Mangino to West Virginia ... or not

How embarrassing. A mistake in a hoax.

 

I think, if that's the statement I got, it would make me more likely to question it if the guy's supposed agent doesn't know the name of the school.

 

Obviously.
It's not like Southern California University or the State University of Louisiana are looking for coaches.

 

Actually, I'm surprised this doesn't happen more since we, as an industry, are much more concerned with being first than we are being correct. In the old days of print, we would have time to sift through this tip and make a reasoned judgment. Not now.

Delay, and the WWL may scroll "[fill in the blank] is reporting KU Coach ...."

And then you're screwed.

You hope you can confirm it right away, but more than likely you won't be able to get the coach until after practice (an enternity in cyberland) and the AD probably isn't returning calls. You think you have a scoop - albeit on one source - so you don't dare wait until practice is done. Besides, you figure the coach will probably lie anyway.

So you jump.

You were first.

You were wrong.

You won't be the last.

 

It sucks for Ryan that this happened, but people really don't know the full story. A coworker was contacted by someone who said they were a reporter with the paper in West Virginia and wanted to see what he knew about Mangino to WVU. That person, who used the real name of a reporter, left a cell phone number, and that started the process in motion.
My understanding is that three phone numbers (all unlisted numbers, one of which the LJW has tracked down and written about in a story today) and at least two different people were involved.
The story was on the website for about 20 minutes before the KU SID finally returned a call, and that's when Ryan posted a correction ... a correction that the Topeka paper (which doesn't do many, if any, daily website updates) read prior to the person claiming to be Mangino's agent returned their call.
Of course, the Topeka paper wrote a high-and-mighty blog bragging about how they didn't fall for it, while failing to mention that they were running with it and found out it was a hoax when that information was posted on the LJW website. Plus, the same elaborate plan wasn't used against the Topeka paper. Only one caller contacted them, making it much easier to figure out.
Of course, that's not to say the mistake shouldn't have happened. But, the full story hasn't really been laid out for people.

$0.02.

 

Curious how you know the timing of what happened with the Topeka paper. How do you know who was called first and how do you know when the Topeka paper realized it was a hoax?