Assigning blame without naming names is acting like a chicken.
By Dave Begel
Special to OnMilwaukee.com
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More articles by Dave Begel
Published Jan. 8, 2008 at 5:24 a.m.
There are lots of things in this world I don't like, but one of my biggest peeves is a chicken.
You know exactly what I mean. It's the guy who throws a brick through a window, runs away, and when caught, blames it on his friend.
A chicken is also a big time newspaper columnist who takes big time shots at some people and doesn't have the guts to name names.
In case there is any doubt about it, I'm talking about Michael Hunt, the only sports columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the absolutely incredible column he wrote last week about the Bucks.
In his column, he called for a gutting of the Bucks from top to bottom. I am now going to quote his third paragraph.
"Herb Kohl has surrounded himself for years with the same inner circle, and the results speak for themselves. They regularly fail to place the right people in positions to make winning decisions, squeezing the potential right out of this once viable and proud organization."
In the fifth paragraph Hunt wrote "The question is whether Kohl and his people will allow a GM with only a few months left on his contract to blow up the team."
Now, I share the frustration over the Bucks. I have covered this team, off and on, since their second year of existence. I love this team like no other. Maybe they do need a housecleaning.
But Hunt, the world's most disheveled chicken, blames "they" and "his people" and doesn't have the guts to tell us, the people who buy his paper and pay his salary, who he's talking about.
One possibility is that he doesn't know. Maybe he made it up. Maybe there is no "they" and there are no "his people." That's a possibility.
But there is another, far more likely possibility. And that is that Kohl does have a circle of friends and advisors whom he listens to and whose advice he gives great weight.
As a matter of fact, that is the truth. And I know who they are. Or at least I know who some of them are. I know them personally. And while I think they may have some responsibility for some of what ails this team, I don't think they have any more responsibility than, say, Bango.
Oh, there are people like Rick Majerus, and Ric Cobb and a lawyer named Ron Walter who is ill suited to the NBA and a John Castellani, a Milwaukee attorney who coached the Minneapolis Lakers for 36 games in 1959 and has been talking basketball every since. These are Kohl's friends and advisors, but I'm pretty sure they aren't the ones who need to shoulder all the responsibility for what has happened to the Bucks.
I'm really not trying to figure out what's wrong with the Bucks in this column. What I'm trying to do is call out the only sports columnist in our daily paper and tell him I think he's absolutely gutless for blaming some people and then not naming them.
HEY, MIKE! If you are listening, and you should be, I've done what you do. I was doing this before you got out of short pants. And you are giving your profession a bad, bad name.
Just so we understand ourselves here. There is a big difference between using anonymous sources and what Hunt did. One is designed to get information into the newspaper. The other is designed to cover your ass, either for a lack of reporting or a lack of fortitude.
As we used to say on the playground. Put up or shut up.
click on the link to the website to check out the picture that's on display for the article.
http://www.onmilwaukee.com/sports/artic ... 10808.html
