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A Reporter Wearing Enemy Gear. What would Bo do?

You may or may not have heard by now, a woman reporter for an Arkansas radio station was fired for wearing a Florida Gator cap at Razorback Head Coach Bobby Petrino's post practice press conference Saturday.

The short version of the incident goes something like this: Reporter Renee Gork asks Coach Petrino an innocent question about practice, Petrino gives a long-winded answer and ends his take with "and that will be the last question I answer with that hat on."  (BTW, Gork is a Florida grad). Arkansas' Sports Info people calls the radio station and raises hell about it and the station's general manager throws Gork under the bus. BTW, Gork did Tweet on her PERSONAL Twitter account that she misses Florida and wished she was reporting on the Gators.

The question before the house: If a reporter shows up at one of Bo's pressers wearing a Texas hat, would he go bat-shizzle ballistic about it like Petrino did? Or should he?

Any thoughts?

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Not that the arkansas fans/coach handled it well.

But sounds like this was more of a “final straw” than the genesis of her firing. Ripping/badmouthing her employer on her public fb account will do that for you.

I want Pelini to do nothing different, regardless of the reporter’s garb.

(Unless that reporter is wearing a CU cap, then Pelini needs to use his license to kill)

by meatybob on Aug 17, 2010 2:34 PM CDT reply actions  

Listened To Dan Patrick's Radio Show Tuesday Morning

He interviewed the station manager early in the show, then Renee Gork later on, to get both sides of the story.

Although he didn’t go into details, the station manager indicated that there was “more to the story.” And this was after Gork had been on the job only a MONTH. You would really have to screw something up to get fired after a MONTH.

As far as Gork’s side of the story, Dan Patrick thought she was quite naive about the whole thing. She couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about (I think it’s called ‘conflict of interest’ and having a ‘bad attitude’). And she has experience in sports radio. She’s done reporting in both college and the NFL (Jacksonville Jags and Tampa Bay Bucs).

But I have to agree with your opening line. Coach Petrino was too thin-skinned about this to begin with and it was subsequently botched by the Arkansas Athletic Dept.

"No 00:01 Chances!!"

by Section 37 on Aug 18, 2010 2:07 AM CDT up reply actions  

Nothing says low brow like

firing someone for wearing a hat from their alma mater. So which is more low brow, this firing scandal, or just the state of Arkansas in general? I suppose the firing is merely a subset of Arkansas, so Arkansas takes the cake.

by Charlie Yordy on Aug 17, 2010 2:42 PM CDT reply actions  

It strikes me as an overreaction

Idk even if she tweeted about it and stuff, a private preference for a certain team should not be cause for firing. Now if she was trashing Arkansas or otherwise not doing a good job because of her personal bias, that’s a different story.

"My hardest job is to convince the people of Nebraska that 10-1 is not a losing season." - Tom Osborne

by jdhusker on Aug 17, 2010 5:20 PM CDT reply actions  

I'm a Nebraska grad and proud of it.

But I work in campus ministry at Iowa State – been here for almost three years. I make no bones about being a Cornhusker, and have never tried to hide it. That having been said, I’ve also been very supportive of ISU and have kept the Nebraska stuff to a minimum (at least, in my opinion it’s been a minimum – my students might disagree. :-) ). This goes so far as wearing an ISU sweatshirt over my clergy shirt the day after the ISU – Nebraska game last fall. The year before I wore my Nebraska jersey over the same shirt, so it only seemed fair.

My point is this: it’s not necessarily a bad thing to be a fan of your alma mater, even when working in another college environment. It IS a bad thing to be badmouthing your place of employment and wishing publicly that you could be somewhere else. If that’s the case for Mrs. Gork, it’s her own fault, really. The hat by itself wasn’t a major faux pas, but when there’s a course of negative action it’s just another piece of evidence.

"...when the devil says to you: do not drink, answer him: I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to."
— Martin Luther

by Go Big Rev on Aug 17, 2010 5:49 PM CDT reply actions  

My two cents....

There is some suspicion in my mind that Coach P just might make a “remark” about the opposing team’s gear. A loud remark.

by bigsky101 on Aug 17, 2010 6:04 PM CDT reply actions  

what the hell

does it say about Arkansas’ journalism school (do they have one?) that someone had to hire a Florida graduate in the first place????

Oh… isn’t Tom Shatel from Missouri?

Go Big Red Nebraska!
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by Jon Johnston on Aug 17, 2010 9:28 PM CDT reply actions  

Nebraska has WAAAAAY more class then Arkansas

I’m sure Pelini might make a comment on it, but I doubt that he would make a scene, or the local news station would fire a reporter.

Sounds like po-dunk Arkansas to me.

by Hobbes881 on Aug 17, 2010 10:29 PM CDT reply actions  

agreed

I sure hope Bo would have more class than that. A total overreaction about a non-issue.

by KC Gunner on Aug 18, 2010 11:42 AM CDT up reply actions  

well

the tone of this thing has changed, ain’t it? It ain’t about whether or not the person would be wearing enemy gear, it’d be where they got their information about injuries. !

Go Big Red Nebraska!
Our Cobs Are Bigger Than Yours!
Corn Nation!
Twitter!
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by Jon Johnston on Aug 18, 2010 10:29 PM CDT reply actions  

I've seen it happen

So I have been in the news media in Kentucky for 20 years. Five in Nebraska before that. I haven’t survived in this business for this long by wearing my Blackshirts hat to a UK or UofL presser. And they wouldn’t dream of scheduling a football game against the Huskers. I’ve even gotten some grief wearing my son’s high school cap to work. This has everything to do with professionalism, ethics and experience. No doubt there is much more to the story.

BTW, I worked many Petrino pressers when he was at UofL … not surprised at all no matter what really happened.

by KYHusker on Aug 21, 2010 12:17 PM CDT reply actions  

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