At the Prestige in La Quinta..........

ETSU was in 3rd at the turn, 3 under, but now on holes 9-12, have dropped back to even and are tied for 4th.
The Waves leading at -6.

.....and.......as expected (because we always do when we start off well) we falter on the back and end up +8, in 9th place, of 13 teams. Waves still leading, tied with the Cardinal. Aztecs one back.

ETSU shoots one better in the second round, 291 vs. 292, and are tied in 9th again, this time with St. Mary's (the CA ones) at +15.

LSU blistered the course in 6 under today, 5 strokes better than any other team, and shot to the lead over the Cardinal and by 1, at +1 total. The Aztecs and Cyclones are each 1 more back.

Not surprisingly, the Waves faltered, +12 on the day, to be tied for 7th.

Trevor Hulbert, son of former Buc and pro Mike Hulbert, shot pretty well the first round, but not so well today (+8), to trail the Bucs scoring, even tho he is the #1 seed. #2 seed Mateusz Gradecki, from Poland, leads the way for ETSU, tied for 15th overall.

For fun: We are tied for third in birdies, but last in pars. You can do the math on that, I think.

Eww.....we balloon up today, as also tends to happen, for a +15 on the day, for 299 and +30 on the tournament. 9th place. *Real* separation between the top 8 and the bottom 5, with the Sun Devils in 8th at +13, and ETSU in 9th at +30. That's astonishing, really. Of the top 8 teams, 7 have rankings; of the lower 'division', none did. LSU, ranked 16th, held on to win with even par for the tournament, 4 better than the Waves. The Cardinal ended up tied for 4th with the Red Raiders, at 5th, the highest-ranked team in the field.

Highest ETSU player was Gradecki, tied for 9th, 2 under for the tournament, which is great. Next highest finisher was Geuntae Kim, at +7, tied for 32nd.

We averaged 3.37 on the par 3s, worst in the field.

I think we can say that this is likely not going to turn out to be a strong ETSU team. Would be great if that's wrong, but hard to see how it could be, honestly.

OK, let's rant again......

Here's the release from ETSU:

Women's golf wins Web.com Intercollegiate

Here's the WJHL story, allegedly written by Kenny Hawkins:

Kenny Hawkins's (supposed) version

Obviously the verbatim words, except Hawkins leaves off the last 2 sentences promoting ETSU sports, etc.

1. I know this has been discussed before, but why/how does Hawkins get a byline for this? For what purpose?

2. More importantly, when the tournament was suspended (and then ended prematurely due to storms) who was ETSU leading "by a narrow margin"? [It was Cincinnati, by 4 strokes.] Then, they proceed to say that ETSU beat Campbell by 21 and Chatt by 22. Why compare ETSU to the 12th and 13th finishers in a 16-team field???!!!?? That's nuts. Who finished second (see above)? At least they mention the individual winner.

Think that's bad (and it is), FIU's (they finished 3rd, 10 strokes back) site doesn't even mention who won!:

FIU's site is worse than ETSU's

By contrast, Chatt's site not only gives their results, but says that ETSU won over Cincy by 4.
Cincy's site gives the entire team scoreboard, which is the way it should be done.

How hard is it, really, to do some just basic reporting in addition to the ETSU spinning? They are NOT mutually exclusive. Mike, why not tell us that Cincinnati was second, 4 strokes back? Why, why, why?

They're not reporters. Again, they're PR people who's job is to PROMOTE what ETSU does and put ETSU in the best light possible without being too full of crap. Kenny on the other hand should've taken 5-10 minutes and moved some things around to make it work better for what he does, but it's a golf story that was probably a 15-20 second reader at the end of sports that if he got to great, and if not he really didn't care because Coach Warren would still get him on over at Blackthorn with little Joe and anyone else that'll stroke Fred's over inflated ego. FIU didn't care who won, they cared about what their people did. That's it. That's how you write press releases that are school/program specific.
Big difference between the two.

The men's team is sucking hard so far this year, I kind of feel sorry for whoever is trying to put lipstick on that pig over at ETSU.

(04-05-2017 10:20 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  They're not reporters. Again, they're PR people who's job is to PROMOTE what ETSU does and put ETSU in the best light possible without being too full of crap. Kenny on the other hand should've taken 5-10 minutes and moved some things around to make it work better for what he does, but it's a golf story that was probably a 15-20 second reader at the end of sports that if he got to great, and if not he really didn't care because Coach Warren would still get him on over at Blackthorn with little Joe and anyone else that'll stroke Fred's over inflated ego. FIU didn't care who won, they cared about what their people did. That's it. That's how you write press releases that are school/program specific.
Big difference between the two.

Again, "reporting" and "spinning" are NOT mutually exclusive. One can do both at the same time. How does it "PROMOTE" ETSU more to exclude the fact that Cincinnati came in second by 4 strokes - yet include the scores of the 12th and 13th finishers? If it's to make our margin of victory somehow greater (even though no rational person would believe that 21- and 22-stroke margins are what's being referred to as "narrow"), then they're delusional. I would think, rather, that beating Cincinnati at *anything* would appear to the casual observer as being noteworthy. Seriously, how does omitting that make ETSU appear in the "best possible light"?
(And I've not even mentioned how weak of a field this was, as that's more a secondary or tertiary issue. I can live with them leaving that out - BUT......you can believe if it had been a strong field that would have been trumpeted loudly, as that has always been "par for the course" {sorry}.)

Beyond that, even Steve Forbes in Asheville this year referred to those in that position as "SID"s - the traditional title. That "I" stands for "Information", as I'm sure you know.

I'm just someone who believes in "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth". I can't help it - that's just the best policy. We all know the secretive habits of our last regime, and how infuriated we were about their obfuscatory way of NOT releasing information - such as bartow's contract extensions, for just one of too-numerous-to-mention examples. And no, these are not equivalent examples.............but when you try to spin so much that the truth gets buried, you've gone off the trail too far - you begin to lose credibility. Who here (or anywhere), who really cares about that tournament would 'swallow' that news release as the "real story"? Nobody that really cared. Nobody. It only make one curious as to what all they left out.

One can promote ETSU, and even spin the results of things a reasonable amount without making it hagiographic (look it up if you need to, as that's really the perfect word for this).

(04-05-2017 11:32 PM)RodShaw2 Wrote:  The men's team is sucking hard so far this year, I kind of feel sorry for whoever is trying to put lipstick on that pig over at ETSU.

Well, yes they are, but they are certainly still playing in tournaments with significant numbers of ranked teams. And even though they're not *quite* holding their own, they're (usually) not getting blown out by teams that aren't real strong. Fred still gets them "in the conversation" - but that can't last forever.

(04-06-2017 10:00 AM)posterformerlyknownasthedoctor Wrote:  

(04-05-2017 10:20 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  They're not reporters. Again, they're PR people who's job is to PROMOTE what ETSU does and put ETSU in the best light possible without being too full of crap. Kenny on the other hand should've taken 5-10 minutes and moved some things around to make it work better for what he does, but it's a golf story that was probably a 15-20 second reader at the end of sports that if he got to great, and if not he really didn't care because Coach Warren would still get him on over at Blackthorn with little Joe and anyone else that'll stroke Fred's over inflated ego. FIU didn't care who won, they cared about what their people did. That's it. That's how you write press releases that are school/program specific.
Big difference between the two.

Again, "reporting" and "spinning" are NOT mutually exclusive. One can do both at the same time. How does it "PROMOTE" ETSU more to exclude the fact that Cincinnati came in second by 4 strokes - yet include the scores of the 12th and 13th finishers? If it's to make our margin of victory somehow greater (even though no rational person would believe that 21- and 22-stroke margins are what's being referred to as "narrow"), then they're delusional. I would think, rather, that beating Cincinnati at *anything* would appear to the casual observer as being noteworthy. Seriously, how does omitting that make ETSU appear in the "best possible light"?
(And I've not even mentioned how weak of a field this was, as that's more a secondary or tertiary issue. I can live with them leaving that out - BUT......you can believe if it had been a strong field that would have been trumpeted loudly, as that has always been "par for the course" {sorry}.)

Beyond that, even Steve Forbes in Asheville this year referred to those in that position as "SID"s - the traditional title. That "I" stands for "Information", as I'm sure you know.

I'm just someone who believes in "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth". I can't help it - that's just the best policy. We all know the secretive habits of our last regime, and how infuriated we were about their obfuscatory way of NOT releasing information - such as bartow's contract extensions, for just one of too-numerous-to-mention examples. And no, these are not equivalent examples.............but when you try to spin so much that the truth gets buried, you've gone off the trail too far - you begin to lose credibility. Who here (or anywhere), who really cares about that tournament would 'swallow' that news release as the "real story"? Nobody that really cared. Nobody. It only make one curious as to what all they left out.

One can promote ETSU, and even spin the results of things a reasonable amount without making it hagiographic (look it up if you need to, as that's really the perfect word for this).

It's no longer worth trying to explain to you, you're just going to piss and moan about it regardless. Until you work in that industry, you're not going to get it.

(04-07-2017 08:41 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  

(04-06-2017 10:00 AM)posterformerlyknownasthedoctor Wrote:  Beyond that, even Steve Forbes in Asheville this year referred to those in that position as "SID"s - the traditional title. That "I" stands for "Information", as I'm sure you know.

I'm just someone who believes in "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth". I can't help it - that's just the best policy.
..........but when you try to spin so much that the truth gets buried, you've gone off the trail too far - you begin to lose credibility.
One can promote ETSU, and even spin the results of things a reasonable amount without making it hagiographic (look it up if you need to, as that's really the perfect word for this).

It's no longer worth trying to explain to you, you're just going to piss and moan about it regardless. Until you work in that industry, you're not going to get it.

I think I "get it" just fine, but just disagree with the role as practiced by Mike White (and apparently a large number of other SIDs (or whatever equivalent they're called now by some in an attempt to make the spinning more palatable)).
I think the truth is more important than the spin - by far. Apparently you don't. So be it, and we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Working "in the industry" in that manner doesn't justify it. Wrong is wrong. Just because Sean Spicer or Kelly Ann Conway work in their "industry" doesn't make their use of "alternative facts" right. Same situation.

Instead of this headline: "Dobele, Loy sit second; Bucs are top-5 at Brickyard Collegiate".....why not just say "Bucs in 5th" for the second part of that? It's more accurate and informative. When they write "top 5", obviously that could be anywhere between 1 and 5, although we know if it was 1 or 2 that would likely be touted. In fact, although the top 3 teams are mentioned (that's an improvement), they then say we're ahead of 2 other teams, making it seem as if ETSU were fourth. Only then do they say the Bucs are 5th.
Just be more accurate (and truthful) and say what it is in the headline (which is all a majority of readers consume, likely). One gets the impression if they were 6th (like at the moment), the headline would have been "Bucs are top-6", etc. Would they have written "Bucs are top-10" if we were 10th? I really don't doubt it.

And btw, there are 15 teams in the field - including many SoCon teams - something nice to know for CONTEXT.

[To be clear, these things are kinda minor compared to the reportage of the Web.com Intercollegiate.]

Update: We've dropped to 8th while I was writing this out. Top 3 teams still the same.

Their job is to promote the university. It's public relations, not journalism. There's a HUGE DIFFERENCE between the two, in spite of what Joe Avento has spent his career doing for Coach Warren and the better part of the Murry Bartow era. Best thing I can tell you is to email Lise Cutshaw at the university and ask her the difference. Either Lise or Tammy Hayes will provide a great explanation for you.

(04-11-2017 04:51 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  Their job is to promote the university. It's public relations, not journalism. There's a HUGE DIFFERENCE between the two, in spite of what Joe Avento has spent his career doing for Coach Warren and the better part of the Murry Bartow era. Best thing I can tell you is to email Lise Cutshaw at the university and ask her the difference. Either Lise or Tammy Hayes will provide a great explanation for you.

Lover.. do this IRL.. you will have better results > trying to argue with Doc.. he will just keep up until you give up.. so he "wins"

(you might actually "dent" the wall, no way you are him)

Everyone on the board<This side< He is way over there. But hey he is right!!
I mean to us it is simple to know the difference between a University sports INFORMATION department and journalism.

A few definitions from around the web. I see a trend, Public relations.. not journalism..

A sports information director serves as a public relations specialist for a college or university's athletic department. Sports information directors, or SIDs, promote student-athletes to the public, helping to attract notice for their play and other qualities

Sports information directors document and publicize the accomplishments of athletes and teams for the school or league they represent.

A sports information director is a type of public relations worker who provides statistics, team and player notes and other information about a college or university's sports teams to the news media and general public

(04-11-2017 04:51 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  Their job is to promote the university. It's public relations, not journalism. There's a HUGE DIFFERENCE between the two, in spite of what Joe Avento has spent his career doing for Coach Warren and the better part of the Murry Bartow era. Best thing I can tell you is to email Lise Cutshaw at the university and ask her the difference. Either Lise or Tammy Hayes will provide a great explanation for you.

Yet again, I'm an idealist. I believe in truth above virtually all else. Above a job; above 'loyalty'; above country; above all mortal things. It's just the best policy. If one takes a job in which one has to decide between promulgating truth, or emphasizing the spin, one must choose whether that job (and thus a piece of one's soul) is 'worth' "selling out" for the goals of one's boss, over truth. Everybody has points in their lives when they have to make those decisions/judgements.

Remember when Mike White withheld the fact that Eddie D. went to State College to interview for the Penn St. job? DeChellis put him in a bad situation, but he chose loyalty over truth (although by keeping silent he was trying to walk some hypothetical middle ground, as I see it). Do we want more of that? Do we want more obfuscation, after going what we went thru with mullins and bartow?

Who draws the line where truth ends and spin begins?
As I wrote earlier, one doesn't have to overly spin in order to "promote the university". That's not in itself a bad goal. THEY ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. But when promotion carries more weight than truth, and a proper representation thereof, then the priorities are screwed up. That's just a fact. I'd bet 80+% of university PR-types are journalism graduates. Or at least have significant journalism training. They know, or at least most of them do, what journalism is.

Point being, I understand the difference. That doesn't mean that Mike White or Kevin Brown or whoever has a license to twist the truth beyond what a non-sold-out journalist would recognize. If the university *demands* they do what they've been doing, then they've already made that decision to do that instead of be true journalists. I understand that. But that doesn't mean it's right. In fact, if that's all "media relations" people do, then those positions shouldn't exist. They would be doing a *dis*service instead of a service to the university.

Just because the occupation "spammer" exists doesn't make someone "employed" in that occupation legitimate. Same for "career criminal". And although those are obviously extreme examples, the point is valid - just because one has a job title doesn't mean it's one to be proud of, or one that *should* exist.

I'm not trying to "win" - but I *am* trying to get you all to see that spin at all costs is a bad thing; that it *hurts* the university in the long run rather than helps it. Credibility is a valuable trait/commodity. Some of the fluff that comes out of that office is way short on that.

And to Rod......yes, "INFORMATION' is what we want. **ALL** of it - or at least more of it - AND....we want it to be "informative" - word that comes from the root "information", or "inform".
We don't want to know (only) that ETSU beat the 12th and 13th teams in a golf field; it'd be kinda nice to learn who finished second, and by how much. Surely you all aren't defending what they did with that story, are you?

[I just looked on their web site, and they have a new(ish) guy, Mitchell Miegel, writing copy for the tennis teams. He's a graduate assistant. And not surprisingly, he also writes the women's golf stuff, along with a few others. So I think we have now confirmed that likely he doesn't know a whit about tennis - or maybe not even golf. His supervisor (I assume White) should, however, be more observant, or at the least be a better proofreader. I truly had wondered earlier if indeed this was what could going on; I just didn't know they broke out who wrote what. It certainly explains not knowing the difference between "match", "game", "set", and "point". Sadly.]

(04-12-2017 12:51 AM)RodShaw2 Wrote:  A few definitions from around the web. I see a trend, Public relations.. not journalism..

A sports information director serves as a public relations specialist for a college or university's athletic department. Sports information directors, or SIDs, promote student-athletes to the public, helping to attract notice for their play and other qualities

Sports information directors document and publicize the accomplishments of athletes and teams for the school or league they represent.

A sports information director is a type of public relations worker who provides statistics, team and player notes and other information about a college or university's sports teams to the news media and general public

You're missing the point. NONE of that means a thing. To repeat what I just wrote in the previous post, just because one has some title doesn't mean it's a legitimate use of newsprint or cyberspace. And yes, I realize I'm in a minority, but yes, I also know I'm indeed right. (And thank you for acknowledging that!)

BTW......ETSU finished 6th down in Macon. The top 3 teams after the first round stayed the same, meaning Furple won.

Now, let's look at the title of ETSU's press release:
"Loy wins The Brickyard Intercollegiate". Is that accurate? No, not really - she *TIED* for first with Paladin Haylee Harford. Wouldn't it have been more accurate (and FAR less misleading) to say "Loy ties for first at The Brickyard Intercollegiate"? What's wrong with that??

Yet another perfect example of what I've been talking about. To say one of your players tied for first in a golf tournament is a good thing. To make it sound like she won it outright is a BAD thing because it purposely is designed to mislead readers. And they know it - yet purposely do it. That's just flat out, unadulterated, WRONG.

[EDIT: OH WAIT! It's worse than I thought! They actually LIE about the team finish. In the text of the article, they say "As a team, ETSU stayed in the top-5 following the final 18 holes of play as the Bucs placed fifth." Unfortunately, as I noted at the top, they finished sixth, as one can plainly see in the final scoreboard:

The Brickyard Intercollegiate final scoreboard

I guess they didn't want to comply with my earlier prediction of saying "top 6" if that came to pass, so they lied instead. Amazing. Truly amazing.

This is what happens on that slippery slope where the truth becomes an inconvenient encumbrance. I think my point(s) have just been exceedingly well proven.]

I still think you would end up with less of a headache vs debating doc.

There's still more...........

In that release, they say that "The victory in Macon, Ga. was Loy’s second individual victory of her career and her second in three tournament outings." Well, that's not true, either. It was her second in FOUR tournament outings. ETSU (including Loy) competed in The River Landing Classic March 9-10, which Loy won outright. They then competed in The 3M Augusta Invitational March 17-19, where Loy finished tied for 13th. Next they were in the rain-shortened Web.com Intercollegiate Apr. 3-4, discussed earlier, where Loy finished 4th. Then she won (actually split with a Furman player) The Brickyard Collegiate. That's FOUR tournaments. So she's won twice (truly once and a half) in the last FOUR tournaments. That's great, and congratulations to Loy.

That's maybe not really *that* big of a deal by itself, but it just shows that the truth isn't very highly regarded in Mike White's office there. If you all are happy with "alternative facts", then ok.

When the truth takes such short shrift, who knows where things will lead? Well, Steve Forbes knows. We just don't want to even *hint* at going down such roads.