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Recruiting - 2017


RUBillsFan

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1 hour ago, hsmith19 said:

Always flattering to realize we share "our" beat writer with diehard pro stock motorcycle racing fans.

Or, you could also be flattered by sharing our beat writer with the most popular sport past, present and forever in St. Louis. Your call. 

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3 hours ago, Pistol said:

French's prep school is like 15-20 minutes from UMass. He's been there a bunch. There's not much left for him to see. If he's going to visit UNLV, hopefully that happens soon so we can get a decision.

I know there are ways around it but UMASS doesnt even have a scholarship to give and yet he is still visiting.  

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26 minutes ago, cgeldmacher said:

Agree.  Forget for a second that we are criticizing Stu.  If newspapers in other cities that have teams that are competing with us for recruits prints this stuff and our newspaper does not, then we have a legitimate beef with our newspaper.

I'll have to ask why. No out-of-town recruit in at least the past five years has read a local newspaper, and that's a generous time frame. 

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3 hours ago, Pistol said:

French's prep school is like 15-20 minutes from UMass. He's been there a bunch. There's not much left for him to see. If he's going to visit UNLV, hopefully that happens soon so we can get a decision.

So we don't have a date for the UNLV visit?

Thanks again for all the info Pistol.

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13 minutes ago, bonwich said:

I'll have to ask why. No out-of-town recruit in at least the past five years has read a local newspaper, and that's a generous time frame. 

But they do follow twitter... and that is where Stu is woefully lacking.

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58 minutes ago, Westy03 said:

I know there are ways around it but UMASS doesnt even have a scholarship to give and yet he is still visiting.  

Right. And Marquette is loaded up on forwards. On paper, SLU and UNLV are the more attractive places.

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45 minutes ago, ACE said:

But they do follow twitter... and that is where Stu is woefully lacking.

I'll note that Stu has about 3,000 followers and did roughly 30 SLU tweets last month -- the vast majority of what he tweeted. This Batko guy (roughly 2,000 followers) did maybe half a dozen about Dukes basketball and an equal amount for Dukes football (who knew?), giving them (the football team) roughly equal time with Slippery Rock. And the recruit -- at least the offer -- that he tweeted was a Pittsburgh kid.

I'll have to disagree that any high school kid gives a good Gotdamn about whether a newspaper -- especially one that isn't in his home town -- tweets about him. (Unless, of course, it's some dude with 10K+ followers.)

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1 hour ago, bonwich said:

I'll have to ask why. No out-of-town recruit in at least the past five years has read a local newspaper, and that's a generous time frame. 

Doesn't matter. Just being interviewed could make the kid feel big time and give off the impression that the whole city is hoping he picks SLU. The whole point of the visit is to impress them and make them feel wanted and an interview with the main media player in town can't hurt. 

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Hey, I can understand a kid wanting to take a look at  the bright lights of sin city, Las Vegas.  But hopefully he wants to let the home folks see some of his games and several A10 schools are within driving distance of his hometown of Middleton, NY.  So he will be getting back near home for a few games every year.

 

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20 minutes ago, 2010andBeyond said:

Doesn't matter. Just being interviewed could make the kid feel big time and give off the impression that the whole city is hoping he picks SLU. The whole point of the visit is to impress them and make them feel wanted and an interview with the main media player in town can't hurt. 

Are you suggesting that Stu or the PD should be interviewing recruits as a means to help SLU in their recruitment of said recruit?

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On 9/18/2016 at 8:23 AM, RiseAndGrind said:

i hope SLU can get J-Good to show him around. 

French, Allen, Goodwin should be the top class in the a10

I get the football point but some kids don't care about that.  They would rather be at a school where the basketball program is king not a stepchild.  If going to a big school with football was important then why would you look at smaller basketball only schools?  I guess the kid could just covering all his bases but I would still think you still have a good shot at him.

 

 

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The Post has assigned a "beat writer" - for lack of a better term - to Missouri.  That guy manages to publish a lot of stuff.  I get that there is a football program there that we don't have but our guy does not have to work out of town  either.  I understand the Post and other papers are going through a major upheaval in their business model but if you are going to be a major paper in a large city you have to provide local information.  I have over the years realized that the paper is friendly to stories about Missouri and have long given up expecting any real interest from them.  The problem is the more they alienate readers the more their business model is in jeopardy.  The paper business is not my area of expertise but that does not stop me from having an opinion - everybody does in my area - so, I am sure there are parts I am missing but there is no reason that both schools can not be served in a reasonable manner.  To listen to a defender of the Post on this topic, you would believe that it is not possible to do anymore than they are doing right now so people should just give it up.  I wonder if they decided to put a different Missouri "beat writer" on that area if we would still see the same level of coverage - or is it specific to the person?  All schools are in dog fights for these kids and it seems that these kids right or wrong seem to eat the PR up so if other cities papers are doing it then I would say it is fair to ask why we are not getting the same advantage?

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1 hour ago, 2010andBeyond said:

This also assumes stu gives a crap whether or not Slu is any good at all. Probably doesn't. 

 

40 minutes ago, DeSmetBilliken said:

Are you suggesting that Stu or the PD should be interviewing recruits as a means to help SLU in their recruitment of said recruit?

If it's one's job or business to cover a team, wouldn't it be more pleasant and profitable to cover that team if it's good?  No, don't try to "steer" a quality kid to the school -- though they don't have a problem writing columns trying to "steer" high-profile MLB players to stay or come to the Cardinals! -- but by showing "neutral" journalistic interest to ask a few questions wouldn't that have a better chance of building the program and, indirectly, boost sales?

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3 hours ago, bonwich said:

Or, you could also be flattered by sharing our beat writer with the most popular sport past, present and forever in St. Louis. Your call. 

Is there a sportswriter at the Post-Dispatch who isn't roped into doing additional Cardinals coverage at one time or another? I guess maybe Dave Matter. The Mizzou beat seems to be a big enough job on its own not to be burdened with too many other responsibilities, even Cardinal baseball. Meanwhile Durando gets the leftovers, which include everything from the regular Billiken "beat" to drag racing to DIII football.

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1 hour ago, 2010andBeyond said:

This also assumes stu gives a crap whether or not Slu is any good at all. Probably doesn't. 

This is an old discussion that used to come up regularly with BRoy. It's not Stu's (or any other decent sportswriter's -- and note I said sportswriter and not sports columnist) job to give a crap whether any team they cover is good or not. And it certainly isn't their job to do anything to make that team better (or worse). 

Yeah, it's a lot more fun to cover good players -- but it's way out of line to think that a sportswriter should do anything to influence a player's decision as to which school s/he attends. (At least it is in the dwindling number of media outlets that still have ethics.)

As for cheeseman's comment about not being to do anything more -- well, of course they can. At the expense of not covering something else. Maybe NHRA moved the dial on clicks, maybe it didn't. The main point I've been trying to make about Stu is that he cranks out an inordinate amount of copy, so bitching at him for not doing more ignores the reality of a writer's capacity -- not to mention that he really doesn't get to choose what he covers. 

The final element in this particular calculus is that we didn't exactly exhibit mass interest in the team, even when it had one of the best three-year stretches in the country. It's arguable that nobody in St. Louis, relatively speaking, gives a crap about the Billikens. (Except when they come up with a mascot that could give Michael Meyers a run for his money at the end of this month.)  

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-it is my understanding Matter lives in CoMo so everyday there is a home game

-many times we have debated the SLU following versus the other schools in the area, Mizzou at great length, especially when it comes to coverage in the PD, my take is we are not a big enough draw/read/paper seller/click generator for the PD to do more, as bonwich mentioned, look at the following during the run

-as to the PD being a recruiting arm, it wouldn't surprise me that there are papers out there doing that, intentionally, but we aren't in that boat and if we are counting on that, see the above point

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I think it is awesome that we have a bunch of fans that get upset that a writer doesn't supply them with enough free information.   Maybe Stu can come by and rake your yard too this weekend.

If you want more coverage it is going to have to make financial sense for the Post or someone else on their own to provide it.  Call the Post and tell them you will sign up for a digital subscription if they provide new additional Billiken coverage behind the paywall.  If enough people make this request, they may just add the coverage.  The next time someone starts a Rivals or Scout site for the Billikens buy a subscription.

Just quit complaining about someone not working hard enough for you for free.

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4 minutes ago, Cowboy said:

 

-it is my understanding Matter lives in CoMo so everyday there is a home game

 

I was just trying to track this down. At one point while I was there I knew that the ad for the position mandated that you live in Columbia. And that pretty much means that you have to cover all-Mizzou, all the time. (Including stuff like Tiger gymnasts being charged with credit-card fraud.)

And as for every writer at some point getting dragged into Cardinals coverage, Stu wasn't just writing some color piece about Holliday's last game. He actually was assigned to game stories, some of which included 15-20 inches of next-day previews or other non-play-by-play color. (Now that I realize that, I have to do some digging and figure out how that came about, because it's pretty unusual. They even had Hummel co-write with Stu for one of the games. 

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1 hour ago, bonwich said:

This is an old discussion that used to come up regularly with BRoy. It's not Stu's (or any other decent sportswriter's -- and note I said sportswriter and not sports columnist) job to give a crap whether any team they cover is good or not. And it certainly isn't their job to do anything to make that team better (or worse). 

Yeah, it's a lot more fun to cover good players -- but it's way out of line to think that a sportswriter should do anything to influence a player's decision as to which school s/he attends. (At least it is in the dwindling number of media outlets that still have ethics.)

Bingo.

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To my favorite "insider" Doc B ------- no,nothing leaked.  But thanks for your kind words and thoughtful consideration in asking.  My Depends work well for me, do you wear an off brand?

Nice to know that your real inside information is nothing more than hearsay (your exact words not mine ---   Blame that person, not me; unless you want to blame me for sharing what I heard (hearsay) ---- to anoint you an insider is ripe with fraud.  Thanks for proving that.

I'm sure you can come back and tap dance on my forehead when, like the proverbial blind squirrel, French does possibly sign with Ford.  I will admit to impatience fueling my fire ---- Ford gets an A+ for his transfers. And the waste he eliminated from our system.  And Goodwin.  But we were also told a second coming was included with Goodwin.  Nada. Then the French visit fueled (fooled) by your now-known hearsay.  Meanwhile,kids (Allen, Williams,Polley, Whyte, Childs,  etc.) are committing all over the country,including in the A10.  

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