Deadspin: Is an ESPN columnist scamming people on the Internet?

A few thoughts:

1). This story just disturbs me on many levels.

2). "Meet Sarah J. Phillips: Sports bettor. Columnist. One cool chick." Something tells me Phillips is more one cool chick than sports bettor or columnist.

"I grabbed some nail polish from my bedroom drawer. The pink touched my fingernails and I exhaled. I felt right at home again." I simply cannot reconcile an airheaded-sounding, Jersey Shore-loving girlie-girl girl writing about her pink fingernail polish with the savvy, business-minded, deeply sports-knowledgable, taking-everyone-for-a-ride person that it would take to be behind all this. Sports writers do not talk/write this way. I doubt that serious sports bettors do, either, although I'll admit, I wouldn't know.

3). "I was in disbelief when Covers approached me, and that feeling is multiplied by 1 million when ESPN approached me. I never considered ESPN. Ever. I didn't even know how to go about getting to work with them." Yes, there are probably plenty of people on this sportswriter-loaded site who don't "know how to go about getting to work for them," either. I wonder if any of them are as annoyed as I am that you are the one who got to do so, in a legitimate, serious capacity, no less. As much as ESPN gets knocked, parodied and condemned on here, I'd guess there are precious few of us -- if any -- who would turn down a big-time job from it if we were offered one...although I suspect the value of doing so, and people's desire to do so, considering "Phillips," has just plummeted dramatically.

4). Her column name: "Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics."...The working name of her sports-comedy site: FauxESPN.com.

Those names were frightening appropos, weren't they?

And, as for any former love for Lynn Hoppes on here, I suspect much of it was simply a result of a desire for good jobs, more than so much true high regard.

 

This is the shoe left to drop, IMO.

I know at every place I've ever worked, no one was hired without at least 2 face-to-face interviews, plus thorough reference and background checks. And I've never worked at a place as big or as public as ESPN.

Hoppes has got to be looking over his shoulder pretty regularly about now.

 

The first warning flag should have been raised when people saw a 22-year-old American was pissed about the line on a cricket World Cup match.

 

I think with Hoppes, the mass of love here cowed detractors into silence. Now, the critics have cowed the supporters into silence

 

I don't think that there's any question that Sarah Phillips is a real person and a real person who loved sports and betting on sports. Look at all those team photos from high school she appears in. She's just a real person who did despicable things. Not sure what more thorough vetting would have uncovered?

 

Seems this might not have been the first scam the duo ran together.

http://deadspin.com/5907081/sources-sarah-phillips-and-nilesh-prasad-picked-games-together-scammed-people-together-got-fired-from-t+mobile-together

 

For him, this might be The Day The Music Died.

 

Yea, he made a few hundred bucks. Big deal.

 

How much money has your little blog made for you?

 

Right, 'cause this is fifth-grade.

 

Before every post, I always stop to consider what others might say.

Really prevents me from expressing any opinions.

 

I don't think that's the case at all. I think he's always been someone who is very polarizing. I've always liked Lynn and he's given career breaks to more than one of my friends, who all swore by him when he was in Orlando. By the same token, it's never been a secret that many of the writers who were in Orlando when he arrived didn't care for him and felt he favored the writers he hired. That's the case at most papers.

He also posted here under his own name and there's always been an insane level of interest in the Sentinel on this board, largely because there was so much turnover there for such a long time.

But, if you look at the list of people he hired when he was in Orlando, it's pretty damn impressive.

That said, the video tour of his office is one of the worst things I've ever seen and if he hired this person to write for Page 2, he may have a hard time coming back from that.