Sports angles on Va. Tech shootings

All I found were the two Andy Katz pieces that said the football and men's basketball players were all accounted for. Beyond that, I don't know. But I can't imagine they'll be releasing anything specific for a day or two if an athlete did get caught up in that mess.

 

I don't have a link but the Roanoke paper has (or had) a running update page. I saw it on there this afternoon.

 

We have one athlete on the football team. I called his mother, found out he was OK and got a cell phone number. Decision was made later to just include him in a "local kids at VT" story the education reporter is doing.

 

Tracked down at least 2 local kids, both OK.

 

forget sports angles, how does the media tie this to Imus or Anna Nicole?

 

Probably not in the long term. The tower shootings in 1966 didn't hurt UT much.

http://www.texassports.com/index.php?s=&change_well_id=2&url_article_id=101

 

Now I'm almost positive this was covered on the other board, but since I'm here already, I thought I'd go ahead and jack my own thread.
At what point does no news become news? I made sure to get the bit in about how none of the basketball or football players were injured today, but is there a point in running a story when there's nothing to report just because people will read it?
Now, before everyone jumps all over me, I could argue the other side of this just as effectively, but tonight I wasn't leaning that way.

 

OK, so tonight a friend and I were chatting on IM about this tragic event. I told him that I was on a sports journalist message board and that someone had posted a thread topic asking for sports-related angles to the Va Tech shootings.

My friend is a HUGE Miami "the U" fan. He said he had planned to go to this upcoming weekend's baseball games with Miami at Va. Tech.

Here are his thoughts on a possible sports-angled topic. I'm posting it because he seems to make a few good points, despite his biased opinion:

"maybe people should cut Miami a break and stop labelling them thugs etc. there has never been a shooting of any kind on the campus. the shit that happens off campus.. how the hell is the university admin held responsible for that?? the 32 that were killed at VT today.. happened in DORMS ... ON campus. the 16 killed at Texas.. happend ON campus. there has never been a shooting.. much less a murder.. on campus.
but unfortunately my dear, miami has the rep

"how is that not ONE fucking ESPN journalist has mentioned that Pacman Jones and Henry BOTH are from West Virginia??? you know for a FACT that if they had been Miami grads.. ESPN would have made that the focus. but NOOOOO... NO one criticizes WVU or Rich Rodriguez.. i just get sick and tired of all the accusations. Miami is WELL above the national average for graduating kids... there have been no real disciplinary problems in over 7-8 years.. but because one of the player is murdered.. and an on field fight.. were thugs?? yet like 15 Tennessee players had run-ins with the law this year alone.. no one talks about that. suggest that WVU and Rich Rodriguez should be investigated. that WVU breed thugs "

 

From North of the Border:

Rumour has it Calgary Stampeders defensive co-ordinator Denny Creehan has a son at Virginia Tech. Not sure if he plays.

 

Sounds exactly like a friend of mine who follows Miami ... I get large, venting emails everytime someone in the media sneezes in their direction ...

just a coincidence, I'm sure ... I think they're all like that ...

 

One of the reasons, I think, is some of the more prominent Miami players who get into trouble seem to flaunt the image. That is not as obviously true at other schools, most people would say. You have the image dating to the late 1980s, and you have the image as recently displayed as the former UM player (Lamar Thomas) wanting a piece of the action during a fight while doing color on the cablecast of a Miami game.

It's one thing to have schools where players get into trouble. It's another where you can go back two decades and find them making fashion statements that embrace that image, and you can find their alumni pleased as punch to be seeing an on-field fight -- and where you can find more examples in between them.

Also, if you have these things happen and win championships, you will draw more notice and more criticism, because many will wonder at what price you recruited these athletes to win a championship.

 

First of all, for a UM fan to use the VT shootings as some kind of platform to rant and rail about how his school is treated unfairly by the media is sick, simply sick.
Second of all, as long as this guy brings up up, it ain't just one fight and one player getting shot.
It's Michael Irvin, the Blades brothers, the Pell Grant scandal of 1994, NCAA probation, Camos, war references and walking out of a team dinner at the 1987 Fiesta Bowl, the shoddy treatment of Larry Coker, the anarchy of Dennis Erickson, pregame and onfield brawls with Colorado, FSU, Maryland, the blatant dirty play against Texas in the 1991 Cotton Bowl, the shooting incident this past August (before Bryan Pata), guns in the dorms, Michael Barrow spitting on the shoes of an FSU player during the pregame coin toss in 1994, etc, etc, etc.