Ann Arbor News Jim Carty called into Sam Webb’s show this morning to chat on his observations from practice, including the buzz around super freshmen Michael Shaw and Leaping Sam McGuffie. Carty revealed his personal over/under for the team was set at 7.5 (sounds right) and that if he could book his own bet, he’s leaning a tad over that right now. Full audio via MLive, hopefully a proper podcast:
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Webb v. Carty on WTKA (audio)
News Columnist Jim Carty once again dialed up WTKA this morning in his usual slot. You can hear the full segment here. Here’s a four minute exchange where host Sam Webb grills Carty over the April Michigan Daily article in which some of the athletes quoted in the academics & athletics scandal claim they were misled by the News columnists: [display_podcast] Webb doesn’t really get anywhere but it’s interesting to hear Webb heat up over it. In the end, Webb pushes on Carty to release tapes of the interviews but per Carty, it’s not going to happen and that was really not his call. Related: Speaking of Webb, he’s really been doing a nice job on the morning show. While there’s certainly a Michigan bias in the voting, he’s right up there in my poll (on the right sidebar) asking to name the top local sports show. The top 4 have been tight for a while so I’m going to leave it up for a couple more days.
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Football team Takes Over, Raise big bucks for Mott (audio)
Today marked the next installment of Michigan football radio takeover on WTKA 1050AM and several other Michigan-based stations. The 12-hour radio-a-thon raised nearly $90,000 for the new C.S. Mott Children’s hospital as they were going off the air. Most of the current coaching staff was in studio with a bunch of current players, and several former M men in the NFL dialed in including Steve Hutchinson, Jeff Backus and Jake Long. Rodriguez was in studio from around 5pm to the end of the auction at 7pm and did a great job. Here’s a great segment during drive time hosted by Bill ‘Huge’ Simonson, with Coach Rodriguez, Mike Hart and Morgan Trent: [display_podcast] I’m sure they will still take your donations! Support C.S. Mott
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Shand v. Martin case Going to Trial
AD Bill Martin’s motion to dismiss the case brought against him by former WTKA morning show host Dave Shand was denied today. U.S. District Court Judge Julian Abele Cook, Jr. published the following decision today: “Martin’s motion to dismiss must be, and is, denied. The Court finds that Martin is not entitled to qualified immunity at this stage of the proceeding. Furthermore, Shand’s First Amended Complaint has sufficiently set forth a claim upon which relief may be granted. Martin’s motion for summary judgment must also be, and is, denied in its entirety. The Court finds genuine issues of a material fact exist with regard to each of Shand’s claims.” Shand’s complaint against Martin is summarized in the order as such: The complaint, as amended, alleges that Martin informed the management at WTKA on April 19, 2007 that “he would not allow” the radio station to cover a charity golf match at the University of Michigan if Shand was assigned to cover the event as a broadcaster. Shand also contends that Martin threatened to terminate WTKA’s right to broadcast the University of Michigan football games unless he was fired as a broadcaster with the radio station. Several days later (April 23, 2007), Shand was relieved of his duties at WTKA. The court order provides a view into some of the documentation…
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WTKA’s ‘Off the Field’ Notes 3-30
A few notes from this mornings installment of WTKA’s Off the Field with John Bacon and Jamie Morris: * Legendary softball coach Carol Hutchins called in from the Purdue campus. She’s a great interview and a solid representative of M athletics. She talked about the recruiting process and stressed that they don’t do a lot of selling to recruits – they let the campus, the program and the atmosphere do the work. One little factoid came out of the conversation as Morris (who works within the athletic department) confirmed that there are over 600 softball season ticket holders compared to 200 for Men’s baseball. Wow. * Michigan Associated Press writer Larry Lage called in as well and talked about a variety of topics including his job, Rich Rodriguez, the upcoming Spring scrimmage. During the interview Morris confirmed that the game will not be open to the public, as best I can tell the first University official to do so. So you’ll need to sneak in to see it and here’s some tips. Lage openly argued that the game should be played at EMU’s Rynearson stadium…Morris did not respond: * Lage went on a limb and predicted that Michigan’s quarterback this season will be Carlos Brown; Morris suggested it would be “a freshman” and made reference to that recruit from Florida…
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ESPN’s Eric Adelson on WTKA (3-18 audio)
ESPN the magazine’s Eric Adelson called in to talk about the Ann Arbor News investigation. His thoughts in two parts are posted below. In sum, Adelson praises Carty and company on this project but does conclude that there isn’t a scandal and offers that it’s “not as big of a story as people feared”. He takes umbrage with those who think the News shouldn’t look into these issues just because coddling student athletes “happens everywhere”. Here it is: [display_podcast]
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National Media mostly Mum on News Story
Day II into the Ann Arbor News piece on the academic policies surrounding the athletic program (can we come up with a word for this? athademics?) and the story hasn’t been quite yet picked up by the national media. Folks seemed a bit wrapped up in brackets, Terrelle Pryor, Tiger Woods and such so far this week. Michigan football was the lead story on today’s ESPN.com college football page, but it had nothing to do with the investigation: Elsewhere The Sporting News just released a post on the story but the lead topic of the day was Ty Willingham. Nothing yet from SI.com or Sportsline. While not quite in the same class, AOL Sports posted on this topic and even used the word ‘Scandal’, and linked to the New York Times Quad Blog reaction. It should be noted that the NYT Quad blog author (who kindly linked to MVictors in the past) is buddies with Jim Carty (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
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Taking Five with Dennis Fithian
October 7, 2006 marked the annual renewal of the Michigan vs. Michigan State football rivalry. Typically this would have been one of the busiest days of the year for former WTKA radio host Dennis Fithian, but he was not in Ann Arbor that Saturday. He was instead about 40 miles down the road at Comerica Park for his new employer WXYT ‘The Ticket’ radio. Somewhere during the second half of the 31-13 victory over MSU, the Detroit Tigers were finishing off the favored Yankees 8-3 for a trip to the World Series. Fithian was there to cover it all for his new station. In the brutal world of sports radio, things have worked out well for Fithian. Each one of the Detroit-area stations in that market have seen significant turnover in the last couple years, WTKA in particular. The very popular former Ann Arbor drive time host was kind enough to speak with MVictors about radio, Lloyd Carr, Drew Sharp and even about reheating pizza. Here you go: MVictors: Let’s get right into it. Do you have any ill will toward WTKA for the way your departure was handled? Fithian: There’s no ill will whatsoever. A lot of people thought I was let go because of comments about the basketball program, especially when they didn’t make the NCAA tournament that…