PG gives Morelli platform to bash HS coach?

How is this NOT a story for a paper that covers both the high school and the college involved?

 

Yeah, I gotta agree with that. It's a no-brainer.

 

Yeah, it had to run. Unfortunately. Maybe it would have been better as a column so the columnist could have called him a douchenozzle.

I feel sorry for the poor high school kid he took shots at. Kind of the innocent bystander getting hit with bullets. And you know, it's just silly for him to be bothered that the coach likes the new kid better -- he's at Penn State, what difference does it make?

Back in the '80s when I was at my first metro, I was talking to the SE at the little paper where I started as a high school kid and he told me about this guy they just hired who was probably going to be the best the paper ever had. I said, "Yeah, better than Joe Blow (who preceded me and is at The New York Times)?" He said, "Better than Joe Blow. Better than you, too." It was not an insult, just an opinion. The kid, while never a superstar, did go on to have a good career at a big paper, though.

 

Somehow, this reporter had a duty to repeat what was said on the broadcast that precipitated Morelli's response. Not having that leaves a big hole. I don't think Morelli looks bad at all. He had every right to respond to some guy who clearly, for whatever reason, had an unreasonable axe to grind against a teenager.

My feeling is the coach should have nutted up and responded when the reporter asked questions. If he could find the courage to say something during the broadcast, why not at least defend what was said? And it looks like the reporter didn't press him hard enough. In this situation, you must get something from the coach.

Sadly, this is what happens on major beats. In your heart you may want to leave something alone, but you know the other guys are going to write it since it happened in a presser. So you have to do it as well.

 

I came away from this a bit confused. Was the Penn Hills coach (Gordon) saying it was actually George Novak who made the comparison between the Fulton kid and Morelli? That is a huge hole in the story, to be unclear on who made the comments that started the whole thing.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ran pretty much the same story, though they did have a clear denial from Gordon that he ever made the comments that set Morelli off.

I agree that Morelli comes off as a whiner. And you definitely have to run with the story even though it is a lot of sound and bullshit signifying nothing. I don't think Gordon ever did anything to hurt Morelli, except maybe the kid's pride.

 

If I remember correctly, Morelli gave a verbal committment to Pitt during his junior year at Penn Hills. Then when he wasn't chosen to play in some high school all-star game in Texas, he switched to Penn State. The coach who chose the all-star rosters for that game was Bob Palko, the father of Pitt quarterback Tyler Palko, who was a redshirt at Pitt that year.

I guess you could say Morelli has a track record of believing people are out to get him.

 

Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that people aren't out to get you...

You mean to tell me that you can't see some of these power-drunk HS coaches doing this sort of thing? I sure can.

 

Good Lord, I worked that show on which the comment was made and I cannot remember for the life of me any of that being said.
Might be because at that point, we had already been on the air at least 10 hours with 2 to go.
For those in Western PA with Comcast On Demand, the WPIAL finals are up there. If anyone cares to sit through the AAAA game and see what really happened, please share with the rest of the kids.

 

Anthony Morelli = poor man's Zack Mills. Zack Mills with the messed-up shoulder, that is.

 

A poor man's Zack Mills? Your memory of Zack must have ended somewhere in the middle of his sophomore year.

 

Morelli arguably made stupid decisions that Mills never would've made in the OSU game, a winnable game that probably changed Penn State's season from a 10-2 one to an 8-4 one. May I add that I was not a Mills fan.

 

That was pretty much Morelli's side of the story, though Palko did not have that kind of control of the selection process for that all-star game.

At least the decision sort of worked out for Morelli. He'd have still been sitting behind Palko this past season rather than getting to start at Penn State.