FB: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[bleedpurple]

As a former editor of a student newspaper I'll simply say it is a difficult task. We were a weekly, came out every Wednesday. There wasn't a Tuesday night from my sophomore year as Sports Editor to my senior year as Editor in Chief, that Tuesday night wasn't an all-nighter getting that paper ready for a.m. printing. We didn't get class time to do it, our faculty adviser sure wasn't going to be there all night with us, and sometimes you just make mistakes.

That being said, you did try and learn from those mistakes and get better, but every year you have new people filling those roles. So sometimes the mistakes get made repeatedly not because someone didn't learn, but because that someone had long since graduated. Not much different from college athletics in that regard.

Posting a story early with bad attribution isn't good. Forgetting a former football coach was still alive isn't good. But they are the kind of mistakes students make, especially when in a rush or thinking about the test the next day instead of what they are editing. Ease up. Like college athletes, they are doing this for the love of writing a paper and to get some experience, not because they are being paid...

My intent in this was never to bash students (I know, funny way of showing it.  ). My original comment was that the RP has issues that need to be looked into.  I felt like backing up the general statement with specific examples was important. Unfortunately, it's possible that the specific examples looked to be aimed towards students when they were actually meant to question why a student would even have the freedom to make such a mistake.  I will back away from posting about this any more.  You are right. It's time to "ease up". 

(And BW, you don't need to make another benevolent God comment. This discussion wasn't THAT long  )

[fredfalcon]

Does it add to KB's stature to know that he could have had the RF job, but turned it down when he was told RF would not be able to hire another coach with him to help with recruiting? Or that among the 5 finalists for the RF job were Coach K of Mt. Union and LaCrosse's current head coach? I know that because I was one of a group which voted on the 5 finalists. The AD made the final decision, of course.

I wonder what would have happened if KB would have been hired at RF. Would he have applied at WW? Would Coach K. have applied at Mt. Union? Are they both better off that they did not get the job at RF?

By the way, RF has a great coach in Matt Walker. But as I tweeted #UWW Football, it's really Kathy Bullis who calls the plays 

[2115 Summit]

Obviously you have a personal connection here and I get that, but as a former student journalist, let me verify -- students are there to learn.

BP, a student newspaper has students as editors. A faculty advisor is not the editor in chief, but an advisor. There to teach, but not to hand-hold.

Not sure what the big deal is here? If this the article everyone is citing, I took it as an opinion from the the eyes of the RP. I actually remember reading it prior to Bullis being named and I thought it was written rather well.

http://royalpurplenews.com/?p=15594

No, this is not the article in question. This is an opinion piece from January 28th. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with that.  There was a subsequent article on January 29th, the day before the hiring was announced by UW-W, that cited "Royal Purple sources" indicating that Kevin Bullis was being named the coach the next day.  The article even mentioned that neither Coach Bullis nor Athletic Director Amy Edmonds were available for comment, which is exactly why reputable news outlets including D3football.com, the Jefferson Daily Union, the Janesville Gazette, and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal (not to mention TV and radio stations) did not "break" this story.  I can almost promise you the RP "source" was neither in the athletic department or part of the search process.  My guess is the source was footballscoop.com, which speculated the same earlier in the day based on their sources.  The RP article in question was subsequently pulled.

UW-W has a Sports Information Department (and a great SID, in Chris Lindeke, by the way) that coordinates really well with the various programs to get information out as timely and as responsibly as possible.  Chris sent out an announcement by email a little after 10:30 AM on January 30th including quotes both from AD Edmonds and Coach Bullis.

The folks at the athletic department put in a lot of work to ensure a quality experience for the Head Coach Finalists that were brought on campus.  The last thing anyone at UW-W would have wanted (except maybe the RP) would be for any of the Finalists to hear the news online rather than on a personal phone call from the university.  As Pat noted, the RP is a training ground.  It exists so students can learn.  It is ill advised to try to compete with the Sports Information Department in getting out news related to Warhawk sports.  It is a battle the RP cannot win.

Thanks for the clarification.

[WarhawkDad]

Any word on Coordinators or Assistants, yet?

[Pat Coleman]

As Pat noted, the RP is a training ground.  It exists so students can learn.  It is ill advised to try to compete with the Sports Information Department in getting out news related to Warhawk sports.  It is a battle the RP cannot win.

As someone who worked at a student paper, it's actually their job to be watchdogs on the administration, just like a news outlet is a watchdog on the government. (And in fact, we consider part of our role to do the same to the NCAA. Hence us challenging them when the regional records are incorrect, or they can't figure out how many Pool C teams there should be, etc.)

Cannot win, therefore do not compete? Doesn't sound in the nature of this board at all.

The trick with any student organization that does anything is them learning how to do it right. If a school fired a coach and covered it up because they didn't want it in the media, it's still the student newspaper's responsibility to find out and publish it. But to do it appropriately. If the student housing process is messed up, then the students need to know about it and the administration needs to be accountable.

Those are both front-page stories I and my team broke in college. I had the benefit of learning from an advisor who was on the national news desk at the Washington Post. But on deadline night, when we were putting the paper to bed, it was all students. And that's the way it should be.

Because, while I just spent a few paragraphs talking about the fact that the administration needs to be held responsible, of course, the student journalists need to be as well. Not everyone at the RP is going pro in this field -- heck, these days, there may  not be a job for any of them. But all of them need to learn the ins and outs if they are going to represent themselves in this medium. So we need to hold their feet to the fire, but still, please understand that they are learning and will not be perfect.

</soapbox>

[hazzben]

Ok.  So it did not take long to realize who is the Board deuchebag!!  What up OZ!!!!

There's a lot worse than Oz on these boards.

Oz is an acquired taste (shoot, all Johnnie posters are  ), but give him time, he'll grow on you. Soon you'll find yourself cheering for Hawthorne, a team half way around the world, in a sport you know nothing about, simply because Oz bludgeoned you into submission 

[emma17]

It sure was an enjoyable Super Bowl yesterday- with quite the ending.

Slant routes are over-rated!   

[02 Warhawk]

As Pat noted, the RP is a training ground.  It exists so students can learn.  It is ill advised to try to compete with the Sports Information Department in getting out news related to Warhawk sports.  It is a battle the RP cannot win.

As someone who worked at a student paper, it's actually their job to be watchdogs on the administration, just like a news outlet is a watchdog on the government. (And in fact, we consider part of our role to do the same to the NCAA. Hence us challenging them when the regional records are incorrect, or they can't figure out how many Pool C teams there should be, etc.)

Cannot win, therefore do not compete? Doesn't sound in the nature of this board at all.

The trick with any student organization that does anything is them learning how to do it right. If a school fired a coach and covered it up because they didn't want it in the media, it's still the student newspaper's responsibility to find out and publish it. But to do it appropriately. If the student housing process is messed up, then the students need to know about it and the administration needs to be accountable.

Those are both front-page stories I and my team broke in college. I had the benefit of learning from an advisor who was on the national news desk at the Washington Post. But on deadline night, when we were putting the paper to bed, it was all students. And that's the way it should be.

Because, while I just spent a few paragraphs talking about the fact that the administration needs to be held responsible, of course, the student journalists need to be as well. Not everyone at the RP is going pro in this field -- heck, these days, there may  not be a job for any of them. But all of them need to learn the ins and outs if they are going to represent themselves in this medium. So we need to hold their feet to the fire, but still, please understand that they are learning and will not be perfect.

</soapbox>

Being a former Sports Editor for the RP, we got the majority of our information from the UWW SID. We relied heavily on him (and his faxes) to keep our staff up to date on Warhawk news. I'm not at all saying that the SID provided incorrect info to the RP, which lead to the premature article. I just wanted to point out we don't really compete with him, but rather rely heavily on him for information so we could fill out our pages.

Of course this was 13 years ago, and maybe things have changed since then.

[NewHawk]

Any word on Coordinators or Assistants, yet?

He said in the interview that he had already spoken to his choices so I would hope he announces this week so recruiting can get to 100%. I know we have people on the ground already but it would be nice to have to DC and the OC working the big names as well. Definitely another big time receiver and a couple of corners, even though I believe that we have one rising sophomore that is going to step up and do a great job.

[02 Warhawk]

As far as the RP Advisor, she never stepped in and prevented us from printing something. Like Pat said, she just offered guidance on what we were doing. She attended our editorial meetings and offered advice when she felt necessary. But as far as printing stories, that was 100% up to the editorial staff. She let us make our own mistakes and we learned from them.

That reminds me of a time when I wrote an Editorial (strictly an opinion piece) in the sports section about the turnover at the basketball coaching positions (both men's and women's). This was when the then ass. coach Pat Miller became interim coach, and the ass. coach Wendy (something) became interim for the women's team, at the same time.

I wrote a piece saying that I believe Eichorst (the then AD for UWW) should hire Pat as the full time coach, however get someone outside with winning experience to shake things up on the women's team. Back then the women's team was god awful, so a change would do this team some good. As it turned out Eichorst did exactly that. Miller was promoted, but Wendy was overlooked for an assistant coach from Stout (Keri Carollo).

Shortly after that RP was printed I got a call I'll never forget from the interim women's b-ball coach. She was SCREAMING at me about the opinion piece, and demanded a correction be printed in the following week's paper apologizing for the article. I said there's no chance at that considering it was an opinion article, which we were entitled to. I explained that she's a public figure and is open to these types of pieces. What I didn't say was, "if you wanted to be a head coach you need to grow thicker skin and not take to heart what the media says about you."

I realize no mistake was made, but at no point did our advisor step in and say what needed to be done. She only offered her advise after we went to her.

[KitchenSink]

As far as the RP Advisor, she never stepped in and prevented us from printing something. Like Pat said, she just offered guidance on what we were doing. She attended our editorial meetings and offered advice when she felt necessary. But as far as printing stories, that was 100% up to the editorial staff. She let us make our own mistakes and we learned from them.

That reminds me of a time when I wrote an Editorial (strictly an opinion piece) in the sports section about the turnover at the basketball coaching positions (both men's and women's). This was when the then ass. coach Pat Miller became interim coach, and the ass. coach Wendy (something) became interim for the women's team, at the same time.

I wrote a piece saying that I believe Eichorst (the then AD for UWW) should hire Pat as the full time coach, however get someone outside with winning experience to shake things up on the women's team. Back then the women's team was god awful, so a change would do this team some good. As it turned out Eichorst did exactly that. Miller was promoted, but Wendy was overlooked for an assistant coach from Stout (Keri Carollo).

Shortly after that RP was printed I got a call I'll never forget from the interim women's b-ball coach. She was SCREAMING at me about the opinion piece, and demanded a correction be printed in the following week's paper apologizing for the article. I said there's no chance at that considering it was an opinion article, which we were entitled to. I explained that she's a public figure and is open to these types of pieces. What I didn't say was, "if you wanted to be a head coach you need to grow thicker skin and not take to heart what the media says about you."

I realize no mistake was made, but at no point did our advisor step in and say what needed to be done. She only offered her advise after we went to her.

She probably didn't like being called an ass coach.   

[emma17]

^^^
That's funny

[badgerwarhawk]

I remember a comment the then head coach, who's name I've completely forgotten (Julia something maybe), made to me which made the reason they were god awful clear.  After I had attended the girl's state tournament and had seen virtually every other conference coach present at one time or another I mentioned it to her.  Her response was "why should I go when I can watch the tournament on television."  I was amazed she was that clueless. 

[02 Warhawk]

As far as the RP Advisor, she never stepped in and prevented us from printing something. Like Pat said, she just offered guidance on what we were doing. She attended our editorial meetings and offered advice when she felt necessary. But as far as printing stories, that was 100% up to the editorial staff. She let us make our own mistakes and we learned from them.

That reminds me of a time when I wrote an Editorial (strictly an opinion piece) in the sports section about the turnover at the basketball coaching positions (both men's and women's). This was when the then ass. coach Pat Miller became interim coach, and the ass. coach Wendy (something) became interim for the women's team, at the same time.

I wrote a piece saying that I believe Eichorst (the then AD for UWW) should hire Pat as the full time coach, however get someone outside with winning experience to shake things up on the women's team. Back then the women's team was god awful, so a change would do this team some good. As it turned out Eichorst did exactly that. Miller was promoted, but Wendy was overlooked for an assistant coach from Stout (Keri Carollo).

Shortly after that RP was printed I got a call I'll never forget from the interim women's b-ball coach. She was SCREAMING at me about the opinion piece, and demanded a correction be printed in the following week's paper apologizing for the article. I said there's no chance at that considering it was an opinion article, which we were entitled to. I explained that she's a public figure and is open to these types of pieces. What I didn't say was, "if you wanted to be a head coach you need to grow thicker skin and not take to heart what the media says about you."

I realize no mistake was made, but at no point did our advisor step in and say what needed to be done. She only offered her advise after we went to her.

She probably didn't like being called an ass coach.   

+K

[Mr. Ypsi]

I remember a comment the then head coach, who's name I've completely forgotten (Julia something maybe), made to me which made the reason they were god awful clear.  After I had attended the girl's state tournament and had seen virtually every other conference coach present at one time or another I mentioned it to her.  Her response was "why should I go when I can watch the tournament on television."  I was amazed she was that clueless.

That's so clueless, I'm amazed she was ever a college HC.  Even I know that coaches go in person to HS tourneys partly to scout (much better done in person that on the tube - I'd want to see what she does when away from the ball, thus not on camera, and what her attitude is like when on the bench), but even more so to BE seen, not to see.