WKU Football Team Goes Door-to-Door Selling Tickets

Are you having trouble drawing fans to your football games? Do you want to create a connection with the fans while building team chemistry? Would you like to gain a better understanding of the business of college football?

Well, if you are play for Western Kentucky's football team, selling tickets door-to-door is for you!

Starting next week, nearly 100 WKU players and coaches will hit the pavement of local neighborhoods offering season tickets for $25. They will be split into for teams, and the team that sells the most wins a steak dinner.

“We had tremendous success with this initiative last year, and I am pleased we will be doing it again,” WKU coach David Elson said. “It enables our team to interact with the community that gives us such great support while also giving our student-athletes a unique perspective to the business side of athletics.

“I also believe good-natured competitions such as this help build team chemistry.”

Hopefully the sale is a success for WKU. Just watch out for any locals who open their doors expecting Girl Scout Cookies only to find football tickets.

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40-year-old Man Mike Gundy's Lastest Critic: The QB He Defended

Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy's rant about an article criticizing his former starting quarterback was controversial. Football fans were divided on the issue. Some thought that Gundy over-reacted. Most thought that Gundy did the right thing by sticking up for quarterback Bobby Reid. (The only real consensus was that the video was funny.)

While many journalism organizations were busying Jenni Carlson, the journalist who was the target of Gundy's attack, nobody asked Bobby Reid what he thought of his coach and the emotional reaction. That is, until ESPN's Tom Friend decided to tackle the issue.

I recommend reading the entire article, but here is an excerpt dealing directly with Reid's reaction:

Reid was caught off guard. Here was a coach who'd been burying him and now he was going to war for him? It didn't add up. "At first, everything [Gundy] was saying sounded real and true," Rajika says. "But I'm a believer where there is smoke, there's fire."

In other words, Bobby and Rajika Reid felt info in Carlson's column came indirectly from Gundy or his staff. ("I'd have a hard time agreeing with that," Gundy says.)

In other words, they felt Gundy's rant was fake.

"Honestly, the way I took it, I felt like it was all a front," Reid says. "That it was all a big show. It didn't feel genuine."

Rajika: "It wasn't the truth. If it was the truth and this kid does everything right, why wasn't he back on the field?"

Most would agree that Gundy could have handled the situation better with a more thoughtful response. Still, it did seem that his rant was for the right reasons; a college player shouldn't be called out in such a way by media personnel.

The accusation that Gundy gave Carlson the information that she then used in her article is serious considering his reaction to those very facts. If true (and, at this point, I need to believe Reid more based on Gundy's responses in the ESPN article), all support for Gundy should be withdrawn. It is one thing to take a business-like approach as a coach, but it is something else to lie with so much adamance.

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Clemson and Bowden Pull Ray Ray's Scholarship

Remember Ray Ray McElrathbey?

The Clemson backup running back garnered national prominence after taking custody of his 11-year-old brother Fahmarr in 2006. The parents were both addicts; his mother to drugs and his father to gambling. Ray Ray McElrathbey was the man to step up and look after his brother.

McElrathbey then received a waiver from the NCAA, allowing him to receive assistance from Clemson and the public. This rare accommodation enable McElrathbey to care of his younger brother while maintain his collegiate eligibility.

McElrathbey and the university were applauded nationwide.

That is, until Saturday. Clemson announced that McElrathbey, despite having two years of football eligibility remaining, was no longer a member of the team since Ray was going to graduate in August.

Apparently, there is more to the story. Tiger tailback James Davis says McElrathbey did not have the option to stay on the team. The coaching staff decided not to renew McElrathbey's scholarship for the 2008-09 season. Clemson, coincidentally, is over the limit of eighty-five scholarship players, too.

Clemson coach Tommy Bowden, when asked about the situation, said, "We're pretty good at running back right now."

Running back James Davis said McElrathbey was expecting Bowden to pull his scholarship. "He said something about how they weren't going to renew his scholarship," said Davis, grew up with McElrathbey in Atlanta. "It really surprised me. But there's a lot of stuff you can't say. It's something I guess everybody has to learn to live with."

Considering the support McElrathbey would receive if he were to go public with story, why has he yet to speak out? According to Davis, McElrathbey will not speak out publicly with his side of the story because he "doesn't want them to badmouth his name if he wants to play football somewhere else."

It is simply disgusting the way Clemson and Tommy Bowden turned their back on Ray Ray McElrathbey. Since I could have not said it any better, I will simply concur with the guys at Wizard of Odds, who write:

Last December, Bowden used an offer from Arkansas as leverage to get a new contract and a fat raise out of Clemson. And now he has discarded Ray Ray McElrathbey because he thinks he can do better.

Bowden can go to Hell on this one.

Let this be a lesson to any recruit interested in playing for Bowden or any other coach who demands long-term security from their employer, but fails to show the same respect to their players. We can only hope a tsunami of negative publicity results from Bowden's decision because frankly, college football can use more kids like McElrathbey, a kid who has more character than his former coach.

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