SkAUbinsky

[AUChizad]

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/08/auburn_should_forget_what_sher.html

Auburn should forget what Danny Sheridan's saying, focus on what NCAA's doing
Published: Sunday, August 28, 2011, 5:30 AM
By Kevin Scarbinsky, Birmingham News

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - It's not uncommon for the NCAA to step all over its own policy of not commenting on investigations.

Mark Emmert has made a habit of it, and his organization did it again Friday in a statement that included the NCAA's first public confirmation of what you and I and Auburn already knew.

There is an "Auburn investigation."

More on that later.

As interesting as that acknowledgement was, it wasn't unprecedented for the folks in Indianapolis. The rest of the statement was.

While confirming its Auburn probe, the NCAA put Danny Sheridan under a magnifying glass and pointed a hot light at him. The result was a serious burn, the kind the NCAA usually reserves for the guilty parties in an infractions case.

"Danny Sheridan continues to make vague, unsubstantiated claims without backing them up with proof," the NCAA statement said. "Contrary to his claims of having an inside source with details on the Auburn investigation, the NCAA has not provided information to Sheridan or anyone else."

Jabs followed that uppercut. The statement said the NCAA did talk to Sheridan this week "to determine if he had any facts" about an alleged bagman he says the NCAA allegedly believes allegedly paid Cecil Newton to send his son Cam to Auburn.

"Sheridan, however, did not provide any information to the enforcement staff and certainly did not provide a name," the NCAA said. "Instead, he unsuccessfully attempted to gather information for his own use."

It was a stinging rebuke to both Sheridan and his chief media enabler, Paul Finebaum. It appeared to be a direct response to their Friday appearance on ESPN's Outside the Lines, in which Sheridan repeated his claims and Finebaum vouched for his credibility by stating, "I believe his source is firmly entrenched in the NCAA headquarters building in Indianapolis, Indiana."
Kevin Scarbinsky is a columnist for The Birmingham News. His column is published on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

There's no middle ground between the opposing statements from the NCAA and the Sheridan/Finebaum network. One side is not telling the truth, and more than one professional reputation is on the line.

Sheridan fired back Saturday with his own statement, in which he called the NCAA's statement "total propaganda and an absolute misrepresentation of the facts."

"It's called shoot the messenger," Sheridan said in a phone interview Saturday night. "If I'm not telling the truth and I have no credibility, you don't have to issue a statement like that."

The trouble with that logic is that unsubstantiated claims, even if they're never proven, can damage reputations, too. If you're a member of the media, as Sheridan is, and you're not going to approach a story this serious as a real reporter - and Sheridan said he didn't because that's not his job - you have no business spreading allegations in the first place.

As much delight as the Auburn family has taken in the NCAA trying to kneecap Sheridan's reputation, it should take caution, too. When the NCAA goes public and says it's been investigating your school, celebration isn't exactly the appropriate reaction.

Put aside the subject of what one sports handicapper allegedly has been told, and focus on what we actually know.

In February, former Thibodaux (La.) High School coach Dennis Lorio confirmed that the NCAA asked him about Auburn's recruitment of two current Tigers that played for him, Greg Robinson and Trovon Reed. Lorio said he told the NCAA he knew of no violations.

In March, four former Auburn players from the Tommy Tuberville era accused unnamed people connected to the program of providing them impermissible benefits to sign with the school, while at the school or both. The only public evidence provided to back up those claims, then or since, was the first-hand testimony of the players on HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel."

Yahoo! Sports doesn't get out of bed for evidence that slim, but that's two current players that were of interest to the NCAA and four former players whose allegations should've been of interest.

Auburn hasn't provided any closure on either issue. On the contrary, AD Jay Jacobs spoke Friday morning in Huntsville and also talked to Huntsville Times columnist Mark McCarter. Asked about "the latest on the NCAA investigation" of Auburn, before the NCAA confirmed it later in the day, Jacobs said, "Nothing has changed."

"We're still working with the NCAA," he said. "Despite all the different things that go on outside, the rumors and things, there's nothing new to report. We keep working with them, and one day, we'll get to the end of this."

As damaging as unsubstantiated claims can be, Auburn fans and officials should be less concerned with what Sheridan's been saying and more concerned with what the NCAA's been doing. And why the whole thing's not done.

Again, I feel like the only person with the ability to reason in Idiocracy.

Every has parsed this statement to read "THERE IS AN AUBURN INVESTIGATION".

I just don't see it.

"Contrary to his claims of having an inside source with details on the Auburn investigation, the NCAA has not provided information to Sheridan or anyone else."

Could this not just as easily have read:

"Contrary to his claims of having an inside source with details on the Auburn investigation the staging of the moon landing, the NCAA has not provided information to Sheridan or anyone else."

[JR4AU]

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/08/auburn_should_forget_what_sher.html
Again, I feel like the only person with the ability to reason in Idiocracy.

Every has parsed this statement to read "THERE IS AN AUBURN INVESTIGATION".

I just don't see it.

"Contrary to his claims of having an inside source with details on the Auburn investigation, the NCAA has not provided information to Sheridan or anyone else."

Could this not just as easily have read:

"Contrary to his claims of having an inside source with details on the Auburn investigation the staging of the moon landing, the NCAA has not provided information to Sheridan or anyone else."

Well, it's been several months since he said it, but Lars Anderson (of SI and journalism Prof. at the crapstain) said on Finebaum that he also had inside sources in the NCAA, and claimed he'd been told that unless new information came in, the Newton/Auburn investigation was dead.  Note: dead doesn't mean closed, but simply at a standstill.  In that respect, the Cam-gate investigation will always be "open" as are all enforcement investigations.  "New information" is, in fact, crap like Sheridan claims to have, and why this "open investigation" cause him to be interviewed, resulting in a big fat squadoosh, like everything else to date.  I expect, since Anderson is reputable, and a bammer to boot, that Finebaum would also vouch for his cred too, but also notice since that time, he's not had him back on the show.   In the couple of appearances he made during Cam-gate, Anderson was excoriated by bammers calling the show for statements like that, and for saying SI never ran a Cam-gate story because every time they investigated any of the myriad of rumors and innuendo, they couldn't get 2 sources to confirm or corroborate jack shit, as well as for the fact that he'd done the Cam "feel good" piece instead of a "hit piece", and didn't uncover the MSU scandal while interviewing the Newtons. 

[Kaos]

"Source with details on the Auburn investigation."

That is, to me, their reference to what Sheridan is talking about, not what they are doing. 

If Sheridan were making claims of an investigation into the Tulane swimming program and the NCAA said "Sheridan claims to have details on the Tulane swimming investigation..."  that doesn't (at least to me) necessarily imply that there is such an investigation. 

Scarbinsky is off base in his Louisiana thing, too.  They asked questions, yes.  Do you know why they asked questions?  Because their email inbox was flooded by butthurt LSU fans pissed that Reed didn't go there.