieces using the site’s entire editorial team.

The MMQB.com was developed by Time Inc. / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and utilizes a responsive design that optimizes the user experience across mobile and desktop platforms with deep integration to social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The forward-looking design allows users to easily access the “river” of content to keep up to date on the latest stories and videos as well as find and search archived content.

“We’re thrilled to launch another digital franchise under the Sports Illustrated umbrella, especially one being led by our most popular writer about the most popular sport,” said Paul Fichtenbaum, the Editor of the Time Inc. Sports Group. “In many ways this represents a natural evolution for us.”