Mid-Con Ivite speculation

[thebluehatman]

Re: Mid-Con Ivite speculation

I think the article was a joke, not even a picture. It made front page, but is a new bishop in Sioux Falls more important to South Dakota than its ONLY Division 1 school getting into a Mid Major Conference? I Dunno I have a feeling the Brookings Register will out do Stu on this one.

[Rabbitden]

Re: Mid-Con Ivite speculation

Jackphd,
 I agree that Stu is a wonderful journalist, very consise and not afraid to dive into the hard facts.

My problem with todays article is that there is a time and place for negativity, this is where Stu sometimes misses the boat...

The negative comments could have been used in a follow-up article, todays should have been based on the positives for the school and the State of South Dakota as a whole.

I too have been in journalism in many facets for over 25 years, the biggest turn I have seen is that everything has to have a negative outlook.  It is too bad that this is the way things have went in the industry.  We all know what sells and its not butterflies and gumdrops but as journalist we need to decipher the right place and time.

No matter how you look at it, August 31, 2006 is a positive day of advancement for both the school and state.  Why did he have to turn it ugly so those that were present yesterday are the only ones able to rejoice in it?

[Rabbitden]

Re: Mid-Con Ivite speculation

Bluehat, Is a new Bishop in SF big news? :-? YES, YES. YES...the Bishop in Sioux Falls is BIG NEWS. The SF Diocese has been waiting for a leader for a long time and I am very confident that the Bishop affects a lot more people than the Jacks on this side of the state.

No offense, still love the Jacks but cant agree with you on this one.

Den Out!

[filbert]

Re: Mid-Con Ivite speculation

I'm no fan of the journalism trade in general, but I don't see a big problem with Stu's article. He touches on some points which are indisputable:

1) SDSU (specifically, the SDSU men's basketball program) has experienced two very difficult years in the transition to D-I.

2) The Mid-Con has been a weak men's basketball conference, which is the only sport a causal fan/sports writer will know about.

3) The Mid-Con's membership roster has not exactly been a model of stability over its 25-year history.

The conference is quite respectable in baseball and women's basketball, but that would have required either some research or some previous knowledge of the conference in the past year. Solari probably would have known this. You can easily argue that when the Argus sent Whitney to cover this story, he should have known about Oral Roberts' nice run in the baseball playoffs (barely missing the trip to Omaha), or the middle-of-the-pack women's basketball RPI of the conference before he walked into Volstorff. But so what?--woulda, shoulda, coulda.

We're in the Mid-Continent Conference. Enjoy it.

[valpotx]

Re: Mid-Con Ivite speculation

You guys have to keep in mind that the RPI situation is due to the bottom half of the conference being terrible in years past (WIU, Chicago State, Southern Utah), with them usually being in the high-200-300's.  This really drags down the overall RPI, and if you lose to one of these teams (which happens regardless of how good you are, believe me), it knocks your RPI from 60's to mid-100 like we did my last year of school.

Conferences that have a good overall RPI have everyone get out-of-conference wins. Chicago State/WIU/SUU have had trouble with that recently.

[MilwaukeeJacksAlum]

Re: Mid-Con Ivite speculation

I read the article, got to the line about the mid-con and didn't even need to look at who authored the article. That's my gripe about Stu. Similar to den's points (although I don't agree that he's a wonderful journalist). He revels in writing something that will get people fired up. I envision him smirking as he wrote that line in the article. The minute he was told to cover the Mid Con news, I guarantee you he was digging up negative info about the conference to sprinkle in there. Just his style.

And, the quote from Coach Nagy was obviously a response to a question posed by Stu. I doubt seriously that Coach Nagy would be cutting on the Mid Con on the day we finally received an invite from them. He's too smart for that. That was prompted by a reporter (Stu) needling him. Whatever. Not even Stu can rain on this parade.

Just as the reader does his part in imparting some partiality to an article, so does the author. Can't be helped. Stu doesn't even try.

[JackTwice]

Re: Mid-Con Ivite speculation

[quote author=JackTwice link=1156964110/60#69 date=1157081596]My speculation of the opening of Craig and Mike:

Well MMMM UHHHH AGHHHH Craig MMM Uhhh lets start UHHHH with some news from AHHHHH around the state UHHHHH.  sdsu is in the midcon YEAH THATS GOING TO GO GREAT FOR THEM HAH.  MMMMM UHHHH AGHHH yeah.

I listened to most of the show today.  I can't really tell who is who, but I think it was Craig (not sure) who sounded more supportive.  Mike (again, not sure which one) ridiculed the conference for having a revolving door of members, continuously stating that it's not a good geographic fit for SDSU??  If the this conference isn't a good geographic fit, I don't know what is.  He also stated the conference is spread out across 3 time zones and reffered to it has having an eastern division and western division.  I was impressed with one of the two, and seriously disappointed with the other one.[/quote]

Craig is the one that does the lead in with all of the UHHHs and UMMMs Mike is the loud one who does most of the color commentary. I have felt in the past that Craig is the most anti-SDSU and while Mike does his share of bashing he is usually more fair.

[jackphd]

Re: Mid-Con Ivite speculation

I envision him smirking as he wrote that line in the article. The minute he was told to cover the Mid Con news, I guarantee you he was digging up negative info about the conference to sprinkle in there. Just his style.

I can't argue with that.

I'm sure you've all watched the video on gojacks.com, but the Argus has a nice little recap video online as well:

http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs...609010325/1001

Click the link in the "Multimedia" box under the photo on the right.

[jackmd]

Re: Mid-Con Ivite speculation

My brief take for Stu, Mick, Craig, Mike, etc..


NaNaNaNa.....Na. We are a DI institution, with a DI conference. Get on board with the concept and run with it. Be critical, be jealous, just make sure SDSU is at the top of your topic list on a day-to-day basis. We are on the cusp of big time, as for the others, peanuts my friends.

Have your fun but we all know what this is about, SDSU will be successful as a DI program. I love it.

[Haldersham]

Re: Mid-Con Ivite speculation

Bluehat, Is a new Bishop in SF big news? :-? YES, YES. YES...the Bishop in Sioux Falls is BIG NEWS.  The SF Diocese has been waiting for a leader for a long time and I am very confident that the Bishop affects a lot more people than the Jacks on this side of the state.

No offense, still love the Jacks but cant agree with you on this one.

Den Out!

Yes the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese for South Dakota is always news. He is headquartered in Sioux Falls.  I think the Argus had a hard choice as both front page articles needed pictures to be complete. Unfortuately, SDSU pictures were on page 5a, but at least the story made the front page. As much as I hate to admit it, the Argus has been in Sioux Falls for a long time and should cover all the important happenings locally. Granted SDSU is the largest state assisted school and any thing big that happens there should be news, too. So it was probably the kind of news day the Argus would like to see happen every day.  I think the Bishop is important as a spirtual leader of the community. Its interesting that an evengelical protestant event the LifeLight festival also made front page news. They got one picture, SDSU, got none. Is that fair? I will not be attending LifeLight, but others will so maybe they deserve a photo and frontage coverage.

Doggone it, a Lutheran should not be admiting that  this  Roman Catholic leader is s important. :

[jackphd]

Re: Mid-Con Ivite speculation

Well, all I can say is that the Managing Editor, the Presentation Editor (responsible for design), and more than a dozen others in that newsroom are SDSU journalism graduates. That's about 1 in 4 newsroom employees. We're well represented. I doubt there is any anti-SDSU conspiracy going on.

[JBNJBQ]

Re: Mid-Con Ivite speculation

I'm no fan of the journalism trade in general, but I don't see a big problem with Stu's article.  He touches on some points which are indisputable:

1) SDSU (specifically, the SDSU men's basketball program) has experienced two very difficult years in the transition to D-I.

2) The Mid-Con has been a weak men's basketball conference, which is the only sport a causal fan/sports writer will know about.

3) The Mid-Con's membership roster has not exactly been a model of stability over its 25-year history.  

The conference is quite respectable in baseball and women's basketball, but that would have required either some research or some previous knowledge of the conference in the past year.  Solari probably would have known this.  You can easily argue that when the Argus sent Whitney to cover this story, he should have known about Oral Roberts' nice run in the baseball playoffs (barely missing the trip to Omaha), or the middle-of-the-pack women's basketball RPI of the conference before he walked into Volstorff.  But so what?--woulda, shoulda, coulda.

We're in the Mid-Continent Conference.  Enjoy it.

Would it be acceptable for STU (pid?) to report the following on a wedding?

1) The bride has experienced two very difficult years since she divorced her former husband.

2) The groom works for a business that has struggled to gain market share the last 25 years.

3) The groom has been married several times.

There is a time for hard cold facts. There is time for warmest congratulations. Stu (pid?) obviously can not distinguish between the two.

[SF_Rabbit_Fan]

Re: Mid-Con Ivite speculation

phd, it sounds like you need to work a little harder at indoctrinating some of your students. The whole Argus office should be filled with homers, and the paper should reflect that. ;D

Just kidding.

All I can say is that I had almost the opposite experience as MilwaukeeJacks. I saw the headline, then saw the article was written by Stu. I seriously considered not reading the article, simply because his name was attached to it. Maybe that is his job, to get a reaction out of folks. But for me, I pretty much skip any article by Stu. There are just too many outlets for media nowadays to get stuck reading your news from someone with such a negative perspective on any subject he might cover.

[MilwaukeeJacksAlum]

Re: Mid-Con Ivite speculation

phd,

I don't intend my rants against Stu as a knock against the Argus in general. I am usually one to just let things slide. Note I have yet to bash Mike, Mick or any other of the journalists that get a shot now and again on our board. With Stu, my complaints are long stemming. He's done some questionable things regarding close teamates of mine while I was still playing, family members who are in the coaching profession, and SDSU in general. Half of my classes in college were filled with journalism majors (since I was poli sci) and have no beef with journalism in general. Just Stu. I will give him credit - at least he's consistent.

In all I think the Argus does well considering all the opposing interests pulling at them. Whenever they put SDSU on the front page, Augie and USD are calling bias and vice-versa. That's a no win situation. My only gripe with the Argus sports page is all of their coverage of the Minn Vikings. I get enough of that from my brother-in-law. (that's a joke - I'm a Bears fan).

[1stRowFANatic]

Re: Mid-Con Ivite speculation

I will add my two cents on Stu, and it is overpriced for an opinion. I think he has a problem in switching back and forth from his columns on the sports page where he gives his opinion to report that is supposed to be objective reporting. However, I don't think it is limited to just SDSU. He began with the long and troubled comment for SDSU's transition, which is just factually not true. It hasn't been that long and for the institution, the "troubles" were known going in and planned for. Could it have gone smoother to this point? Sure, but I think anyone looking back would think it hasn't been a troubled transition.

Now, if he was talking about problems with individual athletes, that's one thing. But those troubles happen at D-1, 2, 3 and any other institution and should not have been attributed to the institution. Football conference has been than anyone expected, even with UNC leaving. Wrestling has found a conference that looks to be very, very solid. All other sports are in the Mid-Con.

I agree that the Mid-Con has been a transitional conference, in the past, and probably is looked on that way by most if not all its members. However, wasn't the last exit before Valpo 8-9 years ago? Chicago was forced out, as they had so many violations that NCAA is still considering the death penalty on some of their programs. So maybe the conference is stabilizing, only time will tell. But what would Stu say if in 7 - 10 years SDSU had a shot at the Missouri Valley, but didn't move because of trying to keep the Mid-Con stable. He would call them idiots and rightly so.

Off my soapbox, at least for the day. (maybe the moment)