Todd Turner and the Internet

Todd Turner continues to battle the forces of the Internet in his latest blog. A post was made on a recruiting site message board concerning athletic department finances before it was made public by the media on January 31st in the Seattle Times. This bothered Turner enough that he decided to write about it in his blog. I don't know what bothered him more, the actual post, or the moronic replies some people made in the entire string of the post. It got a little ugly.

Seattle Times Article

Todd also talks about the lack of control the University has regarding information on recruiting before signing day.

There are some NCAA restrictions that limit what we can do on our website, most relating to recruiting. I don't see that changing - which means there will always be an interest among our most active fans in getting inside information on recruiting. This has become a sport in and of itself... one that we are prohibited from playing. The recruiting websites are a fact of life and, while troublesome to us because they can be the source of inaccuracies and rumors, they are not going to go away.

Todd's Blog

Here are few more quotes from his blog, but make sure you go there and read the whole thing.

What I would like to see is for the true Husky fans who want accurate information to go first to goHuskies.com to get the facts. We will soon be posting an FAQs section on this site, to answer those questions we get more often. It will, of course, be a constantly-changing feature, dependent on what you, the fans, are asking.

Opinions without the facts are dangerous. We should strive to provide the facts. We are not afraid to answer tough questions because, frankly, if we don't people will make up their own answers... and those may not be based upon the facts.

What is my opinion on all this?

You have to live with what people write about you in a free society that has the instant publishing capability of the Internet. The Internet, and message boards aren't going away, so you need to find a way to cooperate, and control it if you are in a leadership position like Turner is of a major institution. Win some football games, fill the stands, get going on the facilities, and the negative posts disappear, and everyone is your friend. Easier said than done of course, and accomplished easier if everyone has the correct information, and stays positive. Todd makes some good points in today's blog.

I personally try to keep this site positive, it was designed to be a positive voice for Husky Athletics's no matter how bad it gets on the playing field. I support the current administration at UW, and feel they are doing a great job. As far as the football team goes I like Ty, I support Ty, and I want to see him succeed within the boundaries of his current contract.

One of the rules of my site is that I don't report the news. I am not an accredited news gatherer. That keeps what happens over here out of the rumor mill for the most part. I do however speculate, comment, and opionionate on Husky News once it is released in the general media such as one of the daily newspapers,radio, or television. I also write my opinions while watching, or listening to the broadcast of a game which borders on news, but it is actually old once it happens and is available from a public source. As far as other Internet sites go I don't use their information until it is confirmed by the traditional media. People like me pay membership fee's for that information, so until it becomes public I don't comment on it.

If there was only one source for Husky Sports, news, and discussion it would be pretty boring out there. I think that the more people write about what you are doing the better. It shows that people care. When nobody writes it means nobody cares. I like the Go Huskies site, but it is too sanitized, for it to satisfy most people as being there only source.

They could go a long way over there by opening up Spring practice and Fall camp more to the fans, and media.

In conclusion, the Internet is a great invention, and I would like to thank Al Gore for inventing it.