Interesting state of affairs

Last week the SEC media days took place at the Wynfrey hotel in Hoover, AL. This is usually a time where you can bridge the doldrums of the summer into the start of fall practice. This year would have its share of story lines and crazy fans. It started on Monday with an Alabama graduate oddsmaker from Mobile making a huge accusation on the Paul Finebaum (Jerry Springer of sports talk radio) that the NCAA has found a "bag man" in the Cam Newton case and is trying to get him to come forward and admit he gave the Newtons money. This oddsmaker, Danny Sheridan, said he had two sources in the NCAA giving him this info. Really Danny? An oddsmaker that has two sources with inside knowledge of an ongoing case that will just willingly give up this info to you so you can spread it around? That makes alot of sense. Finebaum relies on people calling his show and listening to boost ratings so he doesnt care what lies he tells or who he ticks off to get those ratings. Well, he got Sheridan to boost ratings for media days. Apparently, Sheridan realized what a mistake he had made and started backtracking as soon as he started getting killed in the national media. Too late, though. He looks like a big idiot and now his credibility is shot. Wow, sounds a lot like other members of the media who have tried to lie and deceive their way to a big story only to make themselves look foolish (cough, cough, Thayer Evans, cough, Pete Thamel). Alabama has also had a story in the news, although since they are the chosen ones, not as big as AU in the news. A couple players have been seen signing merchandise and posing for pics and going to dinner with/for the owner of T-town menswear. This is an NCAA violation. Bama has sent a cease and desist letter to the store and the compliance dept has said no benefits have been received. But that doesnt matter because a student athlete cannot provide services (autographs, pics, etc for money or advertisement) for a retailer. I dont think anything will come of this, nor do I think that they should get in trouble, but what bothers me is the media will downplay this just like they do for everything else that bama does. Remember the text book scandal? Yeah, I remember when it first broke and the compliance dept from bama and the media downplayed the heck out of it and guess what happened? Yeah, it was a little bigger than and more serious than they made it out to be. I know this is a different situation but it amazes me that the media is still hanging on to this Newton story so hard after 9 months and after the NCAA has numerous times stated that they have found nothing to implicate Auburn in anything. I guess I should just expect the media to do this b/c apparently AU doesnt belong in the elite of college football. Oh well, this is what happens when you are on top... unless you are bama.
Next post I will talk about the deep sea fishing trip I and some guys from work went on.