Intermezzo Sixth Man
Joined: 23 Jun 2005 Posts: 45
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Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:46 pm Post subject: Hey Dave Smith, you know those two shows you had with Wetzel?? |
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It turns out that Dan Wetzel never did his homework when it came to finding out who really made those comments disparaging John Wooden and the UCLA basketball program in general.
For the rest of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, Wetzel is the Yahoo sportswriter who wrote that despicable article about Sam Gilbert and John Wooden during Final Four weekend and Dave Smith had him on his show and together they basically spent the entire time bashing Wooden and the UCLA hoops program.
Basically, Wetzel says that the following quote came from Walton in his book “On the Road with the Portland Trail Blazers”:
“If the UCLA teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s were subjected to the kind of scrutiny (other schools) have been, UCLA would probably have to forfeit about eight national championships and be on probation for the next 100 years.”
Well, guess what? WALTON DIDN’T WRITE THE BOOK!! The book was written by Jack Scott. And Mr. Scott isn't exactly the most unbiased source. He was about as anti-establishment as they come. Here’s a little background on Mr. Scott…. Scott was a writer for the radical 1960’s magazine Ramparts, and was closely associated with the Symbionese Liberation Army. Extended portions of the book detail Scott’s refusal to cooperate with the FBI as that agency (which he accused of “crimes and killings,” see Introduction, page xvii) “harassed” him and his family for years merely because he harbored his fugitive friends, SLA members Patty Hearst and Bill and Emily Harris, for six months.
The entire article written by Wetzel was predicated on the notion that Walton made the above comments. You know what’s scary is that someone fed Wetzel this quote and he reprinted it without even having a copy of the book, or doing any source-checking whatsoever. And what’s worse is that YOU didn’t do any checking yourself and had him on your show and gave him an avenue to continue to trash a coaching legend.
Basically, you had a complete fraud on your show. I hope you do the right thing and issue some kind of statement. The good news is that now ESPN radio is the new Trojan station and you no longer have to kiss Trojan @ss on your show every day. A public apology for wrongly trashing the Wooden legacy might not be so difficult. |
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