How the Kentucky vs. Chicago Sun-Times fight turned me into a giant p@$$#

A few days ago, I took a screen capture of an article by Michael O’Brien of the Chicago Sun-Times and referenced it in a post on this site.  The article in question, “Source: Davis will choose Kentucky,” was posted on yourseason.com, which is the Sun-Times site devoted to coverage of high school sports.

In that article, O’Brien referred to “rumors” about the recruitment of prep basketball star Anthony Davis, who’s a rising senior in Chicago.  In case you don’t know anything about the kid, Davis is considered by most recruiting services to be one of the top 10 players in the nation.

What rumor was O’Brien referring to? According to him, Davis was on the verge of signing with Kentucky, but his commitment had been up for sale to the tune of $200,000.

In my post regarding his article, I chastised O’Brien for using the Sun-Times as a vehicle to pass on a recruiting rumor that sounded like the kind of fodder you read on college message boards.

In my opinion, if he really had an angle on impropriety of that magnitude, then he should have gotten a Lloyd Lake type of person to go on the record and provide details of what he or she knew.

The reason I utilized a screen capture of O’Brien’s piece is because a few hours after it was initially posted, the Sun-Times removed all references to Davis’s services being up for sale.  As of today, I couldn’t find the cleaned up version of the story on yourseason.com, either.

My thinking at the time was that O’Brien’s assertion was on the ridiculous side (the figure sounds inflated) and undermined any credibility he had as a writer.  Besides, spreading a rumor only hurts the subject of the rumor, just ask Brett Favre’s penis.

I didn’t think anything more about the matter until I woke up yesterday morning and had this waiting in my inbox (for the record, I’m on Kentucky’s media mailing list):

There’s more legal babble in the rest of the letter, but you get the drift.  Now let me first say that I’m not under any pretense that this site is widely read.  Oh, more of you read my ramblings with each passing week (thanks for that, by the way), but your numbers are by no means in the millions.

Therefore, I don’t think anything I’m doing would come across the computer screen of a lawyer from Sturgill, Turner, Barker & Moloney.  No delusions of grandeur here.

Still, I sought advice from a major radio personality (look at me anonymously namedrop, I’m such a Peter King-ish toolbag) that I know who’s also worked in the newspaper business.  I asked him if I should take the post down.  Here is his unedited response: “Delete that shit fool!”

So I deleted that post in which I had referenced O’Brien’s article and included the screen capture.   In my mind, I had technically republished what Kentucky’s lawyers had said not to republish, and I didn’t want to end up like the one unlucky douchebag out there that the music industry chooses to sue over illegal file sharing.

So imagine my surprise today when finding out that Michael O’Brien has a new article on yourseason.com, an article in which he isn’t backing down from his original assertions:

Sources from three separate universities told the Sun-Times that Davis Sr. asked for money in return for his son’s commitment, with the amounts ranging from $125,000 to $150,000.

When reached Thursday, Davis Sr. declined to respond further, saying:  “Thanks for ruining my son. Thank you very much.”

Georgette L. Greenlee, an attorney representing Davis Sr. and his wife, Erainer Eberhardt-Davis, also denied the original Sun-Times story.

“Mr. Davis has not asked any university or college for any commitment fee for his son, nor has anything been offered to him or Mrs. Davis,” Greenlee wrote Thursday. (Chicago Sun-Times)

It doesn’t appear that O’Brien and his employer are going to be pushed around by Kentucky’s lawyers, so this should get GOOD.  But while he’s providing more detail about where his information is coming from, it doesn’t change my original criticism.

I understand the need for a journalist to protect sources, but hard core college sports fans hear rumors about improper recruiting every single day.  If Michael O’Brien is to make us believe any of this, he needs to produce his Deep Throat for the world to see.