Technically Truthful Is The Worst Kind Of Truthful
by Seth
Over the past three days, Michigan's addressed the Shane Morris incident in three different ways:
1) Two-paragraph statement with boilerplate language about student health that claims Morris was removed from the game because of a leg injury and doesn't even mention the possibility of a concussion.
2) Testy Hoke press conference in which Hoke says Morris would have practiced Sunday if not for a high ankle sprain, says there is a statement from medical staff forthcoming, says he hasn't talked to Brandon since Saturday.
3) Medical staff release becomes Brandon statement released at 1:30 AM in which it is admitted that Morris had a mild concussion BUT BUT BUT all this other stuff.
I'm not particularly interested in arguing about whether Brady Hoke is a great dude who's too incompetent to be Michigan's coach or a careless rub-some-dirt-on-it dinosaur who's too incompetent to be Michigan's coach. Either way his lifespan in our lives is measured in weeks, with no pardon coming.
You say he's a great dude, fine. Michigan's still been blown out by every Power 5 team they've played in year four. I'll agree with you that he's a great dude as long as he's a great dude with another job.
The real issue is Dave Brandon. Michigan is caught in a web of contradictions that the Rosenbergs of the world will contort themselves through to say that Michigan technically didn't lie to the world about player safety, and fine! I'm not even going to comb this pile to find the parts that directly contradict other parts. Sure, Dave Brandon is… a great… dude. Let's even stipulate that.
He just evaporated for 52 hours, left his coach out to dry with information that was incorrect, contradicted him on half the stuff he said after most of the western world had gone to bed, and helped spin Michigan Can't Protect Its Players from
- a one-day story in which Michigan acts like adults about a bad situation and addresses the failures that culminated in Morris putting his helmet back on to
- a three-days-and-counting story that makes Michigan look like a mendacious clownshow.
The Brand has been tarnished by Dave Brandon's incompetence, by his instinct to obfuscate and cover his ass. The #1 play of this athletic department is to not quite lie to your face and ask "are you calling me a liar?"
I am. And you need to GTFO.
September 30th, 2014 at 12:26 PM ^
our committment to integrity and higher values and the ideals that Michigan and the BgTn historicallty prides itself on. We disdain some of the rule skirting things that the SEC does to win football games and snicker that we (the BgTn as a whole) don't stoop to cheating and then when something like this happens its all CYA mode. The coaches and AD need to do what...Yea come clean f'godsakes. Mistakes happen, we all screw up at times, but it needs to be addressed and addressed now. There isn't going to be any statement from the medical staff covering these guys, are you crazy? No doc is going to put their reputation on the line and say....ahhh no I don't think he had a concussion.
Come on coaches do the right thing, admit the mistake and then explain what your going to do to correct it in the future, at least as long as your still there, which won't be long with this debacle raging!
September 30th, 2014 at 12:32 PM ^
yea yea 5th grade grammar.
September 30th, 2014 at 12:28 PM ^
So we agree that Hoke was thrown under the bus.
But can you imagine any decent coach even allowing that to happen? Can you imagine Meyer or Harbaugh or Stoops or Saban going out there on Monday with a water bottle and some flimsy excuses only to make a fool of himself in front of the national media?
These top-tier coaches are borderline sociopaths who will lie, cheat, steal, punch dolphins...whatever it takes to win. They are not nice guys. They are experts in game theory, negotiation, scheming, and the history of war. They traffic exclusively in hypotheticals - gameplan or otherwise - and you are not going to outmanuever them so easily. That's why they win.
Hoke is probably a nice guy. But was never cut out for this job. He's in over his head. I don't feel sorry for him.
Hoke is exactly what Brandon wanted. A yes man. And now both of their careers are circling the toilet.
September 30th, 2014 at 12:49 PM ^
I don't always agree with Brian, but when I do, its usually because he writes something like this.
Not overheated, not a HOTTAKE, not mired in fisking details that don't matter just becuase someone said something wrong on the internet. it just draws the logical conclusion from undisputed facts.
September 30th, 2014 at 12:49 PM ^
If members of the medical team were asked to lie and refused, then that is excellent. However, it is possible that said refusal could be due as much to self-interest as to a higher ethical standard. I'm not familiar with precisely who is on the "medical staff" for the football team--"medical staff" being dicey term since it means a very specific thing for a hospital--but for any MD, there might be malpractice issues at hand:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC155425/
For a doctor, the decision about whether to go along with a lie (which is now the true, huge smoking gun in the case) really isn't a decision at all. I'm glad they were the true "Michigan Men" about it, but really, they were just being doctors adhering to minimum professional standards.
September 30th, 2014 at 1:30 PM ^
"We've got no food, we've got no jobs. Our pets heads are falling off."
September 30th, 2014 at 1:35 PM ^
I mean did what did us Michigan Fans expect when they hired Dave Brandon to be AD? Did the fans really not expect to be nickled and dimed the whole way with him being AD? I mean look at the dude's resume, he's been nickle and diming everyone in the corporate world by peddling and pushing shitty pizza.
September 30th, 2014 at 1:52 PM ^
1.Fans,TV viewers,Broadcasters & some on field players see that Shane is woozy,limping,can't stand up without help.Apparently everyone in the free world saw Shane in trouble EXCEPT the people who are responsible for his safety & welfare (coaches,trainers,medical staff.) It was just a case of 'miscommunication? That doesn't pass the smell test.
2.DB spends 2 days 'investigating' the incident and has no contact with the fucking Head Coach (per Hoke)? Doesn't inform Hoke that Shane has a mild concussion.Smell test failure #2.
HOW FUCKING STUPID DO THEY THINK WE ARE?
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