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Texas Rivals guy vs. Texas A&M Rivals guy

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Steak Snabler, Jan 26, 2015.

  1. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I found this to be the case, as well. We had a Rivals site and a Scout site, like most programs, covering my beat. The Scout site guy was an unabashed homer - though I always got the feeling that he was a businessman first, by a long shot, and fan or journalist a distance second and third. The Rivals site owner - who recently moved to Scout, as these affiliations are switching all the time - was not a fanboi at all. He didn't cover recruiting much, either. He had a guy for that - who also was not a fan and actually grew up actively rooting against the school he covered. Their third writer was a dedicated alum, and a fan in that he wanted the program to do well, but his coverage was honest, tough, and level-headed. He also knew Xs and Os better than anyone on the beat, and used that to his advantage. He also was pretty wired into the head coach, who respected him because he was the same age as the coach, had been covering the program forever, and because he moonlighted as a high school baseball coach, so there was some sense of kinship between them.

    The Rivals owner once unofficially offered me a job with him, if I ever was interested. It was about $10,000 more than I was making at my shop, and I was a columnist at the time (though not a well-paid one).
     
  2. TyWebb

    TyWebb Well-Known Member

    Touche. But that underscores the point that Twitter enables many embarrassing things to happen.

    And FWIW, I've always thought the Scout sites leaned more toward the homer side of the spectrum. Doesn't mean they can't be great reporters. I know some in my area are excellent and are on top of every breaking recruiting story for their particular school.
     
  3. Doc Holliday

    Doc Holliday Well-Known Member

    It's easy to break recruiting stories when the coach, one of his assistants or one of the GAs at the school texts the story and all the info, including recruit's name and phone number, to you. They are hardly great reporters. I know the turf much better than most around here. Most of them are clowns that enable coaches to circumvent the rules and flat out cheat.
     
  4. TyWebb

    TyWebb Well-Known Member

    I feel like you may be painting with a pretty broad brush there, but admittedly you may know how it works better than I do. My only experience in that turf is somewhat tangential, running into the guys at events and reading the sites to attempt to stay on top of things myself.

    On the whole, college football recruiting is a distasteful practice and I would hate for it to be my beat, living and dying on the whims of fickle 18 year olds. So I have a certain amount of respect for those who do it.
     
  5. Steak Snabler

    Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

    In my brief foray working for one of those type of sites, a frustration I had is there was a high-profile assistant who was also one of the staff's best recruiters. He was also tight with the Rivals.com publisher and would only share the contact info of his recruits and breaking news on commitments with the Rivals site.
     
  6. Doc Holliday

    Doc Holliday Well-Known Member

    I have absolutely no respect for them. Sleazebags. All of them.
     
  7. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    Ketchum won that little battle by a landslide.

    But it does give you some insight into how some of those recruiting guys roll. They're more or less contracted buddies of the program. Not all sites are like that. But more than a few.
     
    Doc Holliday likes this.
  8. gravehunter

    gravehunter Member

    Rivals' A&M site used to have a different publisher a few years ago, and Ketchum hated that guy as well. But since the Texas site brought in a heck of a lot more revenue than most (maybe it was all) of the other sites, it didn't really matter who he liked and disliked or what he did.
     
  9. JCT89

    JCT89 Active Member

    And you are an asshole.
     
    Doc Holliday likes this.
  10. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    Doc is being a little harsh but he is right on where the info comes from. 99 percent comes from the coach/assistant (which is in itself a violation of NCAA rules).
     
  11. JCT89

    JCT89 Active Member

    Are Jay Glazer and Adam Schefter sleazebags because a lot of their news comes from agents? Or team sources? Seems to be a weird argument.

    From my experience there definitely are some awful guys in the recruiting coverage industry. Some awful guys who only cover the school and not recruiting, too. My issue with Doc is the broad brush approach.
     
  12. CRM

    CRM Member

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