Who knew getting commitments from South Carolina was such a big deal?

Football Recruiting Media NCS Football41

Today’s Charlotte Observer provides us a great opportunity to bring a couple of recent stories together for a quick note. There is certainly nothing earth shattering here; just some interesting observations.

Earlier this week we shared two different entries that you should read if you havent. One was an entry focused on NC State football recruiting in light of Sterling Lucas’ commitment to the Wolfpack on Tuesday (click here for link). The other was a good entry that turned into a fantastic conversation about the media that was built on the Charlotte Observer‘s poor and slow coverage of NC State football recruiting (click here for link).

[Oh the irony that Sterling Lucas committed early on Tuesday and the Observer saw fit to get it into the paper on Thursday.]

Our readers shared some particularly great thoughts in the comments of the media entry that included some specfic discussion about the general aggression and attitude of the Charlotte Observer’s, Ken Tysiac. We aren’t going to turn this entry into a referrendum on on Tysiac as I don’t have the energy. But, I did want to share the big news he wrote regarding Sterling Lucas’ commitment in today’s Observer as I found it fascinating.

Before I share his words, I again refer you to our entry reporting the commitment that we hammered out in 15 minutes on Tuesday afternoon so that you can see what our thoughts were on the topic. We’re certainly not journalists, but we think that we have a pretty good grasp on what is important and relevant to NC State.

So, let’s play a quick game of multiple choice to give you the chance to choose the most interesting, relevant and/or newsworthy issue/item/topic regarding Sterling Lucas’ commitment to NC State?

(A) Lucas’ strong senior year and performance that led to major regional and national attention and offers from many major schools that resulted in a direct battle between USC, UNC and NC State?

(B) The class of four highly-ranked linebackers that Tom O’Brien has put together this year in light of the dearth of talent at that key position that was left by the last staff?

(C) The impressive talent Coach O’Brien is assembling across all positions his first true recruiting class that currently has NC State ranked in ESPN’s Top 20 recruiting classes in the country and in the Top 25 of average star ratings of commitments at Scout.com and Rivals.com?

…let’s see….I need a 4th option just to make this fun but I can’t think of anything else…I’ll just make-up something stupid and irrelevant to have a ‘joke option’….how about…

(D) That Sterling Lucas grew up in the great state of South Carolina. (LOL! How less important can something be?) And, interestingly, NC State hasn’t received a commitment from a South Carolina high school player this year.

So…what how did Ken Tysiac and the Charlotte Observer report Sterling Lucas’ commitment this morning?

Linebacker is first S.C. Wolfpack commitment
Shrine Bowl star is state’s No. 12 prospect
KEN TYSIAC

Shrine Bowl defensive MVP Sterling Lucas gave coach Tom O’Brien his first 2008 commitment from South Carolina when he chose N.C. State this week.

Lucas (6-foot-2, 220 pounds) is a middle linebacker from Orangeburg-Wilkinson who made eight tackles and had an interception and fumble recovery in the Shrine Bowl. As a senior, he led O-W with 168 tackles.

“He’s a great run stopper and an outstanding athlete,” said O-W coach Reggie Kennedy.

Scout.com rates Lucas as the 12th-best prospect in South Carolina. Kennedy said North Carolina and South Carolina were Lucas’ other two finalists.

O’Brien has had success recruiting in the state of North Carolina with 11 commitments for 2008, according to scout.com, but hadn’t received a South Carolina commitment before Lucas.

WOW.

One headline and five sentences and the headline and two of the sentences focused on the massively important news that Coach Tom O’Brien has not yet landed a player from the state of South Carolina. The headline detailing the most important item of the story and and 40% of the article focused on the BIG NEWS and fabricated ‘importance’ that NCSU/TOB has MISSED by failing to land players who went to high school in South Carolina.

WOW.

About StateFans

'StateFansNation' is the shared profile used by any/all of the dozen or so authors that contribute to the blog. You may not always agree with us, but you will have little doubt about where we stand on most issues. Please follow us on Twitter and FaceBook

Football Recruiting Media NCS Football

41 Responses to Who knew getting commitments from South Carolina was such a big deal?

  1. RabidWolf 01/31/2008 at 9:06 AM #

    Just as long as this kid doesn’t try to bring in that nasty mustard barbecue, we’ll get along just fine! 🙂

    I also find it interesting that all the local sports radio reports failed to mention that Lucas was recruited by USC, Michigan State, Maryland, WFU, AND UNC! They were sure to mention the others, but not that TOB out recruited Butchy!

    It should be obvious to all parties why it was made out to be a big deal that TOB hadn’t gotten any commits from SC….Charlotte secretly wishes to be annexed by that proverbial stepchild of the Old North State. IMHO…..Let ‘Em HAVE CHARLOTTE! Good riddance to bad rubbish.

    GO WOLFPACK….BEAT DOOK!!

  2. packbackr04 01/31/2008 at 9:20 AM #

    again, thanks for not providing a link to the Chlt Obsvr.

    And if he is going to go that route… maybe he should mention the loads of talent that TOB and staff have landed from PA, GA, NY, OH, VA and even freakin Canada… thats right CANADA in this recruiting class! TOB has done an outstanding job this yr. First, by Making a statement that landing the best in state talent is a priority, and then diversifying our talent pool to include not only southern states but also mid west, and northern states that we had previously not had connections to…. NO NO that would be too much for Ole ken.

  3. Pack92 01/31/2008 at 9:23 AM #

    Pissiac or whatever his name is has to ignore the recruiting success TOB has had in NC. If he focuses on that it becomes obvious ‘ol Butch-slap got butch-slapped in NC recruiting this year.
    As far as SC goes, there are athletes there. Keep in mind what TOB said in Greensboro last June -“The previous staff left some good athletes. I don’t know how many will make football players”. For sheer population numbers it would be stupid for TOB to focus on SC instead of NC. Show’em how it’s done TOB.

  4. Noah 01/31/2008 at 9:29 AM #

    Everyone talked about Amato ignoring the state of North Carolina…but I can think of plenty of players from NC that we recruited, signed and played. And many more who we recruited and went elsewhere.

    But what was suprising was how FEW players from both South Carolina and Virginia we even chased. From VA (excluding prep schoolers), we landed a TE who never came here and Jay Smith..and that was about it. From South Carolina, we got JC Neal. If we signed anyone else, I can’t think of them.

    You generally recruit where you’ve got contacts. When Joe Pate was here, he had contacts in Alabama and Texas which led to us getting Rivers, Cotchery, Rod Johnson and George Anderson.

    Sheridan’s staff had contacts throughout South Carolina, so we ended up getting guys like Ray Robinson, Andy Hastings, Joe Gray, and plenty of others.

    I’ve been surprised that we haven’t seen more kids from prep schools in Ohio in this class.

  5. packbackr04 01/31/2008 at 9:44 AM #

    noah, i thought there were a few from OH in this class? i could be wrong though. or are you just saying you thought there would be 5-6 from OH in this class and are surprised we only have a couple

  6. highonlowe 01/31/2008 at 9:50 AM #

    Instead of getting off his arse and researching why this recruit may be significant to the program, Tysiac just lazily skims down his pre-supplied list of NCSU recruits to see if anyone else is from SC and decides that’s as far as he’s going to go.

    File this in the overflowing cabinet of evident that the Observer’s sports desk is irrelevant.

  7. choppack1 01/31/2008 at 9:57 AM #

    Statefansnation staff – Please use this article as a textbook example of media bias and how it reveals itself.

    Any time a journalist writes a story, they can choose a # of paths to go down and still be truthful. It’s the overall tone of the article and selective reporting that will reveal the bias.

    As you rightly note, the writer here could have gone several different routes w/ this options. Personally, I don’t see how you could find a way to paint this commitment in a negative light – but he did. But his defense will be “What’s false about this article.”

    He chooses to take an angle which could lead the casual reader to conclude the following: This was NC State’s first commitment for 2008. This was TOBs first committment. That TOB wasn’t recruiting very well.

    Personally, I think the article should have read – Wolfpack Gets Committment from Shrine Bowl MVP.

    It speaks volumes that this writer tried to paint this committment as negatively as possible.

  8. Noah 01/31/2008 at 10:00 AM #

    “noah, i thought there were a few from OH in this class? i could be wrong though. or are you just saying you thought there would be 5-6 from OH in this class and are surprised we only have a couple”

    Nope. There’s no one in this class, so far, who is from Ohio.

  9. old13 01/31/2008 at 10:08 AM #

    It’s the same old biased stuff that the Charlotte rag has been printing for at least 50 years!

  10. packbackr04 01/31/2008 at 10:21 AM #

    Noah^^ wow, i thought there was an OL commit from OH, was that last yr? was Vermiglio from OH?

  11. sholtzma 01/31/2008 at 10:53 AM #

    Choppack, exactly!

    Tone, word choice, what’s said vs. what isn’t said, and other (usually) subtleties tend to convey bias.

  12. PacknSack 01/31/2008 at 11:00 AM #

    My position on media bias has been stated before. I am not defending this article, but it seems more lazy than bias. It’s like “Hey, Ken we need something on this kid committing to State,” and he chose the angle that required little more than a click on rivals.com and a call to the coach.

    Have there been any Tysiac stories on UNC recruiting of late to compare this too? That would frame this ‘bias’ better.

  13. StateFans 01/31/2008 at 11:02 AM #

    ^ Not necessarily. The guy could generally not like NC State without having to have a pro-UNC bias.

    I agree with the laziness comments…but, even there the article seems to highlight that it is some kind of a MISS or a DEFICIENCY (which is a ‘negative’ perspective) that NC State hasn’t landed a SC recruit this year.

  14. travelwolf 01/31/2008 at 11:22 AM #

    seems like Ken and the C.O. sports team just don’t know more about NCSU football recruiting – and they don’t want to know…

  15. choppack1 01/31/2008 at 12:08 PM #

    PacknSack – I’m not saying the writer isn’t lazy, but to just dismiss this as lazy gives him way too much benefit of the doubt.

    He obviously checked Scout to see the # of NC committments. As SFN notes – he chose to go w/ the most negative possible angle to approach this. This is a classic case where someone tips their hand. He lives in Charlotte and should know that we’ve gotten a couple of good commits from the area – and he probably does. It’s like he’s saying, “How can I make this look bad?”

    Also, what’s your position on bias?

  16. 4in12 01/31/2008 at 12:29 PM #

    You seem to miss the point that the Observer is trying to sell papers in South Carolina so they take every opportunity to mention the state. It’s the “local boy does well” syndrome.

    SFN: How many extra papers did they sell with this headline on the bottom inside of page 5 or 7 of the sports page? How can they sell more papers with this story if you have to buy the newspaper to find out about the story? How many fifty cent newspapers do you need to sell to reclaim your integrity as a journalist?

    The entire “their goal is to sell newspapers” argument is always one of the least logistical things in the world. It is just one of those things that sounds great so everyone repeats it without truly thinking about it.

  17. CStanley 01/31/2008 at 12:31 PM #

    SC is a great pool of talent that would greatly benefit us in limiting not only UNC’s power but Clemson as well. Tammy may have been right when he said they didn’t recruit against NC State, but a big part of that was our fault for neglecting the state.

  18. RAWFS 01/31/2008 at 1:16 PM #

    You seem to miss the point that the Observer is trying to sell papers in South Carolina so they take every opportunity to mention the state. It’s the “local boy does well” syndrome.

    By that logic, the CO would have mentioned “Shrine Bowl MVP” in the article.

  19. highstick 01/31/2008 at 1:49 PM #

    I can assure you Tysiac isn’t the reason for anyone in SC to buy his newspaper. Like I’ve said before, I live in Rock Hill and both of the local news sources, the Charlotte Obs and The Herald in Rock Hill, are both owned by McGlatchey. If I subscribed to The State in Columbia, it’s also owned by McGlatchey.

    I think the entire thing is the quality of McGlatchey’s hires is directly related to the crap that they put out. I had a friend in the newspaper business(who has since retired), but McGlatchey tried to recruit him to Rock Hill a number of years ago. He laughed at the offer and told them “NO”~!

    However, Tysiac seems to have a “bug up his butt” and is on a definite anti NC State mission. He’s not just lazy and unqualified, he “has a cause” for some reason.

  20. JimValvano 01/31/2008 at 1:55 PM #

    It’s not just the Charlotte Observer…newspapers all across the country show enormous amounts of bias. Then they say that the reason their distribution is down is because of blogs and the internet. In actuality their distribution is down because they only speak to one audience. I don’t mean to get political, but in the political realm…most papers speak with a liberal agenda and bias. In the sports realm, in our state, the bias is toward UNC. While there may be more UNC fans than any other school, the tone and biases used offend every other potential reader. There are more fans from N.C. State, Duke, Wake, ECU, and App. St. than there are Tarholes…so the paper has limited their readership to only one fanbase instead of appealing to all.

    This article is ramshit. You guys are right…it couldn’t have been any more negative. Articles like this give advantages to the tarholes in recruiting throughout the state as it implies that N.C. State is mediocre at best. What will they do when Coach O’Brien wins an ACC title?

  21. RAWFS 01/31/2008 at 2:02 PM #

    ^ That he cheated somehow. That’s the usual claim when NC State achieves success.

  22. choppack1 01/31/2008 at 2:13 PM #

    “You seem to miss the point that the Observer is trying to sell papers in South Carolina so they take every opportunity to mention the state. It’s the “local boy does well” syndrome.”

    It’s not the local boy does well syndrome. It’s the NC State finally decides to recruit SC syndrome – if you give the writer the benefit of the doubt. They don’t spend as much time in the article discussing NC State’s SC recruiting as they do discussing the kid. It’s really almost bizarre the stance that he’s taking.

    Jim Valvano – One of my opinions is that since the MSM has been called on this and other outlets have emerged, that they have been more comfortable being biased than they ever were. It’s as if they say, “State fans don’t read us anyway – so who cares about giving them a fair shake.” I’ll never forget the Winston Salem Journal Headline photo captions during the Edwards-Faircloth Senate race. Photo of Lauch Faircloth – caption “Faircloth has rec’d over $X million from Hunt donors. Photo of Edwards – caption “Edwards Supports Health Care Reform.”

    This article is almost on par w/ that one.

  23. BillyVest 01/31/2008 at 2:57 PM #

    For media bias, this is not a good example. He does point out we’ve had success recruiting in North Carolina, with 11 in-state commits, which makes me think he’s not trying to really skew things, since he could’ve omitted that crucial bit of information and only mentioned getting one SC committment.

    SFN: To split hairs…he says that we recruited 11 players from NC. Who is to say that is merits ‘success’? They certainly don’t make that conclusion. As I stated, this is not a big deal or a big indication of ‘bias’. But, read the comments about Tysiac hat were written by different people in the previous entry. It is all about a slow and consistent slant of never painting anything in a positive light. It is not that any one situation like this is that ‘bad’.

  24. primacyone 01/31/2008 at 3:04 PM #

    Hearing good things about us getting Leon Mackey. Makes a lot of since too. He could play either DE or DT or both at the same time if we run a 3-4. This staff put some serious thought into this class.

  25. choppack1 01/31/2008 at 3:09 PM #

    BV – I’m trying to figure out just what would piss you off: So for clarification, you think this would be a biased article:

    “Shrine Bowl defensive MVP Sterling Lucas gave coach Tom O’Brien his first 2008 commitment from South Carolina when he chose N.C. State this week.

    Lucas (6-foot-2, 220 pounds) is a middle linebacker from Orangeburg-Wilkinson who made eight tackles and had an interception and fumble recovery in the Shrine Bowl. As a senior, he led O-W with 168 tackles.

    “He’s a great run stopper and an outstanding athlete,” said O-W coach Reggie Kennedy.

    Scout.com rates Lucas as the 12th-best prospect in South Carolina. Kennedy said North Carolina and South Carolina were Lucas’ other two finalists.

    O’Brien [remove]has had success recruiting in the state of North Carolina with 11 commitments for 2008, according to scout.com [/remove]hadn’t received a South Carolina commitment before Lucas.”

    Wow, it’s so different than the one he wrote. It doesn’t take much to make you happy – just one phrase. OTOH, here’s the article if you take out the Negative/misleadding Stuff:

    “Linebacker [remove]is first[/remove] S.C. Wolfpack commitment
    Shrine Bowl star is state’s No. 12 prospect”

    Shrine Bowl defensive MVP Sterling Lucas gave coach Tom O’Brien his [remove]first 2008 [/remove]commitment from South Carolina when he chose N.C. State this week.

    Lucas (6-foot-2, 220 pounds) is a middle linebacker from Orangeburg-Wilkinson who made eight tackles and had an interception and fumble recovery in the Shrine Bowl. As a senior, he led O-W with 168 tackles.

    “He’s a great run stopper and an outstanding athlete,” said O-W coach Reggie Kennedy.

    Scout.com rates Lucas as the 12th-best prospect in South Carolina. Kennedy said North Carolina and South Carolina were Lucas’ other two finalists.

    O’Brien has had success recruiting in the state of North Carolina with 11 commitments for 2008, according to scout.com,[Remove] but hadn’t received a South Carolina commitment before Lucas.[/Remove]

    It’s all about how you choose to present your facts. He chose to take the angle “TOB hasn’t recruitied a lot SC players” . The professional thing to do would have been to simply state that NC State got a committment from the defensive Shrine Bowl MVP. But hey Billy – I’m glad Tysiac is meeting your needs for objectivity.

1 2

Leave a Reply