The Manti Te'o Saga

I’m not a big fan of soap operas dominating the sports media world. I figure leave that to the magazines near the grocery checkout line or the news magazine programs after your local news.

My question is what is the fascination with the Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o’s apparent hoax regarding an imaginary girlfriend who died. The details continue to come forward and they will for a few more days. This story needs to go away.

The media is receiving some serious egg on the face here. Somebody, somewhere in this Twitter instant information age forgot to do Journalism 101. I was always taught to make sure you have all the facts. Somebody somewhere forgot that elementary journalism rule. The result: a story is blown way out of proportion. Somehow, a young lady died of a disease but she really didn’t die because in reality there was no such person.

Information or lack of information is a powerful thing. This case reveals the dark side of that equation.

Iowa Men's Basketball Coach Fran McCaffery

I must admit I haven’t paid too much attention to the Iowa basketball program this year. I imagine it has something to do with me considering Iowa the ‘other’ school in our state. You folks involved with Alabama-Auburn, Southern Cal-UCLA or Purdue-Indiana understand.

I did catch Iowa basketball coach Fran McCaffery’s call-in show last night however. McCaffery is in his first season at Iowa. The Hawks defeated No. 6 Purdue last Saturday for their signature win of the season. That’s the good news. The bad news is Iowa finished 10th in the Big Ten at 11-19.

This McCaffery provides an interesting call-in show. Coaches shows are basically marketing tools. The coach sells some hope, strokes the fans etc. True, McCaffery does that too, but he offers more. It was refreshing.

He talked about his senior player Jared Cole and how unlike many players Cole stuck it out at Iowa after three coaching changes. McCaffery said that Cole committed himself to Iowa and adjusted to the changing circumstances. McCaffery said that many players will run away when they encounter a coaching change. He said Cole’s decision will prepare him for life.

McCaffery said that many players want deals about playing time. He said that he offers no deals. Player must earn their playing time.

A caller suggested the coach communication through Twitter. McCaffery then told the story about a negative experience with the social networking site. Somebody was pretending to be the coach.

I hope McCaffery will continue his insight on the call-in show. This Iowa State Cyclone backer may want to tune in again simply for interesting conversation.