Willie Taggart refuses to take questions from Oregonian reporter

When you've covered a D-I college beat for 21 years, you might look at things differently. When I was a young pissant trying to prove I knew it all, yeah, I might have written that same fucking sentence. Years of experience has taught me to observe, then write. Not write, then observe.

 

I don't really think they are very negative terms for college football workouts. But it would always be better to give specifics than characterize them.

 

They're not too terribly negative to me either. But, I kinda feel that when those words are used with the subject matter (exhausted athletes collapsing or being sent to the hospital) they have a much greater impact. A wise editor once told me "Choose your words carefully."

Years ago, I would have ignored that line of thinking and sensationalized it. But now, I'd report less from the reactionary side and go more from the wait-and-see side. That's how reporters stay in the middle and out of hot water. They don't inject their own personal beliefs or opinions into a story. And, this guy did that without even witnessing any of it. That's shoddy reporting in my book.

 

As someone stated earlier I don't think saying grueling was the error. Not really stating what made the workouts grueling was the error, but as @Doc Holliday said you either had to be there or ask for examples to back up the term. As far as errors go, however, pretty minor, not stabbed in the heart statement worthy.

 

To use the word grueling? Maybe you would have had to seen the workout, but descriptions of it lend to the idea of it being...grueling.

I feel like your definition of the job is just a lot closer to transcription than anything else.

 

There's nothing wrong with creativity. There are times to use it and there are times to stick with the facts. This was one of those times that sticking with facts was the wiser choice.

Again, when I was younger and trying to prove I knew it all and be a pissant while doing it, I probably would have written the same sentence and not thought twice about it. The wiser, more experienced version of me, knows better.

 

Grueling is not being a pissant. "Humiliating" would be. Grueling is close enough to strenuous, which is the baseline definition for a football workout.

 

Fair enough. You've made a good point. I'll concede on grueling. I still think he should have witnessed the whole thing first hand if he wanted to get cute with it.

 

However you want to describe the workouts, they were supervised by an S&C coach with dubious credentials.

The unregulated world of strength coaches and college football’s killing season