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Lee Jenkins on O.J. Mayo's "recruiting"

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Cousin Jeffrey, Mar 21, 2007.

  1. Cousin Jeffrey

    Cousin Jeffrey Active Member

    Great story that will probably lead to some follow-ups around the country. After reading this, do ya think the NCAA might have a few questions (not that they haven't asked some already) about Mayo?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/sports/ncaabasketball/21usc.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

    EDIT: Just saw this linked on the Mayo thread on Sports and News. Though I was more interested in hearing what people thought of the story itself, and where it will go journalistically. Not to mention Jenkins banging out another top-notch college hoops story.
     
  2. Rusty Shackleford

    Rusty Shackleford Active Member

    That does sound shady. I'm a Huntington native and I've been following Mayo for a couple of years. I always had wondered how he ended up at USC, but I guess if he wants to market himself, that's a great place to start. And I'm sure he's hoping the Lakers (or to a lesser extent, the Clippers) suck ass next season so they can grab him at the top of the '08 draft. Of course, the reason his man said he wants USC is their lack of tradition compared to UCLA, so maybe he prefers if the Clippers suck compared to the Lakers.

    This raises a journalistic question for me, though -- what are your thoughts, if you're the Huntington newspaper, that a very interesting story on your town's biggest athlete ran in another newspaper, albeit not one you're in competition with. Do you feel like you got beat here? Do you run your own version of this story, perhaps by talking to Mayo to get his side of it?
     
  3. Cousin Jeffrey

    Cousin Jeffrey Active Member

    This story was all L.A., so Huntington would have a helluva time getting the same quotes and color Jenkins got. Plus, as we know now, you can't call O.J., he has to call you. And what does that say about Floyd that he'd take that shit from a recruit? There's a lot of coaches that would probably say Fuck this guy. On the flip side, Greg Oden supposedly would call Matta at the office and identify himself as "Greg Oden from Indianapolis." I'm sure Mayo went incommunicado because he got sick of constant text messages from Kelvin Sampson and his ilk, but to not give your coach your number...He's basically saying he wants to play at USC because he saw how Leinart and Bush maximized their fame there, he'll get paid by this promoter guy and he realizes that Floyd's a pushover already and he'll run his own shit.

    I can't see the O.J. Mayo era ending well.
     
  4. Elliotte Friedman

    Elliotte Friedman Moderator Staff Member

    Congrats to Jenkins.

    That was a terrific story.
     
  5. HoopsMcCann

    HoopsMcCann Active Member

    not to step in the lovefest, here, but, here's where my journalistic questions come up

    jenkins, who is really good, just skims over who the heck ronald (better known as rodney) guillory is. and you better believe people at usc know who he is, since he got jeff trepingier suspended for half a season back in 2000-01. among shady high school basketball and college basketball circles, he's known as one of the most shady

    i know he isn't as beloved around here as lee jenkins or anyone at the new york times, but check out gregg doyel's piece on something like this from october: http://cbs.sportsline.com/columns/story/9735022

    no offense to lee, who i think is really, really good, but this story lacks many of the further questions that need to be asked
     
  6. Cousin Jeffrey

    Cousin Jeffrey Active Member

    Agreed, Hoops. That was my main question and why I think he's got some follow-ups lined up already. It definitely should've been mentioned, or pursued.
     
  7. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    This is going to sound stupid to some of you, but there's a glaring error in this story:

    "He had no business going after Mayo, the No. 1 player in the country, especially being from a football college that was 3,000 miles away."

    Huntington, WVa is 2280 miles from Los Angeles. Information available in about ten seconds online.

    Jenkins, and the NYT copy desk, are wrong by nearly 25% here. Which, to me, is too significant a number to be laughed off as a rounding error, or written off as literary license.

    Do boilerplate failures like this one undermine the credibility of the rest of the story? Or do they simply no longer matter?
     
  8. This will be a groundbreaking story when all is said and done...we're talking watergate-type shit here, in the sporting world. The guillory stuff is uncomprehensible to me, and Doyel probes it further than Jenkins. However, Jenkins is the better writer.

    This feels like one of those situations where Mayo asked to read the story first just to check it.

    Hmm, something's amiss.....
     
  9. Elliotte Friedman

    Elliotte Friedman Moderator Staff Member

    Thanks for the link, hoops.

    After reading Doyel's column -- which was excellent -- I wonder why Floyd would agree to talk to Jenkins. Clearly, USC knew it was being watched closely re: Mayo, and Floyd revealed details that won't make Garrett happy.
     
  10. Cousin Jeffrey

    Cousin Jeffrey Active Member

    I truly, truly, truly doubt Jenkins would let anyone read his story first, especially Mayo. It's more of a case of Jenkins letting readers connect the dots and setting up future stories.
     
  11. long_snapper

    long_snapper Member

    O.J. sounds like he'll be a breeze to coach.

    Don't call me for practice, coach. I'll call you.
     
  12. " truly, truly, truly doubt Jenkins would let anyone read his story first, especially Mayo"

    Cousin Jeffrey - I wish I could find the sarcasm font when I wrote that. I would certainly hope that he wouldn't. But doesn't it seem that key facts were sort of glossed over, giving the story a "all is good in LaLa Land" feel?
     
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