The past few months the Fulmer Cup standings (which Mizzou is currently sitting comfortably on top of) have been circulating through various blogs and message boards. For those of you unfamiliar with the Fulmer Cup here is the description from their website:
"The Fulmer Cup is an award given to the NCAA or NAIA institution whose exemplary efforts to recruit the most capable Football players results in the most frequent embarrassing and illegal mishaps off or on the field. Players can earn points for their University or College by engaging in illegal or stupid activities off the field and committing penalties on the field that invite legal prosecution. Institutions and Boosters can earn points by illegally recruiting or providing an environment where their Student-Athlete's illegal activities are either encouraged or ignored. The Fulmer Cup recognizes the difference between NCAA penalties and criminal penalties, but all types of infractions and occurances accumulate points toward a final Cup total."Well in the past week this "story" has been picked up by the Associated Press. Lets clarify what the Fulmer Cup actually is. It's a sarcastic web blog. The website says as much. It is very satirical in tone and nature. There doesn't appear to be a way to verify the accuracy of their standings and we don't know what qualifications the author has to be putting this thing together. For all we know it is put together by a group of rabid Beaker fans.
The Fulmer Cup should not under any circumstances be considered a serious journalistic website.
But Alan Scher Zagier, the writer of last week's AP article, uses the site as a source without giving his readers any sort of context as to what the Fulmer Cup actually is. Instead he offers this frustratingly vague description: "A Web site that tracks player arrests and other forms of misconduct by college athletes has the Tigers sitting at No. 1, thanks to the arrests of six reserve football players in separate incidents since September and the arrests of five men's basketball players – and the shooting of a sixth – in the past 14 months."
Decent journalism that is not.
If Big MO Sports determines, by measuring student-athletes' physical appearances and personal hygiene over the past 15 1/3 months, that Kansas has the sickliest athletic program in the NCAA will Mike DeArmond quote that in a story? Dave Matter? How about you Mr. Zagier? Feel free to "report" on that. Moron.
Unfortunately, I'm also going to have to give some props to the KU fan that put together this Mizzou "One Shining Moment" parody. This is pretty painful to watch but I have to admit, it's hilarious.
3 comments:
Not to mention the fact that Zagier misspelled Fulmer.
personally......i find it kind of funny....its all done for humor's sake, and really, we havent had the cleanest rap sheets in the country
so really, who gives a shit?
I don't care about the Fulmer Cup I just think that if you're going to quote it for a legitimate news story then you need to give a clearer explanation as to what it is.
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