College Football Coach Fears Fans With Phones
from the unfulfilled-expectations dept
University of Texas head football coach Mack Brown has asked fans visiting his team's open practices to leave their cell phones at home after "way too many" fans apparently took photos and video of a player limping off the field during a practice this week. According to the AP, "Brown is worried the pictures could hit the Internet before the coaches have a chance to tell players' families about injuries." It's hard to pinpoint exactly where the idiocy begins here. They're open practices -- anybody that wants to come in and watch, even scouts for opposing teams, can walk right in, and the whole thing's covered by the media anyway. It's also unclear exactly how cell phones are more dangerous than cameras, especially since any images from across a football field taken with a phone aren't likely to turn out real well. And there are plenty of Longhorn fans who'd wish that Brown was as concerned about beating archrival Oklahoma for the first time in 6 years as he is with cell phones. But finally, if he's so worried about notifying players' parents when they get injured, why don't he or his coaches get a phone of their own, and call them when it happens? Update: Well, that didn't take long. Brown's closed the team's remaining practices citing "the privacy of players and their families".
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GOOD!
"A parent should never have to read on the Internet or hear through the media that their son has been hurt before we can even get off the practice field and call them," Brown said in the statement. "It's our responsibility to protect the privacy of our student-athletes with regard to injuries.
"It's just not right for a report to be posted regarding an injury before we have the chance to determine the extent of it.""
VERY WELL SAID.
Now that camera phones are so common, and there are a bazillion bloggers on the planet, we have issues like this. Everyone wants to get the "big scoop." Everyone wants to be the one that breaks the story. He is absolutely right in this case - they didn't even have a chance to determine the extent of the injury and idiot wannabe 'journalists' were frantically posting photos of the 'big story.'
is that always a bad thing? When they lack the facts, yes, it certainly can be.
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Re: GOOD!
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What about Radio and TV
What if a player's family is listening to the game on the radio and the player is badly injured? Does the radio announcer refrain from mentioning the player's name and the nature of his injury until the family can be contacted by the coaches? Of course not.
And of course there is television, where severe injuries are shown on slow-motion instant replay to make sure that everyone, including family members, get a good look.
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Re: GOOD!
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Neither Good or Bad
Anyway, you could argue that he was probably just worried that the teams he would be competing against this season would have information he doesn't want them to have. "So and so has an ankle injury".
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Re: Neither Good or Bad
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Honesty
No, this sounds more like evading both responsibility and the gravity of reality. Open practice means the public naturally has no restrictions for privacy -well no kidding!
Honestly though, Football used to be much more violent than current play. If the coach is so worried about these types of injuries, perhaps he should be more concerned with the players skill, and ability to actually play than having the world know about it outside of what is allowed in the media for an actual game.
If he's worried about the image of the team, and how these photos negatively affect that, then he has something legitimate to be concerned about. But seriously, can we at lease grow up a little and voice our concerns without using lies in a sick sad effort to save face?
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Re: GOOD!
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