Author: Jordan Hill

Analyzing Rolling Stone’s UVA Story

Considering the magnitude of the Rolling Stone story concerning sexual assault, I believe that the last step of the story needed to be accurately determining the identity of the man who “Jackie” accused of perpetrating her alleged rape and those around him that could have corroborated some of the details of Jackie’s story. The inability to do so might have been a result of Jackie’s own hesitations but should have been a must considering the magnitude of the story and the consequences that falsified information could have on the key players who were named or described in the article.

The portion of the article featuring Jackie’s story, much like the Manti Te’o debacle, centered on discussion with Jackie and people connected to her own account of what happened. As such, Erdely should have taken the time to construct portions of Jackie’s story from the other side; That is, the person Jackie accused’s identity, his position as a lifeguard as well as his affiliation with the fraternity in question. By connecting him to the fraternity, Erdely could have followed up by collecting key information regarding the accused and his fraternity, specifically if a function was held the night that the alleged gang rape occurred.

It’s tempting to sympathize with Erdely’s decisions regarding her reluctance to follow such a path. After all, Jackie was incredibly hesitant to bring the accused into the picture, with the motive being a reasonable one. However, Erdely desperately needed to understand how her depiction of what occurred relied solely on the account of one person. Throwing caution in the wind may have been the result of trying to not put a victim through a hellish ordeal again, but the risk far outweighed the reward in doing so. It was evident through Coll’s assessment of what went wrong that Erdely had other victims at UVA who could have been used as the focus in the story; However, their stories were “not as shocking or dramatic as Jackie’s.”

The Misunderstanding of J.R. Smith

I stumbled upon Charles Bethea’s profile on J.R. Smith for The New Yorker via Don van Natta’s list of stories and was able to spot some interesting points that Clark made in his book.

Looking over Clark’s list of tools, Bethea’s story pointed me to Tool 38: Prefer archetypes to stereotypes. Smith is not a stereotypical professional athlete or basketball player, and there is no attempt to paint him in such a manner. Instead, Bethea hits on two of the established archetypes in his story: Winning the prize and the ugly duckling.

As far as winning the prize is concerned, Bethea details Smith’s account on when things weren’t working for him in New York: He worked too hard, then partied too often and then found trouble due to marijuana. Smith was discredited by people such as his former head coach George Karl, but his career was validated by the Cavaliers’ NBA Finals championship. It was a win that seemingly helped Smith get past the many criticisims–both fair and unfair–he’s been subjected to over the years.

As far as the ugly duckling is concerned, this comes up from Smith himself. His youth was not, once again, stereotypical in the idea that he was always a hot-head basketball standout. Smith explains how he was bullied growing up, and that people who think it was the other way around are misguided. Smith hit a growth spurt as he got older, which transformed him into a talented prospect who eventually skipped college altogether to play professionally. This ugly duckling angle isn’t a major crux of the story, but it is certainly tapped into by Bethea enough that it draws a reader into Smith’s story. I can honestly say this profile gave me a clear picture of Smith that I completely lacked before.

Team interview notes

Jordan Hill – Coaches on both sides of the transfer situation

Completed Interviews

Athletic directors

Brian DeBerry, Grayson High School

Richard Ricketts, Prince Avenue Christian

Coaches

Jeff Herron, Grayson High School

Jason Tone, Worth County High School

Xarvia Smith, assistant coach, Allatoona High School

Adam Carter, defensive coordinator, Valdosta High School

Christopher Reece, former Oconee County player/Camden County assistant

Greg Slattery, assistant coach, Camden County High School

Stacey Stewart, former Camden County High School assistant

To add

Mark Fleetwood, Peachtree Ridge head coach

Jon Weyher, Peachtree Ridge athletic director

Scott Jackson, Decatur High School head coach

Carter Wilson, Decatur High School athletic director

 

Historians – The people who write the Georgia High School Football Daily newsletter.

 

Morgan Ainslie

Sam Hicks, Counselor and former coach at Clarke Central

 

Emily Giambalvo – personal story of a transfer

Jasen Johnson – interview set up for Saturday morning

Parents and siblings of Jasen Johnson

Chris Griffin – Flowery Branch High School coach (school Jasen transferred from)

Nick Bach – Mountain View High School coach

 

Emily Greenwood & Chenault – effects of transfers on playing career & academic repercussions

High school players

Dylan Wonnum

Eugene Brown

College players

Isaac Nauta

Staff

Glada Horvat – UGA Athletic advisor / Academic eligibility

Evan Greenberg

In doing some research, there is a lot more to work with with Florida and I think I could have enough to go with just one state.. With that in mind, these are people who have spoken out or about  against Florida’s transfer policies. List will grow as I ask who to talk to from these people, but operating from a whole state at the moment and then scaling down.

Hillsborough High School football coach Earl Garcia

Armwood High School football coach Sean Callahan

Denarvise Thornton, Montverde Academy AD (Was) in charge of eligibility with FHSAA until 2015. Montverde’s athletics are great, but they don’t have a football team.

Rick Scott’s office (He passed HB 7029, which will go into effect in 2017 and makes players basically free agents; “High school students who transfer will be immediately eligible to play sports, as long as they don’t play the same sport at two different schools within a school year, the law says.” -Orlando Sentinel

Walt Griffin, Seminole county superintendent

Ashleigh and Nicole

We have gone through and tracked GHSA Constitution changes from 1978-2015. Our main focus will be writing what the changes are and ideally, why they came to be. Our most important interview is Assistant Executive Director of GHSA, Jay Russell, as he is in charge of policy. We are working on infographics to display the changes of policy. We are hoping Mr. Russell can point us in the direction of more interviews because as of now, he is the only one we know directly involved with implementing policy change at the state level.

 

Glenda and Bryan: Transfers taking spots

Interviewed:

  • Deion Williams- SWD DB Coach

Will interview:

  • Fletcher Salter- SWD head coach
  • Roman Adu
  • Bryan Lamar- Tucker’s head coach

I plan on using the interviews with the coaches to get the names of players that have transferred or out of their sports program.

 

Individual story sources

Athletic directors

Brian DeBerry, Grayson High School
Richard Ricketts, Prince Avenue Christian

Coaches

Jeff Herron, Grayson High School
Jason Tone, Worth County High School
Xarvia Smith, assistant coach, Allatoona High School

As I work through the database, there will be several more athletic directors and head coaches that are added to this list. These particular people just happened to discuss topics that carry over to my individual project as well as my part of the team project.

To add

Historians – Potentially the people who write the Georgia High School Football Daily newsletter. I talked to Chip Towers about this story, and he said they would be good sources. They were previously AJC employees.

Records to Get

Team project

  • Jeff Herron’s history as a head coach & his former assistants’ records as head coaches – Available via GHSFHA
  • FOIA emails between the Grayson athletic director and Herron
  • Stories pertinent to finding out how many Herron assistants have become head coaches – Online newspaper databases
  • Herron’s contract with Grayson High School

Individual project

  • Records of all of Georgia’s state playoff teams in the last five years – GHSFHA
  • Created database featuring a particular coach’s time at school, time as a head coach overall, winning percentage leading into the playoff season and prior playoff appearances
  • Contract information concerning some of the coaches that fall into the average

Jenkins v. NCAA and potential stories

The Jenkins v. NCAA case centers itself on the hot-button issue of compensating student-athletes for their participation. Early on in the complaint, Jenkins brings up the point that these athletes, such as UTEP’s Kevin Perry, have their remunerations restrained by “artificial restraints” that are dependent on the athletes’ school of choice. What’s not restrained, however, is the financial benefits these particular universities or schools see as a result of the athlete’s play on the court or field. The argument is that these players have essentially signed on to “cartel agreements” and therefore violate antitrust laws.

I think it’s important to also remember that it’s not just football players involved in this case, as Rutgers basketball player J.J. Moore is also named as a party involved.

Potential story ideas

  • A look at how much the schools of the specific players mentioned in this complaint made from their respective sport
  • Catching up with those involved in Northwestern’s attempt to unionize. What would they have done differently? Do they foresee any change that will allow a team to successfully unionize?
  • A profile on a current athlete such as Perry and Moore that features a log of their hours during a typical week in a season. How much time is left for the academic aspect of their lives?
  • In basketball, how many athletes would forego college basketball if the NBA allowed? How many athletes in that situation cite financial concerns as a major motivating factor?

 

 

Georgia curbs journalists’ access to information with new law

The issues regarding the changes to the state of Georgia’s Freedom of Information Act — nicknamed Kirby’s Law — were at the forefront of the football discussion for most of the spring for me. I wrote about this issue in a column for The Red & Black in the spring, and it continues to be a notable problem for writers seeking information.

The biggest issue I have with the law change is the time increase. If the adaptation had been from a response having to be made in three days to one in, say, one or two weeks, I would have been OK with that. There’s no denying that requests take time to fulfill, and when you throw several different writers into the mix, it’s definitely isn’t an easy task to take care of. However, the jump from three days to 90 days remains nothing but absurd.

What also bothers me is the ridiculous arguments that some tried to make defending the change. Many people said that the driving force in the change was that the athletic department receives so many requests concerning recruiting, but that cannot possibly be true. Writers at publications such Rivals or 247Sports don’t go through the athletic department to find out recruiting news; they go straight to the source, i.e. the high school player involved or his head coach. That’s not to say there are no recruiting requests made, because I know at one point The Athens Banner-Herald’s Marc Weiszer sent in requests regarding graduate transfer quarterbacks. That being said, there are so many other areas that could have held up a better argument in this case than recruiting.

But it wasn’t like everything was perfect with FOIA requests before. As Matt Brown outlined in this post on SB Nation, there were times where the charges for certain documents were outlandishly high. The state legislature just took a process that often rendered peculiar requirements from the requestee and turned it into a process that’s practically not worth the investment due to the time involved.

I watched the FOIA law change’s implications play out recently. My boss, Jason Butt, broke a story regarding Virginia and Georgia facing off in the Chick-fil-A Bowl in 2020. Butt made a FOIA request to Georgia about the contract, but knowing the information would not be available for 90 days, promptly did the same thing in Virginia for the Cavaliers’ side of the contract. As a result, he got the information in a matter of days and was able to break the story.

The inclusion of the Fetty Wap rider is an important example for us to consider. Since the concert occurred before the new law kicked in, The Red & Black was able to get the contract and flesh out the details. This is important considering the circumstances of the concert, in that Fetty Wap was late and performed well short of the requirements of the contract. Considering the funds for Fetty come from the students, they deserve to know how much money was dedicated for that show and whether he had fulfilled his required duties. Without this access, no one would have been aware that he in fact did not follow through with what the contract stipulated from him.

 

The Falcons came and went with Devonta Freeman last season

There were two distinct parts to the 2015 season for the Atlanta Falcons.

The first seven games of the Dan Quinn era boasted great promise from the team. Atlanta began the year 6-1 thanks in large part to second-year running back Devonta Freeman. Freeman went from merely the first up in a two-back punch with rookie running back Tevin Coleman to the league’s leading rusher on one of the league’s hottest teams.

Then, Freeman’s impressive play tapered off, and so did the Falcons.

In the final nine games, Atlanta managed only two victories. Meanwhile, Freeman didn’t have a particularly terrible end to the season, but it was far from the production he had found when the Falcons were winning.

Devonta Freeman

In these two sections of the season, Freeman’s yards per game dropped from 88.7 yards per contest to begin the season to just 54.4 yards to end. His yards per carry also saw a considerable drop, falling from 4.7 yards per carry to 3.2.

Jordan’s Updated Story Memo

 

I wasn’t exactly sure how much information was needed in the update, so I tried to add in any new developments to the original post I made about my story.

There is a famous statistic in college football that since the Southeastern Conference created the SEC Championship Game in 1992, 21 of the 23 coaches who won it played for the title at least once in their first three seasons in the SEC.

With this thinking in mind, I want to explore the characteristics of high school football coaches in the state of Georgia who have made the state playoffs in the last five years and determine on average how long the coach has been at his school. While this is a lot of information, I know this will give me a large sample size to consider and that I have the resources to find these answers.

As I’ve begun to gather the data for this story regarding high school football coaches, I’ve had a lot of luck in making sure my sample size was large enough to be considered. I’ve gathered the playoff teams from classifications AAAAAA down to A private and public schools beginning with last season going back to 2011. With each school, I will find the head coach during that particular season, the number of years at that time, his total number of seasons as a head coach in Georgia, his winning percentage with that school and his overall winning percentage.

The goal from this story is to write something that essentially outlines what makes a high school coach that can take his team to the playoffs. I want to get in touch with several coaches for this story, and I actually think my profile on Jeff Herron is going to be incredibly helpful in this situation. Herron has an impressive coaching tree in that several of his former assistants have gone on to become head coaches. While I contact those coaches to discuss Herron, I can also talk to them about the numbers I’ve found.

My main question is will this be a case like the SEC where a fairly new coach is often the one who can lead his team to success, or is longevity more likely to be the factor that helps a program reach the postseason? Also, how extreme are the coaches who stand out as the outliers among their peers?

Along with the main story that centers on digesting the statistics and hearing from some of these coaches and why this is happening, I will make an infographic both showing this information as well as coaches who fit the profile of the average Georgia high school coach in the playoffs. I also plan to do a sidebar on a coach who stands as an outlier, whether that be a coach who’s been at one team for many more years than his peers or someone brand new to his team.