A few weeks ago, I ran an article on TechSideline called "Adding Up the Years" that broke down the infamous University of Virginia football recruiting flier that Coach Al Groh handed out to football recruits. The flier claimed 56 years of pro experience for Groh and his staff, and I went through an analysis that showed, in my opinion, that it was closer to 40 years of experience.

(A sidebar: you can use either "flier" or "flyer," as I did in the article, to refer to the handout. My dictionary says that one definition of "flier" is "a handbill," and it also says that "flyer = flier.")

While the decision to run that article may have looked obvious -- I run a Virginia Tech web site, and UVa is Tech's chief rival in recruiting -- I put a lot of thought into it. I am always wrestling with the dichotomy of writing as an impartial journalist versus writing material that plays to a very biased audience.

I try to take a journalistic approach to things, remaining fair and neutral, but I'm also aware that scripting things with a pro-Virginia-Tech slant definitely plays to the TSL target audience. The "problem" with writing the article about the UVa flier is that it gives the appearance of an attack against the UVa coaching staff and program, which is most decidedly biased, slanted journalism.

Or is it? I struggled with that question.

But not very long. Ultimately, as I looked at the flier and analyzed it, I thought it was a very interesting story from a pure analysis standpoint, because of the conflicts within. Since when does assisting at a mini-camp, for which some UVa assistant coaches got credit for one year of NFL coaching experience, equate to being the head coach of the Jets, for which Groh got -- you guessed it -- credit for one year of NFL coaching?

I very quickly realized that I could have my cake and eat it, too -- I could write a fair, balanced article that contained no shrill accusations, but instead simply stuck to the facts. So I went ahead with the article.

As I did, I wondered what reaction it would engender among not just the Hokie faithful, but among Virginia fans, who obviously wouldn't care for the subject matter. Back in October 1998, I ran an article that shrilly wondered where the press coverage was for a post-game incident in which a UVa football player had knocked down a Georgia Tech fan and then assaulted him by jumping on him.

The Cavaliers had just lost a heartbreaker to GT in Atlanta, and in the post-game euphoria of GT fans rushing the field, TV cameras caught a UVa football player knocking a Georgia Tech fan to the ground and then jumping on him. A GT fan later filed a police report saying he had been punched by a UVa football player, but despite this, and despite the video evidence, the media was ignoring the incident.

So I posted a video capture, talked about the incident, and wondered loudly, Where's the media coverage?

Virginia fans didn't like the article. I recall getting one email from a UVa fan, who was brief and to the point: "Don't f*** with the Hoos," he said, and attached a virus. Don't worry, I wasn't dumb enough to click on the attachment and run it. Sheesh.

I wondered if the flier article would bring up a similar reaction, and it did not. I think the article was so analytical and so fact-based that it was hard for even the most diehard UVa fans to (a) ignore its logic; and (b) get mad enough to send me a virus. They didn't even rip me too badly on the Sabre.com message boards.

I did receive two emails that stood out, though, and here they are. First, one that didn't think too highly of the article:

Subject: Adding up the Years
To: [email protected]

All I can say to that is this: as the General Manager and Managing Editor of a web site that caters to Virginia Tech fans, the fact that I upset an N.C. State fan registers about a 0.0001 on my personal Richter scale. The dishes don't even tremble in the china cabinet.

The other email that stood out was this one:

That's high praise, folks. How high? Well, the ACC Sports Journal isn't a fly-by-night web site. It's a hardcopy subscription publication that has been published uninterrupted for the last 23 years. And at the bottom of Dave Glenn's email was the following bio information:

The ACC Area Sports Journal staff is led by award-winning editor and lead writer Dave Glenn, who has covered the league for 15 years. Glenn is the author of seven ACC-related productions/publications, including "Royal Blue: The History of Duke Basketball" (Raycom), "Tar Heels On Tape" (Village Companies) and "The History Of The ACC Tournament" (Raycom). Glenn also has contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Durham (N.C.) Herald-Sun, the Chapel Hill (N.C.) News, The Sporting News, the ACC Basketball Yearbook, the ACC Football Yearbook, the ACC Basketball Handbook, Lindy's Annuals, Athlon Annuals, College Sports magazine, Carolina Court magazine, The Wolfpacker, Cavalier Corner, Basketball News, the Prep Stars Recruiter's Handbook, PrepStars.com, accsports.com, goheels.com, acctoday.com and many other publications.

Wow. For somebody with that background to compliment me � wow.

Enough back-slapping, though. Let's move on. On February 21st, I ran an article titled "Is Change Afoot for the Hokie Offense?" that talked about Virginia Tech's growing reputation for having a poor passing team and for not developing quarterbacks for the NFL. I philosophized that VT might be getting ready, under new Offensive Coordinator Bryan Stinespring and new QB Coach Kevin Rogers, to add some passing spice to Tech's run-oriented offense.

To be honest, I wasn't happy with the article. It was pretty good, but I felt as if I was not clear on some points. And the following email, which is a bit long but is very interesting and informative to read, confirmed that I indeed had not done a good job of expressing myself. It's from a Nebraska fan. I have edited it for length by removing some comments about Nebraska and their offense.

The key line in Chris's email is this one: "� a team does not have to pass a lot to win a National Championship, a team must pass effectively. "

That's really what I meant to say in my article and failed to say clearly. VT's problem this past season (and in 1997 and 1998) is not that they didn't fill the air with footballs -- it's that they didn't pass effectively when they needed to.

By contrast, in 1999, the Hokie offense was very effective passing the football. Michael Vick only threw 9 times against Virginia, for example, but he completed 7 of them for 222 yards and a touchdown. That's effective, and it wasn't the only time Vick totally smoked a defense on just a few throws. Ditto Jim Druckenmiller.

So I didn�t mean to advocate implementing a bunch of four-wide and five-wide receiver sets and going pass-happy. I meant to say that VT simply needs to pass more effectively than they have historically.

Lastly, while we're passing on emails, let's throw in a few doozies.

One of the key aspects of our business, of course, is customer service. With TechLocker.com, TSL Extra, the message boards, and TSLMail in our suite of offerings, we of course wind up getting a lot of email related to shopping, subscribing, and posting problems.

And like any customer-service oriented organization, some of the emails we get are whoppers. Here's a sample of a few emails we've gotten that left us scratching our heads in bewilderment and laughing at the same time. Please note that although I print my responses here, I didn't actually send them out, they're just included here for your entertainment value.

Oh, look a credibility lecture from someone who � oh, never mind. He's got a point. I did pick Miami to drill Tech 35-17, and look what happened � the Canes only won by two points. Back to the maroon drawing board, with my orange chalk. -- Will

Sigh. � Will

Yes. Yes, you're right. You do need urgent help. -- Will

Last month, I offered a $75 TechLocker.com shopping spree to the person who could guess how many message board posts and how many page views were registered on the day that Justin London and Mike Imoh committed to UCLA and VT, respectively. The numbers had been posted on the message board, I said, but that post was gone, so unless you had a really good memory, you would have to guess.

Wrong. The exact numbers were posted in TSLMail #17, not the message board.

Of course, one of the contest submissions (there were only about 30, from TSL Extra's subscriber base of nearly 1,500 subscribers) "guessed" the figures exactly: 438,125 page views, and 2,904 message board posts.

Someone else got very close on the page view totals, which makes me wonder if they looked up the TSLMail and fudged it, because "guessing" exactly kind of gives away the fact that you looked it up elsewhere (a trick that the UVa students who were caught cheating in the "How Things Work" class don�t seem to grasp. If you're going to copy your friend's term paper, don't COPY THEIR PAPER, know what I mean?).

Hmm, what to do, what to do? I would feel silly giving the $75 shopping spree to someone because of their research skills instead of guessing skills � or maybe not. Maybe I should reward that person for being the only one out of about 1,500 who remembered the TSLMail.

See you next month.