Colonials Corner

I haven’t had the chance to say anything about this because of an incredibly busy week, but I wanted to share this with the readers of this site.

We’ve kept this site singularly focused on Robert Morris sports for multiple reasons, but as you can imagine, I do have interests that lie elsewhere. I shared some of them before on the old blog, and I’ll be starting up my own website in the very near future to coincide with some other positive developments that have occurred in the last few days and weeks (none negatively impact this site).

I’m a huge music fan, and I’m also a fan of non-profit works. With the devastation in Haiti, two of those interests have dovetailed.

Grammy winning rock band Linkin Park established a charity called Music For Relief several years ago as a way to use their resources and their music to raise funds for various causes. This week, they launched a program centered on relief for Haiti called “Download to Donate”. They have multiple songs from a wide variety of artists that you can listen to, and you can download all the songs for a fee.

The fee is whatever you want. 100% of the donations go to relief efforts in Haiti. I’ve included the widget from their site at the top of this post. Feel free to listen, to share, and to donate. Please visit the Music For Relief site to donate.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming…

Happy Holidays from Colonials Corner. We’ll be back in a week with coverage of the men’s basketball team taking on Youngstown State. No idea where the original image is from, but thanks to whoever put it up.

With all the major Colonial sports on vacation, we’re taking one as well. We’ll be back this weekend with a recap of the football season. Until then, enjoy the turkey, family, and football. Have a “turducken” in honor of John Madden.

After trying to allow people to be adults, I’m going to start restricting the ability to comment on this website. I’ve asked people, publicly, to try and discuss facts mixed with opinions, to not engage in spreading rumors or dangerous speculation.

That request has gone unheeded. The discussion begun by the poster known as “D” regarding Kevin Quinn’s injury status is completely inaccurate and has been deleted. I’ve talked to Quinn, and “D” is completely off base. Wherever “D” picked up the information, it wasn’t from Quinn, and I’m going to believe someone who contacted me directly rather than someone posting anonymously on a website. I’d love to talk to “D” but that individual used a fake email address (as many of you have) and his IP address is a public one. “D” can feel free to email me if there’s an objection.

I’ve also deleted the comments accusing Jeff Sinclair of faking his injury for similar reasons.

I’ve been dismayed at the negativity and the direction the comments have been going in anyway, so this is the last straw. You know the old saying – one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. I’m exploring ways on how to effectively deter false information and derogatory comments from ruining readers’ experience on this site. Comments are now being consistently monitored. That means it may take several hours for your comment to appear on this site. I’m going to try a couple different methods and will be tweaking things over the weekend, so I encourage comments throughout the weekend, as well as feedback and potential ideas to help regulate the site.

I started the website as a way to disseminate and discuss news about Robert Morris University sports. I’ve been very pleased at the response and the number of individuals visiting this site (both the old version and the current one).

However, I will absolutely not tolerate the following from commenters: Continuously engaging in relaying false information that negatively impacts another individual (“D’s” crime); racist or derogatory language; profanity; sexually explicity language; and anything else that crosses the bounds of civil and decent human discourse.

If you have a problem with any of that, feel free to email me at achiappazzi@gmail.com. I welcome the opportunity for you to express your views, but I’m going to run this site as I see fit with the least amount of headaches possible.

Thank you for reading, thank you for commenting, but this is the way it has to be.

We’re going to experiment with this format during the game on Saturday. We’ll try it for a few weeks and if it works, we’ll keep it around.

You can post all you want in the comments and discuss the game before, during, and after it occurs. I will not be joining you, at least all that often, as I’ll be down at Heinz Field covering the Youngstown State/Pitt game for the newspaper.I’ll drop in afterward after I listen to the archived broadcast.

You can listen live at rmucolonials.com. You can also follow the stats live at VMI’s website, by going here.

Keep it clean and enjoy.

Just a few things to remind you of as we begin the football season and a period of time where more visitors come to the website.

First off, if you so desire, you can follow my travels across the western half of the state on twitter. I’ll be at various high school and collegiate games every week throughout the fall, with maybe even a few pro games thrown in there.

Second, more importantly, we’ll try and update as soon as possible following each Robert Morris game, but the updates will likely be best viewed Sunday morning, depending on the schedule.

Third, most importantly, please watch the language in the comment section. I’ve killed the spammers, which is tremendous, but I would like to keep it PG rated around here as a family oriented web site. So, please keep the cursing to a minimum, and any discriminatory language will automatically be removed.

Thanks and enjoy the season.

So, an explanation is necessary to detail what exactly went wrong the last 24 hours.

First off – and this information is directly from the sports information department, which got it right from the football office, although given the last 24 hours, even they would second guess themselves right now. Desmond Brentley is your starting quarterback on Saturday. It will be his first start as a Robert Morris Colonial. Camdin Crouse will back him up. Freshman Jeff Sinclair reportedly made the traveling squad for this weekend, again according to the sports info department.

Now, here’s what went wrong…

For the last week, I have been working on a preview section for the Beaver County Times. It’s going to run on Friday, and it should be pretty cool. One of the things we like to do at the Times is do a position-by-position breakdown. So, following Saturday’s scrimmage, I had a chat with Joe Walton. He talked about some individual players, talked about what he expects out of certain positions, the usual preview stuff. We got onto the quarterback discussion, and he smiled and said that they’ll be making the decision on Sunday.

Fair enough. I had a Monday deadline and figured if I didn’t hear anything I could doublecheck on Monday. I gave sports info director Jim Duzyk a heads-up and went from there. Indeed, I didn’t hear from anyone until Monday, when I gave the sports info office a call. They got back to me, promised they’d let me know. They did, with a text message stating Camdin Crouse was the starter and Desmond Brentley was the backup. I let the newspaper know, and then I shared it with you.

For all intents and purposes, the sports info office was correct. That’s how it was listed on the depth chart. But the depth chart was wrong.

Somehow, it got flipped in the football office. It made its way out the door and eventually to me, with it never being corrected. Brentley was the starter the entire time. Crouse and I exchanged texts Monday evening, and he was the first to alert me that no one on the team had been told of a decision. We both expressed surprise at that, but it never occurred to me that it might be wrong. It came right from the football office.

I have since been in touch with the athletic department today and have been given the information above and repeated here: Brentley starts, Crouse is backup, Sinclair is third quarterback and traveling with the team to Lexington. However, its understood – and they cautioned me on this – that things can change from day to day or week to week when it comes to the depth chart order.

Ultimately, this is my fault. I should have found a way to confirm directly with the coaching staff, even though I had other commitments throughout yesterday afternoon and evening. I did not do that and for that I apologize. I feel the worst for Camdin Crouse, who believed he was the starter when he was not. I’ve already apologized to him via text and I’ll do it again when I see him in person.

I will say that I do believe this could have been avoided, to a degree. Or I could have at least put a cautionary post or alert up. How? Well, it was rather striking to find out that the players went through yesterday not knowing who their starting quarterback – or who the starters at several positions were going to be. Quarterback, especially, though was a hotly contested battle all spring and summer. As many as four players were potential starters – Crouse, Brentley, Aaron Smetanka, and Jeff Sinclair. They deserved to know where they stood, and they didn’t last night.

But I don’t control that, and I do control my ability to talk to the coaching staff directly, so all I can do is offer the explanation and say once again that I apologize for not doing my due diligence.

Hopefully we can move on, but I’m willing to answer any direct questions, comments, or complaints, either in the comment section or via email at achiappazzi@gmail.com.

I would imagine that the official depth chart and game notes will be out on Wednesday or Thursday. I will be at Thursday’s practice for the Times. Until then, adios.

If you’ve tried to comment in the past several days and got an error message, you should be clear to comment now. I installed some anti-spam software to combat the spammers, and it ended up going haywire. I apologize for any inconvenience. Comments should be wide open to use again.

Welcome to the new digs. This is very much a work in progress, but as the summer months roll on, we’re going to be tweeking and adding features.

We’ll take this moment to first ask that if you have any ideas or advice, please feel free to contribute them.

Here’s what you’ll find as you stroll about the site:

Read the rest of this entry →