Willie Taggart interview with KEZI's Kristen Rodgers

[UofDuck]

A freedom of the press and freedom of (no) speech pillow fight.... they'll get past it and I'm fine with a cooling off period to keep it from escalating. In someways I admire coach for pushing back a bit if he felt wronged. It'll cost both of them a little in the process and perhaps both will learn a little from it.

[pezsez1]

Strikes one and two for Taggart.

#1: Being a baby over negative (but totally fair) media coverage that was the fault of his coaching staff.

#2: Swearing in a news story. Classless.

I really hope this guy wins lots of games, and I hope his little bitch fest is an isolated incident. Otherwise his act will get old really fast.

Seriously, this whole thing is so bush league.

The University's dean of the journalism school investigated and found Grief's coverage to be fair. And athletic department sources said Grief's description of the workout was fair. The University president should force Taggart to apologize for dragging Grief's name through the mud. And, obviously, the ban should be lifted.

There's really no excuse for this. Taggart needs to grow up, learn and move on.

[buckmarkduck]

The media is the issue. And I don't just mean in this story.

[Phalanx]

I will never understand the media perspective on this. If a reporter calls and asks a bunch of questions and you take the time and emotional energy to answer them because the story is at least on some level about you, and then you read the article the next day and nothing you said is in there and the reporter has chosen the more damning perspective that makes you look bad without including yours at all, why on earth would you want to talk to that reporter again? If Greif is always going to default to the more damning perspective, he certainly doesn't need further input from Taggart for that. It's a waste of Willie's time and energy to keep talking to someone who is only looking for the negative stuff. I don't blame Willie at all for not wanting to talk to him anymore. Relationships like that are give and take. Including the perspective of one of the principle people involved is not the same as being a 'mouthpiece', it's just unbiased reporting looking at the situation from multiple angles.

The media is self-serving as always, but that doesn't mean that Taggart or any human is compelled to keep feeding them or keep submitting to the gossipy bludgeoning. Sometimes, the only thing a person can do is 'vote with their feet'. Taking that right away from Taggart is just being selfish and tyrannical.

[pezsez1]

Phalanx, first of all your entire perspective requires taking Taggart at his word. Grief and Taggart are giving conflicting views of what happened.

Meanwhile, the dean of the UO journalism school and other team sources said the coverage was fair. There appears to be some unease over the usage of "military-style," just because of how some people might perceive that... but Taggart is the only person who is calling that usage inappropriate.

Taggart is also the guy who took the most damage from the story. I'm not surprised he's feeling overly sensitive about it -- that's human nature.

But he's a professional, just like Grief. Taggart is going beyond the bounds of professionalism not just by banning Grief, but then by belittling him for appearing on ESPN and accusing him of wanting his 5 minutes of fame. Seriously, that's childishly dumb.

If the University investigated and found Grief's reporting to be unfair, then I'd back Taggart 100 percent on this. Nobody likes actual fake news. But that wasn't the case. This is just Taggart being butthurt over a story that made him look bad -- and that's not the media's fault. It's HIS fault.

He needs to man up, apologize, end this ban and move on.

Seriously, I can't believe this is even a thing that's happening. It's shockingly bad on Taggart's part.

[DuckedOut]

Phalanx, first of all your entire perspective requires taking Taggart at his word. Grief and Taggart are giving conflicting views of what happened.

Meanwhile, the dean of the UO journalism school and other team sources said the coverage was fair. There appears to be some unease over the usage of "military-style," just because of how some people might perceive that... but Taggart is the only person who is calling that usage inappropriate.

Taggart is also the guy who took the most damage from the story. I'm not surprised he's feeling overly sensitive about it -- that's human nature.

But he's a professional, just like Grief. Taggart is going beyond the bounds of professionalism not just by banning Grief, but then by belittling him for appearing on ESPN and accusing him of wanting his 5 minutes of fame. Seriously, that's childishly dumb.

If the University investigated and found Grief's reporting to be unfair, then I'd back Taggart 100 percent on this. Nobody likes actual fake news. But that wasn't the case. This is just Taggart being butthurt over a story that made him look bad -- and that's not the media's fault. It's HIS fault.

He needs to man up, apologize, end this ban and move on.

Seriously, I can't believe this is even a thing that's happening. It's shockingly bad on Taggart's part.

Let's just bring Helfrich back then, he was great with the media.

[Ducks10]

If Taggart feels Grief was unfair in his reporting (I think the part that pissed him off the most was the military style workouts line), he has every right to refuse to answer to Grief.

Not what I would've done, but I'm not going to lose my s**t over this.

[Phalanx]

You actually didn't address anything I just wrote. So I guess in that way, you are a great representative of the media? The point is, why would Taggart continue to talk to Greif if he isn't going to include any of the perspective that Taggart had on the situation. These are things Greif did include:

1. An anonymous report that someone had passed out.

2. Creative words like 'military-style' and 'grueling', the latter of which reminds everyone of the Oregon Trail game where you don't feed your party enough and you make them go way more miles per day until they die on the trail with a tombstone saying something about meaty and cheese. This was followed by, "Oregon coach Willie Taggart visited Riverbend to meet with some of the hospitalized players before leaving the state to recruit." What a heartless monster, he clearly just wants more recruits!

3. A detailed description of the horrors of rhabdomyolysis, including phrases like 'leakage into the blood stream of muscle contents', 'damaged kidneys', and 'discolored urine'. Some have 'required surgery' too, after they had high heat and little water (like the Oregon Trail game). Maybe not these ones, but some. It's amazing any Oregon players are still alive after all that. Plus, "after testing, others were found to have highly elevated levels of creatine kinase". I don't know what that is, but it sounds deadly.

None of these approaches to journalism are out of bounds, but they are all intending to create a narrative. Writers never write things by accident. Taggart just wonder why, along with including all of this, he did not also include anything from the perspective of the coaches that were involved, particularly since Taggart himself provided that info directly to Greif. Taggart is also wondering why he bothered to talk to Greif at all. I think this is a completely legitimate response after he was totally ignored in the last round of reporting. That isn't 'my perspective' or 'taking Taggart at his word'. I can read the story and see that nothing Taggart said was included among the anonymous reports and twitter blurbs and Poutasi's mommy.

We can talk about human nature, which is an ad hominem, but both Taggart and Greif are humans with their own set of motives and biases. It's a pretty worthless argument.

[pezsez1]

Let's just bring Helfrich back then, he was great with the media.

Was he? Maybe he didn't throw any tantrums like Taggart is doing, but I recall him being regularly criticized for being robotic and insincere.

That's beside the point though.

Taggart is a high-profile employee of our state's top public university. It's unacceptable for him to refuse to work with a journalist after the University investigated and found the coverage to be fair.

This sets a terrible example, and it's just shockingly unprofessional.

Also, my apologies for getting worked up over this -- but I want very badly to be pumped about Willie Taggart. I think he'll win a lot of games and be here for a long time. But I'll have a very hard time getting genuinely pumped about a guy who says "blame no one" to his players, then turns around and blames the media for negative press that HE earned.

Chip Kelly was an a-hole, but he preached "Win the Day" and walked the walk. I want to believe my football coach actually stands for something.

[Groundswell]

All Taggart had to do was say, a month ago, "I talked with the reporter, and gave him my side of the story. He didn't use a single quote from me. Why bother talking to that reporter ever again if he's not going to offer my perspective." End of story. Message sent. Grief understands he crossed a line. Over. But this repetitive complaining is stupid of Coach T. Stu-pid:

http://footballscoop.com/news/willie-ta ... at-writer/

And for all the grief folks give The Oregonian, the student newspaper/daily emerald has been way worse.

PS. And those were military style workouts, coach. In fact, they were pretty textbook military: team building, do it till you get it right, only as strong as weakest link. And there's nothing wrong with that kind of workout...unless you put kids in the hospital.

[UofDuck]

Pez, do you think the UofO's journalism dept would be completely unbiased when reviewing a fellow journalist's work? And I'm honestly curious why this issue bothers you so badly? If you bite the hand that feeds you, they quit feeding you. Grief knows this, or should have, and that's all that's happened here. Grief painted a rather unfavorable picture of the staff's actions and the staff is reacting. Grief felt the story needed to be told his way. That is his right as a journalist. But there is always a consequence for painting people in a bad light. Grief is now dealing with the fallout. This has been happening as long as there have sports journalism.

[pezsez1]

Oh god, from that footballscoop story:

Taggart said he wants The Oregonian to issue a retraction, which he says would be “fair and honest.”

What the actual fu** is Taggart talking about? Retract what?

Seriously, either the athletic director or the University president needs to step in and educate Taggart. This is absolutely ridiculous.

Pez, do you think the UofO's journalism dept would be completely unbiased when reviewing a fellow journalist's work? And I'm honestly curious why this issue bothers you so badly? If you bite the hand that feeds you, they quit feeding you. Grief knows this, or should have, and that's all that's happened here. Grief painted a rather unfavorable picture of the staff's actions and the staff is reacting. Grief felt the story needed to be told his way. That is his right as a journalist. But there is always a consequence for painting people in a bad light. Grief is now dealing with the fallout. This has been happening as long as there have sports journalism.

First of all, yes. We're talking about the dean of our journalism school, not some blogger for a crappy alternative news website. He also doesn't have a dog in this fight -- it's not like his salary would have changed with the outcome of his investigation. Also, the only university employee who disagrees with his findings is Willie Taggart. Other athletic department sources confirmed what was written in the news stories. The rhabdo confirms it, too. You don't get rhabdo from workouts that aren't grueling.

As for why this bothers me so badly, I added that to a post up above.

And no, I don't think it's normal for a high-profile coach to ban a reporter for writing such a mundane, nuts-and-bolts story.

Seriously, if this is how Taggart reacts to negative press coverage, I can't wait to see what kind of tantrum he throws if he loses a few games in a row, or if he makes a questionable decision that costs us a game.

[greenyellow]

Let's just bring Helfrich back then, he was great with the media.

Was he? Maybe he didn't throw any tantrums like Taggart is doing, but I recall him being regularly criticized for being robotic and insincere.

That's beside the point though.

Taggart is a high-profile employee of our state's top public university. It's unacceptable for him to refuse to work with a journalist after the University investigated and found the coverage to be fair.

This sets a terrible example, and it's just shockingly unprofessional.

The same report also said that Greif's use of "grueling" and and "military-style training" resulted in the public getting the wrong interpretation of what was being done and didn't paint the most accurate picture of what was actually happening during the workouts. With the use of those terms, many people wrongly thought the purpose of the training was intended to cause harm and weed out the weak, when in fact the training was being done for teambuilding purposes.

[pezsez1]

The same report also said that Greif's use of "grueling" and and "military-style training" resulted in the public getting the wrong interpretation of what was being done and didn't paint the most accurate picture of what was actually happening during the workouts. With the use of those terms, many people wrongly thought the purpose of the training was intended to cause harm and weed out the weak, when in fact the training was being done for teambuilding purposes.

Yes, that's true. But two things:

1) The story also said the University deemed those descriptions were fair.

2) Other athletic department sources used those terms when talking to the Oregonian.

That aside....

The section you quoted above is the ONLY reason I can find for why Taggart is actually upset over the coverage... and that's just not enough to justify his ongoing tantrum and his reaction toward the Oregonian's beat writer.

Does Taggart expect media to double-check with him to make sure he approves of adjectives? Seriously, this whole thing is just crazy stupid.

[Phalanx]

The same report also said that Greif's use of "grueling" and and "military-style training" resulted in the public getting the wrong interpretation of what was being done and didn't paint the most accurate picture of what was actually happening during the workouts. With the use of those terms, many people wrongly thought the purpose of the training was intended to cause harm and weed out the weak, when in fact the training was being done for teambuilding purposes.

Thank you. It sounds like this is the part Taggart would like retracted, or maybe amended. The funny part about all of this is that the actual people involved in this blame the players rather than the coaches in every report I have seen. I still think that is the coach's responsibility to oversee sound workouts, but it is still interesting to note that the players felt that the level of workout was in their own hands and this didn't happen because of pressure from the coaches to kill themselves.