Did you ever see a movie called “The Paper“? Not a great movie, but one of the last sightings of Michael Keaton in a real movie. Anyways, there’s this confrontation scene between a columnist played by Randy Quaid and a NYC official (played by Jason Alexander) who Quaid has been ripping in his column for a couple weeks. Alexander’s character plaintively asks why Quaid was going after him like this. Quaid answers:
“You work for the City. It was your turn.”
I often think about that quote with regards to ESPN. To me it explains what they do after a team wins a national championship in college football. They start looking closer at the school and the program for something. It’s what they did a year or so after Tennessee won it all, then Ohio State. If I were a USC fan, I’d be getting kind of nervous.
They do it in other things as well.
ESPN has always played a slippery game with issues of ethics, journalism, entertainment, and the bottom line. They do employ real journalists and do real reporting and news. They often hold themselves out as a real news gathering organization, yet when it is convenient they will fall back on the claim that they are “merely” an entertainment company. They will use their flagship “news show,” SportsCenter to cross promote their own entertainment programs (or Disney’s) when convenient — think “stories” about the making of “Playmakers,” “Tilt,”whatever that Dale Earnhardt movie was called, “The Rookie,” and “The Longest Yard” to name just a few that popped into my head. It’s a waste of time, but people know the score with what they are doing.
Then there is the way they sanction those who dare criticize any of their companies. Remember this?
He made the mistake of criticizing Disney and Miramax over the level of violence in “Kill Bill,” in one of his rambling columns. And actually had harsher criticisms in a separate piece he wrote for The New Republic. No explanation from ESPN was ever given. Gegg Easterbrook was simply pulled and fired without explanation.
That is, actually, the only hard and fast rule: Thou shalt not criticize Disney companies or employees.
Once the connection is over, though, anything is fair game. Hence, the BCS is going to start coming for a roasting by next year when Fox has the rights.
That of course brings things to Tom Lemming. Lemming is one of the, uh, pioneers of covering college recruiting. ESPN.com, for years used him to supply recruiting news content. No longer. ESPN.com is going exclusively with Scouts, Inc. for recruiting content.
Now in the latest ESPN The Magazine, Bruce Feldman — who is a real journalist and does a solid blog for ESPN.com on college football — writes about the recruiting sites pursuit of top blue-chip cornerback Myron Rolle. (No permalink, but it is the July 4 issue with Derek Lee on the cover, pp 67-72.)
Tom Lemming, one of the pioneers of the recruiting beat, has been in the business since 1979, when he had one subscriber by mail. Last year he racked up 45,000 miles crisscrossing the country to scout for his magazine, Prep Football Report. Lemming denies accusations from coaches that he sells information-and influence-to the very schools whose signees and recruiting classes he is ranking. One coach says Lemming coerced prospects to attend a photo shoot this spring by telling them he otherwise wouldn’t consider them for the roster he helps put together for the U.S. Army All-American game. The shoot was held on Notre Dame’s campus. “Tom Lemming is a huge Notre Dame guy,” Myron says. “He kept saying to me, ‘You know they have a great coaching staff. You know Charlie Weis is Mr. NFL. You’re an academic guy. That place is for you.’ Then he killed Florida State. He said, You’re stupid if you go there.’ Um, okay. Thanks.”
Lemming is used to being slammed. “I’ve had people bad-mouth me for years,” he says. “I try to be honest. I rarely talk to kids. The Internet people talk to them all the time. If there’s anyone influencing anyone, it has to be them.”
The problem for Lemming, is Rolle actually has credibility. The kid is an honor student and a strong family. The ND Blog, Blue-Gray Sky properly condemns Lemming.
Personally, I hope he stops mentioning Notre Dame to all recruits, lest we be included when the NCAA finally decides to do something about him. But until the NCAA cracks down on him and other unethical recruiting types — something I think is coming in the next 5 years — then ND fans may just have to hope that Weis tells Lemming to cram the ND sales pitch and keeps him at arms length from the program, lest the NCAA deem him a booster and he gets everyone in trouble.
In the meantime, there isn’t much that can be done other than refusing to assist in anything that supports him financially. And believe me, most ND fans wish Lemming would go away. Reporting on recruiting news and ranking recruits based on his own “talent evaluation skills” [sic] is one thing, but the way he inserts himself into the process is bad for the sport, bad for the schools, and definitely not in the best interest of the high school kids making one of the biggest decisions of their lives.
The article is more than about Lemming, that just seems to be one of the juicier bits. It is relevant, though, to point out how many years The World Wide Leader in Sports conveniently ignored all of this. Nary a criticism or comment was made at ESPN, as they had his content on ESPN.com, and put him on TV for talking recruiting.
Most of the article concerns the recruiting sites that operate under Rivals.com or Scout.com banners.
For Pitt fans, the only good news out of the article is that Pitt is not in the running for Rolle’s services, so PantherLair and PantherReport, don’t get embarrassed. The Michigan Rivals.com site gets particularly hit, and by extension Michigan fans.
When McKinley, who fields most of Myron’s interview requests, failed to return the call of a guy from Rivals’ Michigan site, he received an e-mail that read as if it were written by an ex: “I just feel hurt. I thought we were friends. I feel like this was a slap in the face to me.”
It would be funnier if it also wasn’t so disturbing. Leaving an apparent e-mail trail, no less.
Part of the piece discusses the possibility of the NCAA coming down on these sites by coming down on the schools.
No surprise then that in May, the hot topic at the Big Ten coaches meetings was the meddling recruiting gurus and their Internet sites. There was a lot of frustration, but few solutions. One suggestion was to prohibit coaches from attending the many recruiting combines sponsored by the websites across the country. If college coaches don’t show up, the theory goes, fewer kids on the prowl for scholarships will attend. Eventually, the analysts would have fewer kids to analyze and the street agents wouldn’t have their fish in a barrel.
The coaches are all for shutting these sites down. It makes sense, they don’t have control.
My one quibble with the piece is the tone of “shock, abject shock,” that the people writing and covering the teams on these recruiting sites might, you know, actually be fans of the teams.
This is the life of a blue-chip football player in the online age. Teens jump from anonymous recruit to folk hero in the click of a mouse. And in cyberworld, a realm outside the long arm of the NCAA, recruiting sites throw journalistic ethics aside to snag the morsels of information and rumor that will feed their insatiable fans-and earn the websites millions of dollars. The constant swirl has coaches and prospects like Myron scrambling for cover.
Unlike gambling or drugs or grade-fixing, recruiting’s twisted web presence impacts every scholarship player on every team. And there is little the coaches can do. “It is the worst problem to hit college football in my lifetime,” says one ACC coach. “You’re talking about an epidemic that started about five years ago. Every year it gets worse.”
…
Some reporters don’t even pretend to keep their allegiances hidden. The Scout USC guy, appearing on a signing-day TV show, was crestfallen to see blue-chip WR DeSean Jackson pick Cal. “I really thought we were gonna get him,” he said on air. A recent job posting on Scout’s Iowa State site asked: “Would you like to make a living covering your favorite college sports team?”
It is information. People want it and are willing to pay for it.
Look, I don’t get the obsession about every potential recruit. I obsess over plenty of things but I can’t bring myself to follow the utterances of every high school kid who may be a blue-chipper. But, I’m not about to piss on those who do want to follow that stuff. And I say kudos to those who are managing to make a living doing it.
A real paranoid thought. No evidence, proof or even particularly well thought out. Just kind of tossing it out. If I were Rivals or Scout, I’d be watching ESPN very closely right now. This could be an opening shot. My guess is they would love to get into the same area if there is sufficient money to be made from a subscriber base. TWWLS has not only the cross-marketing advantage, but also the ability to weaken the eventual competition with articles like this. They could then swoop in and claim the moral high road with their recruiting-team site, and with their 800-pound gorilla status in sports dominate in the field.
