You Don't Go To War Against Them, You Go To War For Them

mike lupica of the new york daily news wrote an article this weekend about how the san francisco chronicle writers who wrote game of shadows may be having to go to jail because they will not reveal their sources (article). he calls them heroes, and thats exactly what they are. the major sports, especially baseball had turned a blind eye to steroids and these two men brought it to the forefront. many americans had begun to have doubts in the back of their minds about all the inflated numbers and this book came out and told the truth. it allowed the public to have the backing for their latent outrage.

now that they are being threatened with going to jail some of the public has turned on them saying that they should go to jail for what they did. as far as we know they didnt go in and steal the grand jury testimony, it was given to them and they did what they thought was right. some have claimed that they were morally wrong for putting it into a book and made a profit. this argument is rediculous at best. they are reporters and writing is their jobs. they had been reporting on this for over two years in the san francisco chronicle who was their employer and thus paying them. if the papers sell more copies then there is the opertunity for its employees to make more money. all they did was collaborate their data and put it into a book form so that people all over the US could read it. if they had conceled all the information from the last two years and then put it into a book then i could see this argument but not with the timeline that actually progressed.

so there is a good chance they will be going to jail for a while. unless the prosocuters stand down the judge has no choice but to put them in jail and that will be a shame. two of the very best writers will no longer be able to investigate and do the dirty work for the american public and bring out more hidden truths of the steroid era.

More Rankings to Ponder

collegefootballnews.com has recently released their program rankings for the top 100 college programs. these rankings are a composite score of data from the last three years and include attendance, conference strength, student academic performance, wins, elite wins, and bad losses. in this formula clemson was ranked 24th while south carolina was 56th.

Clemson
Attn: 7.77
APR: 7
Draft: 7
Win: 22
Q. Win: 10
E. Win: 2
B. Loss: 1

USC
Attn: 8.04
APR: 3
Draft 9
Win: 18
Q. Win: 4
E. Win: 0
B. Loss: 0

the numbers there pretty much speak for themselves... the one comment that collegefootballnews.com did make was the amazingly low apr score for carolina (the one that measures student academics). its good to see that those carolina football players are getting a great education.

other thoughts to ponder with these rankings are the powerhouses that lie inbetween clemson and south carolina. southern miss, fresno st, toledo, memphis, ole miss (sec powerhouse), northwestern, n. illinois, arkansas, and navy all rank higher than carolina. but lets all not forget that they are "title contenders" every year.

25 Days

there are less than 25 days till the college football season starts... fall practice has started, students are beginning to come back to campus, the sports buzz is beginning to ramp up after the summer doldrums of baseball only on the sports pages. so fear not, football will soon be here with the glory of the weekend. until then all we can do is do our part for the preseason... start training for tailgating.