The Other Side

This is a site dedicated to everything about Michigan State University Athletics, except for the actual play of the teams on the field. There are plenty of other sites for that... Update: I talked with MSUAA chief Scott Westerman, who apologized for the line in question. It has been taken down from the MSUAA's website , and he said he'd be sharing... the coverage we did get with Alumni Club leaders. Westerman's reaction is entirely appropriate. I know Scott, and he's a good guy under whose leadership the MSUAA is growing in the right direction. Kudos to him for recognizing the error and moving quickly to fix it. -DW Here's the news you probably knew by this point: Tom Izzo has been suspended for one game for a secondary violation involving hiring a guy who was in some way connected to an unnamed prospect to coach middle schoolers at a basketball camp. Honestly? Not a big damn deal. But suspending a coach is odd, and it hasn't really been done before for something like this, and certainly not at a program like MSU. Plus, MSU has a squeaky-clean image in basketball, and it's Izzo, so that makes this a bit more newsworthy. But that's not what caught my eye. What caught my eye was this line from an e-mail sent by the MSU Alumni Association. "Newspapers are sold by making the worst out of every situation, and I expect That line was written, I can only guess, before a single line was written in the press. And as a member of the press, I guess I take a bit of umbrage at preemptive suggestions of bias. Well let's see if it was justified, going one-by-one through media accounts. I'll link, then summarize. Detroit Free Press : Bias? Not really, but if there is it tilts toward MSU. Tom Izzo's point of view is given in paragraph two, a quote toward that effect is in paragraph four. In paragraphs five, six and seven, Mark Hollis says the rule is BS. The NCAA did not respond to requests for comment, so no opposing point of view is presented. Detroit News : Bias? Can't find any. This is a short, fact-only piece that states the ...Read More