Alabama coach Nick Saban had some interesting things to say Friday about recruiting coverage.
Saban claimed that reporters for web sites covering another school or schools passed on bad information about impending NCAA sanctions against Alabama. If they did, that’s dead wrong. In fact, anyone who did that should be fired.
I can tell you for certain that no one representing this web site has ever one time mentioned anything about Alabama’s NCAA problems or, really, anything at all about Alabama or any other school at all to a recruit. Our interest is what their feelings are about Auburn - good, bad or indifferent.
Saban also said this, according to The Birmingham News:
"… All those guys that work out there for (web sites) are for the school. Everybody roots for a team. And they get information for a team."
He assumes a lot.
According to the newspaper, Saban indicated it is his feeling that coaches fed information to reporters - whether from Scout.com, Rivals.com, ESPN affiliates or others - who would then deliver a negative messages to recruits.
Maybe Saban knows reporters who take instructions on what to say or write from coaches. I don't know any reporters like that. And I know a whole lot of reporters.
Saban paints a lot of people with one brush.
Some people like to call sites such as this one "recruiting sites" or "fan sites." Neither is meant to be complimentary. I prefer to call it a news site.
I'm a little baffled how what we do is different than what we did at any newspaper for which I worked - six of them to be exact. We are here to cover Auburn news. The only difference is we are focused on one school. So are beat writers who cover schools for newspapers. Do we cover recruiting hard? Yes, because people want to read about it.
I’m a reporter who covers Auburn just like I was when I was a newspaper beat writer. It is not my place to help Auburn’s recruiting or hurt anyone else’s recruiting. It’s my place to report the news in the best and most thorough way possible. My approach is no different than when I was covering Auburn for The Huntsville Times, except that I do a lot more.
If someone who covers a school, for a newspaper or a web site, is trying to help that school recruit, if he is criticizing an opposing school to a recruit or supporting the school he covers to a recruit, he has no professional integrity. In fact, he’s not a professional at all.
If Saban has evidence that happened, he should take it up with that person or that person's superiors instead of, at least by implication, questioning the professionalism of us all.
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