Moving on - AGAIN

I remember actually seeing this in print (small sidebar I think) while drinking coffee on a weekend morning. I was going to bring it up, but I knew this was hitting a little too close to home for Moddy.

If you want an unbiased opinion on the tats...

My wife earned her master's degree from Hampton, so she has a little different perspective than me on these black/white topics. She know I watch VCU on TV when I get a chance and she knows Maynor. I told her I have been told that he is a really good guy, and her response is that his tats make him look like a thug.

Do I think they should have been removed? No.
Do I think the tats give a poor first impression to many people including myself? Yes.

I was in a school yesterday talking to an administrator, and the subject moved to a current sixth-grade student who already has a checkered academic and judiciary history. The administrator said the boy already has a "real" tattoo on his forearm that stats he is a gang member for life.

I'm not saying all tats are bad, but the knee jerk reaction is to think they are bad. Every student in the sixth grade of that school will say that the first kid they know with a tat was a gang banger. Not saying that is right or wrong, but it is a fact for most of them.

 

Removing the tat with Photoshop is pure crap. It's lying.

If this kid doesn't represent the image you want for your school, then don't sign him. Or at least don't put him on the cover.

 

Bingo.

Could they have used head shots around Grant? Could they have dressed up Maynor in a suit and tie? Could he of been wearing warmups jumping over the James River?

Many ways to do the cover without having a tat/no tat question.

 

Good thoughts Devil.

Just curious. Has anyone asked the kid what he thinks?

 

I'm guessing Moddy asked him.

 

I think this actually plays into a major cross-generational issue... For most 'kids', tattoos are part of every day life.. For the older folks, tattoos are a sign of A) prison, B) gangs, C) Thugs, D) Idiots. Perhaps it is true that the tattoo culture originated in prisons, I don't know. I do know that gangs mark themselves with tattoos. But so do most 'kids'... and I'm guessing that's everyone under 30, if not 35.... while I look at some folks with the sleeve tattoos and the intricate leg work and wonder what the hell they're going to look like with saggy, dry old skin, for the young, that's not an issue. Yet.
Having said all that, I think airbrushing out tattoos for a media guide is, at best, unethical. Like Devil said, there are ways around it.
But the larger truth is that everyone knows what Eric Maynor looks like so why does it even matter? And if the tattoo image is offensive to the college/administration/whatever.. find different players.

 

Don't some schools ban players having corn rows?

Hey, Wooden made Walton cut his hair.

I think this falls into the same set of rules, it's just you cannot cut or pull out a tat.

 

Wooden could do that because he ran a program which had 10 NCAA championships in 11 years, and because his principles are what many people still talk about today. There were a lot of coaches circa 1972 to 1975 that couldn't get away with that.

Even at UCLA, Walton's hair wasn't real short.

I was amazed at males wearing earrings in 1986. Now, if anything, it might be out of fashion.

 

serious question ... are there ethics in PR?

putting out a media guide isn't journalism and doesn't pretend to be.

 

Dunno.... PR folks.. do y'all have ethics?

 

If they don't, there's nothing to stop them from lying about it. How would we know if they are telling the truth?