Rosenberg Paraphrased

Submitted by blueloosh on
Because the original article is long and often veers from discussing relevant information, I have provided a paraphrased/summarized version of the Rosenberg/Snyder article below:

Huge Mega Scandal Possibly Worthy of Probation and/or Pullitzer Prize Uncovered at Michigan
The University of Michigan football team breaks the rules. All the time. Systematically. We talked to several, anonymous current and former players from the 2008 and 2009 UM teams and learned that they work out really hard, that voluntary workouts are “voluntary” workouts, and that they spend much longer than 4 hours a day or 20 hours a week on football-related activities. In short, we confirmed that they are, in fact, a competitive D-I program.

Further sleuthing, combined with our misunderstanding of “non-countable” activities, reveals that, based on our math (and misunderstanding of how the NCAA computes practice time) when the players say “we work out all the time,” they are in essence saying “our coaches break NCAA rules all the time.” Because we have added up the hours, and they are spending too many. Especially if you do not comprehend “non-countable” activities, which we do not. And why would we? If interpreting the NCAA rulebook for laymen (not to mention ourselves) would get us ESPN-level exposure, we would have done that. But it doesn't, so we didn't.

What we did do is contact some former players and tell them that while they were at Michigan they actually were only allowed to be spending 20 hours a week. When we hit them with this mind-bending knowledge (not explaining what counts toward those 20 hours since we ourselves did not understand) they were stunned, and said: “whoa man, we were spending much more than that.” And we will translate that for you; what they meant was, “Rodriguez has systematically broken NCAA rules for as long as he has been alive.”

Were we aware that we could monitor the doors of any D-I practice facility within the Milky Way for any one full day and immediately realize D-I football players participate in team activities for much more than four hours a day since that maximum of four hours does not pertain to voluntary workouts, meals, film, rehab, etc? No. We were not. Is that true? Oh. Well either (a) doesn’t matter or (b) please see our forthcoming article, “Every College Systematically Breaking NCAA Rules At All Times; Rules That Were Designed to Protect Players.”

Comments

Blue in Yarmouth

August 31st, 2009 at 2:27 PM ^

Can we just stick a fork in this Rosenberg BS and let it die. He is an ass who has essentially be proven wrong already so if I never hear the clowns name again I would die a happy man.

BlueFront95

August 31st, 2009 at 2:45 PM ^

What I wanna know, and what hasn't been reported, is whether or not the group of "former and current players" approached the FREEP, or whether the FREEP went on a witch hunt? Maybe it's just Michigan's bad luck that Ann Arbor is the closest big-time football program to Detroit (Lions included). I suspect that, like Grade Gate, the journalists were just fishing for a sensational headline to capitalize on the seasonal football fervor.

BradyStoleMyGi…

August 31st, 2009 at 3:41 PM ^

A working definition of "bad reporting" would be an article that asks more questions than it answers. Thsi qualifies. Why quote/reference the players anonymously when Clemons, et. al. seem all to willing/anxious to talk on the record? Also, Rosenberg tries to emphasize that the players stories were "detailed" and "nearly identical". Does that boother anybody else? I mean, if I were to poll five eye witnesses to any event I doubt that I would get stories that are "nearly identical". It sounds too orchestrated.

BigBlue02

August 31st, 2009 at 4:13 PM ^

I would think it is pretty obvious why most of the names were anonymous sources. When you cite guys like Boren, Wermers, O'niel, and Boren (which is pure speculation but would be my guess for some of the anonymous sources), it starts to make your "facts" look like pure bs.

Maize_and_Drew

August 31st, 2009 at 2:53 PM ^

I'm hoping this tabloid, circus BS just goes away too, but I'm afraid the RR/Michigan haters out there will milk this for as long as they can. I really hope a few great leaders emerge on the team because of this, and can rally the team around this situation. If this whole thing backfires in the Freeps face, and this team goes out and wins 9 or 10 games, it'll be that much sweeter in the end.

BradyStoleMyGi…

August 31st, 2009 at 3:31 PM ^

No matter what the outcome of this "investigation" turns out to be, the haters will always be haters. They want to stay safe and warm in their 1970's era cocoon and RR doesn't fit their image of the gruff but paternalistic good guy coach. You can't argue with them either. To paraphrase the old joke about Rudy Giuliani: "Every sentence has the same three items. A noun, a verb and 3-9?. RR can reel off 5 consecutive B-10 titles and the hater will still say "yeah, but 3-9." It will always be true, but it will also be intellectually dishonest. As to The Freep, I don't care if it bites them or the author. I am very interested to see what happens on Saturday and beyond. As frustrating and distracting as this might be, it could be a galvanizing moment for the team. The true team leaders may emerge and this tema just might use this as that added intangible. Oh, and I'm new to this board. How am I doing so far?

Tater

August 31st, 2009 at 3:38 PM ^

UM fans still need a place to vent where there aren't any trolls; that would be here. As for the trolls and haters, they will have a field day for awhile, but winning will shut them up, or at least get them back to normal trolling and hating. This does, though, provide a great built-in excuse to the school in EL. When they lose to UM, it will now be because UM "cheats." Even though they apparently put in 70-plus hours a week themselves, which is about 26 more than UM allegedly puts in.

umichjenks

August 31st, 2009 at 4:44 PM ^

Not only did Rosenberg fail to explain that many of the hours do not count towards the 20 hour limit, he failed to mention the team's recent success in the classroom. As quoted from a previous mgoblog post "U-M has confirmed that last year's team grade-point average is the highest in the past 20 years. It's also one of the best ever by the men who pull on the winged helmets". Somehow this information gets left out of an article that criticizes UM's football team for spending too much time on football and endangering the student's well being in the classroom. How do you leave this information out of your story? Obviously this whole "investigation" is a last ditch effort to save the FREEP. I hope Michigan kills Western. How to cure all of this negative media???? WIN! Just ask USC, it worked for them (Bush, Mayo?). Let me know how those "investigations are coming along.