As if we haven’t written enough about the mainstream media vs. the emerging media, a wacky story took place in Lexington, Kentucky this week. Jerry Tipton of the Lexington-Herald Leader, a man who has covered college basketball for nearly 30 years, recently wrote a couple stories about Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie’s decision to offer scholarships to an 8th grader and a freshman in high school. (As we noted yesterday, this practice is nothing new.) For his stories, Tipton interviewed the parents of both players. Then, someone named Marc Maggard of the site Kentucky Ink decided to do a podcast with said parents, and everything quickly went south. Maggard got the impression that Tipton’s questions were out-of-bounds and that he hated Kentucky basketball (Maggard is the polar opposite of objective). This quickly roiled the Kentucky faithful, and message boards were calling for Tipton’s head, in addition to his balls and his first-born.

The debate became so heated that the editor of the Lexington Herald weighed in, defending Tipton. We spent the better portion of the morning inhaling this story, and we’ve been familiar with Tipton’s body of work. There is only one conclusion: 98 percent of Kentucky fans are completely crazy. Beyond Florida-teacher batshit bananas. We’ve said many times that in the internet era, hardcore fans don’t want the truth, but only positive news about their favorite team. The Fox-newsization of sports continues.

Attacks on reporter Jerry Tipton unwarranted (Behind the headlines)
Is Jerry Tipton the Dread Pirate Roberts? (A Sea of Blue)
Tipton vs Maggard: An Overview of the Herald Leader Mess (Kentucky Sports Radio)