It’s understandable if you’ve grown weary of the Tim Beckman abuse allegations narrative. Since May, publicity for this scandal has been as pervasive as the trailer for the Amy Schumer film “Trainwreck” or Caitlyn Jenner hot takes. As far as Big Ten football story lines, it’s more overplayed than Pharrell’s “Happy.”
Yet, we have no more closure today than we did when this scandal broke back in early May. There was an intense media grilling of Beckman this afternoon when took to the podium at Big Ten Media Day. And that grilling accomplished nothing as Beckman either
a.) completely dodged the questions or
b.) gave canned responses, platitudes, cliches and other assorted coachspeak
During the round table and podium breakout sessions, Tim Beckman was again rushed by a media horde. Certainly so when compared to previous years. But there still wasn’t any major revelation of significance anywhere today. We’re at a point now where either Tim Beckman is fired or he’s not, and/or one of these former players/accusers has the smoking gun or they don’t.
Anything else is uninteresting. Period.
On Thursday, Beckman spoke publicly for the first time since allegations of abuse were made public. He had the perfect platform to get his side of the story (what he can legally say) out there. He set up his audience by indicating that he had a big announcement to make. Beckman even made a dramatic pause. But he delivered nothing but marketing drivel and coachspeak buzzwords. All he did was introduce a new acronym catch-phrase/motivational mantra for his program.
That’s unfortunate, because as the investigation is still ongoing, there isn’t much Tim Beckman or Mike Thomas or anyone else of clout within the program can say. That’s the legal process; that’s how it works.
Beckman could have at least had the professional class and courtesy to say “due to the investigation, I can’t comment on….” Instead he pretended like the investigation didn’t even exist.
Everyone usually rips Tim Beckman for his lack of media skills and the terrible verbal gaffes he almost always makes in press conferences.
Well, today you saw the complete opposite. Beckman was rehearsed, and programmed like a PR pro’s pro had worked him over.
So instead Tim Beckman got ripped for being vanilla and boring. All the while being a top ten trending term nationally on Twitter. But Beckman CAN’T say anything interesting- the investigation is still ongoing. How’s he SUPPOSED to field these questions?
But in the end, it’s all a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. The media care about this story infinitely more than fans do, and I myself don’t find anything compelling about what transpired today.
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/626804317325017088
We’re at the exact same point now that we were 24 hours ago; either Tim Beckman is Coach for the 2015 football season or he’s not. If one of his accusers has the smoking gun, the damning evidence that is grounds for dismissal, either produce it right now, or stop talking.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is part of the FOX Sports Engage Network. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous talk radio stations all across the country.
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