Yahoo! Sports’ Charles Robinson went on offense days back, hurling more allegations at ‘The U’ – this time going after second-year head coach Al Golden – who was brought in to clean up the mess left by the old regime.
Robinson fired his missile late last week, getting in a dig before the weekend, again in effort to gain validity after dropping a bomb, and feeling heat from his Nevin Shapiro piece last August. Robinson has seen holes shot in his original piece, from various sources, and even jumped on board with a Q&A on a Miami fan site last year, in effort to prove his point.
As far as investigative reporting goes, Robinson gave over a year of his life to this story and despite getting ahead of himself, or being sloppy at times, he did what he set out to do – and has oft been stated on this site, and allCanes Radio, the past several months, his piece will have nothing to do with the NCAA investigation. Robinson is a newsman; he’s not the Freeh Report.
His latest piece points a finger at former equipment manager and friend of Shapiro’s, Sean ‘Pee-Wee’ Allen. Robinson claimed Golden had ‘direct knowlege’ of Allen’s improper involvement with Miami recruits and again, the claims are based on unidentified sources.
Where Robinson’s last piece attacked Miami as a program, as well as players, the majority of which had moved on, this one was aimed at the guy in the white hat and when pushed, Golden pushed back, releasing this statement:
“I have been a college football coach for more than 18 years and I am proud of — and I stand by — my record of compliance over that span,” Golden said. “As my colleagues and players on all of my teams can attest, I believe strongly in doing things the right way with the best of intentions.
“The inferences and suggestions in the Yahoo! Sports story that my conduct was anything but ethical are simply false. I, like all of us at UM, have cooperated fully with the joint NCAA-UM inquiry and will continue to do so, so that our program and our university can move forward. Because the process is on-going, I am unable to address any specifics or answer questions on the matter.”
Golden has the full support of UM, as well as ACC commissioner John Swofford, both of which have citied his character and coaching resume – and kudos to Miami for backing their guy.
There are times to hold back and other times to push back, while standing your ground. Robinson took a cheap shot and it was nice to see Golden puffing out his chest and defending his reputation. After all he’s dealt with over the past year and a half, he deserved to have a voice – and to have the backing of his university.
While the latest Robinson piece seems like ‘one more thing’ to Hurricane Nation, it should be noted that none of this is new news. It’s simply something Robinson chose to report now, despite the timeline. Remember, the NCAA has been dealing with UM for upwards of a year and much is going on behind the scenes.
This isn’t another bomb that dropped – it simply was Robinson looking to stir the pot.
Again, let the process play itself out. Football is just over a month away. Golden, his staff and these kids need your support. Time to keep standing with ‘The U’.
comments
The constant re-litigating of the winning-cures-all-while-losing-exposes-warts sentiment rolls on as Miami faithful continue flailing in…
Josh Pate gets it... and I'm not just saying that because he dedicated an entire…
Tyler Van Dyke may very well have thrown his last meaningful pass for the Miami…
We can debate the merits of winning-curing-all and losses-killing-perspective at another time. For now, focus…
Winning might not cure everything, but it certainly can shift a narrative overnight—immediately lightening…
The only remedy for a gut-wrenching loss to Georgia Tech would've been the Miami Hurricanes…
View Comments
Yahoo is still stinging from their "over 70" major violations which turned into 12 bad but relatively minor violations. This was not pay for play, it was not arrests. Some 18-22 year old young men took dinners from Shapiro. Violations, no doubt. Better oversight needed, no doubt. Yahoo is stinging from publishing the words of a convicted fraud as truth. Look at the phone records that they published this time. All the calls they list occurred within 2 weeks of Golden's arrival at The U in December 2010. Golden did not know about the Shapiro scandal until August 2011 when the story broke. Allen was let go in that month.
It is absurd to think that a new coach could come in and instantly would be aware of everything in the program immediately. That is why Golden did not coach the bowl game, even though he was the Head Coach at that time. He could not know the X's and O's much less every detail in the program. The entire matter in this weekend's report is a joke. Five days after Golden got here he should have know who gave a ride to everyone. Ever change jobs and cities, have hundreds of people under you including staff, students, recruits? It takes a couple of weeks to figure out where the cafeteria and bathroom are. To try to get your life and house in order. Move your family. In a program with serious issues it takes months to begin to get these issues in order, years to fix it. Hell, he had to do this while moving a young family and trying to have a Christmas with his young children.
Yahoo is not journalism in the traditional sense. It is more of a blog, it does not fact check. They clearly are trying to make a name for themselves with this story. Robinson has an axe to grind, real journalists know that printing a story that is 1/7 true is not good enough.
Yahoo and Robinson are jokes. The Canes and Golden have my support.
The Old Cane
Well said, Old Cane. Only disagreement is that Golden "didn't know" about Nevin Shaprio when taking the job. Barry Jackson at the Miami Herald penned a piece in August 2010 letting the world know about the rogue booster sitting in jail and threatening to write a tell-all book about improprieties he played a part in with UM.
While the details of Shapiro might not have been fully known, he was absolutely on the radar and Golden, with an agent, attorneys, and a good head on his shoulders, absolutely knew of Nevin Shaprio and his allegations before taking the Miami job. Any ounce of due diligence would've brought that story up.
To your point, yes, Allen was soon let go and to tattoo Golden for what took place month one on the job ... a lot of speculation there ... and as for Yahoo! Sports -- again, nothing but sensationalism there. Definitely some good investigative reporting and work went into Robinson's piece ... but it was also full of holes, pointlessly salacious and it's goal was to hurt UM, not to fix college football or to get to the bottom of real issues with the college game.
I'm sure Robinson didn't count on the NCAA/Penn State decision to pretty much extinguish the momentum he had counted on for his retold story. I'm glad Golden at least addressed it and showed he wasn't fazed. Let's get a decision soon and move on.
Golden and UM speaking out was huge, John. Couldn't just let another outside throw a dagger unchallenged.
Is there some way for Golden to sue this clown and Yahoo! for defamation of character? This stuff is getting ridiculous!
Don't think so. Robinson is protecting himself as a journalist with the whole "unnamed sources" angle. Nothing can really be done there.
Miami just needs to let it play out. Safe bet that Golden could care less about defamation of character and is more concerned with making sure his current program gets out of the NCAA crosshairs and can move forward with the process of rebuilding.