Will He or Wont He?

Yesterday, on one of the most important days in the college football season for Louisiana State University, despite the SEC Championship game coming up, the only thing the sports media was concerned with was "Will He or Wont He?" Anyone who knows college football knows that this refers to whether head coach Les Miles aka The Mad Hatter will stay at LSU next season or if he will leave to take the head coaching job at his former school Michigan. At 10 AM on College Gameday, Kirk Herbstreit (an analyst and co-host of the program) announced that his "sources" had confirmed to him that Les Miles was going to leave for Ann Arbor, MI in the next week to announce that he would be accepting the head coaching job there. However, Herbstreit's comments led only to a crazy day full of press conferences, corrections and anger for Miles.

As a fan of the football program at LSU, I could not stand Miles in his first season coaching the team during 2005. However, through his crazy rants and enormous passion for the team, I have gradually warmed up to Miles, and upon hearing of his possible departure I began to hope that Herbstreit had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. The head coach leaving was also not a distraction the team needed as they were playing their conference championship game in under 6 hours and still had a remote possibility at playing in the national championship game in January. As I continued to watch ESPN throughout the day with a small amount of hope, I began to hear reports that conflicted with those I had heard earlier in the day. At around 1 pm in the afternoon, ESPN News reported that Miles was going to be having a press conference to straighten out the lies that had been told and to announce that he was going to remain at LSU. In an announcement that lasted less than a minute, Miles made an angry statement to the media.

The question I have now is: Should sports media do anything possible in order to make sure that their reports are accurate? Obviously Herbstreit did absolutely nothing to ensure that his "sources" were accurate, like calling the sports director at LSU or attempting to contact Miles himself. Herbstreit was irresponsible in his reporting and that led to a roller coaster day about Mile's future which had to have had an impact on the young men he is currently coaching. Modern media is everywhere in our world, and I am sure the players on his team had many questions for him as they woke up and turned on the televisions in their room only to see a breaking news sign flash across the bottom of the screen on ESPN informing them for the first time that their coach was leaving. These men are not professional athletes yet and college football is extremely dependent on emotion, as this season has shown alot of proof of. I really believe that Herbstreit should have been much more responsible in his reporting by either confirming the information he got from his sources or by not reporting it at all, since he probably knew there was a good chance the players on the team would hear it and it would lead to uncertainty in their hearts and heads and therefore would not be able to play as solid of a game. Thankfully Miles held his press conference which made the team play for him with even more passion and desire to win the game and in the end they did win. Kirk Herbstreit should take responsibility for reporting false information and he has yet to do so.