Louisiana-Monroe football beat writer's beef with Kentucky press box/journos

I don't know that it's a conflict, just funny.

 

Used to like Tabby. Not so much anymore. This is about the fourth or fifth "whining" column I've read from her in the last 4-5 years. She's got no room to call out anyone for being fanbois. Not only has she posed for pictures with players (they're all over her Facebook and Twitter, if you care to verify), I've seen her comforting high school players after losses, crying alongside athletes after losing a state championship game.

I sat in way too many All-State meetings listening to her making impassioned pleas for the kids she covered, saying they "deserved" to be on the team. One year, she nominated 10 players from one team, and they didn't even win the state championship. To quote one of the old-school members of the committee "Damn, with 10 players up for All-State, you'd think they'd be 12-0 and playing for the SEC championship."

If this was a one-time thing, I'd chalk it up to a bad experience. But she's written this column a few times now.

 

Nothing good comes from writing something like this, and she's been in the business long enough to know that. But she did so anyway, and apparently more than once. Based on evidence, anecdotal and otherwise, it's more than just a one-time mistake with her.

She'd benefit a great deal from finding someone in the business she truly respects who can help her take a long, hard look at herself, because where this kind of thing gets you is here: covering a ULM way past the point at which you should no longer cover a ULM, but because you're so joined at the hip with your beat, you identify with it so much you do things like this. And so all you can do anymore is cover a ULM, and like this. If someone will let you.

This type of stuff is a good way to ensure you can't move up to anything better. It's a prison of one's own construction, and she's too young (and presumably talented to some degree) for that kind of life sentence.

She's digging herself a hole that might be impossible to escape. Some introspection is clearly called for, but the most immediate thing is to finally get that you just shouldn't do stupid shit like this. Ever.

 

She's a joke and a hypocrite. She's also going to have a really hard time moving up in the business if she continues to write crap like that.

 

Yeah, that guy REALLY doesn't know what he's talking about. I've seen cheering in press boxes, but I was trying to think of writers I know that would sit there and cheer for UK. Couould not think of one. Maybe react to a big play, sure, but not cheer. And especially not the CJ guys. I assume the female writer she was talking about was Jennifer Smith.

I'm also calling BS on the guy cheering when a ULM player went down. She'll be working in PR soon I'm sure.

 

She's already getting punished.

She's covering Sun Belt football.

 

I've covered a few football and basketball games in Lexington and thought it was more professional than other places in the SEC.

Even when there's a lot of homerism in a press box, what would have to happen for it to be a big deal? I've seen notebooks thrown, people quietly cheering, people loudly cheering. During my 15 years in the business I never saw any homerism that was worth anything more than telling funny stories among co-workers or fellow beat writers.