San Antonio paper to quit Top 25 polls

I'll carefully add my two cents on a topic I know a little bit about.

Readers (fans) care a lot about polls. Maybe too much, really. Just ask any voter who publishes his/her ballot. They get overrun with e-mail picking apart their selections.

As someone who is responsible for selecting some of the panel, I always pitch it as work. I ask that potential voters do three things:
1) Take it seriously. Generally, people expect the AP poll to be credible. Without that, we've got nothing.
2) Know what's going on around the country. You don't have to be a Pac-10 expert living in ACC country, but know the standings.
3) Be reliable. Please don't make us track you down Sunday afternoon.

And because of all that, I very, very much appreciate those agree to participate.

 

The night Hank Gathers died was very tough. I remember telling two of his close friends, Doug Overton and Lionel Simmons of LaSalle University of the tragedy. Both were playing the final quarter of the MAAC championship game in Albany, N.Y. They both broke down while playing the game and the Explorers' coach, Speedy Morris, had to call a timeout to get them off the floor. I won't forget it.

 

I'm my experience, the only time a vocal reader cares is when there is a problem or controversy.
And, I'm going to avoid it.

 

Readers care about the polls, what they don't care about is a bunch of navel-gazing reporters debating something they have been doing for the last 50 years.
And I miss Ralph's double-dip days of hitting Oxford for an 11:30 JP kick, then packing up and going to Starkville for a 6 p.m. start.

 

You told them during the game??
A) How did you get close enough to tell them during the game?
B) How stupid are you to tell them during a game?

 

Fans still care.

Not AP, but my final Harris Poll vote, which is before the bowl season, this past season I had Notre Dame at No. 17. That was lower than anybody else in the poll had them. I post my poll ballot weekly on my blog for the paper and that got linked to some Notre Dame fan site. I had hundreds of e-mails and posts on my blog that day from the good religious Notre Dame fans suggesting my anti-Catholic bias should have me kicked off the poll. One guy said I was the same as Mel Gibson and Michael Richards for voting them there. Makes sense to me. Several death wishes, too.

(By the way, I do not, that I know of, have an anti-Catholic bias that made me vote Notre Dame 17 at the end of November, which is about where they finished in the major polls anyway).

That was fun. It did show me the fans/readers do care, even for the stepchild Harris Poll that is comprised of boosters, random former players, dental hygienists, belt loop designers, mayors and schmucks like me.

I can certainly see the side of taking the AP poll voting out of the hands of a beat writer, though. But then you get into a situation where less informed people are voting My paper doesn't have a columnist and I was the only regular beat guy who followed this particular DI program. Who votes then?.

When less informed people start voting, shouldn't we just start calling it the coaches poll.

 

You really told them during the game? Were you covering the game? Or just doing a reaction story? And does it matter?

 

My only beef with top 25 polls is that they start too freakin' soon.

 

This needs an explanation. I knew those kids personally. When I found out, that Hank died, I promptly told then SID, the late great Bob Vetrone, to get word to Speedy and those kids. They needed to know before EVERUBODY started asking questions about it. Beef (Vetrone's nickname) got to the kids. Told them and Speedy during a timeout. However, when he got to them, the whistle sounded for play to resume. Speedy was unable to pull them off the court. That's when Overton and Simmons began breaking down.
So you see, there was NOTHING stupid about the incident.

 

AJC quit about two years ago.
If I remember correctly, beat writers aren't allowed to vote on anything.
Columnists are allowed to do some stuff with permission (I think Bisher still does the Pro Football Hall of Fame).

 

Isn't that one of Alabama's 12 national titles from the 1880s forward?

 

Just for fun, Ole Miss claims three national championship teams in 1959, 1960 and 1962.
If anyone knows what Litkenhous is/was, please explain. I have heard it was a grocery store chain, but I don't know.
1959
Berryman, Billingsley, Dunkel, Sagarin
1960
Football Writers, DeVold, Dunkel, Football Research, National Championship Foundation, Williamson
1962
Litkenhous