Ann Arbor News columnist Jim Carty called in to the morning show yesterday with his thoughts on Notre Dame. He talked about an incident which made it in his column Sunday (which was run on the front page of the paper), a post-game shouting match between coach Tony Dews and an Irish fan:
Michigan assistant coach Tony Dews getting into a verbal confrontation with a fan en route to the team bus.
“You’re a Division I coach, act like it,” the 20-something fan shouted at Dews.
Indeed, but Dews only shouted back, seemingly insistent on getting the last word in.
Carty was asked to talk about what he saw during this incident, and he explained. I don’t think Dews should be getting into it with any fan, but we still don’t know what was said and I question whether Carty should have mentioned the exchange in his column.
Here’s the full audio (the Dews discussion starts around 3:33):
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3 Comments
Fred
I love that Carty’s positive takeaway was really just another negative. Frickin’ clown.
Jeff
Wait, why in the world shouldn’t Carty have included discussion of this incident?
All we know about the quality and conduct of the people now running this program comes out of the West Virginia lawsuit and tidbits like this. Carty was spot on to frame Carson Butler’s conduct the way he did, and the Dews incident (as he described by Carty) is a rank embarrassment. Threet and McGuffie were fun to watch on Saturday, but Carty’s description of the post-game freakouts was pretty eye opening.
And what the hell could the ND fan have said to justify or balance out a Michigan assistant getting into a tit-for-tat? This isn’t pro wrestling.
Greg
Jeff, I’m not suggesting Carty (or Rosenberg, or whomever) shouldn’t be writing about and assessing/critiquing the coaching staff on or in this case, off the field. I think that’s all in bounds. I’m suggesting that a shouting match with a fan maybe didn’t need to be included in the column. Whatever was said, Dews probably should have walked away, but we don’t know what was said.
Or Carty could have mentioned that Dews got in a shouting match and point out that this is low brow (fine), and left it at that.
Instead Carty printed the fan’s jab at Dews (…act like a D-1 coach). I think there was enough out there to make Carty’s point rather than giving the blow-by-blow between a coach after a brutal loss and a vocal fan that for some reason was hanging outside the Michigan bus and probably looking to start something. And I don’t think this was a ‘discussion’ as you frame it, it sounds like it was a guy shouting at a coach as he walked by, hoping for a reaction. He got one, and then Carty put it on the front page of the AA News.