MidValleySports.Com

Joe T.

Kick it!

I was holding off on doing a column until the end of the month, but this is probably a good time to start.

Read the comment on the board by “Bobby Knight” wanting to know why we didn’t have anything to say about the Payton/San Dimas controversy.

Truth is I haven’t read the story posted at the Star-Trib, and I probably won’t.

We’ve had no meeting on this subject, no time where we’ve come together to work in concert on not giving a response. Peterson doesn’t need my permission to give a response, and I don’t need his.

So what do I think about the accusation made against San Dimas?

I don’t believe it.

That’s not me burying my head in the ground and refusing to believe it, I just don’t believe it.

Does that mean an investigation won’t find something?

I’m not saying that either.

We live in a world that is so controlled by CYA and lawyers that there will always be something to find. Always something to bring somebody down if a buffer needs to be created between an institution and an individual.

If the Trib-Star wants to break that story more power to them. That’s what they do, it’s their job. If you don’t like what they did tell them, but you don’t need to do it here.

We own The MID, we don’t have to do that story if we don’t want to. It’s our choice.

We didn’t get into this game to be the Trib-Star, we got into because we like sports and thought we could do it a different way.

Temptations are always there. The stuff that we get on a weekly basis through email, facebook, and the comments board would drive our analytics through the roof if we published it. The content of that “stuff” is brutal and half of it has a lot of truth.

We’ve often joked about the “Tell-All” book we’re going to do when we pack the operation up and move to Texas.

If this was Division I football, NFL, then this is a really interesting story, but it’s not. This is high school football. Minors are involved. Coaches are fighting for their professional lives. I don’t want to publish a story—given the litigious world we live in where everyone is looking for a buffer to protect themselves from the next lawyer they meet—that might drastically altar a life just to drive up our analytics.

We don’t have to. The MID is not dependent on that. We don’t have any pressure being put on us to publish a story like that.

But there are pressures, external and internal, that compels the Trib-Star to publish a particular story. That’s the business they are in and that is how they approach it. I don’t fault them for that. In the journalistic sense its a great story.

We choose not to do that story.

In regards to Jake Payton: What a drag. Great player looks like he’s not going to play.

In regards to San Dimas: What a drag. Because if they are clean, they will now always have a stigma, and if a single infraction is found it will be just enough for others to discredit what they’ve accomplished.

In regards to the whistle blower: The question begs: “What did you know and when did you know it, and did it only seem reasonable to blow the whistle when a ruling didn’t go your way?”

In regards to The MID: We got our own problems. We’re trying to get a call back from Lynwood because quarterback Darryl Robinson Jr. might be the best player in the Southeast Division no one has heard of.

The Dude abides…

517

Matthew 11:28-30

Contact Joe at joe@midvalleysports.com