It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know

Over the weekend, sixteen basketball teams battled for the chance to be part of college basketball's Final Four. Florida, Georgetown, Ohio State and UCLA are packing for Atlanta. Butler, Kansas, Pittsburgh, Memphis, Southern Illinois, Tennessee, Texas A&M, UNLV, USC and Vanderbilt had to pack up and go home.

This year's Sweet Sixteen was one of the most exciting in recent memory. There were enough close games and comeback wins to keep even casual sports fans glued to their televisions.

But for all the on court drama, the real action in college basketball goes on behind the scenes. NCAA Division I basketball is a ruthless business. The following articles touch on the recruitment of prospective student athletes. Read and enjoy (note that four programs which were Sweet Sixteen participants receive mention):

ESPN-Pat Forde

Seattle Post Intelligencer



Edit: (3:45am)

Man, I knew that the old media i.e., newspapers, magazines and the big three television networks (CBS, NBC, ABC)- were losing market share (just today Life magazine announced that it's folding shop: thanks, largely, to new media "punks" like us), but damn! The Seattle Post Intelligencer must really be being pinched. Apparently, they can no longer afford to employ copy editors. In the above linked article, the author mistakenly refers to Michigan's early 1990's basketball teams as the "Fab Four." The 1992 and '93 Michigan Wolverines were called the "Fab Five." Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Ray Jackson and Jimmy King = five guys. "Fab Four?" The "Fab Four" were the seminal sixties pop/rock act, the Beatles. I probably couldn't name five Beatles songs, but I still know the difference between John, Paul, Ringo & George and Chris, Jalen, Juwan, Ray and Jimmy.

Not only is this guy culturally illiterate, he's (apparently) lazy. Here's a tip: If you don't KNOW something for sure, look the sh*# up, bro.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to hate on the writer. And the information contained in the article is top notch. That's why I dug it up from the Seattle PI's archives.

The thing that really got me was the author's apparent ignorance of the rules of basic (middle school/junior high school) grammar. Sentences should not end in prepositions. A competent writer would never end a sentence by referring to where something is "at."

And, although it may seem like nitpicking, there is no such word as "lastly." There's "last" and there's "finally." But the combination of those two words into "lastly" is a rookie error.

It would be one thing for these types of errors to appear in some schmuck's blog. But this guy is a journalist who writes for a major American newspaper. The guy is a PROFESSIONAL WRITER. I'm not a big fan of the widespread use by internet writers/posters/commenters of the abbreviated term WTF?! But in this instance, WTF!?! seems appropriate.

It's just amazing to see how far the bar has been lowered. This guy is writing for one of the nation's premier newspapers. And he appears to be a good reporter. But his sloppy writing causes me to wonder why someone didn't catch and correct his errors (not to mention how someone whose writing leaves so much to be desired could land a gig at the Post Intelligencer).

Abraham Lincoln didn't have much formal "schoolin,'" but he wrote the Gettysburg Address. Hemingway didn't go to college, but he was one of the greatest writers who ever lived. Hell, my grandmother didn't get to go to college, but she'd never make the kind of errors that this cat made.

I knew that the American schools were getting worse, but I guess I didn't appreciate just how bad they actually are.

Note: This "edit" was done at 3:45 am when I was, admittedly, not exactly on top of my game (and had just returned from socializing in a few Windy City speakeasies). But still, the Seattle Post Intelligencer is slacking.