Agreed. Since it's summertime, I'll jot down some observations that have been in my mind for a while. Just haven't had the occasion or time to air them.
The challenge to LV fans generally is to demand that the haters -- and I mean several downright, scary-sick haters, either:
- produce confirmed, relevant facts showing recruiting violations, or
- stop making the incessant accusations.
The principle recruitment of Maya Moore took place in 2005, and she committed in April of her junior year. One can agree with AVF's comment that this stuff is old news, while noting the amazing fact that certain LV fans are such sick haters that they continue to go on about it nine years later.
Mostly, among even some of the more mainstream LV fan crowd, it's generalized statements that Geno is unethical, lacks integrity, is a cheater, etc. It's more than just a few who drop those comments routinely, because they heard it on the Summitt, from each other.
When inclined to mention specifics, they go on about condos and handbags. Still. To this day.
And without having a darned thing to back up their accusations, they proceed -- talk about vile -- to say things like Maya's mom pimped her daughter, her handbags were ugly anyway, she was too poor and too untalented to afford her "luxurious" lifestyle in Connecticut, etc.
Yes, the word vile fits these haters to a block T.
When the most intelligent accusatory posts are those saying the writers don't know anything, the stench of bearing false witness ought to be noticeable. But, aha!, they say the reason they don't know anything is that it was set up that way, so no one could follow the money.
And therefore the fact that they don't know anything relevant means it was crooked. The alternative conclusion, that there was no "it" there, doesn't suit their purposes.
Am reminded of a post by one of the haters a few years ago, a rather intelligent post actually, as far as it went, in which she laid out about a dozen unanswered questions about Kathryn Moore's finances. The answers to these questions would've been pertinent if one were investigating a possible violation.
The hater in question thought she was conveying the message, "Look how suspicious it is that there are all these questions." What she was actually conveying was, "We don't have the answers to any of these questions, yet we'll go on drawing the worst summary conclusions and state them as fact."
Earth to haters:
- You don't know anything relevant about Ms. Moore's handbag business. You don't know anything about the sales figures. You don't know anything about the purchasers. You don't know anything about her deal with the bookstore. Yet you say the business was just a means of UConn funneling cash to Ms. Moore -- a blatant NCAA violation as to which you have no confirmed facts and which, BTW, Geno would be crazy to risk his program to do even if he had, as you suggest, no scruples about "it."
- And along the way you necessarily, although you don't seem to realize it, imply that their was no reporting of Ms. Moore's profits anywhere (whatever they were; you have no idea) -- including to the IRS, so she was also committing tax fraud.
How astounding. You can't get other people's tax or small business financial information. Very suspicious, except that's how it is in this country absent a legitimate purpose. And your purpose is far from legitimate. Yet that's your justification for making any unsubstantiated accusations you want to.
As to the condo, earth to haters:
- Again, you have scant anecdotal (high school hallway) information the elder Ms. Moore intended to live in a condo. You have no idea the details of the unit, where it was located, what its fair rental value was, what Ms. Moore paid for it, to whom she paid it -- nothing. Nada.
- Oooooo, but that's because the condo was owned by a shadowy "holding company." There's the smoking gun. Earth to haters: it's perfectly common for condo units to be owned by corporations or LLCs. They do so for investment and production of rental income. (And it would make sense that Ms. Moore paid rent if she was only going to be there for four years.) It's so common that many condo agreements specify, and the major lenders insist, that at least 50 percent of the units in a condominium be "owner occupied" so that there are people on the premises with a real stake in keeping the overall place up.
- So corporate or LLC ownership is not because anyone is trying to hide who owns the unit. It's a common method of consolidating investments while maintaining limited liability. And ownership isn't even the relevant question. The relevant questions are fair rental value and what was paid.
- So that vacuum of confirmed facts is the basis for routine accusations that UConn "gave" Ms. Moore a condo. Have you no ethics, no integrity?
"Oh, but it's broader than that," a couple of the worst haters will say. "We know from former LV players that Geno did bad things in recruiting them." No specifics.
Earth to haters: You're invited to specify if you could ever find the strength to emerge from innuendo.
But we also know stuff from former players. We know of stuff Ms. Summitt did personally "by mistake" (implying an inadvertent secondary violation -- as to secondary violations, TN has several more known ones than UConn does).
And as to non-public ones, we just don't feel the need to talk about them in every other post like you do, or at all. If the former players want to talk publicly about it, that's their prerogative.
But haters gotta hate. Their first purpose is to vent their hatred as they simmer past the point of tender in sour grape juice. Their second purpose, despite all evidence that it doesn't work because people consider the source, is to hurt UConn.
There's no reason to expect they'll stop. And no reason -- although it'd be decent -- to expect other LV fans will call them out for it or that the Summitt mods will put a stop to it (in the case of one of the worst haters, a rather fatuous thought).
This isn't intended to put our LV fan posters, who are good people and not haters or malicious ignoramuses (now there's a compliment), on the spot.
If anything, it might enlighten a bit as to why reasonable people, especially including UConn fans but also elements in the media and elsewhere -- find a certain cadre of LV fans to be loathsome libel and innuendo artists.
For many on the UConn side, the hard feelings, the scabs continually picked at by these people, may never fully heal, but they'd have a better chance with time if the haters would just STFU.
But they won't. And if some kind of apologetic patch is eventually applied in the interest of getting a series started, the haters will rebel against the patch, consider it a sell-out, an affront to the former coach.
For others on both sides, we're ready to move on, and have been. If this post dignifies the accusations by responding to them in detail, or stirs the pot, it's preferable to silence, which the haters interpret as guilty silence -- rather than the more obvious conclusion that their accusations are so ignorant one loses IQ points even talking about them.
That's it on that. Love those who hate you, eh?
Well, maybe not. Surely, down there at the bottom of the pile, crawling around in the sludge, are a few exceptions that would try the patience of even the most saintly.
Now to turn to something more pleasant, like putting together my new weed whacker. Have a nice day, all.
I was just stating my perspective on the specific points raised by guests on this particular post. The thing is, I agree with your statement about the majority of TN & ND fans, it's just that those aren't the fans who tend to visit our site.