Youre welcome. It is surprising that some need such a lesson.
"I have no dog in this fight as far as Haywood Co." Well I wouldn't know so I will take your word for that, but but now that you have delivered your lecture on "Professionalism" allow me to respond. "Professionalism" is a vague and broad term, and can mean many things....But the one thing it doesn't mean especially in THIS job, is what you seem to be saying..IE that it means allowing opinions that are obviously wrong, insults to coaches, players, admin, or statements based on bias, or other prejudices to go without challenge. In other words to enter a "win friends and influence people" popularity contest. That's Dale Carnegie you are thinking about, and for this job nothing could be further from the truth. It is not what I was hired for, my ambition, or my goal. I am in that job precisely because we already tried that idea of "professionalism" (5 college trained beat writers in 4 years) and it just didn't work. That experience showed us that In this day and age of criticizing from one's computer behind a cloak of anonymity, the idea professionalism in this particular job had to mean something different, and require a different approach. ( and it does!) So In this new approach the "fan base" who were causing 99 percent of the problems both at the school, and for us all along, became fair game. And remain so. But I will tell you this: The invitation for anyone else to step up and show us how it should be done always stands, and I bet I can make it happen. If you dont believe anything else, you can believe that. As a matter of fact, on this very thread I extended such an invitation to one of these message board posters who felt he could do a better job. In the end, you must guard against confusing popularity with professionalism. In this job, achieving either is an elusive goal, and achieving one is often at the expense of the other. I have to be OK with that.
