Friday, January 16, 2009

A few Friday newsbits

--First, Andy Bitter has been kind enough to raid the guru sites for a list of the recruiting prospects visiting Auburn this weekend. Nabbing a couple of those wide receivers would be huge, and given the other offers Bitter's listing here, might even be doable.

--Evan Woodberry's reporting that Arnold Gamber, the trainer at the heart of Ramseygate, has been let go. "Auburn said this move is not related to Chaz Ramsey's situation," Woodberry writes. Auburn says a lot of things, though. (As an aside: "long but very sensible" is probably my new favorite description of the JCCW.)

--Conventional wisdom keeps coming up spades: as you've no doubt heard, Eddie Gran was hired to Lane Kiffin's superstaff today. Also, Terry Price was hired away from Paul Rhoads's ISU staff before he'd even unpacked to replace Tracy Rocker at Ole Miss. That brings the total number of "hires back into college coaching" for the four Auburn coaches conventional wisdom assumed needed to leave--Franklin, Nall, Knox, and Ensminger--to zero, for an average of "zero," and the total for the other five coaches to five, for an average of one hire per coach. The moral of the story is that every now and again, the fans do actually know what they're talking about.

--Lastly, speaking as one of the rats who abandoned the sinking newspaper ship not too long ago, I do want to express some sympathies towards Jay G. Tate and the other reporters at the Advertiser as the Advertiser's parent company, Gannett, institutes a "furlough" program, i.e. unpaid leave, i.e. a last-ditch step before another round of seriously damaging layoffs. I haven't always been particularly happy with Tate's coverage (nor he, as you might imagine, with those complaints). But when you know so many people in the industry who, as Tate writes, "never thought (their) career would come to this," you have to wish them the best. Here's to hoping Tate gets to spend his week off somewhere warm with a cold beer.

--Enjoy your weekend, folks.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Newspapers are dead. We're just seeing the longest wake/funeral/graveside service ever. Maybe we're just at the "oh let's pick out what dress Aunt Newsprint is going to wear" stage.

BTW: When I kick graveside service only.

P.S. In the late 80's and 90's I subsribed to three dailies -- the WSJ, the Bham News and the P-H, and usually read the NYT at least once twice a week. I am sorry that newspapers are dead. But there it is. I also think that going about in a coach anf four is more stylish than a car.