This is a post I never expected to write. Definitely not something I want to write. Not now on the day of the NCAA Tourney. Not ever. This is the first time I have ever come across plagiarism.

One of the things I do regularly on this blog is aggregate Pitt content. Read and gather as much as I can then try and put it out there in a post with a common thread. Whether it is a game recap or a storyline that various media folk follow.

So, very late Sunday night/early Monday morning, I finally got to posting the various links I had gathered over the previous 24+ hours after Pitt won the Big East Tournament.

One of the links in that group was the short piece from Eric Hall at the Beaver County Times about how Dixon has earned and should stand alone from Ben Howland (EH-BCT). The time-stamp online was for 12:56 am on March 16.

On Monday afternoon, while gathering more stories I found this story from Dale Grndic on Scout.com (DG-S) which I just lumped in my tabs as “Dixon love” after a quick skim. That evening, when I had time to put together a new links round-up I took a closer look at the story and felt like I had already read it somewhere else.

I had.

EH-BCT:

If any doubt of Jamie Dixon’s coaching ability existed, it disappeared this week. If any part of his success was still being attributed to Ben Howland, it vanished Saturday.

Dixon’s fifth season as the Pitt Panthers’ coach has been his best. Better than the 31 wins of his first season. Better than the Sweet 16 of last season.

The Pitt Panthers are the Big East champions after Saturday’s 74-65 victory over No. 9 Georgetown. That’s a statement few could have imagined a few weeks ago.

For the better part of two months while dealing with injuries, Dixon kept the team together though its common thread was hanging by one. And now that the Panthers are primarily healthy, Dixon has the group believing and rolling heading into the NCAA Tournament.

DG-S:

It’s been questioned several times this season, but the phrase “Howland-Dixon Era” for the Pitt men’s basketball program should finally be vanquished.

Jamie Dixon, deep into his fifth season at Pittsburgh (26-9), certainly should stand alone now. Sure, Ben Howland, his mentor, brought back the Panthers program. Dixon certainly maintained that high level from the outset, but this arguably has been his best season.

That’s better than reaching 31 wins in his first season, 2003-04, and better than the Sweet Sixteen performance last spring. Pitt’s 74-65 win against ninth-ranked Georgetown earned Dixon his first Big East title. Howland won one in 2002, but the Panthers didn’t have to go through what this season’s group has.

For the better part of two months while dealing with injuries, Dixon kept the team together though its common thread was hanging by one. And now that the Panthers are primarily healthy, Dixon has the group believing in itself and playing its best basketball heading into the NCAA Tournament.

EH-BCT:

Dixon managed to unite this team just before it was prepared to dissolve and just before the most imperative portion of the season was set to begin. His in-game moves, often criticized, were for the most part tremendous. He out-coached the likes of Rick Pitino and Tom Crean and John Thompson III.

It’s an impressive list. Those coaches have all been to the Final Four.

Dixon showed he’s worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence as those coaches.

He also proved mentioning Howland’s name in the same sentence isn’t necessary any more.

DG-S:

Pitt could have fallen apart completely, but Dixon wouldn’t let it. His in-game moves, often criticized, were for the most part tremendous. He out-coached Rick Pitino, Tom Crean and John Thompson III in a three-day span. That’s quite an accomplishment. Pitino has a national title on his resume, while Thompson III was in the Final Four last spring. Crean got there before as well.

However, Dixon’s name should be mentioned during any conversation about top basketball coaches in the NCAA. Howland is in that category as well, for getting Pitt its initial Big East title and two NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearances, as well as what he has accomplished at UCLA.

In case you hadn’t figured it out, the bold print are where the sentences are virtually identical.

This had me stunned. Frankly, I was hoping that there was some sort of mistake with the by-lines. Grndic has done freelance work for the BCT in the past, so maybe there was a mistake with that.

After all, Dale Grdnic has been a sports reporter on Pittsburgh sports for years. He has covered all the sports teams in Pittsburgh. He has written a book on the Steelers. He’s quality and his peers think well of him.

I fired off an e-mail to Eric Hall late Monday night and set about trying to find and e-mail for Dale Grndic’s. I didn’t get it until the next day around noon. By that time, I had already heard from Hall who confirmed it was his story and knew nothing about the Grdnic piece until I had sent him the link. He was very surprised.

I got a response from Mr. Grdnic shortly after I sent the e-mail. He asked me to call him to discuss it. I wasn’t able to make a phone call until Wednesday, shortly after 9 am. There was no denial.

So, yes. Dale Grdnic did commit plagiarism. The reason. The excuses. The justifications are ultimately irrelevant. It was done, and Mr. Grndic will have to own what he has done.

I take no pleasure in this. Frankly, there’s a significant part of me that wishes I hadn’t found this. It would have been easier. It also would have been easier to let it slide. It wouldn’t, however, have been right.

I used to be an attorney. I didn’t practice too long. I didn’t particularly like it. One thing I did learn is that the system of self-policing by the bar association is not particularly strong. Not because there weren’t penalties or investigations. No, it was because attorneys didn’t like to actually file a complaint against another attorney. Even if they didn’t like the other attorney particularly — or even despised them.

It was generally a 2-part reason. Not wanting to have to take the time to file a complaint and then do all the interviews and paperwork that would come with an investigation. Mainly, it seemed to be the high discomfort in turning in one of your own. Especially if their behavior didn’t directly impact their work.

It could be rationalized. After all, if the attorney behaved unethically, illegal, incompetently or to the detriment of a client it should really be the job of the aggrieved, not some other person. Sure, only another attorney might actually realize what had been done, but “that’s not my problem.” There’s another aspect to that which could be considered: “there but for the grace of God…”

In that last bit, it’s the realization that we are not these moral and ethically pure folk. That while we like to think we would never cross line X, there is always a chance. And if so, how would we be treated?

At the same time other attorneys were happy to talk in the abstract about high ethics and standards. Many actually practiced them, themselves. It’s just that they didn’t want to snitch or do anything more active than do right themselves. It bothered me, but I also never found myself in a position where I would need to decide that sort of issue. Too new in a firm to have many direct dealings with other attorneys. So, I never found out whether I could back my own talk.

We see that in sports all the time. In college, coaches will whisper privately about the ethics of other members or shady recruiting. They will talk publicly about how coaches have to be better. Follow higher standards. Set examples, etc…

Yet when a coach faces the music, it’s all public support and talking about what a good friend and person he was. How he just made a mistake. Or that it was just a small thing. Kelvin Sampson is just the latest example.

In fact, when another coach actually is named as helping to nail a cheating coach or program — it’s that coach who ends up paying the price. Bruce Pearl ended up in D-II for years because he was an Iowa assistant who helped get Illinois in trouble — and put his name to it.

Then there’s the greatest example of former Baylor coach Dave Bliss trying to cover-up his actions after a player was killed. He didn’t want the news to get out that he had been paying the player’s tuition illegally. When one of his assistants didn’t go along with the cover-up and it all came out, it was assistant Abar Rouse who found himself blackballed by other coaches.

One of the things that has always bothered me about the media is their willingness to condemn this sort of ranks closing. Whether it was players and steroids, or coaches who cheat, whatever stupid or illegal action committed.

Of course when one of their own did something that got them in trouble, they behaved in a similar manner. Bob Ryan a few years ago got in hot water for saying someone needed to smack the now ex-wife of Jason Kidd. That got him in trouble with his paper and ESPN. His colleagues, though, were not eager to discuss it while being quick to forgive him. Excusing his actions as a one-time thing, and something they know he deeply regrets.

Or who can forget Mitch Albom making up part of a column on a college basketball game based on his assumption that some ex-Michigan State players would be there to watch their old team. While Albom took shots from smaller named columnists, his more prominent friends from ESPN and other larger media outlets were eager to forgive the transgression.

A non-sports example was the Doris Kearns Goodwin plagiarism issue a several years back. It was revealed that Goodwin had plagiarized in several of her historical books. Her excuse had mainly relied on faulty note taking, that any and all plagiarism was inadvertent. This led to other historians trying to defend her, by saying it wasn’t really plagiarism since it was accidental. Bullshit is bullshit.

I’m not an attorney any longer. I haven’t been for a few years. I don’t consider myself a journalist. I am, however, a freelance writer these days.

I talked to a Journalism School professor about this, John Temple. (Full disclosure, John is also a very close friend of mine and is in my Pitt football season ticket group.) This is what he had to say.

This is plagiarism by anyone’s definition. Whoever did this needs to find another line of work, forcibly, if necessary. If that seems harsh, consider this: if a student at my school turned this in and was caught, he or she would fail the class and would likely be bounced from the j-school. Unless you do the hard work of putting your thoughts and observations down in words, it can be difficult to understand why journalists regard plagiarism as one of the original sins. Plagiarism is not just stealing one person’s words, observations and ideas incidents like this contribute to the public’s mistrust of journalists, which devalues all of the painstaking work being done by the rest of us.

Coaching, the practice of law, writing. They are all jobs. People earn livings. They also aspire to be professions and want to be treated as professionals. They aspire to have standards. Standards require more than just personally following them. They mean acting and not hiding them when there is a violation.