SI errors from NCAA Tourney preview

Still the best at what they do, in my opinion, but two gaffes in this week's edition of SI. Sorry if this is somewhere else.

One is just a minor typo in Who's Hot, Who's Not, "There will be less of Rex Ryan for newly dsigned Jets back LaDainian Tomlinson to love."

The other is kind of dumb factual error from the cover story, no less, on the NCAA Tournament.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1167388/index.htm

A year later Danny Manning carried Kansas on his shoulders to the national title for peripatetic coach Larry Brown; neither of them won another title at any level, but each found a moment in March.

If I'm not mistaken, Brown won a title with the Pistons in 2004.

Like I said, I still think they're the best, which is why, I guess, I take issue with them making these types of mistakes.

 

Be thankful you missed "$200 million dollars" on page 18 in Posnanski's piece.

 

The recent story on Matt Wieters included a reference to "Greg Zaun".

It's astonishing how sloppy that magazine has become in recent years. Did they simply fire all the copy editors?

 

I thought the same thing when I first read the Manning-Brown thing, but I think Layden was actually referring to Keith Smart and Manning when he said neither one of them ever won at any other level. At best, it's poorly constructed and should've been fixed by an editor; at worst it's a staggering factual error and both Layden and the editor should be answering some pretty pointed questions about how they screwed up that one.

The dsigned and the extraneous dollars are the sort of thing that you NEVER used to see in SI, and that's pretty sad.

But what really bothered me was L. Jon Wertheim's cutesy little aside in the Alford story:

"Rest assured that after the NCAA tournament Alford's name will be tossed around every time a high-profile job (cough, cough, Louisville) comes vacant."

Last time I checked, Louisville has a pretty decent coach and he's given no indication he's going anywhere. Yes, I know there's a lot swirling around Pitino, but isn't it kind of irresponsible -- not to mention editorializing -- for Wertheim to casually throw in that the Louisville job is going to be open? And if that's based on something other than his opinion, shouldn't he be trying to break it wide open instead of trying to show how clever he is?

 

SI's been doing cutesy asides since the days of Andre Laguerre and editorializing since even before Jenkins was drilling Notre Dame for playing for a tie against Michigan State; that doesn't bother me at all. The typos, yeah.

 

Here's an awful one on the website:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/joe_posnanski/03/18/howard.pujols/index.html

Charlie Manual? I expect more from Posnanski.

 

Was I the only one disappointed with the SI NCAA tourney preview? Seemed awful sparse compared to most years. It's usually one of my favorite issues.

 

I liked the story on Josh Smith, and the Alford story wasn't too shabby. The Utah story was pretty cool as well.

I didn't mind it at all.

 

As a former (i.e. laid off) copy editor, I can tell you, without implicating anyone, that we saved a lot of asses over the years. Good people that we kept from looking really, really stupid. But it's clear that suits have little regard for the value of copy editors, and as long that's the case, Greg Zaun and Charlie Manual are going to happen.

 

I really liked the Utah story as well.

However, I noticed the Brown/Manning thing, and thought maybe I was wrong.

I do give them props for picking St. Mary's to make the Sweet 16.

 

I think we're all dealing with getting less eyes on copy...more things are sneaking through at publications across the board. A matter of not enough staff to catch it all.