Semi-OT Clemons to Stillers, seventh round

Kyle Ringo, CU Buffs' beat writer for the Boulder Daily Camera news site, tells me that the award wasn't a joke.

He didn't say anything about Clemons' interview with Rosenberg (to the best of my knowledge, Clemons is no longer commenting on that, and Rosenberg has refused to even acknowledge an interview with Clemons).  But he did have some nice things to say about Clemons which I didn't find particularly surprising:

Happy to help here. You might be over thinking this one. The "award" is simply something done every year by the CU sports information staff. They ask for feedback from journalists who regularly cover the football program on what could be done better or changed, etc. Part of that is them asking us to submit one player's name as the best interview of the year. Not referring to one single interview necessarily, but who was the player we went to when we needed a good quote about a teammate, an issue, a win or a loss.

Toney Clemons is pretty down to earth, good-natured guy with a good sense of humor and understands the role of the media in covering a team. He's a very smart kid and mature beyond his years. I voted for him in 2010 and 2011.

Hope that helps.

Kyle Ringo
 

None of that surprises me.  In fact, if Rosenberg or Snyder had (likely) known that Clemons was a "good interview" who was an extra-smart kid and knew how the media worked and knew how to supply "a good quote," it ought to have been obvious that he'd have been a guy they'd have gone to.

It's just too bad that nobody could be more honest and straightforward about who said what.

We have now gone through to the end of the collegiate careers and draft days for all of the "current and former players" who may have spoken anonymously to Rosenberg.  Brandin Hawthorne is still with Michigan, of course, and why he didn't get anonymity under Rosenberg's formulation is a question nobody can answer (and Rosenberg won't answer).  But as for confirmed interview subject Clemons, and suspected interview subjects Justin Boren and Ryan Mallett, their careers were completed happily and without any apparent "retribution," including all of them matriculating to the NFL.  Feared "retribution" was of course the reason to have accorded them anonymity.

The central issue of the Snyder and Rosenberg 2009 reporting -- anonymity for sources, in a story that was 100% built on anonymous sources -- has never stood up.  Not in the first week; not now with the hindsight of the relevant collegiate careers having finished.