Everybody loves a good rumor, right? Wrong.
While speculating about rumors can be fun to discuss among your friends, when it involves the team that you love, it changes the tone completely. And I’m not talking about just the positive rumors either.
Rumors make for great watercooler talk as well as sports talk shows but they can drive fan bases crazy.
Razorback fans like myself know this reality all too well.
After Jeff Long fired Bobby Petrino for hiring his mistress, the football program was put into an extremely difficult situation.
Do they promote an assistant coach, hire an interim coach or go with a brand new guy with a brand new system?
Former coach John L. Smith was brought back for continuity and most never acknowledged him as a legitimate contender to keep the job, giving Hog fans months to speculate about who the “new” coach will be.
Reading Internet message boards is definitely a great place to pick up on these rumors. Literally anyone can sign in to create an account and post any ridiculous comment.
There were countless numbers of threads that began with a rumor claiming to have a “source” from within who knew the identity of the coach.
Every coaching personality imaginable not in a current coaching role was mentioned for the job.
Jon Gruden was on a plane meeting with Jerry Jones in Tampa, Bill Cowher was at a restaurant in Bentonville and recruits at the LSU game were hearing that Chris Petersen was a done deal.
All these names got Razorback fans excited, but when reality set in, most fans realized these names were nowhere in the realm of possibility.
Bret Bielema was hired out of left field and consequently ended the coaching search rumors.
After that whole ordeal, I figured I wouldn’t have to deal with any sort of rumor like that for a while.
As I was casually checking through my Twitter feed on Saturday evening though, I came across a retweet about this new rumor circulating about Les Miles, head football coach for the LSU Tigers.
It piqued my interest, so checking it out, I came to realize that this story claiming that Les Miles had an affair with a student was published on a sketchy website with no real credibility.
I should’ve known better than to believe a second of it. Credible sports reporters nationwide responded within the hour commenting that the whole situation was a fraud.
The dilemma though is that with some rumors, not all of them however, when there’s smoke there’s usually fire. This makes some rumors the exception, but how can you distinguish the legitimate ones from the bogus ones?
When a rumor about your team is a good one, we have this inkling of hope that it will be true but when the rumor is bad, we tend to deny it with all of our heart.
Learn from me and don’t put much weight on any rumor though, period.
Michael Jordan’s not coming back to play at age 50, Nick Saban is not going to the NFL and Gruden is not coming back to fill your team’s coaching vacancy.
Everything you read on the Internet is true right?
