Recruit says message board posts caused him to decommit...

The recruit never said that. The recruit decommitted and that's when he started reading bad message board posts about him. The message board posts had nothing to do with his decommitment. He decommitted because he had bad grades: http://www.badgerbeat.com/news/article/id/451052

Second of all, what the hell type of name is "Vander Blue?"

Third of all, if a guy can't handle some message board posts, he's going to have trouble when he's actually playing and making mistakes and getting ripped into by his coach and the media. This seems to me to be a case of him not wanting to actually do anything related to academics(apparently they were suggesting he take summer school), and then pinning it on the fans so he doesn't come out looking like a loser.

But Blue wasn’t thrilled to hear about all the work he needed to do to become academically eligible to play at UW. At one point in the meeting Blue kept his head down and appeared frustrated.
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gth816f said:
The recruit never said that. The recruit decommitted and that's when he started reading bad message board posts about him. The message board posts had nothing to do with his decommitment. [/size][/font]
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Quote from article:
But what made it a national story -- and perhaps a lesson for the uncivilized world of message boards, if we're lucky -- is that the decommitment was prefaced by a story about the Madison native's alleged academic woes, which led to some Wisconsin fans spending their days publicly bashing the Class of 2010 standout on the Internet. They questioned his attitude, character and intelligence. And guess what? Vander Blue read it and it bothered him.

Hey...not saying I agree or disagree with the decision or process...just thought it was interesting.

Sidenote: If people think message boards do not have impact....why were there 1,000+ posts telling Derrick Favors to "come on down", "Bee a Jacket", "Pick GT...you will not regret it", etc. etc. I personally think those posts are rather silly. Just my two cents.
 
Uhhh. Ohhh... time for all of us to start walking on egg shells.

Gimme a break.
 
Yes, and the article is painting it in a misleading way to get attention from people(which it has.) What happened was that story about his academics came out and said he was decommitting, then a week later he held a press conference to decommit and said that he was hurt by the message board posts after that story. The message board posts are a very convenient excuse.

Sidenote: If people think message boards do not have impact....why were there 1,000+ posts telling Derrick Favors to "come on down", "Bee a Jacket", "Pick GT...you will not regret it", etc. etc. I personally think those posts are rather silly. Just my two cents.
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Because people do think message boards have an impact, because they like to feel important. But I'm pretty sure on the list of their parents, the school, the school's location, the school's coaches, the school's academics, the team's chances of winning, the other players on the team, the high school coach, the high school teammates, the extended family, the school's history, the friends, the party scene at the school, the booster money passed under the table at the school, the facilities, the amount of media coverage the school gets...message boards are pretty far down on the list of influencing factors on a recruit. No one's going to base a life altering decision on what they read on a message board written by probably 20 people who he doesn't know and will never come in contact with in his life.

EDIT: Initially I was confused by the article too. But you'll notice it is very careful to never actually say the decommittment was caused by the message boards. It just uses vague references in order to make it sound like that. The story of a recruit decommitting because of message board posts is much more interesting than a story of a recruit decommitting because of academics. Plus it sounds like the guy has a bit of a vendetta against fans...maybe his feelings were hurt in the past.
 
I do know that many of our current players, parents, and current kids we recruit have full membership to the pay sites and will even post...but mostly lurk. Message boards are definitely more harsh than the news media in general.

I do not get it either...but I do not understand why people read blogs from some rogue nut...but they do. Go figure.
 
I have purposely tried to stay out of Harrison's way during football. This spring I went to about 5 practices. You would not believe how many parents thought their kids were all americans and will be pissed if they don't get a D-1 scholly.

I look at these kids and think what the hell are you smoking. The problem is the parents, they don't have a freakin clue. 25 to 35 or more parents show up too practice to find out whose kids have gotten letters and whose kid talked to coaches only to go back to the head coach and ask why the college coaches didn't talk too their kids.

I personally knew 4 of the recruiters that came in the spring and went up to speak with him only to find out the next day that I'm a brown noser. Man the next 3 years are going to be fun!
 
refrigeratormover said:
I have purposely tried to stay out of Harrison's way during football. This spring I went to about 5 practices. You would not believe how many parents thought their kids were all americans and will be pissed if they don't get a D-1 scholly.

I look at these kids and think what the hell are you smoking. The problem is the parents, they don't have a freakin clue. 25 to 35 or more parents show up too practice to find out whose kids have gotten letters and whose kid talked to coaches only to go back to the head coach and ask why the college coaches didn't talk too their kids.

I personally knew 4 of the recruiters that came in the spring and went up to speak with him only to find out the next day that I'm a brown noser. Man the next 3 years are going to be fun!
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I realized this when my kids hit 6 year of age. I had a parent tell me two weeks ago that they were pulling their daughter from gymnastics (which she had done since the age of 3) so she could FOCUS on soccer and softball because more college scholarships were given out for those sports...a SEVEN YEAR OLD!!

Baseball is the worst...every parent thinks their kid is Derek Jeter when they are 7-8 years old. I loved seeing some of the faces during the first year of kid pitch for many of them.

We all like to think about it...but some of the push kills me.

The reality is more money is given out in academic scholarships each year than athletic scholarships.
 
No sympathy. This kid wasn't raised right? No bjs from his posse? Getting offered a scholly isn't good enuff? I'm calling bs!

Can't do it. Good luck, Holmes.
 
Five words: message boards have no effect. Some of you truly think we have influence on college sports. Only egotistical fonts feel that their words have the potential to alter a particular sport program's future.

The truth of the matter is 4 out of 5 of our athletes probably have no idea "Stingtalk" even exists.
 
gth816f said:
The recruit never said that. The recruit decommitted and that's when he started reading bad message board posts about him. The message board posts had nothing to do with his decommitment. He decommitted because he had bad grades: http://www.badgerbeat.com/news/article/id/451052

Second of all, what the hell type of name is "Vander Blue?"

Third of all, if a guy can't handle some message board posts, he's going to have trouble when he's actually playing and making mistakes and getting ripped into by his coach and the media. This seems to me to be a case of him not wanting to actually do anything related to academics(apparently they were suggesting he take summer school), and then pinning it on the fans so he doesn't come out looking like a loser.
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I'm not going to pretend to know anything about the kid. I don't know what he looks like, how bad his grades are, what kind of kid he is, etc. but just going on his quotes, he doesn't do a whole lot to combat the image of someone who has academic problems. I mean he don't got his license yet and he don't think he's that worse of a guy...really?
 
TechGator1066 said:
The truth of the matter is 4 out of 5 of our athletes probably have no idea "Stingtalk" even exists.
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As I said....many parents of current players, current players, and current recruits are subscribers and posters on Scout and Rivals...one would just never know unless they told you.
 
TechGator1066 said:
Five words: message boards have no effect. Some of you truly think we have influence on college sports. Only egotistical fonts feel that their words have the potential to alter a particular sport program's future.

The truth of the matter is 4 out of 5 of our athletes probably have no idea "Stingtalk" even exists.
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You have no idea what effect message boards have on individual recruits. My guess is that ovrall there is no net effect but that specific kids are probably swayed by what they read.

Also, you can't say "the truth of the matter" and "probably" in the same sentence. If it's the truth there's no probably about it. The only truth here is you have no idea whether your statement is true.
 
gtfan088 said:
I'm not going to pretend to know anything about the kid. I don't know what he looks like, how bad his grades are, what kind of kid he is, etc. but just going on his quotes, he doesn't do a whole lot to combat the image of someone who has academic problems. I mean he don't got his license yet and he don't think he's that worse of a guy...really?
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That and his name is Vander Blue, and after he heard that he might have to go to summer school to play at Wisconsin, he started talking to Marquette about playing ball there. Kind of makes himself an easy target. Imagine if someone committed to us, then when he found out there were real academics involved decommitted and started talking to U[sic]GA. He would get skewered.
 
bellyseries said:
It looks like a variation of "Evander," a Greek name meaning "good man." "Blue" is a Southern variation of "Ballou," a French name.
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Or his parents really liked the WWE and they had hopes he would become a professional wrestler.
 
That's probably the truth of the matter. ;)

Or maybe... his parents are old English folk singers?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_Blue

No? Well maybe this is his Dad? If not, I'm sure he's SOMEBODY'S boy!
blue.jpg
 
gth816f said:
That and his name is Vander Blue, and after he heard that he might have to go to summer school to play at Wisconsin, he started talking to Marquette about playing ball there. Kind of makes himself an easy target. Imagine if someone committed to us, then when he found out there were real academics involved decommitted and started talking to U[sic]GA. He would get skewered.
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Link to his profile
http://rivalshoops.rivals.com/viewprospect.asp?pr_key=76953&Sport=2
 
hiveredtech said:
Quote from article:
But what made it a national story -- and perhaps a lesson for the uncivilized world of message boards, if we're lucky -- is that the decommitment was prefaced by a story about the Madison native's alleged academic woes, which led to some Wisconsin fans spending their days publicly bashing the Class of 2010 standout on the Internet. They questioned his attitude, character and intelligence. And guess what? Vander Blue read it and it bothered him.

Hey...not saying I agree or disagree with the decision or process...just thought it was interesting.

Sidenote: If people think message boards do not have impact....why were there 1,000+ posts telling Derrick Favors to "come on down", "Bee a Jacket", "Pick GT...you will not regret it", etc. etc. I personally think those posts are rather silly. Just my two cents.
Click to expand...

I don't know the facts here, but when has that ever stopped me?:laugher: What was written was that he decommitted after some sportswriter douched him in an article--and THEN the message boards jumped on him. Seems to me it's the journalist that is at fault here.
 
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