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

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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.

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

  1. StateFans 01/31/2008 at 3:13 PM #

    ^ This is an EXCELLENT post that makes my point better than I did!!

    Thanks

  2. Noah 01/31/2008 at 3:29 PM #

    I gotta tell you…this entire thread is why sports reporters and editors don’t pay attention to: Blogs, fans, their readers, callers, people who write letters to the editor.

    You can counter that with, “Well, that’s why their circulation sucks!”

    Okay. It’s not, but if it makes you feel better, go ahead and believe that.

    Tysaic is pointing out that we got our first commitment from a kid from South Carolina. Why is that news? Because since about 1999, the only kid I can think of from South Carolina is JC Neal.

    So…in one year, O’Brien has as many Palmetto State recruits as Amato landed in his entire time.

    That might be news to people who read a paper that gets read in South Carolina.

    But, if you’d like to nail yourself to the cross and decide that this part of a much larger conspiracy — feel free.

    Oh, those evil reporters! Grrrr!

  3. RAWFS 01/31/2008 at 3:46 PM #

    Actually, I am a bit surprised that SFN has had very little to say about our first trip to Cameron in a while and how we haven’t won there since the V era.

    Not criticizing, but to me the game tonight is NCSU topic #1 no matter how much Duke is favored by. If the stars were to align, world collide and the Gods go crazy and somehow NC State springs an upset, it’s news on the national scale. Sure, it probably won’t happen, but other than potentially grinding the Pack’s “allowable remaining losses” in the regular season to a mere three games (with dates against Duke, Carolina and Clemson to come) there’s precious little to lose tonight.

  4. howlie 01/31/2008 at 3:53 PM #

    Damn that TOB. He focuses on recruiting NC to the exclusion of SC. Someone in NC should write an article about that so that all the readers of the Charlotte Observer in other states will ponder the signficance of all this.
    I sense a Pultizer on the horizon…

  5. highonlowe 01/31/2008 at 4:10 PM #

    Its pretty clear that the Tysiac apologizers here don’t read the Observer sports section very often. I’m willing to bet that most of you are in other markets and read another outlet.
    This kind of tripe gets published daily, and Tysiac is clearly the biggest offender.

  6. Ed89 01/31/2008 at 4:11 PM #

    DUKE THREAD, DUKE THREAD!!

    anyone go to the Word of God vs. Ravenscroft game last night? alot of coaches there last night – K, Dawkins, Hewitt, Baylor, Ole Miss, and yes, Coach Lowe.

  7. bTHEredterror 01/31/2008 at 4:12 PM #

    Chop has it. The effect of bias is a slow, grinding on your thought process. It’s like erosion if you don’t focus on it, or notice the semantics. Or a puzzle that has the desired effect after the various pieces (articles with apparent bias) are put together.

    A college professor of mine gave me a saying that I always remember when reading anything media related.

    “They can’t tell you what to think, but they can tell you what to think about”

    In this article, the subtle jab that TOB has not recruitied SC very much doesn’t have any positive slant for UNC. Because they haven’t landed a SINGLE player from the Palmetto state. The reasons for this could be many. Either as a positive for Clemson and USC not losing homegrown talent, or as a negative that UNC and NCSU might win more with SC players.

    But that wouldn’t suit the writer’s intended effect. The way the fact was positioned, with an introductory mention and a summarized repetition, means to me the writer wanted that point made with no frame of reference. Other than NC State hasn’t signed a lot of SC players. Just to throw some more rain in the process of erosion.

  8. Twee 01/31/2008 at 4:20 PM #

    I emailed Mr. Tysiac wondering why he mentioned South Carolina 3 times in the short article and threw in a seemily backhanded compliment in that last sentence. Here is Ken’s response:

    “The purpose of the S.C. thing was to note that N.C. State got a big-time prospect in a state that’s not easy to crack because Spurrier and Bowden do such a good job keeping kids in-state.”

    So is he biased? I don’t know the guy personally so I don’t know. He didn’t do a very good job of making the point in the article that he explained to me. By adding in something about our lack of success recruiting the Palmetto state in the past or about how the other in-state ACC schools have a total of zero commitments from SC would have made his point much clearer.

  9. concord wolf 01/31/2008 at 4:22 PM #

    A more seasoned or talented writer (or maybe just unbiased) would have noticed that NC State has more commitments from the state of South Carolina than UNC, Duke and Wake… COMBINED.

  10. GoldenChain 01/31/2008 at 4:27 PM #

    Guys, guys, guys.
    As I have said time and again, complain all you want…..to end media bias the best medicine is to win and win consistently and cleanly.
    Do that and it all goes away. Keep wallowing in the mire we’ve been in for years and it keeps going.

  11. choppack1 01/31/2008 at 4:38 PM #

    “Tysaic is pointing out that we got our first commitment from a kid from South Carolina. Why is that news? Because since about 1999, the only kid I can think of from South Carolina is JC Neal.

    So…in one year, O’Brien has as many Palmetto State recruits as Amato landed in his entire time. ”

    Those would be valid points if he said that this was NC State’s first SC recruit since JC Neal or if they had made the connection from an earlier post – that Sheridan and MOC recruited a good deal of kids from there. He doesn’t mention Amato neglecting the area – he specifically mentions it being TOB’s first SC recruit – and he dwells on it.

    As a matter of fact, if you read this article – you know the following about NC State’s recruiting class:
    1) This is their fist SC committment this year. (A point they make 3 times.)
    2) They have 11 kids from NC.

    Of course, we do know that sports writers and editors pay attention to blogs – they just don’t like them. They don’t like them because these blogs/webistes do a better job of covering recruiting and various teams than they do. I imagine they don’t like them because these sites can easily link back to their previous articles and demonstrate something like this.

    GRRRR those evil bloggers!!!!

  12. choppack1 01/31/2008 at 4:41 PM #

    “The purpose of the S.C. thing was to note that N.C. State got a big-time prospect in a state that’s not easy to crack because Spurrier and Bowden do such a good job keeping kids in-state”

    If this is the purpose, he could have said, NC State is the only Big 4 school to have a verbal from a Top 25 SC player this year. There’s no evidence that this was a problem shared by schools in the other 49 states – just an NC State problem.

  13. EverettBeez 01/31/2008 at 5:05 PM #

    I could talk about bias for days – I don’t think its any worse then it has been for years – and certainly not the kind you had 70 yrs ago. You have to fight your bias, which we all have, work to mitigate it in your writing – news, history, anything. If you are lazy, it infects your perspective, and thus your product. How can you view anything objectively, unless you are uninterested . . . and how do you make a career out of something you are uninterested in? (though I know many of you probably are).

    BUT even if you think you are objective, you can’t control the reaction of the readers – who come with their own world view, which colors how they interpret the product.

    now on to what is really on my mind –
    BEAT DOOK, BEAT DOOK, BEAT DOOK
    please
    I’ll settle for showing up.

  14. newt 01/31/2008 at 8:45 PM #

    Statefans – Rest easy, because thanks to sites like this, I could give a crap what Charlotte Obs. writes. Newspapers are pretty much irrelevant to me, and I’m pushing 40.

    So how relevant are they to future NC State athletes?

  15. gcpack 02/01/2008 at 5:45 PM #

    Choppack, I didn’t see any bio info in the blog re: Tysiac so I did a little i-net research.

    Tysiac doesn’t live in Charlotte. He lives in Raleigh and works in the Raleigh bureau for the Ch. Ob. & is charged with covering the ACC. He went to Notre Dame. But as I have written before on SFN the UNC alumni apparently have great influence on the national media & Tysiac is another sad sap in that regards. The fact that Tysiac went to ND doesn’t mean he isn’t a UNC fan or has at least been drinking the UNC Koolaid.

    Now maybe you have no choice but to slap State and blow smoke up UNC’s you know what if you work for the Ch.Obsvr. Whatever the reason I suppose as long as the landed gentry’s descendants(since the 1700’s & UNC attendees)control most of the wealth in this state they will get what they want in the newspapers.

    Bad timing, I suppose, we were 100 years too late in opening the gates to the school so I guess we have less influence. However you would think that a school(BabyBlueU) that markets itself as the sole possessor of class in the entire academic world would finally show some in it’s action and let’s it’s journalism legions print the truth without bias. (But that’s the old talk the talk and no walk the walk saying.)

  16. Primewolf 02/01/2008 at 7:45 PM #

    To say that Tysiac’s spin is a reult of being lazy is akin to saying Bill Clinton does not know the real meaning of “is”.

    Tysiac had to be inventive to come up with the theme of that article. I bet it took him some time instead of reporting the obvious.

    My parents in Hickory used to get the CO, but I am proud to say they dropped it years ago.

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