Wouldn't an editor tell him to identify the party that would be taking those actions, not to write in second person, etc.?

Can I argue this into a B+ teacher?

If you can spend as much time around ND as he does, and continue to lack any respect for the institution at all - not saying you have to like it, but to just flippantly disrespect and even loath it - then you just wont ever get the place.

I'm quite sure he feels trapped in hell with the beat, and I'm glad for it to a degree. Just sucks that the biggest paper near ND has him as a beat writer.

--
Sometimes I rhyme slow sometimes I rhyme quick.

...I wonder if other journalists got the same feel from being around campus yesterday. Kelly certainly put a good face on the class, but he also laid the groundwork for greater expectations next year -- and he didn't shy away from those expectations. It was awkward during those parts of the presser, because he went back and forth between building up this class and implying that the next group of kids should be better.

Of course, that awkwardness would have been decreased if Kelly had not offered kids who are such "projects" and instead could have said that the class was small but that every kid there was a great one who would see the field. So in some ways, he painted himself into the corner.

But back to The Other Brian Hamilton's point -- I do wonder if there was a feel that the athletic department was pushing the positive, or if it was just TOBH's own ingrained bias.

was not long enough to form the relationships and learn what they needed to learn.

I thought it was refreshing. I can't tell if that's what Hamilton is going for.

Good lord. If you have to explain it...

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Is that Kelly was told to put a positive spin on things -- by the school, apparently -- and that if Kelly let himself slip and appeared to be disappointed with the class (like the "judge me on next year" line), Hambone thought the administration would send black helicopters to liquidate Kelly.

Who was dropping the "hint" that the recruiting class wasn't up to snuff? Hamilton? Another reporter? Kelly himself? And why would the reaction be to drop him through a trapdoor or taser him? Is he saying that Kelly was having a hard time restraining himself from being honest, to the chagrin of the ND administration? Or that the whole presentation was a facade with Kelly as a willing participant?

The press conference felt sheltered and contrived. I was concerned if any negative questions were asked the PC would be ended quickly in a hilarious manner.

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Hamilton does such a good job covering ND Football that the Tribune should consider having him move to South Bend year-round so he can continue to pick up these press conference nuances that he would miss if he just phoned in from Chicago.

Here's the opening paragraph from Brian Hamilton's story on Kelly's signing day press conference:

At the mere hint signing day was anything less than a revelatory experience certain to shower the program with untold glory, you half-expected a trapdoor to open and swallow Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly. Or that he would get Tasered mid-sentence. Or at least the microphone would cut out.