"Louisville lacrosse coach accused of abusive tactics"

From NJ.com and USA Today

Analysis by Alexis Cross in SRM 334 (section 1)

In today’s NCAA athletic arena it seems as though emotions are a key component in any athlete and coach. For example, Louisville University’s women’s lacrosse team faced various emotional hurdles this fall with the suspension of head coach Kellie Young. Young is a former 2003 James Madison University women’s lacrosse coach. While at JMU she led the team to three NCAA appearances. Unfortunately, head coach is now under investigation for complaints of abusive tactics from 6 former and previous Louisville lacrosse players. It is believed that head coach Young had just crossed the line. There were a few examples in the various articles, for example one being, coach had made a player with a torn ACL do 250 push-ups as punishment in an airport terminal.

Lacrosse is a fast growing sport and really doesn’t get the media coverage it deserves. However, in this case Louisville is getting almost too much coverage. The team, coaching staff and the school are all under investigation. It is just unfortunate that the coverage the media is providing is apparently exaggerating the information. I have a friend on the team and she stated “I feel so bad for my coach, they’re exaggerating everything, it is just awful here.” As outsiders prospective, it is hard to really know what to believe about this case. Does the head coach have her team brain- washed in other words, thinking that her coaching style is ok and normal? Or is the media just amplifying the information.

As a player, I could not imagine what the team is going through right now. It is my understanding that they did still compete this fall in tournaments under the assistant coaches. But the amount of stress this now adds to the team. It will be interesting to see how the case plays out and will the team overcome this adversity to compete they want to this spring.

Relating this topic to class, the media is inevitably changing the world of sports and how fast stories can get out. Also the fact that media is now so dominant in athletics, as a society we are so wrapped up in sports. The media has to keep up with how interested people are in knowing what is going on in the professional, college and maybe even high school sports. On the other hand, this scandal has showed me if I was ever interested in working in athletics how important being prepared and relationships are. Being prepared to handle any situations that are thrown at us in the athletic department. And the fact that continuing to develop relationships every day cannot only but help you when things like this come up. As a University you get through it together.

---

Analysis by Jonathan Barden in SRM 334 (section 1)

The article I focused on was found on usatoday.com written by Adam Himmelsbach and was titled “Louisville lacrosse coach accused of abusive tactics”. The article took little time getting into the meat of the matter and dishing out the gossip a lot of readers would want to read about. After a short introduction the article swiftly moved into bullet pointing some of the worst offenses the coach had been accused of handing out to her players. The head coach, Kellie Young was allowed a few lines to defend herself in which she explained not all of these actions were 100% correct and then the article continued in a rather negative light, explaining more disturbing stories and action, or lack of action taken by the school to combat her behavior.

Analyzing this article from a media standpoint I would say that this article was rather one sided and definitely gave coach Young a bad name if you were to simply read this piece alone. The attempt to create a well-balanced article by throwing in the odd quote from Kellie Young did not really help her case as the next point immediately put her back down again by using rumored stories from disgruntled ex-players. From researching this story in depth a lot of other current players strongly stand by the coach and claim a lot of this information has been blown out of proportion or completely fabricated, but these point of views were unsurprisingly not included.

Despite this I would still say the article was a well written and well-researched piece. It definitely went in depth to the story, had numerous sources close to the camp and was able to use quotes from named players and parents to back up points made. In addition to this the author had clearly researched the topic well and had a good understanding of what was happening in the story, from disgruntled parents to the roles the athletic director and athletic administrator in attempting to control the situation.

I believe this article is extremely relevant to our course as it clearly shows how to write and lay out a news story to grab the reader’s attention. The title of “Louisville lacrosse coach accused of abusive tactics” immediately draws the reader in as it tells you there is going to be drama in the story happening as a very well respected sports program. And sports fans love nothing more than a drama filled sports story. Then after a brief introduction and laying out of the story it immediately gets into the key gossip filled points that most readers probably read the article for. This is an important tactic used for this type of writing as the reader is now hooked into the story and you can start to detail in more detail and more specifically what actually happened. Additionally the use of quotes not only adds more reliable information to the story but also helps break up the monotony sometimes found in articles that drag on without switching pace at all. The use of the “Story Highlights” section down the left hand column also helps to break up the story and is another effective tactic to entice the reader to read on. All of these tactics could be taken on board by members of our class to improve the standard of our sports writing in the future.

"No bowl ban for Miami Hurricanes"

From ESPN.com

Analysis by Alyssa Hough in SRM 334 (section 1)

Our media topic dealt with the NCAA finally making a decision on the University of Miami Nevin Shapero scandal. In November, 2009, Miami notified the NCAA about their investigation of one of their boosters, Nevin Shapero. They were investigating because he was throwing parties for athletes, taking them to strip clubs, buying them several things including food, clothes, and hotels for family and girlfriends, and other things. The media released information about this investigation once it came out in 2009, but very little information was disseminated after that until now. This is because the NCAA has finally made a decision as to what the punishment will be for the University of Miami. 

The NCAA decided to not ban the Miami Hurricanes from any bowl games, but has decided to take away some scholarships for football and basketball. They are taking away three scholarships from football and one from basketball each year for the next three years. This will total to nine scholarships lost in the football program and three in basketball. The NCAA weighed heavily the fact that The University of Miami decided to self-impose penalties while the investigation was going on when making their final decision. Miami put a two year bowl ban on themselves, and limited the number of scholarships they were giving out while this situation was being investigated.

It was interesting how the media released information about the case when it first came out in 2009, but then it faded away until now when the NCAA finally made a decision. I think the media stayed out of the issue because The University of Miami did a great job with their crisis management plan, and took control of the situation from the beginning. They self-imposed what could seem to be harsh punishments on themselves during the investigation to show how they are taking this seriously. There has been a lot of negative talk on social media sites like twitter saying that they think the NCAA let Miami off too easily for what they did. Schools like USC are making their disapproval with the decision known because they were hit hard with punishments from the NCAA in 2010. One thing that happened to USC is that they had 30 scholarships taken away from them while Miami only lost a total of 12. There has been a lot of talk about how the NCAA slapped Miami on the wrist and did not decide on a harsh enough punishment. However, the NCAA defends their decision by stating that they took into consideration their compliance and self-imposed punishments during the investigation.

Like we learned in class, you have to have a good crisis management plan in place because you never know when something unexpected is going to come about. Miami did a great job in managing this scandal, and because of that was rewarded with a lighter punishment from the NCAA. I think this will be something that other schools start to implement into their crisis management plan because it makes the school look good for owning what happened and dealing with it immediately. Even on Miami's website they have a link labeled NCAA Investigation. Under this link you can stay up to date with the investigation and the process of it. By including that on their site I believe they used the media to their benefit. Miami did a great job making sure they controlled the situation so the media could not bury the school in the scandal.

---

Analysis by Ben Eidle in SRM 334 (section 1)

Nevin Shapiro is a former booster of the University of Miami. He is no longer a booster because he was violating NCAA rules by providing special benefits to athletes in multiple sports. Shapiro gave athletes access to his yacht and he also paid for certain things that athletes wanted. The investigation by the NCAA began in 2009 and all of a sudden the case resurfaced this past week when the NCAA released their punishment for the University.

This case has a lot to do with crisis management and how it was handled by the University of Miami. The reason for this is because during the investigation stage the story was not talked about much on many media sources compared to other scandals at other similar institutions. There are many reasons that the media could have been ignoring this story that was going on for over two years.

The first thing that I can think of for the media talking about the story for a short period of time is because these types of cases come out about schools a decent amount of time. Improper benefits are given out at schools and they end up being caught. Even though this case was an extreme of improper benefits because they were given out over an eight year period they were still the benefits which may have caused the media not to care.

The next thing that I believe kept the media away from this story is because of the way the university handled the situation internally. The university properly reported what had occurred to the NCAA and continued with their own investigation into the subject matter. They then quickly placed self-imposed sanctions on themselves. These sanctions they put on themselves were unique because they were the harshest self-imposed sanctions a school has given to date. With the postseason bans for football and the reduction of scholarships the media reported this and then it died. I believe this occurred because I feel like the media had the idea that the sanctions were so significant that they did not feel a lot more was going to happen. The crisis management team made proper choices when dealing with the sanctions but they also made sure that they were saying the proper things when necessary. The university was making sure that they were keeping the public updated on what was going on with the case. This takes away from the necessity of the media because if a story is being reported from the main source then it is unnecessary to have the media report on it.

Another thought about the sanctions that the NCAA handed out has to do with the media as well. Usually when a story is being followed a person notices that the penalties are very large. The media was not covering this story as much as others have been. Even though this may not be true the NCAA may be influence by the media because the attention each individual case is given. For example, when USC was receiving their sanctions from the NCAA for the Reggie Bush problem they were being covered all of the time. The sanctions for USC turned out to be some of the worst sanctions given out to a school. The NCAA may have seen that this case was being covered heavily and that may have pressured them into showing everybody they are a strong governing body and over penalized the school. Since Miami was not being covered as much there was no pressure in giving out sanctions that were very large.

Since the NCAA released their sanctions the media has been debating whether or not that the penalties given out were bad enough. This hot topic is important because there are schools that have done less and received more. Also, there are people that believe because Miami put such strict sanctions on their own the NCAA lightened up on the penalties that they were going to give. The debate with the media has grown tremendously since it was first discussed. It has been a topic on social media recently with many different people voicing their opinions from newspaper columnists to fans. All of this shows how powerful the media can be when presenting certain topics.

"England manager Roy Hodgson apologizes for monkey joke"

From Sports Illustrated

Analysis by Alexandra Sullivan in SRM 334 (section 2)

On Thursday October 17th CNN Sports Illustrated posted an article about England’s soccer team manager Roy Hodgson. England played Poland on Tuesday October 15th, which was a big game because the winner would advance to the World Cup. England ended up winning 2-0 against Poland. The article focuses on a greater issue rather than writing about England celebrating the win to advance to the world cup. During half time, Roy Hodgson compared player Andros Townsend to a space monkey. Hodgson meant the comparison as a compliment and did not think about a monkey being a racial slur. The media blew this story out of proportion because Townsend is half black, which means a monkey comment towards him could be taken offensively. Hodgson realized what he had said and apologized to Townsend, the team, and the FA (Football Association). Townsend and other teammates took to twitter to defend Hodgson. Townsend assured the FA and Hodgson that he did not take any offense to the monkey comment, he understood the point the coach was trying to make. Hodgson used the space monkey joke as a generation joke. Space monkeys were used by NASA in the 1960s and 70s and the monkeys were known to be intelligent animals that contributed to success in space flights. Townsend knew Hodgson used this comparison as a good thing. Anti-racism group Kick It Out and anti-discrimination group FARE are demanding an investigation to the story. These groups wanted to publicize this comment to make people aware that the words they are use can be taken offensively. Kick It Out and FARE took to twitter to comment about this story. These groups tweeted that Hodgson knew what he was saying and needs to be aware that he is in a diverse environment and should not be using those kinds of words. The chairman of the FA is backing up Hodgson saying he is an honorable man who is doing a great job coaching the England soccer team. The FA and team stand by Hodgson.

Hodgson is bringing in negative media attention to the team in a time of happiness and celebration. If it were not for social media this story would not have gotten as much attention as it is getting. Now-a-days people are able to freely express their thoughts for everyone to see. Kick It Out and FARE are able to reach more people through social media and get their thoughts to the public faster. Stories spread like wild fire on social media. It is easy for people to share stories to one another and give their opinions. In this case social media blew up the story more than it should have because Hodgson immediately apologizes and no one took offense to the comment. Even with no offense taken from the players, some people still had a problem with the words used and expressed their thoughts through the use of twitter.This issue is relevant to SRM 334 because it proves that everyone contributes to news stories. People can use blogs, facebook, twitter, and other social media outlets to quickly get information out or get their word out. Not everyone has to be a certified journalist or news reporter to get a story out into the public. It is easier for people to stay updated on breaking stories or access information on an issue through the use of social media. Twitter was used positively and negatively in this article. Townsend and teammates were able to assure the public that they still support their coach and this comment was an innocent mistake. On the other hand Kick It Out and FARE were able to use twitter to inform people that comments like that are not acceptable and people need to be aware of their surrounding and the words they use. 

---

Analysis by Samantha Mitchell in SRM 334 (section 2)

On October 16th 2013, Manager Roy Hodgson apologized for making a monkey joke during halftime of the England vs. Poland match, the day prior. Someone from Hodgson’s team leaked information to The Sun newspaper, that during halftime he made a joke about space monkeys in the England Locker room as he was trying to explain to his players that they needed to pass the ball to Andros Townsend. Townsend is African American and the word “monkey” has been used in the past in racial context. 

The monkey joke that Hodgson used was referring to space monkeys that NASA sent into space in the 1960s and 70s. In the statement that Hodgson released Wednesday night, he mentioned that he did not mean the comment in an inappropriate way and made that clear to Andros as soon as it happened. He talked with Andros again the next day to make sure Andros understood the way he meant the comment. Andros understood what he really meant with the comment and assured Hodgson and the Football Association that he took no offense to it.

Andros and many other England players took to twitter to defend Hodgson. None of the players thought it was meant in a racist way and think it is ridiculous that it is being reported on. Greg Dyke, the Football Association chairman, also defended and supported Hodgson. However Kick It Out, an anti-racism organization, does not want a similar situation to happen again, so they are demanding an investigation. Piara Power, the executive director of FARE an anti-discrimination organization, also took to twitter mentioning that Hodgson should have known better and it was silly of him to use that term.

If this information had not been leaked to the media and then published, this situation could have been completely avoided. The media took this and ran with it. Not a single player was offended by the comment made and Hodgson did not mean it to be offensive in any way. He explains in this article that it is more of a generational joke. So therefore, anyone who knows of the monkey joke that took place in the 1960-70’s would be able to realize what he truly meant with this comment.

When the media publishes something that should have never been published, people are going to get frustrated and turn to social media to take out their opinions. This is exactly what happened in this situation. Twitter became an outlet for players and other people to comment on this issue. This information being leaked to the media and then published on the front page of The Sun newspaper also took away from the fact that England qualified for the World Cup by beating Poland. Instead of shedding positive light on the England team, the media is shed negative light on Hodgson, which took away from this great achievement. This article is very relevant to this course because this course is about sports media. This article is covering sports and it has to do with the media making this situation a much bigger issue than it should have been. The media is known to take negative issues and report on them because of the drama it creates. The media has certainly done this with this particular incident and it has not given the proper credit to a team that deserves huge recognition.