Wednesday June 06, 2007

PR

PR
I know some of you are sick of the hosting controversy of Mississippi State hosting this weekend. I think I will officially be over it tomorrow but there are still too many questions to be answered. I will get into the questions later but I have realized one very important thing through this blog in the last few months. I realize that I could never be a spokesperson.

Spokespeople have to partake in PR at the expense of the truth. Another thing I have learned is that if you are a spokesperson and you have to put the company line out there then at least know the company line. If you are going to spin something at least make it consistent. If you have to insult us at least know what lies you are supposed to tell us.

David Poppe is the managing director of the NCAA baseball tournament. In the last couple of days he has granted interviews to several of our local newspapers concerning this controversy. In each interview he tells a different story. One interview he says it came down to MSU’s financial bid being more than Clemson’s. In the next he says that it was not about money. I would say those were contradicting statements.

Depending on if you are reader of The Charleston Post and Courier or The State newspapers you get different stories. Depending on if you read the articles on Tuesday or today you get different stories. Poppe told different sides of the story to different newspapers and even different stories to the same papers on different days.

The moral to this story is that Poppe told the truth but the truth did not sound politically correct enough. It is about money but that sounded harsh and cold. We all knew it was not about record or RPI or rankings or seeds. We are not stupid.

We knew it was about money but you can’t say it is about money. Even though the American Dream is to make it from nothing and have one day you can have something, that something is not supposed to be talked about. Stop insulting us and just say it. Money. Money. Money. See that was not that hard.

It’s not about hotel rooms because they were booked because of orientation. It was not about making it best for the fans because Friday at noon is more difficult for the fans. ESPN says play it at noon and that is what we will do. Money. Money. Money. See it gets even easier. The more do you say it the easier it gets. The truth is easy. When you start telling lies then you have to remember what lies you told and have to tell more to cover them up.

I don’t have any money. Never had and most likely never will. At this pace this is a pretty good bet but I don’t resent the rich. I don’t pretend that it is wrong to want it. Why is the NCAA ashamed to admit it? They have every right to want to make more of it but PR says we should not publically admit that.

The real problem here is the hypocrisy and contradictions. The system is clearly broken.

Why does this seem to always come up with the NCAA and college athletics? Aren’t these highly educated people? Aren’t these the smartest people we have? Aren’t these the people that we are trusting to educate our young people?

Why can Little League Baseball get it but the NCAA does not? I thought the higher you go up the chain then the easier it should get.

Here is what I still need explained to me:
*Why are the criteria different for the national seeds?
*Why are the criteria different for the host sites of the regionals and the super regionals?
*Why does the NCAA manual have to change each year?
*Why do athletic directors and baseball coaches have to be explained how this works? If they don’t know then how are we supposed to understand it?
*Why don’t we re-seed after every round?
*Is it right that South Carolina had a much better year than Mississippi State but the Gamecocks have to go on the road also?

Maybe I don’t want a football playoff. If this is any indication maybe the bowls are the best way to go about it. I can see the NCAA screwing up the playoffs in college football just as bad.

The NCAA has a problem with manuals and committees and rules. They can’t remember what their manuals say and they can’t enforce all of the rules they have. I could have sworn that cowbells were not allowed and that all artificial noise makers are banned from NCAA events. If you are going to Starkville this weekend please take a count of how many you see and hear this weekend.

College sports are great. College baseball is awesome. Unfortunately, many times we can screw it up pretty good. But at least we can always spin it back with some great PR spokespeople. I know a couple of locals that should apply for jobs as NCAA spokespeople.

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