whitlock on rutgers and ball state -- one of the best columns online ....

prodigy · Aug 16, 2007

outstanding article.

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</TD><TD width=145>Award-winning Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock brings his thought-provoking style to FOXSports.com on a weekly basis.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=writerArticles>MORE BY Jason Whitlock:
• Real Talk: We're back ... and just in time
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<TABLE class=bdy style="BACKGROUND-POSITION: left top; BACKGROUND-IMAGE: url(/fe/img/Story/header_gradient.gif); BACKGROUND-REPEAT: repeat-x" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=717 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=2>Real Talk: We're back ... and just in time
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Jason Whitlock
FOXSports.com, Updated 48 minutes ago<SCRIPT> // front-end hack to remove postedTime from Rumors page until a better way can be determined if (document.URL.indexOf("/name/FS/rumors") != -1 && document.getElementById("postedTime") != null) document.getElementById("postedTime").style.display = 'none'; </SCRIPT> </TD><TD align=right><SCRIPT language=JavaScript1.2 src="/fe/js/site_wide.js" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT><SCRIPT language=VBScript>on error resume nextflash6Installed = (IsObject(CreateObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash.6")))If (flash6Installed) then flash5Installed = TrueElse flash5Installed = (IsObject(CreateObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash.5")))End If</SCRIPT><SCRIPT language=VBscript>'This will scan for plugins for all versions of Internet Explorer that have a VBscript engine version 2 or greater.'This includes all versions of IE4 and beyond and some versions of IE 3.Dim WM_detect_through_vbWM_detect_through_vb = 0If ScriptEngineMajorVersion >= 2 then WM_detect_through_vb = 1End IfFunction WM_activeXDetect(activeXname) on error resume next If ScriptEngineMajorVersion >= 2 then WM_activeXDetect = False WM_activeXDetect = IsObject(CreateObject(activeXname)) If (err) then WM_activeXDetect = False End If Else WM_activeXDetect = False End IfEnd Function</SCRIPT><STYLE> .storyTools { background-image:url(/fe/img/Story/tools_bg.gif); background-color:#ffffff; background-repeat:repeat-x; background-position:top; height:40px; } .storyTools td { font-size:10px; font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#9b9b9b; text-decoration:none; } .storyTools td a:link, .storyTools td a:visited { font-size:10px; font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#1c67ba; text-decoration:none; } .storyTools td a:hover { text-decoration:underline; } .storyToolsHdr { font-size:11px; color:#75767a; } .storyToolsRoot { font-size:11px; color:#75767a; }</STYLE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=303 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=storyToolsHdr style="FONT-SIZE: 11px" align=left> STORY TOOLS:</TD><TD> </TD><TD> </TD><TD> </TD><TD> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE class=storyTools height=40 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>

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I'm sorry. I apologize for taking the summer off.

We've missed Real Talk, the column I started over at America Online a year ago, the column that I'm now bringing to a new home here at FOXSports.com, the column that is a mix of sports, entertainment, culture and unbiased, agenda-less opinions.

Man, we need the Real Talk now more than ever. We need a place to aggressively and unapologetically discuss the most controversial and sensitive sports topics of the day.
For those of you unfamiliar with Real Talk, let me give you a quick primer on its history and points of emphasis:
1. Real Talk is a must-read for any hardcore football fan. No one in America writes more provocatively and intelligently about football than yours truly. Football is in my blood.
2. If you have a closed mind or agenda when it comes to American race issues, you will not like Real Talk. I love to write about race. It's a pervasive issue in the sports world and should not be ignored. My opinions on racial matters are unpredictable. Black or white, liberal or conservative, you should leave your expectations at the door. I'll disappoint you.
3. The AOL version of Real Talk gained national notoriety when I exposed NBA All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas for being the gangsta paradise, Black KKK rally that it was. Real Talk became a world-wide playa when I dissed Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Vivian Stringer for turning Don Imus' inappropriate attempt at humor into a national pity party/recruiting video/marketing tool for their individual cause$.
So it only makes sense to start Real Talk's resurrection from exactly where it left off.
We learned Wednesday that one of Nelson Womandela's Rutgers basketball players — center Kia Vaughn — has filed a lawsuit against Imus for defamation of character.
Yes, it seems that C. Vivian Womandela's players learned the exact lesson she taught throughout the Imus fiasco: play the victim for all the money and fame that it's worth and ignore the price others may pay for your selfishness.
Again, let me restate for the record my opinion on the Imus fiasco. Don Imus was wrong. He needed to be punished with a suspension. Sharpton, Jackson and Stringer milked Imus' mistake for personal gain, and at the end of the day put the Rutgers' players in harm's way (opposing fan backlash, death threats) over a minor incident.
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</TD></TR><TR><TD class=caption>Congratulations, C. Vivian Stringer .... your players have learned a lesson from their fearless leader. (Chris Hondros / Getty Images)</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Kia Vaughn is now following the example of her fearle$$ leaders. She wants her piece of the pie. She doesn't care that her lawsuit will undermine the credibility of her former teammates and make the Rutgers women look like money-grubbing, attention-starved opportunists. Vaughn watched Womandela cash in with a book deal and new contract, so why shouldn't at least one of the allegedly highly offended players get in on the score?
Even though hardly anyone in America knows who she is — and those who do, only know her as one of the "classy and intelligent" Rutgers players — Imus' stupid words supposedly damaged Vaughn's character and reputation to the extent that she needed to file a lawsuit to recover her good name.
What are we teaching our young people?
Last week I spent six hours in a law office with Big John Thompson, John Thompson III, Ronny Thompson and a lawyer. They tried in vain to convince me that Ronny Thompson, Big John's youngest son, quit as Ball State's basketball coach after 15 months because he worked in a racially hostile environment. They wanted me to write the story that they later got my friend Mike Wilbon to pen in Tuesday's Washington Post.
Wilbon is one of the most skilled sports journalists in America. He's extremely fair-minded. And I have a great deal of respect for him as a friend and a man. However, his column on Ronny Thompson was irresponsible, filled with blatant inaccuracies told to him by Thompson and an embarrassment to The Post. The column painted Muncie, Ind. and Ball State as a hotbed of seething racial animosity where no black coach could hope to survive.
During my meeting last week with the Thompsons, guess who Ronny referenced several times as a confidant? Vivian Stringer.
Hey, she probably had nothing to do with what the Thompsons are doing. But it's difficult for me to believe that her Imus payday didn't in some way inspire Ronny to quit, play the victim and plot a lawsuit.
Now, I'm a former Ball State football player and a 1990 graduate of the school. I have strong ties to the university and athletic department. I've known Big John Thompson for 15 years. I talked with Ronny several times throughout his brief tenure.
He did not in any way fail at Ball State, post a school-record 22 losses and get accused of a couple of NCAA infractions because he worked in a racially hostile environment.
He bombed because he was too immature, too soft and too arrogant to deal with working in a poorly run, dysfunctional athletic department. My alma mater hired a horrible athletic director, Tom Collins, shortly before Thompson was hired as basketball coach. Collins has no leadership skills. People within his own department don't respect him or like him. I've met the man. He's unqualified for his job.
The turmoil within the athletic department and Thompson's total lack of people skills combined to throw the basketball program into chaos. Thompson has claimed that the rampant stories about his poor relationships with longtime boosters, trainers, secretaries and other Ball State coaches are all exaggerated, distorted or a byproduct of racism. It's just not true.
My first meeting with Ronny Thompson was terrible. He was aloof and short with me and three of my former teammates — all black — inside a restaurant on campus. Two weeks later, Thompson saw me filling in for Wilbon on Pardon The Interruption and he called me enthusiastically, kissing my rear end and asking me to wear a Ball State basketball jersey the next time I was on PTI. I accepted his calls and forged a bit of a relationship solely out of respect to his father and my love of Ball State.
During my meeting with the Thompsons, they acknowledged that Ronny had unconditional support from the school president and athletic director. I know this is true because Ronny's failure and the subsequent controversy have raised considerable questions about their own job security. They needed Ronny to stay and succeed, and they were committed to working through and eliminating the trust issues and alleged racial problems that were hurting Ronny.
They never got a chance to do any of that because, before Ronny quit, he isolated himself from everyone except his coaching staff, secretly tape recorded at least one assistant athletic director and sent a series of carefully-worded emails to the school president that screamed he was preparing a lawsuit.
Try winning a national championship before going Nolan Richardson on a school that hired you based solely on your last name. This is a spoiled, pampered kid of privilege who ran to daddy as soon as things got a little tough.
Did he experience some racial tension at Ball State? Yes, probably. You can find it anywhere in America where the races work together. Any black man in a position of authority is going to have to weather a certain amount of racial backlash. You think Tubby Smith didn't have thick skin at Kentucky? As a sports columnist and media personality, do you think I (or Wilbon) haven't endured some vicious name-calling, threats and petty office politics?
Thompson's whining about racist notes left under a door and an associate athletic director allegedly making disparaging comments about Thompson and his staff sounds like a kid who wanted to take his ball and go home. The whining also sounds a bit hypocritical.
"He told us not to trust in (white people) and that they weren't trying to help us," said Peyton Stovall, Ball State's second-leading scorer. "He told us that on many different occasions. I don't know if he had a reason why, but it just came out. We'd be in a meeting or at his house or something and it would just basically come out of nowhere. I thought he had prejudged everybody before he got there."
Thompson, according to Stovall, was also pretty liberal with the use of the N-word with his team. Thompson's players were all black. He had one white assistant coach. "Practice, games, normal talking, whatever," Stovall told me. "He wouldn't use it every single day, but if you would just talk to him he'd use it, especially if you used it. It was kind of like he was one of the boys. ... He would tell (the white assistant) to close his ears."
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I played football at Ball State in the late 1980s. I enjoyed my time on the campus. It was not perfect, but it was not hostile. I asked Stovall if the campus was racially hostile now.
"It's never been that way and I've been here going on five years," he said. "I've never encountered that. If so, it was nothing to the degree or the magnitude it's being portrayed. ... It's disappointing to hear someone drag your university through the mud. I think it's unprofessional."
I'm sorry, I don't have much sympathy for Ronny Thompson. You don't quit and cry and beg friends in the media to savage the reputation of people you know bent over backwards trying to help you — especially when you know damn well your own actions greatly contributed to your demise.
You don't buckle in 15 months. You stand and fight. That's Real Talk.

WinningWand · Aug 16, 2007

Someone tell me why all all reporting and media material cannot be this intelligent and truthful.

How refreshing to read the truth.

BigM+ · Aug 16, 2007

bounced from espn and then bounced from aol after a year? what a joke. probably the best usual sports column right now.

fro11 · Aug 16, 2007

yeah he gets the boot from espn.com and they keep that jackass scoop jackson!

hm2.0 · Aug 16, 2007

kudos to the author.

I had heard things about the Ball State program. Sad story.

MrCleo · Aug 16, 2007

actually interacting with John Thompson numerous times myself, it's not just my opinon...but a fact the guy is a jackass so nothing about him or Ronny would surprise me

rouxdogg · Aug 16, 2007

Interesting to see the national audience's perspective on Whitlock. Having read him regularly for the last 10 years or so, I have mixed opinions on him. On one hand, he does write some unique, entertaining columns from time to time and does a nice job covering the Chiefs. On the other, he is, at times, predictable, redundant and egotistical.

Also, it is no coincidence that he was run off at aol and espn. He also has been let go from both sports radio stations in kansas city (although I did enjoy listening to him on the radio). IMO, he has also milked the whole Rutgers situation in every single possible way.

Ironman_8 · Aug 16, 2007

prodigy said:
I love to write about race. It's a pervasive issue in the sports world and should not be ignored. My opinions

This is probably the only statement i can agree with. He exposed the "Black KKK rally"? Bwahahahaa Is he serious??

It fits him that he would land at a Fox site as he is trying to be the new Black O'Reilly. The only place he has to go now is Cnnsi.com and then to his own blogger.com account.

Here's the Wilbon article he mentioned as being "irresponsible". Wilbon's credibility >> Nomad blogger Whitock's credibility

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/13/AR2007081301102.html

Picture Becomes Clearer At Ball State, and It's Not Pretty

By Michael Wilbon
Tuesday, August 14, 2007; E01

There are people at Ball State who want you to believe everything that went wrong is Ronny Thompson's fault. They tell folks Thompson is arrogant and distant and a bad basketball coach. They tell you Thompson didn't extend himself to the booster club. They point to a new black coach as indication that everything's hunky-dory on campus and that Thompson's claims of a racially hostile environment are bogus, despite the coach's photos of hateful signs laying on the floor of what used to be his office.

What they don't tell you is that the Ball State athletic program was already dealing with a selling-books-for-profit scandal that suggested to the NCAA a lack of institutional control and took place long before Ronny Thompson was hired. Some of these same Ball State people aren't forthcoming with the fact that the basketball team had only five players when Thompson arrived and was told by his boss to pass on cocktail parties and concentrate on recruiting. They don't tell you that they didn't even have basketballs for practice or that the players weren't going to class.

They don't tell you Ronny's wife was so worried about the expression of racial hostility that she put her two children in the car and drove from the Ball State campus in Muncie, Ind., to Chicago. They don't tell you that Thompson and his attorney allege the violation of federal civil rights laws, state civil rights laws and the school's own equal employment opportunity policies.

And they certainly don't tell you that Thompson, at the insistence of his suspicious pop, Big John, kept a detailed diary of every meeting and phone call, with quotes, notes, times and supporting e-mails. He has photos, tape recordings and memos that he shared on a recent afternoon while telling his story.

Thompson resigned as coach of the Ball State basketball team on July 12. School officials have not specified why he resigned, and JoAnn M. Gora, the school's president, and Tom Collins, its athletic director, said last week that Thompson would still have his job had he not stepped down. They said they were no longer focusing on secondary violations Thompson and his assistants allegedly committed, specifically being in the gym and in the weight room during times coaches are not allowed to be there. Thompson said he was identified, if you will, by a student who said it was a "tall black man" with a bald head in the gym, as if that doesn't describe probably 250 men on campus. Thompson says categorically he was not in the gym at the time.

Thompson said that in his resignation letter to Gora last month he reiterated the serious concern he spoke of with her only a month earlier when he said: "My decision to leave is not one of my own volition, but due to the intolerable circumstances created by the university. I consider my leaving to be termination without cause. . . . The racially hostile work environment combined with harassment by several members of the administration, including my supervisors, has made a continuing working relationship untenable."

In a June 2 letter to Gora, Thompson says he was told by the school's compliance director that an assistant athletic director uttered "several derogatory comments about black people in general . . . and used the n-word more than once in this conversation. . . . This conduct is outrageous and is in clear violation of the university's EEO policy and non-harassment policy."

Thompson says he was told of the racial slur by the school's athletic compliance director, Kyle Brennan, and that it was Brennan who first tipped him off that he should get an attorney. Brennan, since, has not spoken up on Thompson's behalf or about this episode.

Thompson holds on to every piece of correspondence, fighting what he says is a "systematic attempt to discredit me and my staff." On a recent day in attorney Matthew Keiser's office at Arnold & Porter in the District, Thompson said: "We're asking for an external, independent and public review of everything I have. The university balked . . . "

Gora told The Washington Post last week that Thompson was overwhelmed as a head coach. Sports boosters said he was aloof and cold. The boosters also tell a story of Thompson showing up two hours late to a school golf outing, not mentioning that Thompson was called to a mandatory meeting by his athletic director and compliance director, a meeting on which he took notes extensively.

Thompson told his own story the other day. "I was told when I was hired," he said, "to 'get the program in order.' I had five players when I got there in April. I was told to forget speeches and boosters. . . . They're trying to paint me as some antisocial man without personality, like I wanted to be holed and the athletic director had to instruct me to be nice. That's not me, and has never been me.

"They did want open practices, and I said, 'No.' There had been no coach for 2 1/2 months," Thompson said. "There was no order . . . We're talking about starting a program at ground zero. . . . The first order of business for a coach doing that is to get out on the road and recruit. It was a Division I program with no basketballs. I called [Georgetown Coach John Thompson III] and asked him to send me some balls. There were no jump ropes, no workout gear, no shoes, nothing . . . I'm talking nothing . . . like number two Boys Club on North Capitol. I drove to a store and bought basketballs."

And there was the book scandal that had caused a major NCAA investigation, with student-athletes selling books for cash. Thompson is convinced the school looked aggressively for secondary violations to report to demonstrate to the NCAA that school officials were vigilantly cleaning up their act.

Later, the school alleged that an assistant coach, Steve Flint, was said to be in the weight room, another secondary violation. Just like the report that he had been in the gym, Thompson says, this, too, is untrue. Even worse, Thompson says Collins said to him, " 'Why don't you just get the white coach [Flint] to admit he was there in the weight room and there won't have to be an investigation . . . there'll just be a slap on the wrist.' I asked him, 'What's a slap on the wrist?' And he told me [Flint] would have to be suspended 30 days without pay, or be removed from the road recruiting, or not receive a pay raise.

"In other words, it was, 'Take the hit and sweep this under the rug so the NCAA will leave us alone as we try to bring closure to [the books scandal]. Go along with us, throw the white guy under the bus.' If we admitted to a secondary violation, fine, but if we didn't there would have to be a full-blown investigation."

Thompson said no, he wouldn't go along. And while thankful of the support from a lot of people at Ball State, he's disappointed that Brennan didn't report the racial slurs to the school president and the NCAA.

Tony Proudfoot, Ball State's associate vice president for communications, told The Post's Eric Prisbell yesterday that the university has taken all of Thompson's concerns seriously and that "anything Coach Thompson identified as a workplace concern we are examining because we want to be a welcoming environment for all people." Proudfoot said two faculty members with expertise in workplace climate assessment are examining whether the incident involving the racially charged notes was isolated. University police are investigating the source of the notes.

Oh, there's one more thing. Thompson said his recruiting trips produced what has been described as a top 35 recruiting class, and the No. 4 recruiting class by a non-BCS school. It's too bad for the school and for Ronny Thompson he won't be there to coach them.

MrCleo · Aug 17, 2007

Ironman_8 said:
It fits him that he would land at a Fox site as he is trying to be the new Black O'Reilly.

so true :missingte

Ironman_8 · Aug 17, 2007

MrCleo said:
so true :missingte

Bang! http://www.chicagosportsreview.com/inthemeantime/contentview.asp?c=199514

From He has taken fine black people like Vivian Stringer and cast her to neoconservative wolves. He calls her "Womandela," a slap in the face not only to Stringer, but to Nelson Mandela and his remaining family - once in the past just to get a laugh from Dan LeBatard, now, just for future use by Sean Hannity. Finally, he lambasted Michael Wilbon, someone he counted as a friend, and accused him of unethical journalistic practices.

Whitlock, after he inevitably runs his course with Fox, will find himself alone on an island sinking under the burden of his corpulence - and the memories of those he tried to bring down with him.