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Message: [QUOTE="JB123, post: 2699592, member: 7203"] Those are totally fair things to say, and I apologize for being curt in my responses to your post. My early posts in this thread were more measured in tone, and then when the same strong statements (which I believe were misleading) kept being made, I decided to try a more terse approach. But the downside of that is impoliteness, which you had every right to call me out on. As to the substance of this, here are a few points. First, I'm definitely not accusing anyone of lying. I just think that sometimes people get carried away with their image of an athlete, and then their image distorts the reality that's still impressive but more complicated and less exciting. Second, a fact-checker isn't so terrible, is it? Otherwise people may unintentionally say things that mislead others. Third, I don't think I'm off-base to say that your claims about Bo may well have been misleading. Winning a statewide decathlon competition in high school just isn't close to winning, say, a national competition in college -- much less winning at the truly highest level, which Jim Thorpe did, as discussed repeatedly in this thread. You didn't say what level of competition it was for Bo -- so you're right to note that your statement wasn't inaccurate -- but immediately after your decathlon statement you wrote that Bo's track and field accomplishments "defy credible analysis." I don't see why winning high-school decathlon competitions defies credible analysis. If you're going to express strong opinions on a message board, people may point out facts that qualify, contextualize, or even contradict those opinions. I think that's a good thing, not a bad one, although I grant that it's easy to forget to do it nicely. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach