A month ago, when I was just starting as an irrigation supervisor for the University of Memphis, I was told by my boss that the director of the department that my job fell under was annoyed by my I-Pod player.
“It’ll create a distraction,” she said to me at a employee function where I had my ears (read: I-Pod headphones) on.
Of course, these days on campus, because of what I do during the day, I still manage to play my I-Pod (now Zune) to keep me company.
But if I wanted to liveblog for the College World Series for this blog or my own blog, I would more than likely get the Bobby Cox treatment thanks to the NCAA, who found something else to gripe about that to me, was no big deal.
A couple of days ago, the Louisville Courier-Journal’s Brian Bennett, who writes a fan blog on the University of Louisville for the paper, was ejected from the decisive game of the Super Regional between the Cardinals and Oklahoma State during the fifth inning, claiming that his blog was in a way “broadcasting the game.”
From what I read in Bennett’s blog periodically during Sunday’s game, the stuff that he was writing in the entries were borderline analysis, but it still didn’t sound like he was trying to use his blog as a tool for broadcasting a game that was shown nationwide on ESPN and seen by thousands in Louisville in person at Jim Patterson Stadium.
But due to the fear of not being able to host a regional or probably any other NCAA-sanctioned event in the near future in other sports, the same thing that was told to University of Illinois officials for years about Chief Illiniwek’s performances and how they were offensive to Native Americans (until the university decided to put an end to the performances this year), Louisville officials did the next best thing to stay in the NCAA’s good graces.
Send the blogger packing to some remote outpost by the Ohio and have him liveblog the game on some old barge with lumber.
Despite the fact that during the Cardinals’ games in the Columbia (Mo.) Regional, Bennett was doing his blogging without incident and none of this was brought up when the Cardinals were a longshot in making the Super Regionals.
And now since the NCAA is now in the business of ejecting bloggers/reporters, let’s eject Josh Katowitz (Cincinnati Bearcats football and basketball), Paul Klee (Illinois Fighting Illini basketball), and any other college beat writer from the press areas for liveblogging games.
It’ll make the Nazis (see NCAA) happy.
Matt
Charlie Hustle
Condo
Doc Hancock
Bob Swerski
Vega
