I made my regular appearance on the newest The Tony Kornheiser Show a day early this week due to the Holiday schedule. Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment on a variety of topics, including my Washington Post column from this week and the upcoming TMZ Sports launch, along with a little talk on Rutgers.
Click here to listen to Wednesday's segment (starts about 1 min in): Tony Kornheiser Show
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Once again this week, I was on The Sports Reporters in my regular spot at 5:25 on Wednesday with hosts Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin. This week we discussed the Redskins continuing fiasco, the Knight/Calipari flare-up that led to a brief view of the USC Trojans, and of course, a little Tiger talk..
Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters
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8 comments:
John -- this seemed to be a particularly rambunctious segment, fun-loving and all over the place. You guys play well on the radio.
Was the Wilbon (who I assume you are actually friends with??) rip-job on paper, or to you personally? I usually like his views, but he is getting more and more defensive of athletes and taking the stance that 'we just don't know what its like to be them.' That said, its sort of good that he is so chummy with so many stars as when he defends them, I just assume he's their mouthpiece. Gives us insight into the mind of some athletes.
You could not be more misinformed about the Rutgers football program.
John, you clearly know nothing of the Rutgers football program.
For one thing, where do you get off calling Greg Schiano a "really bad guy?" He runs up the scores? Please show me those scores. And don't give me an shellackings of D1AA teams; everybody pounds on those guys. If you want to talk about the Louisville game last year, then I suggest you take a look at what Louisville did to Rutgers back in 2005. They were up 49-5 in the 4th quarter, and still had Brian Brohm in the game. Not only that, but they still had Brian Brohn THROWING the football; he wasn't just handing off the bleed out the clock. The 2008 Louisville game was payback. Nothing more, nothing less.
And what, exactly, has Greg Schiano said that is "patently untrue?" Please, enlighten me.
What about the fact that Rutgers has NO off-the-field incidents? No arrests (hello Lane Kiffin), no controversies (hello Penn State), no nothing. Clearly that makes Schiano a bad guy. And what about the academic success of the football program? Is Schiano a bad guy for making sure he's kids go to class and actually perform their duties in the classroom before taking the football field? Do you even know what happens to a football player is he misses ONE class without a valid reason? It's now obvious to me that Schiano is a terrible guy for molding young boys into responsible grown men. He's obviously a bad guy for building a program the right way. Please . . .
And you seem to be unaware of the fact that Rutgers has already added 11,000 seats to its stadium. It's already done. And to say that they don't need those extra 11,000 seats is laughable. Yes, Rutgers didn't sell out its 53K seat stadium this year. A terrible economy, poor schedule, and ticket price increase will do that. But they STILL average more than 42K, which would have been a sellout in the old stadium. You know what that means? It means the expansions was a success. Now, you might argue that the expansion was still unnecessary. So in anticipation of your rebuttal, I'l'l provide some cold-hard FACTs (you know, facts? Not slander or unsubstantiated opinion?) Ticket revenue this year was 10.7 million dollars. That is five (5) times the ticket revenue produced in 2005. Think about that for a second. FIVE times the revenue. And it was 3 million dollars more than projected revenue. The stadium expansion was an unequivocal success. You cannot argue otherwise.
Now, there still might be some concern about the financing of the stadium. You said today in your discussion with Korheiser that there's been a "battle" between the academic and athletic sides of the school. Yes, there has been a battle. But it's a ridiculous and unnecessary battle. For one thing, the stadium expansion is fully funded by bonds; they did NOT divert money AWAY from academics, and they did NOT use taxpayaer money to fund the expansion. The bonds will be fully paid off by the revenue generated by the stadium expansion. After that, everything is straight profit. And speaking of profit, did you know that the football program, for the first time EVER, turned a profit for the school last year? Prior to 2008, all the football program did was COST the university money. Now, it's MAKING money for the university. You'll have to excuse me if I don't see the issue with that. Are people truthfully arguing that they'd prefer Rutgers have a horrible football team that costs the university money instead of a bowl-bound team that is on it's way to self-sustainability? That just makes no sense.
Lastly, do you have some type of axe to grind with Tim Pernetti? Yes, he was the radio color guy. But he was, without a doubt, an extremely qualified candidate. He knows the inner workings of college sports. He helped FOUND CSTV (he wasn't just some employee, like you claimed). He helped make sure the B10 network materialized. And along the way, he developed some extremely valuable and importan relationships withing the college sports world. And to top it all off, he was named to Sports Business Journal's 'top 40 under 40' list in 2008. To question his hire is laughable. To edeucate yourself, I suggest you read the following: http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2009/07/politi_tim_pernettis_aggressiv.html
His hire has been a successful one. And he's not a "bobo" for Schiano. And he too, like Schiano, is a "bad" guy? Where do you come up with this?
You're lucky someone isn't suing you for slander. Get your facts straight.
how can you just call Greg Schiano and Tim Pernetti 'bad guys', imply that they are liars and lackeys and not present a shred of evidence to back it up? I don't know either of them personally but from all accounts Schiano is very well liked and respected by his players and there is no doubt that he has committed to RU and they have made a committment to building a real program. When other programs like Miami and Michigan were showing interest in him, he stayed unlike Brian Kelly, Rich ROdriguez and countless others. And running up the score? In the past RU was routinely BLOWN out by Miami (63-0), Syracuse (70-7 or something like that), WVU (80-7 that i remember) and Penn State at Giants Stadium when JoePa blantly ran up the score in 1994 or 1995 by throwing bombs late in the game up by 30 points; are all of those coaches 'bad' guys? And since the Big East is treated like an ugly step child with their bowl tie-ins and national coverage (though they do very well against other BCS conferences when they play) should RU just not accept the lousy St Pete bowl or the Texas Bowl (after a 10-2 season) or the INternational Bowl? Should college football only be for Florida, Alabama, Notre Dame, Ohio St and a few other schools? You sound like a total jerk and know nothing about Rutgers or their football program. You also owe Schiano and Pernetti and apology. Based on that segment, i would say you're the terrible person and the liar.
If you wish to have any credibility to anything you say going forward on Rutgers, or any subject, please go back to your Rutgers comments and substantiate each of the ridiculous allegations you made about the program, the head coach, and the athletic director. It must be a great job to be able to make statements like this without consequence for your inaccuracies and lies.
I am deeply disappointed in your commentary on Rutgers. It was unfair, unbalanced, and unprofessional. Schiano has turned Rutgers from one of the worst college football programs in the country into a winning program on and off the field. Not only has Rutgers gone to 5 straight bowl games (and won 4), but Rutgers consistently ranks in the top 5 for academic success of its football players, has almost no off the field issues to speak of, and is profitable.
If the crux of your argument that Schiano is a "bad guy" turns on RU allegedly running up the score I submit that college football is full of "bad guys." Not that long ago RU was on the wrong end of losses larger than the ones it has visited on some of its opponents over the last several years.
As far as stadium expansion is concerned, Rutgers average more fans than at any point in its history this past season -- well over the 42,000 fans that fit in the pre-expanded stadium. Additionally, the expansion was by all accounts profitable, did not divert money from academics, and will be repaid by the increase in revenue from the additional seats.
I don't know the source of your anger toward Schiano and Rutgers. But whatever it is, it has caused you to play the role of hack journalist rather than balanced reporter. That's too bad.
Thanks, John, for riling up the Rutgers fans. I dont care one whit about them (except they aren't Big Ten material) but I like a guy who stirs it up.
Who cares about GOD DAMN facts?
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