PG gives Morelli platform to bash HS coach?

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

PSU QB bashes former HS coach.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06349/746378-143.stm

Normally, I think the PG does an outstanding job, but I'm not crazy about this story.
Basically, it is Morelli, who I realize is a star in that neck of the woods, bashing a HS coach with no real ammo to back up his claims.
The PG did get a response from the coach, who took the high road and declined to counter the claims.

Something bothers me about this story, I just can't put my finger on it.

 

[Ace]

My thoughts:

No. 1 -- The kid landed at Penn State. It would be more of a story if he really wanted to go somewhere else or ended up Division I-AA because of the coach allegedly being negative.

No. 2 -- If the comments comparing the current QB to Morelli were on TV, they should have tried hard to confirm who had said them.

No. 3 -- If this kid is going around with an undeserved dumb tag, should have asked him what his GPA is or at least tried to get a current coach to comment on his quarterback smarts.

No. 4 -- A lot of his complaints sounded typical and whiny.

No. 5 -- Probably would have run with it anyway. At least the coach had the chance to defend himself.

 

[Pringle]

What bothers me is just the continuation of the he-said, she-said current culture of sports journalism. And I'm not being holier-than-thou about this: I get just as excited when someone gives me something juicy that I have to run with it. Maybe it's because we don't get any real access? I don't know. It's good copy, but I think it brings down journalism, eventually, to the level of reality television.

 

[Ace]

What bothers me is just the continuation of the he-said, she-said current culture of sports journalism. And I'm not being holier-than-thou about this: I get just as excited when someone gives me something juicy that I have to run with it. Maybe it's because we don't get any real access? I don't know. It's good copy, but I think it brings down journalism, eventually, to the level of reality television.

True, but the relationship with coaches is a real issue for anyone who has played a sport or who has kids playing a sport, so people are interested in that.

People are interested in what any hot shot Penn State qb has to say, especially unfiltered.

So, the story could have been more solid, ideally, but we also have to serve the readers.

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

I agree Ace,
You had to run the story - because you know a dozen other reporters heard Morelli's comments and we going to do a story.

 

[Twoback]

Orville, when you get a Penn State kid to say anything remotely close to honest and interesting, you're getting that baby printed. It only happens about 3 times per decade.

 

[Cousin Jeffrey]

Nice quote from Morelli:

"I was watching the high school championship game, and he's saying this kid who is about 5-10 and can't really throw, and he's saying how far ahead he is from where I was," Morelli said. "He's just constantly bashing me.

I used to love this picture of Morelli from high school that ran in the PG where he had an awesome thin moustache.

 

[Trey Beamon]

As someone who lived in Penn Hills during (some of) the Morelli era, I'm not sure the "stupid tag" applies here. Like the dude said, PSU wouldn't have recruited him if reading defenses was an issue.

As a reader, this is what I want to see. Well, at least when it doesn't involve T.O. But I just fail to see what good this does Morelli, aside from getting some stuff off his chest. He comes off like a whiny little ***** in the story.

If so inclined to rip a coach, why not take a swing at old JoePa? Wasting Morelli's redshirt year in 2004 has the potential to do a hell of a lot more damage than some unsettled high school rift.

 

[Ace]

I agree that Morelli comes off worse than the coach he is trying to trash.

 

[shotglass]

As for me, all I could think of when I read our Morelli piece was Craig T. Nelson in "All The Right Moves."

 

[Starman]

What a shock, everybody's favorite fatass ****pig is right in the middle of this one.

"Mark Madden [of ESPN Radio 1250] played dek hockey with Steve Russell. Steve Russell would bash me to him, and he would get on the radio," Morelli said.

 

[DisembodiedOwlHead]

fatass ****pig could not be more appropos

 

[Smasher_Sloan]

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

 

[shotglass]

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

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

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.

 

[jambalaya]

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.

 

[outofplace]

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 bull**** signifying nothing. I don't think Gordon ever did anything to hurt Morelli, except maybe the kid's pride.

 

[moonlight]

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.

 

[shotglass]

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.

 

[markvid]

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.