Carr talks re Trent
Just to round out everyone's statements on the issue
"That paragraph is completely a distortion of my conversation with Morgan," Carr said. "That is a complete distortion, and it is not accurate. I have never spoken with the author. I have never met him. I have never had a conversation with him to the best of my knowledge."
Also, Trent backs off the portion that it was Carr that brought it up
"Lloyd didn't bring any of this to my attention," Trent said. "When we spoke, I brought it up to him, and he said he had heard some of the same things."
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20100510/SPORTS0201/5100435/1004/SPORTS/Rich-Rodriguez--Loyd-Carr--Morgan-Trent-spar-on-book-passage#ixzz0naCGh0Ze
Ah, yes. Bo was a saint. None of this would have happened two years after his watch.
Of course you know this because Bo coached in the time of blogs and internet speculation run amok. Right?
Good to see Carr address the situation. Trent is still dead to me. And the author of this book is an asshole of Freep proportions.
This is exactly how it is supposed to work.
- Totally unsourceable but plausible shit gets thrown out by unreliable hack (Deren) and understandably self-interested aggrieved party (Trent);
- Potential bad guys (Rodriguez and Carr) shoot down story, leaving unreliable hack to twist, and teaching an important lesson to understandably self-interested aggrieved party.
- Exeunt
Bravo, Lloyd. Bravo, Rich. Fuck you, Bobby. Fuck you, Morgan.
I am very glad that Carr stood up and said something to defuse the situation. He has finally given me faith that he is still a Michigan Man, and that the team is still more important to him than any personal agenda. I am equally glad that it was Angelique who reported it. She is still the only person in the media besides Wojo that we can trust to report accurately and with no hidden agenda.
Angelique, of course, loves UM and would never hurt it, but has the ethics to tell the truth. She is sorta the Walter Cronkite of UM sports. Wojo, on the other hand, distances himself from all stories he writes, and never seems to have a stake in the outcome. As a result, his only agenda seems to be having fun. He makes fun of UM sometimes, but he makes fun of everyone, and it's never malicious like most things published by the freep.
It's sad that you would require anything from Lloyd Carr to "give you faith he is still a Michigan Man." I'm sorry.
The idea that LLOYD FUCKING CARR needs to give TATER, scion of MGoConspiracies, faith that he "is a Michigan Man" is possibly the most fucked up think you have typed here.
And that's saying something!
So how are we going to get Magnus back the 400 points you monkeys negged him for having his head screwed on straight?
Magnus is perhaps the most maligned of people who actually have reasonable opinions, but gets squashed because it often clashes with the masses. There have been literally dozens of topics where otherwise legitimate, well-thought-out posts he's made have been negged in the double digits. I really think people see Magnus and hit -1 without even thinking about it.
If anything, he should be getting back about 4000 MGoPoints.
The issue, I think, is that Brain is something of a Sacred Cow around these points, and there are a large, large, number of people that read these whose opinion is dictated by him. This isn't Brian's fault - he's a good writer, one I clearly enjoy. However, in my limited dealings with him, I don't think he considers his opinions unimpeachable truth.
Unfortunately, for a large number of trigger-happy neg-bangers here, disagreement with Brian is near-treason.
Or it could be Magnus decided to say "hey everyone, look, RichRod could still be a dick" when it looks lilke there is absolutely no reason to think so. When 3 out of the 4 people involved in the story say it's bullshit, it is busch league to pick one person out out of those 3 to say "let's not forget about him....he could still be a fuck." It kind of looks like you have an agenda at that point.
My "agenda" is simply to get Michigan fans to step back and take a look at the bigger picture or to look at things from a different perspective.
Style has everything to do with it.
I've learned to accept it, but he's lopped my head off a time or two for no reason at all. Not that I care because, you know, it's the internet.
You say a lot of the same things, just as tersely when warranted, and don't have anywhere near the stigma he does.
FWIW
It's not because it clashes with the masses, it's because he often is pretty dickish in presenting his dissenting reasonable opinions. jaimemac posted once in the original shitshow of a thread to basically call BS on ripping coach Carr. His comment was something like +30 last I saw.
I mean, I might agree with him some of the time he's being dickish, but I can understand why his posts tend to attract the negbangers too. In any event, he'll never be in danger of going below a point threshold that matters unless he uses an Idiotic Team Nickname That Shall Not Be Named, so I doubt he cares. But it's pretty clear why he gets negged when others who are expressing a similar opinion but presented in a different way do not.
Of course, I have no problem having a few message board assholes around here. Good comments presented in a dickish manner provide great entertainment.
Why are so many people acting like Lloyd Carr was horribly wronged here? I think most people just felt that Carr should comment on the situation if in fact he was misrepresented in the article (which I think most people suspected to be the case, except maybe Brian). The fact that he did that and all controversy immediately ended should show just how important it was for him to come forward. I'm glad he did it so promptly and I think it confirms how most us feel about the man's character, but acting like it wasn't necessary ignores the entire day everyone just spent on this blog.
The entire day they spent on this blog ignoring the 20 years of service the man gave to Michigan.
He was maligned because the most popular Michigan athletics site on the internet declared, wrongly, that the man was THE ENEMY of the program. And Carr, frankly, deserves more than to have to assuage the fears and suspicions of assholes who are willing to set aside his decades of service to the program, the school, and the community, on unsourced rumors. Anyone who has paid attention to Michigan should have smelled BULLSHIT the second this was published.
I think Brian made a number of assumptions and got ahead of himself with the front page piece (which he has promptly and nobly apologized for), but I think myself and a lot of others merely expressed the need for Carr to comment (since the alternative meant he was either actively undermining or passively okay with others undermining the reputation of the current coaching staff). He did that and the controversy immediately disappeared. I don't think realizing what a big deal it would have been had he remained silent is the equivalent of maligning the former coach.
Did you read the other thread? People calling his "Michigan Man-ness", how they knew he had been working against RR. You're mis-characterizing what that thread was.
Certainly anyone who did that in a non-hypothetical situation (I even claimed he should have been fired from the AD IF in fact he had gone to Trent spreading rumors that RR was badmouthing him to scouts) and without all the facts was in error. My initial comment was directed more to those who still claimed that Coach Carr didn't owe the program anything in this situation, when in fact I think what happened showed just how easy it was for him to squash this entire controversy with one blurb and that as an athletic department employee he had a duty to do exactly what he did, given the falsehoods associated with the story.
And he did it, inside the same news cycle. So what's the issue?
He ended this thing about as quickly as possible and I'm glad he did. I just don't buy the "he never owed us anything and didn't have to comment" statements I saw as I glanced through these threads after I got home and learned that the fireworks had all ended.
For doubting that "maligning" is a word.
Any time the "Lloyd Carr should say something" card is played, it turns into a litany of the same people saying the same things about losing too many times to Tressel, getting torched in the Rose Bowl one too many times (hey, guess what, Bo did that, too!), "THE HORROR," etc. etc. There were ridiculous statements made about his character, about his commitment to Michigan, about his qualities as a coach and his merits as a man.
Today was one of those days where 99.9% of the board was once again calling for his head, and the guy who runs the show jumped in for good measure. And it turns out they were wrong. Lloyd Carr deserves more than to be a scapegoat.
As I've said before, this wasn't some BS "he needs to show he's all in" moment. He was openly accused in the media of spreading (now known to be false) rumors that the current Michigan coach was badmouthing a former player to NFL scouts/GM's with an insinuation that he disagreed vehemently with the current coach's assessment of said player and didn't like what was going on one bit. All he had to do was make a brief statement and the whole bag of nonsense would go away (which, duh, that is what just happened).
I don't think the villifying of Carr (or more accurately in my case, the posting of his record during the last eight years of his tenure) is prompted by those asking/demanding that he comment in this situation (though maybe it does with more ambiguous "he should show his support for RR" comments), but rather takes place when people say things like "He doesn't owe anyone a comment," or claim that his track record somehow puts him above reproach even when his failure to speak up is harmful to the program (what happened today is not good for anybody).
That man HATED the media with a burning passion. You expect him to run to the press for ANYTHING? How long have you watched this team, man?
And frankly, if the charge is "he betrayed Michigan" on un-sourced rumors and whiny fan-boys who can't get the fuck over Appy State, he is unimpeachable. He has EARNED our respect. He keeps it.
This wasn't "anything." I certainly don't expect Carr to shout from the rooftops on a daily basis how much he loves RR and supports UM football no matter what. This was a case where he personally was accused of making statements that undermine the current coaching staff. If he didn't make those statements (which turned out to be the case) I think he definitely had a duty as a continuing employee of the athletic department to correct things where it was obviously easy to do so and where that minimal effort effectively ended the entire controversy. I don't think that is too much to ask in this instance.
That's overstating it (99.9), Bando. I wanted to hear him say something because nothing made sense and the mud was draped all over his face. He needed to wipe that shit off, and I'm glad he did.
I have no doubt that Lloyd loves Michigan with every fiber of his soul and his character is unimpeachable; despite the clear blemishes on his coaching record at the end. He doesn't need you to be his lap dog, the vast majority of people recognize him with reasonable (or better) esteem.
How is Magnus maligned or squashed down? Not like it matters, but do you realize Magnus has over 22,000 mgopoints...more than even Brian?!? Doesn't sound to me like someone whose contribution/opinion is marginalized or undervalued on this site.
I was joking about MGoPoints. He clearly doesn't need them.
I was responding to Bando's comment. Clearly, Magnus gets unfairly negged when he presents a strong dissenting opinion in his usual dick manner (j/k!). But I bring up his insane point total to represent the far greater number of us that appreciate his typically well-reasoned input.
It helps he's one of the more active MGoPosters. He makes up for it.
The fact remains he gets negbanged far too much for posts that are well-written and well-reasoned. Going against the grain of popular opinion with a well-written post is not a valid reason to -50 negbang.
who cares
Still making Trent out to be some devil is ridiculous. People love to invent histories - intention on the part of the actors (Trent), relationships among the actors (RR and Lloyd) - all inventions by onlookers; then you all even, unbelievable enough, tie your story of intentions and relationships to Trent's on-field play to make it seem more plausible.
Here is my interpretation:
- RR: RR didn't praise Trent's attitude to the scouts, but he did praise his athletic ability. RR didn't say "Morgan was lazy, he had an attitude problem and he was a big reason why the Wolverines finished with a 3-9 record" - hence his denial was true. But this all started somewhere.
- NFL Scouts: These guys reported RR's take to Trent, and something was invented in the telling (which is what always happens)
- Trent: Trent believes RR badmouthed him. He believes this because what folks told him Trent says "I heard it from enough different sources as far as coaches and scouts, obviously it wasn't make believe". I believe this. Trent may have done some interpretation on his own (AS WE ALL DO), but I believe that Trent believes what he says, and simply reported what he thinks.
- Book author: The author of the book gave what he heard life, embellished it as most authors do (like many here, including Brian, have done).
- Lloyd: Lloyd and Trent talked about the scouts' construal of RR's reports on Trent. Lloyd likely sympathized with his former player to make him feel better. Trent reports Lloyd being sympathetic to the book author.
Now, tying this to Trent's on-field performance is too much of a stretch. it only helps you all make sense of all this.
- The only way any of this seems plausible is if RR DID say some negative stuff about Trent's attitude - this didnt get started out of thin air. But, for RR's denial to be true, he had to have praised Trent for something. Which only seems plausible to have been Trent's on-field play, his effort. Hence, saying he "gave up" is wrong.
Lloyd having to come out and respond, after simply having a conversation with a former player, because of the world invented by the author of the book, by scouts, by Trent, by RR, and especially by people on the internets, is shameful.
I agree with everything in your post except the very last sentence. I have never understood this attitude. It's shameful that when your reputation and the reputation of the head coach at the school you love is impugned, you have to say something publicly to disavow those claims? That's not shameful, that's the fucking real world. Lloyd Carr, despite being famously cranky with the press, is, I think, an employee of the University of Michigan, one of the most celebrated schools, and possibly the most celebrated football program in the world. Yes, sometimes you have to play ball, you old codger, Lloyd.
I find myself agreeing with Chitown on most points, but here is one he occasionally makes that I vehemently disagree with: the syllogism that
P1: Lloyd hates talking to the media;
P2: This is a situation that calls for talking to the media;
C: How can you possibly expect him to talk to the media?
I have never understood that. Sometimes you should do things you don't want to do. I'm sure there were hundreds of things Lloyd didn't like to do as HC, but he did them because they came with the territory.
As others have said, my claim is and has always been that Lloyd should present a more united front with RichRod. He may hate him, he may be bitter that Brady Hoke wasn't given a look by Martin, whatever. Get the fuck over it. Be all in, and publicly. Doing it publicly matters.
The fact that Lloyd did this in this case (by denying Deren's claims) is exactly what should have happened. Lloyd didn't "earn back" his mythical Michigan Man status yesterday. He always had it and always will. My point is that he behaved honorably. I always believed he was honorable, and always will, but sometimes you need to show it, no matter how despicable you find it.
I'm going back to making my stupid charts and bad metaphors.
uh... How many of these stupid witchhunts will the freep get in before the season starts? They are frantically trying to stay alive doing anything they can to increase traffic on their site. The RR bashing has gotten some of the writers interviewed on ESPN and the like. They will never stop because it's making them money, giving them exposure, and keeping the ship from sinking. Please don't ever go there again. Don't post a link to the freep, and remove them from your explorer history. They are dead to us.
and Jack talk Thai. This is all so overblown. Can we please start the season already?
Good column by Dave Birkett at annarbor.com that sums up this whole "flap" and includes some good inside info and quotes from NFL scout Gil Brandt.
Perfect summary of this fiasco in the headline: "Much Ado about Nothing."
Unfortunately this is just one more thing out there to feed the anti-RR crowd. The first headlines are usually the ones that stick the longest in people's memory, especially for the majority of people out there who don't follow things as closely as we all do. There are going to be tons of casual fans/people around the country who will have this vague recollection now of "yeah, but RR trashes his own players."
I think because there was such an overreaction to this story on this very site, you are exaggerating how important this story was on a national basis. Few people around the country ever heard about this. I did a search at espn.com and could not find any actual stories written about this (could only find a couple of links from Adam Rittenberg blogs).
During his appearance Wednesday on WTKA, Eric Adelson made this same point--this story did not play nationally. See podcast here.
Maybe everyone else is getting sick of the drama too.
Hey, injecting facts into the discussion, and talking to someone with actual experience in this sort of situation! The rampant, uninformed speculation was way more fun . . . .
Seriously, thanks for bringing attention to that column.