by Paul Jordan
As we have mention before, this summer has become the “Summer of Kentucky bashing” by the media. On the surface, it appears to be a lot of random media reports from all across the country converging on one common theme: Kentucky is evil and Calipari cheats. If you are Joe Six-Pack and listens to sportsradio a few hours a week and catches ESPN semi-religiously, you must see all these reports and say “Wow. How is Calipari getting away with all of this? The NCAA needs to do something”.
The things, most of these “media reports” have been absolute hack jobs on Kentucky with just a smidgen of truth that it is based on. Yes, the NCAA did go down to Birmingham and look into Bledsoe’s grades … about six months before the rumor was printed. There really was nothing to the TMZ story except the NCAA did investigate John Wall’s relationship with an agent about a year ago before they announced it…. and the Michael O’Brien “story”? It appears to be nothing but a made up story based entirely on rumors.
Of course, when these stories hit, no one hears the fact they are utter garbage. The lingering effect of the story is that it grows with time, and gains credibility by some people due to the fact that it was published after all. But in these three stories, there lies another bigger story that some Kentucky fans think need to be told. And that is “Where are these stories coming from”?
The 1995 movie “The Usual Suspects” was about a group of common criminals recruited to do a job. As the movie went on, they discovered that a criminal mastermind named “Keyser Soze” had pulled all the strings to put this band together. In criminal talk, it was not sure if Keyser Soze really existed or not or if he was just a story that bad people told each other. One of the members of the gang was a cerebral palsy ridden, seemingly dim witted hood named “Verbal Kint” who really did not fit in with the rest of the hoods and no one could really figure out why he was recruited to be in this group. One of the most famous lines from “The Usual Suspects” was Verbal’s line on debating the existence of Keyser Soze: “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn’t exist”.
I mention his because there is a small contingent of Kentucky fans that think there is a “mastermind” that is behind all of the bad press UK has been getting. I am not sure that I believe 100% in this theory, or even 50% or even 25%. But it is a theory none the less. And think of all the people that cover Kentucky sports or college basketball and most people think of one name when you mention, bad press and John Calipari: Pat Forde.
Forde is of course, is the devil to most Kentucky fans. He is a senior sportswriter for ESPN and has co-authored a book with Rick Pitino. Not just Kentucky fans have called Forde out for this glaring conflict of interest, especially since Forde is especially glowing in his articles about Rick Pitino and especially harsh in his criticism of John Calipari. Undaunted, ESPN seems to ignore the Forde controversy and the Calipari attack pieces increased ever since Calipari ended up at Kentucky. There are some that think Pat Forde is the “Keyser Soze” behind the media castigation of John Calipari.
Marc Maggard, who runs the True Blue Kentucky site has his very strong feelings on all of the bad media publicity against Calipari:
"You see, I’ve heard my own rumors from great sources…. from people who get calls BEFORE stories get printed….. these people knew this sort of story was coming out long before it ran. This is the reason I wrote last week to be prepared for this sort of thing. There is a determined effort from the “friends of Pitino” crowd to cause damage to UK/Cal by floating these sorts of stories. The first strong evidence I got was during the “Eric Bledsoe” story. Pete Thamel was the front, but the story came from the same person who is almost certainly behind this “Davis want’s money” story."
"This story was handed to O’Brien already written by someone who knew exactly how to do it… someone who has had practice at handing out anti UK/Cal stories that are resistant to lawsuits due to careful wording.So what am I saying? Who do I believe is behind all these ridiculous stories? The rumor is that Pat Forde is the evil mastermind who is handing out these stories. I heard rumors about him looking for Bledsoe stuff, but when ESPN wouldn’t run it, the rumors are he gave it to Pete Thamel, who he worked with at ESPN before Thamel moved on to the New York Times, a paper known to print anything."
It’s an interesting theory and I had heard that Forde was behind the Thamel story as well. It did seem odd that midway through the season (probably due to complaints from Kentucky fans), Forde had somewhat a different tone in his stories toward Calipari and Kentucky. Was he admonished? Was his stories have to receive special clearance before posting? I don’t know. But I do find it odd that right after Thamel’s story hit, Forde posted an incredibly similar one that made more than a few people wonder if they were written by the same person.
The TMZ.com story was just weird and ill prepared. The rumor was that the TMZstaffer was a Louisville fan, but that rumor was a sketchy as the actual story. I would think that this was a UL fan acting on his own when he saw an opportunity, but if Forde is the mastermind, he could have put some of his Dirty Bird “sleeper cell” into action. And what about the Michael O’Brien story? I have to admit it has the feel of the Pete Thamel story of throwing accusations built upon sources. And I do find it incredibly weird that Pete Thamel seems to be cheering on the Chicago Sun-Times on twitter and even though Thamel backed down from UK is still acting as if Calipari has something to hide.
You had your chance, Thamel, so give it up. It’s weird Thamel’s reaction …. but does that mean he is in a band of brothers to destroy Kentucky basketball with Pat Forde, Michael O’Brien, and some nameless TMZ employee. I know it seems ludicrous, but consider that the timing of the O’Brien story seemed staged to take some of the attention from Pitino’s philandering ways at Porcini’s and this theory starts to hold a little water.
I am not saying I am all conspiracy theory on this, but Maggard’s article is designed to make you think. And just remember, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he did not exist:
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