Stefanie Loh totes the water

Now that WVU's bowl berth has been determined the WV in-state beat writers and columnists are less concerned with WVU's opponent and more concerned with making an enemy of the Mountaineers' own fans. Dave Hickman got in on the act with his Sunday column and now Dominion Post beat writer Stefanie Loh has a go. Here are some of Ms. Loh's salient points and a rebuttal of each.

TOUCHE, BILL STEWART

No, it’s not. A coach this obsessed with criticism is tacitly admitting that much of it has substance. Touche, fans is more apt.

First Dave Hickman, now Stefanie Loh. Why do the press corps view it as their job to act as the coach’s PR department? That job is filled - haven’t they seen that big redheaded bloke stage-managing everything? They used to be ‘reporters’ but that apparently takes too much effort.

Take a look at the macro picture and you realize Stewart is right

Sorry, Ms. Loh but perhaps YOU realize it. I respectfully deny your right to put words in my mouth.


The Mountaineers are a top-25 team, and their three losses came against a good Auburn squad that started the year with a five-game winning streak, a surging South Florida team that beat WVU before its degenerated into its annual end-of-season slump and a fifth-ranked Cincinnati team that has finished undefeated.

I’ve seen less spin at the starting line of a drag strip. Auburn? An SEC afterthought this year. Mediocre in every way. Cincinnati – perhaps the only game that WVU displayed adequate game planning, playcalling and individual moxie – the near-upset speaks for itself. But the Cincinnati performance stands in stark contrast to the rest of the games which is one reason it’s so memorable.

As for South Florida the writers want to have it both ways. We must examine WVU’s entire body of work and hold our criticisms until the end of the season but we are allowed to prop up individual opponents based on their performance at certain moments in time. Very convenient even if logically unsound.


Who’s laughing now, haters?

Oh do grow up. You are a newspaper writer not an anonymous forum flame warrior. You are young, fresh out of a West Coast university and a member of Generation Facebook but this is beneath you and your position.


But fans being fans, they tend to focus on the micro picture. They do some armchair quarterbacking, castigate offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen for his play-calling (because they know better, always. Great football minds and all

By ‘micro picture’ do you mean the program’s week-by-week performances? Is that somehow off-limits to criticism and analysis? Why is the first instinct to insult the intelligence and/or the opinions of the fans who pay the freight? The writers are moving the goalposts around so often perhaps they should affix some caster wheels.


The world is full of cynics who want success NOW without paying any heed to the cycles of talent development and graduation that every college football team goes through.

I have yet to meet a fan whose realistic expectations went much beyond a possible Big East co-championship. After last year any BCS/national championship pipe dreams were well and truly put to bed.

However, every fan has a right to expect improvement through a season especially from a teamwork (i.e. coaching) perspective. “All 5 linemen have played every snap together this season.” Wonderful. Did they improve? Did the offense? If not it’s fair to ask why. The fans KNOW it’s a long process but they also know what the steps involved in that process look like and right now they don’t see many of them being carried out.

Every day Stewart fights the perception that the best football coaches have to be jerks in real life.

Very few people think Urban Meyer, Pete Carroll, Jim Tressel, Chris Petersen or Joe Paterno are jerks outside their usual rivals and detractors. Ms. Loh your premises are all over the shop. If you want to defend the program on objective grounds that is your prerogative but singing “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” really isn’t your job no matter what your personal views are.


Journalists have to find different ways to tell the same story every day for three months during the season. We can’t do that by simply saying “the WVU football team won again this week.” So we focus on detail. Intricate, minute detail that the casual observer might not pick up on


But the same story hasn’t been told! We have gone from the issue at hand (flat performances) and proceeded directly to sportswriters’ full-throat defense of the coaches – or should I say their vendetta against the fans. Unfortunately those writers have (perhaps intentionally) leapfrogged any thoughtful consideration of the validity of the criticisms. In other words, denigrating out the critics doesn’t invalidate their criticism.

And how, pray tell, can the 'casual observer' obtain enough information to change his views if reporters simply provide the coach with an echo chamber?


it’s when you get into the “how” of this season that things look a little less rosy. The first five wins of the year were marred by a litany of mistakes

Ah - a sliver of reality at last! But wait – I thought it was only armchair quarterbacks and ‘haters’ that saw the obvious and spoke up?


Special teams was both spectacular and stupefying this season

This is like saying ‘there were a few shady spots near Hiroshima in 1945.’ ONE solid game from a placekicker (who bailed out the still-sputtering offense) does not in any way compare to or compensate for the comedy of errors that was the special teams throughout the season. Kickoffs are supposed to be an afterthought – simply a way to get the game started yet they became fraught with peril every time. Recruiting a quarterback, linebacker or running back may be difficult given the supply and demand for such players but isn’t there anyone on a campus of 30,000 – soccer player, karate expert - that can swing his leg hard enough to kick a ball 65 yards in the air? If there is isn’t a scholarship and/or a playing spot being misallocated?


But the curse of the coaching profession is that with success comes expectation. And unmet expectations result in disenchantment and cynicism.

It’s the sequel: Return Of The Straw Man. As before – only the uninformed and the terminally optimistic expected BCS status or anything beyond. What they did expect was an offense with so-called stars and/or upperclassmen to perform as advertised at least 1/3 of the time. What they did expect was a coaching staff ostensibly recruited and/or retained for their experience, leadership and expertise demanding improvement and greater cohesion and driving their respective units down that path. What they did expect was an avoidance of the play-not-to-lose mentality that turns games against unimpressive opposition into cliffhangers.

What they didn’t expect was a an almost universal sycophancy from in-state media who despite their personal relationship with coaches and players still have a responsibility to speak plainly and, yes, critically when avoidable mistakes are made and when a team appears to be mailing it in.

In the end the fans’ opinion will matter most when they vote with their feet so I’m not sure what the point of antagonizing them is especially when they are being asked to spring for bowl tickets, travel reservations and (soon) 2010 season tickets.

Hello to our torrenting friends at the Dominion Post

The DVR may be joining the VCR as a piece in the consumer electronics museum. The internet, in its usual lifestyle-transforming manner, is making capturing and storing content under a single 'roof' (i.e., in a single DVR) seem a bit quaint. Almost every show - especially sporting events - that is aired is being captured on a computer somewhere by selfless, technically savvy end-users who then make the event available as a torrent - often within hours or even minutes of the event's conclusion in real time.

Modern torrent clients are endlessly tweakable (I prefer uTorrent or μTorrent if you want to be pedantic) and provide a host of information about your torrent 'peers' - possibly too much information in this case.

Click on the pic above to bring up a high-res version. Note the highlighted entry...hmmm someone at the Dominion Post must have wanted a copy of the WVU-Marshall game. Couldn't they get a copy from their media library or their contacts in the television biz? What about the WVU athletic department?

Is there anything in the Dom Post's computer usage policy about peer-to-peer? I imagine there might be. Pretty cheeky for a newspaper that is STILL demanding a paid subscription to view its content. Looks like copyright is a one-way street at the DP.

TDP layout

The Wall Street Journal used to be instantly recognizable by its familiar and unyielding front-page format.

Sadly the ADD types got hold of it and added color and knocked down the barriers between columns. Now it looks like an educated version of USA Today. Not necessarily a good thing.

In Morgantown however TDP are keeping the spirit of the unchanging front-page layout alive by trotting out more of the same day after day.

Weather? Check.
Sports teaser? Check
Reference to reprint of days-old AP story everyone has already read half a dozen times on the Internet or in other newspapers? Check.

TDP have doggedly stuck with the 'quirky story of the day' although it's not credited as such. Set aside by a highlight box it usually features a dumb criminal or a how-about-that Reader's Digest anecdote. TDP editors probably hope or imagine that Fred will put his coffee down and say 'Oh my goodness - Myra, listen to this....'

Problem is these quirky stories have even less shelf life than hard-news stories and the quirkies have made the Internet portal and viral e-mail rounds for a solid 24 hours before TDP faithfully reprints them.

News for TDP: these stories aren't half as funny or interesting as you think they are and publishing one per day does not demonstrate a sense of humor but rather a lack of imagination and energy where front-page formatting is concerned.

The Dominion Post

We love our little local newspaper. We really do. It just drives us mad at times.

Published by the Greer family (current progeny and publisher Mr David Raese), The Dominion Post (hereinafter TDP) is Morgantown's sole newspaper. Its coverage area often overlaps with newspapers in Wheeling, Fairmont and Clarksburg but given the strong sense of individuality and identity in West Virginia towns and communities a cover-the-state newspaper really doesn't exist and probably wouldn't work anyway.

As you might expect, West Virginia University and WVU Sports loom large in any issue of TDP. In a state dominated by Democrats for decades (except for the occasional Republican governor) the mining industries, public schools and state government in general are favorite - even incessant - topics for TDP. Local governments dithering over what coarseness of sand to buy for gritting the roads in wintertime is heady stuff for the newsroom types.

TDP's editorial positions tend to shift with the wind and are frequently tinged by a Dear Abby mawkishness. Some days they can't be bothered so an editorial reprinted verbatim (and credited) from another newspaper is substituted - just in case you were curious as to what the newspaper folk in Butte MT or Norman OK think about current events. One might expect these copy-n-paste jobs to appear OPPOSITE the editorial page but that masthead would look mighty lonely with empty column inches appearing above it.

There are dozens of aspects of TDP that amuse, infuriate and mystify but we'll leave those for future posts.

Introduction

West Virginia seems to have it all - amazing people, beautiful land and scenery, close enough to large cities and destinations but removed physically and culturally from most big-city problems.

West Virginia's relatively small population (less than 2 million) and sparse population density ensure the persistence of media monopolies in most cities and towns. One broadcasting firm controls a significant portion of radio markets throughout the state (or at least in the more populous areas).

Morgantown is home to The Dominion Post newspaper - a publication founded and controlled by the Greer mining & aggregates dynasty - and the inspiration for this blog's title.

Initially this blog may be as faintly audible as the screech of a red-tailed hawk making lazy circles over a hilltop on a summer's day but it has been established to challenge the status quo and to enjoy the frequent examples of irony and unintentional humor provided by the region's people, politicians, public figures and press.