OT: ESPN Suspends Bruce Feldman
ESPN has suspended Writer/Contributor Bruce Feldman indefinitely, according to SportsbyBrooks.
Feldman wrote Meat Market, a terrific book that follows the Ole Miss Coaching staff in 2005/2006.
He also worked on Mike Leach's new book, Swing Your Sword. This was after ESPN gave him the go-ahead months ago to work on it. Bruce is one of the best out there- he's got connections, he's pretty unbiased, and just a terrific writer and person.
A damn shame.
Please mark as redundant
I wish I could up-vote you a billion times for this. Both Jameses are a blight on college football.
edit: website seems to need an update.
Adam will be out of the college football world shortly. How long we will all have to deal with Craig is another question.
There is absolutely no reason for ESPN to put Craig James on television other than giving a job to an old boy they've known for a long time, which seems to be a high priority in Bristol. The man is despised by a huge number of fans after the Leach incident, he's a fawning parasite to every coach he covers on and is just a flat-out dumb hick who is anything but an eloquent commentator.
reason was he fired?
Only suspended, but according to SbB, he did absolutely nothing wrong.
he probably said something good about UM. god knows that most of the jerkoffs on espn have some kind of beef with Michigan.
Here is a link
http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/ESPNs-Feldman-suspended-indefinitely.html
He was suspended for participating in Mike Leach's new book even though ESPN gave him permission to do so
Leach doesn't look so bad now, does he... I read one of the exercepts from the book and man! he sounded straight up delusional. He made it seem like ESPN and TTU conspired to bring about his downfall and staged the WHOLE episode; to have Feldman suspended now after the contents of the book he worked with Leach on came out? Seems fishy...
Leach is brilliant. One of the most educated men in college football and a kickass coach. Hope we see him back in the game soon.
Forgive me, why does James have so much power with ESPN. I have no idea. He and Feldman are both employees. With all the neg exposure James has brought, he should be the one that is fired.
this is disgusting and grossly unethical.
if you're willing to take the time to appeal/complain/etc to espn, here's the link:
Oh please no ESPN do not trot out your "ombudsman" to tell us why, after looking objectively at the facts and the case from both sides, have determined that ESPN was totally in the right to fire Feldman. THe very fact that they have a guy to do this makes me ill.
I agree he is an awesome unbiased writer and imo there are very few of them in college football period. Craig James is a whiny little baby. I read the meat market book it is the best sports book i have ever read. I got interested in it around the time i started gettin interested in recruiting. It is very very informational and gritty and honest.
because once Craig James becomes a senator, he will probably try to have Leach and Feldman killed.....
He seems very dedicated and very well informed and not just there to get himself over like Berman, LeBatard and so many others that work for TWWL.
Damn Shame.
LeBatard is the biggest piece of shit. Everytime he is on PTI I have to get a new remote because I threw my old one at the TV.
...you are a bad aim, otherwise you'd be buying new TVs.
Nah, I have perfect aim, I just throw with my non-fapping arm.
There's got to be a piece missing here. If espn gave the guy permission to work on the book, they'd be opening up a real can of worms (legally, perhaps) by suspending him. Maybe it's espn's position that he didn't have permission. Otherwise this makes no sense.
Or ESPN doesn't care and treats a lot of their employees like this.
does anyone give James any love anyway? The guy is a cheater and loser.
Is in regards to smu days. There has never been any evidence that said James took any money according to espn 30 by 30.
I'm really curious as to why ESPN would produce a documentary and cast one of its employees in the most positive light of any former SMU player. The conflict of interest there was staggering.
believing that Dickerson and James didn't take money especially when you consider that SMU boosters paid every players on the roster. It's like saying the kid ate cookies and leaves crumb on the counter. The mom have no evidence of seeing her kid eating cookies but has strong suspicion that her kid did eat cookies from the jar. Saying that Craig James is 100% clear from SMU scandal is wrong.
...the no politics rule to give you Craig James's:
Really, ESPN? You're suspending Bruce Feldman, while you have an employee who clearly is working up a campaign for US Senate by getting as much free publicity as possible on your broadcasts?
to defeat James is remind everyone he beat all their favorite schools while at SMU.
first time for everything I guess.
That's what she said.
It's not really free publicity, ESPN is paying James to publicize himself.
the only thing i can bring myself to say is that this is complete BULLSHIT!!!!!!
Mandel has been tweeting about this, and #FreeBruce is a popular search on Twitter.
Fuck ESPN. This is ridiculous.
Not too hijack the thread too much, but I can't make my own topic yet, and since we're talking about horrible commentary on ESPN, I've been waiting for somebody to post this all day and nobody has. Did anybody see Drew Sharp's comments on College Football Live today? The topic was 5 questions about Michigan for this upcoming season, and Sharp came on via phone for one of them. Dari Nokah (sp) asked him "How long before Michigan contends for National Championships again?", to which his response was:
“Well let's see; in the era of the BCS, they only did it once, and that was in '06. That was in the good times (laugh). I don't think they are that type of national championship program. I really don't. I think they want to go back to the days when they were 9-3 consistently--once every couple years win a big ten championship and go to the rose bowl—I think they'll be content with that.”
Seriously? It's one thing to consistently bash Michigan at the Freep, a paper that nobody outside of Metro Detroit reads. But the fact that this asshat is allowed to go on to national television and spout off nonsense like he has his fingers on the pulse of the Michigan fanbase is incredibly upsetting.
I heard that on CFL. I was blown away when he said all that bullshit. They took about 5 minutes of the show to bash Michigan.
He'll probably be able to explain his comments in greater detail on his WDFN radio program.
Er, maybe not...
Listen, I hate (and I do mean Hate) Drew Sharp as much as anyone and think he is a piece of garbage. That said though, he isn't the first guy (and won't be the last unless Hoke and company prove him wrong) that suggested that by hiring Brady Hoke UM was looking to return to what they were prior to RR being hired.
In fairness, I thought this myself when Hoke was first hired. I thought the RR hiring showed UM was tired of the 9-3 seasons with the occasional Big 10 title and rose bowl loss. I thought RR was going to usher in a new era of UM football that would propel us in to the NC race year in year out. We all know how that turned out.
I guess my main point is this asshat isn't alone in his line of thinking. We can take comfort in the fact that I have obviously been way off base when predicting a coaches future successes (or failures) before and this will likely be the case here. Add to that the fact the drew sharp is rarely right, and I don't think we have a lot to worry about.
I want to just say for clarity sake that Brady Hoke has done a great job since coming to UM. If he can do as good a job with this team on the field as he has done in recruiting thus far, I will admit without hesitating how wrong I was about him.
On his gimmick - he is thinking about doing reports only in haiku form.
The notoriously lazy Joe Schad was buying ALL the garbage that James and his PR firm were feeding him during his "coverage" of this story.
Goddammit I fucking hate the WWL.
Awful annoucing nails it.
http://awfulannouncing.com/2011-articles/july/bruce-feldman-suspension-…
NO ONE SHOULD LINK ANYTHING TO ESPN.COM AFTER THIS. Treat them with the same toxicity as the Freep. This is a total outrage.
I just dont get it. How does a 3rd string commentator on college football have so much power and basically be able to force out the most respected writer ESPN has right now.
ESPN is all about cronyism. Once you're in the club, there is usually only two ways to get out: a) quit b) pull your dong out in front of a female employee.
James is an original Gameday host and his roots at the WWL go back a generation. He's taken care of. Nevermind that no one in the audience actually LIKES the guy. We're all irrelevant next to ESPN's protection of its buddies.
For further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_ol'_boy_network
to me.
Expect 1 of 3 outcomes from this outpouring of support for Bruce.
- ESPN explains their actions/apologizes, then Bruce eventually will return.
- ESPN doesn't respond to anyone, then Bruce will mostly be let go.
- ESPN drops a bombshell on us about Bruce, then Bruce will resign and/or publicly apologize for his actions.
1 and 2 are the mostly likely of the outcomes, but I wouldn't count out 3. Not saying that Bruce is necessarily a bad person, but good people do stupid things sometimes.
They make it as hard as it possibly could be. You have to call, I was on hold for 10 min.
A member since 2006, that should send some sort of a message, luckily the guy gave me an exit survey.
I told him I cancelled because of Feldman, and that I don't believe in the integrity of the content I am reading anymore. He said my comments will be forwarded, and he even admitted a shitload of people have called to cancel because of Feldman
Yeah, Andy Staples has been giving out the # to cancel Insider.
Anyway
Very good article on ESPN and the whole James cronyism thing