We didn’t cover the re-launch of the ‘upgraded’ GoPack.com this past week despite the obvious opportunities they provided us to criticize the website for the minimal coverage that they provided NC State alumnus, Cullen Jones, after Jones was a part of one of the most significant moments of this year’s Olympic games.
GoPack’s insignificant vanilla coverage of Jones paled in comparison to coverage other college sites like Auburn gave their swimmers in Beijng. Jones represents EVERYTHING that is right with collegiate athletics and I just don’t understand why NC State would not want to do everything in their power to be married to him privately and publicly.
Amongst many other attractive characteristics, Jones is:
* one of the best Olympic stories possible.
* a guy talking about how much his parents mean to him,
* a guy that shows “what is right about college athleticsâ€.
* an athlete truly breaking down racial barriers and becoming a leader at the highest level.
* a connection with Michael Phelps in Phelps’ hardest race and his quest of 8 gold medals.
There were great interviews of Jones all across the internet before and after one of the most dramatic Olympic moments that any of us will ever experience. You would think that someone at Gopack.com would be forward-thinking and link all of the info about Jones on the web the morning after the race and make it the featured story for most of the day. It took us all of five minutes to throw this up on SFN for our readers.
Let’s see…ESPN made Jones’ relay win the feature story on their website for half the day after the race. But, not GoPack.com. You get the picture.
Since we gave them such a free pass last week, it is only fair to not let the following mistake pass from the weekend —
In the article ‘Opportunties Abound For Injured Pack’ GoPack.com gives us the following
At wide receiver, sophomore Owen Spencer is now the team’s most experienced returning player. He caught five passes last year for 73 yards as a true freshman. Sophomores Jarvis Williams and Darrell Davis have also seen some brief action on the field, as well as returning junior Geron James, who was not enrolled in school last year and hasn’t played since 2006. Andrew Evans and redshirt freshmen Steven Howard and Jay Davis will also add to the receiving.
As you may remember, Jay Davis is the Wolfpack’s former quarterback who followed Philip Rivers and who graduated a couple of years ago. I *think* that they meant to reference Jay Smith, a highly-rated redshirt freshman wide receiver from Virginia.
Look…we ALL make mistakes – both big and small. But, we don’t all do this for a living. The authors who contribute to this blog are far from perfect; but, we don’t attempt to run a ‘professional’ website while getting paid to run the official website of NC State University with the luxury of editors and staff.
We certainly are NOT coming down on Tim Peeler for this minor, honest mistake. Peeler is easily one of THE BEST in the business and does a fantastic job covering the Pack. Again, we all make simple understandable mistakes, especially when rushed trying to get pieces completed; which is about 95% of the time. But, even Peeler’s fantastic work needs someone who knows what they are doing providing edits.
Maybe this is just some balance and karma for Jay Davis! I mean, GoPack.com did blame him for a huge loss a couple of years ago against Wake Forest when Marcus Stone was actually the quarterback under center. To see what we mean and for more support of this entire entry then you should click here and even take the time to click on some of those links.
Post-script – Please take a look at Dogbreath’s first comment below and feel free to also use this entry to discuss the ‘improvements’ that GoPack.com recently implemented. The site has gotten WORSE.
