Blogging Vacations

Although I don’t regularly follow other sports at Alabama, I am aware that we have good teams in Baseball, Gymnastics, Rowing (Row Tide) and, most years, in Basketball. That being said, I welcome Coach Grant to the Tide family and I look forward to seeing a game next season where the team runs actual plays.

In the middle of last week, I got a message from a friend who works at UA (that is short for University of Alabama, in case there are any UAB or API students reading). In his message, he said he was getting constant calls wanting to know if Coach Saban had indeed resigned after a fight with Mal Moore. He said someone in his office was actually following up on the story. As it turns out, the whole rumor got started when local radio pot stirrer Paul Finebaum decided to make fun of bloggers and message board contributors.

Even though I briefly worked as a radio sports reporter, I rarely listen to any of the sports talk shows. If there is going to be an interesting guest on I will tune in but I just have no interest in listening to uninformed fans bicker on live radio.

After my friend told me about the internet rumor, I visited a couple of message boards and all of the “experts” were chiming in as expected. Geniuses “in the know” were swearing that Saban has, in fact, resigned while other geniuses were arguing that he had not.

It is sort of like two AuBarn fans arguing over the meaning of the word tradition. None of these people are “in the know”.

Alabama hired Saban because he was a man of character, a man of principle, and a good example for our student athletes. Does anyone really believe he would walk out on his team in the middle of spring practice because someone hurt his feelings? Some of you have not been paying attention for the last couple of seasons.

I am proud to be a graduate of The University. We have some of the greatest fans in the world. We respect the past and we anticipate an even greater tomorrow. I just wonder if fans should count to ten before passing on anything they read on message boards. Trust me on this one. People who are truly connected to any real stories are not sitting around in the middle of the day posting top secret info on chat sites. These are the same people who promised our next coach was going to be Steve Spurrier. Aren’t we glad they were wrong then too?