Waterloo and Other Great Losses

It was, or at least it seemed like, a dark day in the history of Cubdom.

Sitting alone in my St. Louis apartment, I was flipping fervently through channels with no particular purpose when ESPNews delivered the day’s deathblow with a small snippet in the bottom-right corner.

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WLS-TV in Chicago, which is ABC’s affiliate and the home of respected sports anchor Mark Giangreco, was reporting that Greg Maddux was not coming home, but instead turning his back on Chicago, again, and departing to play for the Evil Empire in New York.

The reports, apparently taken from a New York radio station that named “sources,” proved to be bogus a few days later and Maddux came back where he belongs and is beloved. The station screwed up big-time, and I cannot imagine what management did to those who made the mistake, especially because WLS is a respected source of news.

But, normally on a smaller scale, these “anonymous sources” are wrong, so please do not have a heart attack every time someone predicts doom.

A Purdue fan website, if you don’t already know, has made quite a splash in Southern Illinois, reporting that Matt Painter will be offered a job as an assistant for a year at Purdue, with the guarantee he will be head coach the following season.

It may be true, stranger things have happened, but this should only be trusted as much as you would trust Scott Baio with your sister. Not only is this report based on anonymous sources, it is written by someone who, in the world of journalism, is an anonymous source. Repeat after me – fan sites are even more unreliable than conventional media. These are rumor stories, which are relevant, but should not be taken as gospel.

Here’s a short list of the rumors newspapers printed during last year’s Bruce Weber saga as the entire state tried to figure out who would coach the Illini:Chicago Sun-Times:Rob Judson, Northern Illinois’ head coach, is looking more and more like a viable candidate for the Illinois job, and Illinois Athletic Director Ron Guenther may be thinking of a higher-profile candidate such as Oklahoma’s Kelvin Sampson or an ex-NBAer.

Chicago Tribune:All signs point to Dana Altman of Creighton as the next head coach of Illinois.

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Decatur Herald:Weber’s name was removed from the Illinois list.

None of those, especially the last one, turned out to be true, and one of them came from one of the greatest newspapers in the world. So, in the interest of sanity, please take rumors reported on fan sites – many of which cannot even spell “journalistic integrity” – lightly, especially when other things are being reported.

Andy Katz’s Purdue sources – I’m sure his sources are more credible than Gold and Black Illustrated – say Purdue will stay out of the Gene Keady coaching tree. Again, this is a rumor, but it really makes you think, which is what you should do with these rumor stories. They are pieces to a puzzle everyone is trying to solve, and despite what the Purdue site says, Painter to Purdue is still illogical.

Here are four Vulcan-esque reasons Painter still will not go to Purdue:* Purdue’s Athletic Director does not like Gene Keady, so why would he hire one of Keady’s favorite players and a similar style coach?

* Why, as the head coach of a Top-25 team, would you want to become an assistant again? Not only would he be an assistant, but an assistant on what could be a losing team.

* It is illogical, although possible, to assume Purdue would fire an assistant to make room for Painter

* He said he was staying. Head coaches are very careful about what they say, knowing it could be used against them later on. Granted, his silence now is a bit confusing, but I would not read anything into it other than he does not want to respond to rumors. His phone would ring off the hook every day. If Painter is a man of his word, and I believe he is, he will be back.

No one really knows how the above pieces will be arranged in the Purdue puzzle, or whether they will be used at all. But if the pieces show a picture of Painter in the end, there will likely be someone with a jigsaw nearby – and I doubt the saw-wielder will be any of Gold and Black Illustrated’s “sources.”