It is articles like this, that really get me in a lather!!! :mad:

<a href='http://www.freep.com/sports/drewsharp/drew27_20021227.htm' target='_blank'>Drew Sharp can Bite Me!!!</a>

Here are three of my biggest gripes with the article:

First, the byline intimates the crowd was mostly there to see the field and not the game. Sure, that's partly true, but why have it as the BYLINE???

Second, there in no mention the Motor City Bowl has been successful all SIX of its years; it has been well supported by MAC fans; and it seems to be growing.

Third (and this really pisses me off), he concludes by saying:

Quote: But novelties eventually wear thin. And like the Lions, the Motor City Bowl eventually will have to provide an enthralling on-field product to get these folks back downtown.

Eventually??? Eventually??? Isn't this the sixth MCB? Hasn't MAC teams won four of the them and was very competitive in the first? We get blown out of ONE game and the writer's last sentence implicitly downgrades the MAC.

Finally, somewhere I heard Drew Sharp graduated from CMU. I hope this is not true. If it is, WHAT IS HIS PROBLEM? Couldn't get into U-M? Got cut from the CMU football team? Yes, YES, YES, I know we aren't as good as the Big Ten. But why can't the Detroit sports press consistently report and support the MAC? :mad:

We really are CINDERELLA: constantly ignored and/or abused by the wicked step-sisters and step-mother. Sure, we get to go to the ball once in a while, but every time the clock strikes midnight we turn back into a pumpkin and have to await the opportunity of the next ball.

Right on the mark, O.C. I read the same garbage just a little while ago. The good ol' maize n' blue Detroit media.


BTW, was it Drew Sharp who went to CMU, or Terry Foster? For some reason I thought it was Foster.

Drew Sharp is a punk. He writes incendiary things like that just to draw attention to himself. He craves attention and relishes in it when his writing gets noticed, positive or negative, it doesn't matter to him.

Terry Foster of the Detroit News went to CMU and has been very supportive of the MAC in most of his columns.

Oh well......going 1-1 in bowls isn't so bad. It's just a shame that UT had a few players make the program look so bad on national TV (and why doesn't the chubby one do something about it, like getting in their face when they punch people??).

For a diversion, you can re-focus on C-USA's dismal bowl season (1-3 and counting), although So. Miss did play a good game today against Oklahoma State. Their only win (Tulane over thuggish Hawaii) was only because Hawaii's first string QB went down......the second stringer played miserably early but came around later in the game.

Thank you Motown Bronco and Huron Dave.

I'm relieved Drew Sharp DID NOT graduate from CMU. Anyone know where is honed his "skills"?

Excincy Kid, I agree
Where was the outrage from the coach, he looked like he was in a daze. It made the entire conference look cheap, thats what is making me so mad. I would have loved to see toledo win, they just let me down and it stinks.

Also, the toledo fans trying to defelect the criticisim saying things like, could your team have done better, or, Marshall leads the MAC in personal fouls. This is not about anyone other the the toledo team and its coach.

exCincy Kid Wrote:Oh well......going 1-1 in bowls isn't so bad. It's just a shame that UT had a few players make the program look so bad on national TV (and why doesn't the chubby one do something about it, like getting in their face when they punch people??).

For a diversion, you can re-focus on C-USA's dismal bowl season (1-3 and counting), although So. Miss did play a good game today against Oklahoma State. Their only win (Tulane over thuggish Hawaii) was only because Hawaii's first string QB went down......the second stringer played miserably early but came around later in the game.

We had one player. The late hit out of bounds was not cheap and was not a disgrace. Everyone is just saying that because of the end zone incident.

So we have a player get in a fight. At least one of our coaches didn't push a BC fan. Of course BC would have had to have a fan there for that to happen.

Quote:Drew Sharp is a punk. He writes incendiary things like that just to draw attention to himself. He craves attention and relishes in it when his writing gets noticed, positive or negative, it doesn't matter to him.

Terry Foster of the Detroit News went to CMU and has been very supportive of the MAC in most of his columns.

Correct on both counts. If the Lions and Tigers ever both became good at the same time , I don't know what Drew would write about! (talk about your job security...).

ggeezzz what a fawking b|tch

rocketfootball Wrote:We had one player. The late hit out of bounds was not cheap and was not a disgrace. Everyone is just saying that because of the end zone incident.

So we have a player get in a fight. At least one of our coaches didn't push a BC fan. Of course BC would have had to have a fan there for that to happen.

I can understand the ejection of the first guy in the endzone.

But what didn't sit well with me was the feeling that the second guy (who hit the QB out of bounds) was "paying" for the other guy's mistake. In any other game, that was a 15-yard penalty, something all 117 Div 1-A programs have done over the season. Heck, yesterday I happened to flick on the So Miss vs. OSU game during the third quarter, and the USM QB (Almond) was already tackled and slid well out of bounds. Then some other OSU guy comes and jumps belly-first onto the pile. 15 yards, but no ejection. And the hit was 10x as ugly as the Toledo hit.

I realize the refs were watching things more closely and going into more of a no-tolerance mode. But in media reporting, it will be said that two Rocket players were ejected in separate "incidents" during the game. In reality, the first guy earned it, and the second guy was just tossed out by associaton on what would've been a normal penalty had the first incident not occurred.

Quote:First, the byline intimates the crowd was mostly there to see the field and not the game. Sure, that's partly true, but why have it as the BYLINE???

A byline indicates who wrote the story, e.g. "by Drew Sharp."

Perhaps you were referring to the headline. Headlines try to convey in a few words the overall point of the piece. The headline did just that.

I didn't think his column was that far off the mark. Sharp did seem a little cranky.

As for the closing:

"But novelties eventually wear thin. And like the Lions, the Motor City Bowl eventually will have to provide an enthralling on-field product to get these folks back downtown."

I just thought that was a little lazy, and not necessarily a big criticism.

Sharp knows damn well it's the MAC's bowl and will stay that way indefinitely. If he's unhappy about the fact that the MAC sends a team to this game, he certainly didn't complain about that part of it.

So what's he really complaining about?

He's complaining that the game sucked rocks and was a blow out. That's a pretty silly and lazy point to make.

I mean, what is Perles supposed to do about that? Blowouts happen. That's life. Maybe next year will be better. Maybe not.

So, it was lazy. But I don't think he was trying to be mean.

And I can't blame Sharp for being a bit lazy. The game started at 5 p.m. and he had the column in the next day's paper with some detail from the game. So he definitely worked a little late Thursday night -- and who wants to be hanging around the office or some stadium late on the day after Christmas?

Another writer -- Foster, I think -- pointed out that the bowl needs to do more to get the community involved, to promote a more festive atmopshere and maybe get City Hall on board more than they have been.

That's a better point.

RF:

Your comments are well taken, but I'm not about to let Sharp off so easily with this column.

First, the headline:

Quote:Fans wooed by stadium, not blowout in it.

In its context, the verb wooed means the fans came to this event to tour Ford Field. Of course no one is wooed by the prospects of a blowout, unless you think your team's going to do it. It would be more accurate to simply say "game" instead of blowout; if in fact the writer's intent is to say people came to see the stadium. And that is intent based upon the first paragraph:

Quote: The Motor City Bowl was an excuse for those unwilling to pay the ransom required for Lions tickets to catch their first glimpse of special landmarks from an imperfect season that until Thursday were merely televised images.

At this point, I do have a couple of questions, since I live in Oklahoma. Being a new stadium, it seems there would be tours available on an occasional basis. If so, it surely would be less than $25 - $40 a whack to visit. If there aren't tours, why not?

The next several paragraphs of the column is yada, yada, yada about the stadium with snipe attacks directed to the Lions.

Then Sharp fires off zingers in his next two paragraphs.

Quote: The attendance number was the best yet for the six-year Motor City Bowl. But who's kidding whom here? The attraction wasn't Boston College or Toledo. It was the stadium. &nbsp;The game had more than 40,000 in the seats, a 30 percent improvement from the customary numbers during the bowl's Silverdome days. And it's likely that a quarter of those were there for one reason and one only -- to look at what all the fuss was about.

Please take notice; the prior two paragraphs focus on why the fans came to the game. To see the stadium and not to see a game. I'd like to make a couple of points here. First, let's say Sharp is right: one quarter of the 30% improvement in attendance was due to those coming to see Ford Field. Let's do the math. Hmm... 40,000 was a 30% increase... that equals an additional 9,230 fans. One-quarter of that equals 2,308 persons who came only to see the stadium. Actually I'll bet you they ALSO came to see a football game; albeit lopsided; but they were NOT there for "one reason and one only"!

Let's take the math a bit further 40,000 - 2,308 = 37,692 fans who came to see a football game!! Which reminds me; whatever became of Jack Saylor (I think that's the name); the MSU beat reporter for either the Free Press or News, who for the prior five years said this bowl event should never be played and will never succeed? But I digress...

A second point is this. Was the true attendance around 30,500 at last year's game? I heard it was either the #1 or #2 attended game of the first five Motor City Bowls. The MCB web sites reports 44,164 but I realize that refers the number of tickets sold. At any rate anyone know how many went, thus is this year's number really a 30% increase?

Now I have to admit this next paragraph WAS funny; except to Big 10/11 fans. Plus it yielded some props to the MAC.

Quote: This could have been fun had the Big Ten not offered up a national championship sacrifice in the Fiesta Bowl, perhaps then forcing Purdue (6-6) to square off against a pretty good Mid-American Conference representative. The MAC's improved performance against big brother Big Ten the last couple of years would have provided some element of drama because of the potential for further Big Ten embarrassment.

While there is a lot of truth to the next paragraph; in years in which the MAC is represented by a ranked team, opponents will be more than happy to be in the MCB.

Quote: The Motor City Bowl will never be looked upon as a reward for the team that opposes the MAC representative. But it at least becomes a little more palatable in its new downtown setting, as opposed to its former sterile confines within the emptiness of Pontiac.

For example, I believe BYU was chomping at the bit so they could show the nation that Marshall was not deserving of their ranking. And while BC preferred to go elsewhere, I don't believe they viewed it as being sent to Purgatory (a little Catholic joke there). They saw it as a good opportunity to showcase their program.

Finally, I am NOT going to let that last paragraph go.

Quote: But novelties eventually wear thin. And like the Lions, the Motor City Bowl eventually will have to provide an enthralling on-field product to get these folks back downtown.

Once again, this was the first MCB at Ford Field, but the sixth overall. The first five did pretty well attendance-wise with on-the-field success for MAC teams. A reader without the knowledge of those five games is given the notion this bowl could be "in trouble". Far from it!

I do acknowledge Sharp did not have much time to write his piece. With that in mind, why not already have a draft in place before the game? It's done all the time. That way, if the game is a bust, you have a backup.

What could have been a good backup? How about, despite all of the naysayers, the Motor City Bowl is successful and has a bright future in downtown Detroit? And the Mid-American Conference has NOT let down the bowl organizers! Nothing in the prior attendance figures or 5 out of the 6 game outcomes suggest otherwise.

Sorry about this lengthly dissection of a worthless column. At least you don't have to read about me ragging on the Cleveland press-- they have been quite supportive of the MACC tourney at the Gund.

I'm sure part of that column was in place before kick off.

Look, it would have been nice if he had written a nice column about what a great game this has become. Instead, he was attached to the idea that this was the first chance for anyone to get a cheap look at the stadium. He's right, it was.

The column doesn't matter. Detroit is slowly coming around to embrace the game. I think that's clear. The coverage is much better than it was the first couple of years.

OKie: you're right not to let Sharp off the hook. He's pessimistic to a fault, even when he does make some good points.