A lot of Kentucky fans will say that Dick Vitale never has much good to say about the University of Kentucky unless he is covering one of their games (and they aren’t playing Duke). Those fans might be surprised to see Dick Vitale defending Kentucky and the ludicrous claims made by the Sun-Times. After Vitale’s defense was publicized, some guy from Mr SEC jabs at Vitale for stating the obvious. Let’s review.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Here is the beef of [URL=”http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/dickvitale/news/story?id=5455326″]Vitale’s article on ESPN[/URL]:
[quote=Dick Vitale]The article claimed that a package was put together for Davis, in excess of $200,000, in an effort to get him to commit to Kentucky.
Give me a break. Do you really think that transpired? Kentucky has many selling points of its own, starting with a beautiful, state-of-the-art practice facility. There is Rupp Arena, a place which creates blue hysteria. There is the rich winning tradition, which itself attracts blue chip athletes, Players want to go to a winner and it also helps when five of your players went in the first round of the most recent NBA draft.
John Calipari is a tenacious, relentless recruiter. He has a solid class coming in for the 2010 season, and you know kids want to play for him. The product at Kentucky is first class.[/quote]
I think Vitale does a great job here not really showing sides, but stating some facts. Kentucky doesn’t need to violate any rules to recruit the best. We’ve got the name, the tradition, the coach, the facilities and the list goes on. Thank you Dick Vitale for reiterating these things to the UK haters.
Then out of nowhere, Mr. SEC’s John Pennington posts these outrageous comments:
[quote]Look, we at MrSEC.com defended Calipari when this story came out, too. Not because we believe he’s the victim of a mass conspiracy — he has earned his reputation and his long list of enemies — but because we don’t believe he would be dumb enough to hand someone a bag o’ cash.
We said that if anyone was paying a player, it would probably turn out to be an overzealous fan… or an agent who happens to be buddies with Coach Cal. Any ideas?[/quote]
First they say they defend Coach Cal but then go on to accuse him of making acquaintance with agents that would break the rules for his benefit? Are these Tennessee fans running this site?
[quote]Good Lord. Vitale just gave a full recruiting pitch for the Wildcats. Am I the only one who believes Calipari and Vitale spoke by phone about this most recent mess? The two paragraphs above could have darn well been written by Coach Cal himself.[/quote]
Yes, you are.
[quote]But here’s my issue with Vitale’s ridiculous argument — all of that stuff was true about Kentucky when Eddie Sutton’s crew wrecked the Cats’ program, too. Rupp Arena, great tradition, yada, yada, yada. All true. But UK still cheated themselves to the verge of the death penalty in the late ’80s.
Perhaps Vitale has forgotten that someone associated with UK dropped cash into an Emery Worldwide package and sent it off to Chris Mills. Might as well have put a smoking gun in the package, too.[/quote]
Fine, Kentucky has had problems in the past. Mr. SEC, can you please explain to me what this has to do, and how this has any bearing on the program that is being ran by Coach John Calipari? How can you talk about Vitale making “ridiculous” statements which could have been “written by Coach Cal himself” and then proceed to associate any of it with events that occurred so long ago?
All I have to say is that you should keep your eyes open Mr. Pennington. You’ve got some answers to provide and Mr. Vitale is now looking for you.
[quote=@DickieV]
Does anyone know John Pennington of Mr SEC .com as he just disagreed with my views concerning the rumors about UK?[/quote]
