ESPN reports that the Grambling State football team returned to practice on Monday. (Previously.)
It also looks like the team may be getting some financial help:
[Naquan] Smith [Grambling defensive back — DB] said [Baton Rouge businessman Jim] Bernhard told players he has their “best intentions at heart and that he would ensure we had updated facilities, but we had to agree to being back practicing Monday … and finish the remainder of our season.”
Also:
Cytosport, the makers of Muscle Milk, told ESPN’s Darren Rovell on Monday that they donated 384 cases of its product to Grambling. The 4,608 bottles will get the team through the season.
That’s great, and good on the Cytosport folks. (I’ve never used Muscle Milk, but I know people who do.)
I have to wonder, though: how sustainable is this?
The athletic department was asked to cut $335,000 this year from its overall department budget of $6.8 million. Sutton said football was cut by $75,000 to about $2 million.
And per SI, “In recent years, Grambling’s football program has run a deficit of between $1.2 and $1.8 million.”
In other news, Grambling State fired the online editor of the school newspaper and suspended the opinions section editor.
David Lankster, the online editor, claims his firing is in retaliation for photos he tweeted of the conditions the football team deals with. (Some of those photos are reproduced in the linked article.) The person who fired Lankster claims he did so over concerns about the use of anonymous sources:
As he explains, “It would be silly to compare this situation … to Watergate because even those Washington Post reporters knew that they couldn’t simply go with what ‘Deep Throat’ told them; they worked to confirm everything before publishing — and not before.”
The linked article doesn’t go into more detail on those concerns, and the complaint strikes me as odd. Is there material that Lankster published that was not confirmed by other sources? Is there material that Lankster published that turned out to be false? If either of these was actually the case, you’d think it would be mentioned somewhere.
On the other hand, the opinions editor was suspended “for organizing and participating in a ‘State of Emergency’ student rally calling out the school’s perceived flaws including ‘crumbling buildings and the student-teacher ratio.’” She admits to organizing the rally, but says “it grew into a media spectacle beyond her control or simple goals once football players decided to participate.”
It looks bad, especially in light of the Lankster firing, but I’m on the side of the school when it comes to the suspension. You’re supposed to cover the story, not be the story.
(Hattip on this: Jimbo.)
