I just think we live in a different world today.
Internet, tv and other media spreads information at light speed.
For that reason, when rules change or about anything changes, the field of schools, coaches and players quickly hear about it, and also hear about how others are reacting.
That means the impact of anything happening occurs quickly and in proportions we’ve never experienced before. Imagine back… before the internet and broad-span network television. News traveled slowly and so were the reactions.
We are all experiencing this right now in Ferguson, Mo. How much of the fuel on that fire came from media now and in the past year? There were other events that happened a while back and it is feeding this fire. It is feeding this fire because the news spread and informed people across the country. There are no more back doors in the sticks. Everyone’s back door is out there for the entire world to grab on to.
Sports is no different.
Reactions in the future are bound to be more abrupt. That kind of puts me on edge… but these are the days we live in.
Look at recruiting. Look at Kansas and Bill Self in just the past few years. I recall just a while back we were discussing Bill being in a recruiting slump. He definitely has the ball rolling these days. Look at how many top tier players have Kansas on their list. We haven’t even contacted many of them before they have us on their list. That is a part of what is going on and how Kansas is now one of those teams that top players automatically put on their list, even if we don’t have a scholarship to give. It is part of the national hype, the national sports network broadcasting the who’s who in basketball.