Home > The Bear Blog > Archives > 2007 > November > 08
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Where there’s smoke …
You don’t have to hit me over the head more than once.
When two newspapers reported Thursday night that Guy Morriss is done, I didn’t doubt that it was true. My problem is that not one of the stories names a source. I’ve written my share of stories with unnamed sources, but I think it’s a bad policy for the most part and one that our paper has all but eliminated.
This might sound like a jealous writer who got scooped, but my question is why the regents (or whoever the “high-ranking university officials” were) picked now to leak the story to newspapers in Dallas and Houston? My guess is that Joseph Duarte and Brian Davis weren’t just going through their rolodexes calling all their Baylor sources to try to dig up the story.
Remember, the Chronicle (along with CBS Sportsline) jumped the gun on Monday when it said Texas A&M was already working on a buyout plan with coach Dennis Franchione. They had to come back later and print a retraction. Do you think they could be wrong twice in four days?
Since a 58-10 loss to Kansas on Oct. 13, my guess has been that Morriss probably wouldn’t survive. But I never believed it was a “done deal,” like so many were saying. Maybe it is now, but Ian McCaw has never wavered. His response then, now and seemingly forever is, “We will evaluate the program at the end of the season.”
Which, honestly, is how it should be. I thought one of the worst things Baylor ever did was fire Kevin Steele with three games left in the 2002 season. “Yeah, Kevin, did you get the memo? Listen, we’re going to go ahead and fire you. But about that, we’re going to need you to go ahead and come back in and coach these last three games. K?” What idiot thought that would be a good idea?
Could it be that some power-happy, micromanaging regents just made this call on their own and decided to get back to Ian, Guy, Baylor president Dr. John Lilley and any other parties when the time and mood suits them?
