Ken' s recent article...

Gtbowhunter90

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Maybe I'm being overly sensitive, but seeing this really triggered me.. as if Tech hasn't put numerous legends and NBA champions into the league and isn't good enough of a school to land elite talent... piss on em.
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StingU2

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This article was written verbatim by an interview CJP gave last week, your anger should be directed at CJP, not Ken.
 

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I heard that interview. The context is that if you get elite talent that ends up in the top, say 20, all those blue bloods will be all over them and it will be difficult to stay above the noise. What you want to do is to find people that you evaluate as being inside the top 20, but they aren't rated that way. Or maybe you think they are accurately rated and are like 40-50 ish...the point being you have a material chance at the guy and aren't wasting your time.

I get that this logic sounds insulting to you, like we can't beat Kentucky or Duke or North Carolina in recruiting. I would just ask you think rationally - right now, not down the road...right now, if you were a say top 20 kid, and you have literally $5M - $50M of money on the line, would you take a chance on us yet? They can't afford to be wrong.
 

orientalnc

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It may sting your ego to admit that Tech is not an elite destination, but the fact is that we are an elite university with middle of the pack athletics. We occasionally rise above that, but not enough so that kids in S Georgia are clamoring for our apparel and sports posters.
 

smokey_wasp

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Gonna have to somewhat agree with the OP on this. While I've always liked Ken's coverage for the most part, he has been beating this drum to death for a while now. CPJ got visibly annoyed with Ken during Nate Woody's opening presser because all he wanted to talk about was how we can't recruit and have to find diamonds in the rough. I think we're all aware of the challenges we face, but it seems like he just harps on this in every article now. In short, he's become a whiny GT fan. That's our job.
 

dtm1997

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Gonna have to somewhat agree with the OP on this. While I've always liked Ken's coverage for the most part, he has been beating this drum to death for a while now. CPJ got visibly annoyed with Ken during Nate Woody's opening presser because all he wanted to talk about was how we can't recruit and have to find diamonds in the rough. I think we're all aware of the challenges we face, but it seems like he just harps on this in every article now. In short, he's become a whiny GT fan. That's our job.

I agree that Ken's product has generally gone down the tubes, but I listened to the presser that comment is from and it's pretty true to CJP's comments.

CJP wants to find kids that will be of quality for a blue blood after a great HS season as a SR or after 1-2 years at GT and sign them before the blue bloods realize what they've missed.

Like Keyser Soze.

Is Ken getting worse as our beat reporter? 100% and have no problem if he reads this.

Is that particular nugget an accurate portrayal of what was said & our strategy? 100% and no one should get uptight about it.
 

kg01

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I agree that Ken's product has generally gone down the tubes, but I listened to the presser that comment is from and it's pretty true to CJP's comments.

CJP wants to find kids that will be of quality for a blue blood after a great HS season as a SR or after 1-2 years at GT and sign them before the blue bloods realize what they've missed.

Like Keyser Soze.

Is Ken getting worse as our beat reporter? 100% and have no problem if he reads this.

Is that particular nugget an accurate portrayal of what was said & our strategy? 100% and no one should get uptight about it.

I think you can totally take him.

It seems, in both fball and bball, Ken's tone has changed significantly over the last year or so. It's very weird. It's almost as if he's looking to make the switch over to "real" writing/reporting or something.
 

H-Wade

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I think you can totally take him.

It seems, in both fball and bball, Ken's tone has changed significantly over the last year or so. It's very weird. It's almost as if he's looking to make the switch over to "real" writing/reporting or something.

It's also been such a terrible year for both sports there hasn't been many opportunities to write "fun" articles, unfortunately.
 

dtm1997

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It's also been such a terrible year for both sports there hasn't been many opportunities to write "fun" articles, unfortunately.

I agree with this, but, during many pressers this year, Ken has tried to dig for gotcha moments.

He's got an extremely poor understanding of tact, timing, & context.
 

Connell62

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I agree with this, but, during many pressers this year, Ken has tried to dig for gotcha moments.

He's got an extremely poor understanding of tact, timing, & context.

If I’m not mistaken, Coach Johnson threatened to pull his credentials due to some of the tactics he used to obtain info during football season.
 

smokey_wasp

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If I’m not mistaken, Coach Johnson threatened to pull his credentials due to some of the tactics he used to obtain info during football season.

Yeah, what I always heard was that he released some information regarding a kid's injury that coach had asked him to hold off on. But that was a while back, I think, and he hasn't done himself any favors since then. He tends to ask really awkward, adversarial questions. Like somebody else said, it's like he's trying to prove he's a real reporter asking the tough questions and holding people accountable. And we're like, dude, just give us the depth chart and practice reports and stuff. I don't expect him to be a cheerleader for GT, as he doesn't work for them. But we have enough haters in the local media. lol. At this point, I think Schultz probably gives us the most fair shake of any local media guy.

Anyway, apparently Ken didn't mess up in this particular instance. Those familiar with the context of Pastner's comments have said that he got it basically right. I can just understand why someone would be annoyed with him in general.
 
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dtm1997

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Yeah, what I always heard was that he released some information regarding a kid's injury that coach had asked him to hold off on. But that was a while back, I think, and he hasn't done himself any favors since then. He tends to ask really awkward, adversarial questions. Like somebody else said, it's like he's trying to prove he's a real reporter asking the tough questions and holding people accountable. And we're like, dude, just give us the depth chart and practice reports and stuff. I don't expect him to be a cheerleader for GT, as he doesn't work for them. But we have enough haters in the local media. lol. At this point, I think Schultz probably gives us the most fair shake of any local media guy.

Anyway, apparently Ken didn't mess up in this particular instance. Those familiar with the context of Pastner's comments have said that he got it basically right. I can just understand why someone would be annoyed with him in general.

I forget what he asked, but a couple of weeks ago he tried to pull some gotcha **** on Pastner and I commented elsewhere he didn't need to be at another presser.

I agree. No need for him to be a cheerleader & I understand having to report on the bad stuff, as it arises, but he got a lot of premium access to hoops this year and he made plenty of efforts to try and dig up stuff so he can post negative clickbait.
 

orientalnc

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In all fairness to Ken, he has bosses at the AJC who are not exactly Ga Tech boosters. I think he does a pretty good job overall, but maybe his pressing tactics are the result of him being pushed to find "something interesting" that will generate page views. The negative stuff seems very different than the person I have communicated with for several years.
 

smokey_wasp

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In all fairness to Ken, he has bosses at the AJC who are not exactly Ga Tech boosters. I think he does a pretty good job overall, but maybe his pressing tactics are the result of him being pushed to find "something interesting" that will generate page views. The negative stuff seems very different than the person I have communicated with for several years.

That's a fair point I hadn't considered. Kinda surprising the AJC even bothers to retain a reporter dedicated solely to GT sports at this point.
 
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