CJ says Brew calls Pat Fat Pat

[Ski U Mah 55]

IMO "The Daily Gopher" has taken an enormous nose dive in the last few months. I loved the blog during football season and the first half of basketball, but then something changed and it wasn't as witty and entertaining as it had been. Another stop to cross of the list of sites to check.

 

[UpnorthGo4]

I am a huge fan of Brew but he apprears to be a slow learner concerning the need for him to not make any derogatory public comments about other coaches and sports writers. This is the 3rd time he has been caught doing something like this. The first two incidents were about Bielema and Weis. There is much more information about what happened in Reusse's KSTP Radio Blog, The Morning Growl.

 

[BleedGopher]

Here's the copy from the Reusse blog entry:

Brewster: Accurate, not truthful
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Here’s an admission: I was signed up for Twitter by both AM1500 and the Star Tribune. Any messages you receive under my name are generic. I don't know how to use the darn things.

This doesn't prevent my receiving a handful of messages daily in the AM 1500 and Star Tribine e-mail accounts that indicate an individual is following me on Twitter.

There was a thrilling revelation in my Strib account on Friday when the information arrived that Lindsay Whalen was following me on Twitter. Gadzooks! My favorite female athlete of all-time following me on Twitter.

If only I knew exactly what that meant, or how you would go back to responding.

We’ve had Julio Ojeda-Zapata, the technology writer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, on “Reusse and Company’’ a few times since the morning show started on Jan. 12. Julio has written a book on Twitter. He’s explained and explained in our radio interviews, but all I’ve rally picked up is when you send a message on this service it’s a Tweet, not a Twitter.

You might have noticed the Star Tribune’s CJ was all over Twitter-gate this weekend. This involves a Tweet posted by Tim Brewster, the Gophers football coach, that read: “How would you like to wake up in the morning and look in the mirror … if your Fat Pat.’’

Coach Brew had some trouble with the “your’’ and the “you’re’’ part of the message, and could have used a question mark, but he was appealing to his base – true, maroon Gophers’ fans who don’t feel as if I’ve been completely supportive of U of M athletics in print or on the airwaves.

And you can’t blame a fellow for appealing to his base.

We discussed Brewster’s Tweet early on Friday’s show. I said something such as, “Gosh, I thought Coach Brew and I had cuddled and made up when we had a sitdown in his office this winter, but apparently it didn’t go as well as I had thought.’’

Jay Kolls said: “It couldn’t have been you to whom he was referring in this one-liner. Maybe it was Pat Williams?’’

And then we went to Bob Berglund with the 5:35 a.m. news.

I had received numerous e-mails on Thursday sending along Coach Brew’s observation, and pointing out it was removed from his Twitter site – are they sites? – after an hour or two.

On Friday, a friend with a 100 percent accuracy record in passing along information from behind-the-scenes happenings in the U of M athletic department called to report that Brewster had been told to remove the grammatically incorrect Tweet.

Coach Brew resisted for a time, until it went from a suggestion to an order from a superior.

I’m not sure about Pat Williams, but as far as I’m concerned, this was unnecessary.

Whether the message stayed in public view or was removed, it would not change two facts: A) I’m very overweight; and B) I’m very suspicious of the manner Brewster is running his program.

My only problem is that Coach Brew apparently has suggested that someone hacked into his Twitter whatever and posted the message.

That’s a lie. It was his work, so why not say to CJ and others who ask that, yes, he posted the message and couldn’t have been more proud of its wittiness?

This isn’t Coach Brew’s first lie about a fat issue, by the way. A few weeks after he was hired, Brewster was making the rounds of the campus. These weren’t public events, but there was a young man raised as a Notre Dame fan who was in attendance.

When this individual mentioned the Irish, Brewster ridiculed the fatness of coach Charlie Weis – wondered why any top recruit would want to play for a fat guy like Charlie?

I was contacted by the Notre Dame fan and given the details. I e-mailed Brewster and he denied the conversation. I printed the denial. The Notre Dame fan called and said, “He can deny it all he wants, but he said it.’’

I believed the young man and that Brewster had shout off his mouth and now was trying to cover up. I know for certain it was Brewster’s Tweet this week, not something from a hacker, and that he took it down against his will on orders from a superior.

I also know that he’s right in observation if not grammar when contending this Pat is fat.

Go Gophers!!

 

[Goldmember]

That’s a lie. It was his work,

That's great. But Pat has no idea if it was Brewster or not.

When this individual mentioned the Irish, Brewster ridiculed the fatness of coach Charlie Weis – wondered why any top recruit would want to play for a fat guy like Charlie?

Being "raised a Notre Dame fan" doesn't make Pat the least bit suspicious here. Neither does a lack of verified sources at an event full of people who heard the comments. Does it seem impossible that the hurt young man was embellishing Brew's comments? It's not like we haven't all met a dozen or so thin-skinned Notre Dame lovers.

 

[DCGopher]

Right here is how Pat explains why he is not a real journalist and stinks at his job:

I was contacted by the Notre Dame fan and given the details. I e-mailed Brewster and he denied the conversation. I printed the denial. The Notre Dame fan called and said, “He can deny it all he wants, but he said it.’’

A real journalist would have decided that there are no actual facts to prove one way or another (even if it is true) and thus decided it is a non-story so he should not waste his time (or integrity) printing it. OR if he really saw it as an important story trying to do some research to dig up some facts.

What a joke the Startrib is becoming!

 

[UpnorthGo4]

D.C. take your blinders off. Reusse printed the denial regarding the Weis matter and did not pursue it. He took Brewster at is word and did not mention it again until his recent KSTP blog concerning Brewster's "Fat Pat" twitter. In the blog Ressue said the following: On Friday, a friend with a 100 percent accuracy record in passing along information from behind-the-scenes happenings in the U of M athletic department called to report that Brewster had been told to remove the grammatically incorrect Tweet. Coach Brew resisted for a time, until it went from a suggestion to an order from a superior.


Reusse says he has a very trusted source in the U's Athletic Department who provides him information that has always proven to be correct. Either Reusse is lying or Brewster is lying. You may not like what Reusse writes but to my knowledge he has never been caught in a lie in the 30 plus years he has been a sports columnist. If anything, Reusse is honest to a fault. Therefore, I am going with Brewster being the liar. It has been said by more than a few posters in GopherHole that Brewster does way more talking than he should. Unfortunately, it is a lesson that he still has not learned.

 

[bamor5229]

WTF? TwitterGate is Ridiculous

So now it is Brewster's word against Reusse's? What a completely craptastic waste of time.

 

[howeda7]

This is just sad on Brewster's part. Just try to think of Tubby Smith doing something similar. It's not even fathomable. He would never do anything that classless and stupid. Never in a million years.

I like Reusse but conceed he's been overly hard on Gopher sports in the last decade, especially football. But it doesn't matter who he was going after. The fact that Brewster would stoop to such childish tactics against any sports writer undermines any respect I might have had left for him. At least Lane Kiffin can claim he's not old enough to know better. And the fact that Brewster's now trying to lie about it just makes it 10 times worse.

I don't believe for a second that anyone 'hacked' his account. Aside from Reuese's source, you'd think anyone who'd hacked it would have posted more then one sentence and probably about things far worse then this. (How easy would it be to post something that could be taken as a recruiting violation, etc.?)

 

[GoAUpher]

This is just sad on Brewster's part. Just try to think of Tubby Smith doing something similar. It's not even fathomable. He would never do anything that classless and stupid. Never in a million years.

I like Reusse but conceed he's been overly hard on Gopher sports in the last decade, especially football. But it doesn't matter who he was going after. The fact that Brewster would stoop to such childish tactics against any sports writer undermines any respect I might have had left for him. At least Lane Kiffin can claim he's not old enough to know better. And the fact that Brewster's now trying to lie about it just makes it 10 times worse.

I don't believe for a second that anyone 'hacked' his account. Aside from Reuese's source, you'd think anyone who'd hacked it would have posted more then one sentence and probably about things far worse then this. (How easy would it be to post something that could be taken as a recruiting violation, etc.?)

Ah yes. Reuesse is also a completely believable source. The same Reuesse who accused Brewster of cheating/under the table deals to sign the #17 recruiting class on the radio. Or who claimed he had heard that 5 recruits would be ineligible last year. Or on and on. I don't think he said it and I don't think he said the Weis thing either. For those who think Brew has no credibility, Reuesse is just as bad...especially with his anti-Brewster vendetta.

This is such a worthless thing to argue over because we'll never know the truth and and who you believe isn't going to be swayed by the nonexistent evidence that either of them can provide.

 

[lawrence21]

no way

No way Brewster wrote that, He would not post that on a site used for recruiting. Maybe He would email it to a friend and the email gets leaked to the press, but he would never post something like that on a public site aimed at showing positivity to recruits. The Weis conversation never happened either.

 

[MRJ]

D.C. take your blinders off. Reusse printed the denial regarding the Weis matter and did not pursue it. He took Brewster at is word and did not mention it again until his recent KSTP blog concerning Brewster's "Fat Pat" twitter. In the blog Ressue said the following: On Friday, a friend with a 100 percent accuracy record in passing along information from behind-the-scenes happenings in the U of M athletic department called to report that Brewster had been told to remove the grammatically incorrect Tweet. Coach Brew resisted for a time, until it went from a suggestion to an order from a superior.

Reusse says he has a very trusted source in the U's Athletic Department who provides him information that has always proven to be correct. Either Reusse is lying or Brewster is lying. You may not like what Reusse writes but to my knowledge he has never been caught in a lie in the 30 plus years he has been a sports columnist. If anything, Reusse is honest to a fault. Therefore, I am going with Brewster being the liar. It has been said by more than a few posters in GopherHole that Brewster does way more talking than he should. Unfortunately, it is a lesson that he still has not learned.

This is an interesting position considering within the last year, Reusse has stated his earnest hope that Brewster fails and fails miserably at the U, quite literally word-for-word. He may be being honest in such a case, but that is hardly a badge of honor for such grossly unprofessional statements. For this reason alone, do we really think his source is objective or unbiased? The problem here is that Reusse has an agenda and even the rumor of some impropriety gives him reason to take a stab at Brewster. This alone invalidates anything he states as fact until it can be corroborated by another source.

Is it possible that Brewster wrote it? Sure. But Reusse also took the word of a random Notre Dame fan and is now citing it as further proof of Brewster's statements and attitudes, whether it is actually true or not. That's not a fact, although Reusse probably considers this person a "source" as well because he had some "dirt" on Brewster.

The bottom line is this: Reusse has had an axe to grind with the U and Brewster in particular for a while now. If Brewster responded this way, then yes, it may have been in poor taste. But then again, this is Reusse we're dealing with, a man known for his personal attacks. If you want to blame Brewster, then fine. But Reusse is hardly an innocent bystander in the name calling game.

 

[DCGopher]

D.C. take your blinders off. Reusse printed the denial regarding the Weis matter and did not pursue it. He took Brewster at is word and did not mention it again until his recent KSTP blog concerning Brewster's "Fat Pat" twitter. In the blog Ressue said the following: On Friday, a friend with a 100 percent accuracy record in passing along information from behind-the-scenes happenings in the U of M athletic department called to report that Brewster had been told to remove the grammatically incorrect Tweet. Coach Brew resisted for a time, until it went from a suggestion to an order from a superior.


Reusse says he has a very trusted source in the U's Athletic Department who provides him information that has always proven to be correct. Either Reusse is lying or Brewster is lying. You may not like what Reusse writes but to my knowledge he has never been caught in a lie in the 30 plus years he has been a sports columnist. If anything, Reusse is honest to a fault. Therefore, I am going with Brewster being the liar. It has been said by more than a few posters in GopherHole that Brewster does way more talking than he should. Unfortunately, it is a lesson that he still has not learned.

You missed the point. This junk he churns out is not journalism. He is creating a story from gossip. If I am reading the newspaper I (personally) want a thoughtful, insightful, and balanced analysis/overview of a situation based on traceable facts. If I want to read gossip or a debate of personal analysis/opinions I'll read gossip magazines or public message board postings.

 

[oleboy41]

I wouldn't be shocked if one of Reusse's lacky's did this. Bottom line is Fat Pat really wants Brewster to fail. This means he actively roots against the U. Why any Gopher football fan would actively like a writer who openly hopes the Gophers loose in a public forum is beyond me and why anyone would believe anything he says regarding Brewster without hard evidence is completely beyond me.

 

[4starrecruit]

I think that it would be good if Brewster would say what Brewster thinks and that Reusse should say what Reusse thinks. These two might just as well battle it out to the finish. One or the other of them will win and one or the other of them will lose. At least we will then have honesty and we will not have some fans making excuses for one or the other. Probably neither one of them is without fault in the matter and therefore I think you just need to let them have at each other. Let them take it to it's natural conclusion. Let the good times roll! This could be very entertaining. Let's find out who has the best nack for this sort of thing.

Neither Reusse or Brewster are new at this stuff, I don't think.

 

[Zales04]

I think the question here should be, which will still be here in 5 years? Brewster coaching at the U or the StarTribune?

 

[tundra]

D.C. take your blinders off. Reusse printed the denial regarding the Weis matter and did not pursue it. He took Brewster at is word and did not mention it again until his recent KSTP blog concerning Brewster's "Fat Pat" twitter. In the blog Ressue said the following: On Friday, a friend with a 100 percent accuracy record in passing along information from behind-the-scenes happenings in the U of M athletic department called to report that Brewster had been told to remove the grammatically incorrect Tweet. Coach Brew resisted for a time, until it went from a suggestion to an order from a superior.


Reusse says he has a very trusted source in the U's Athletic Department who provides him information that has always proven to be correct. Either Reusse is lying or Brewster is lying. You may not like what Reusse writes but to my knowledge he has never been caught in a lie in the 30 plus years he has been a sports columnist. If anything, Reusse is honest to a fault. Therefore, I am going with Brewster being the liar. It has been said by more than a few posters in GopherHole that Brewster does way more talking than he should. Unfortunately, it is a lesson that he still has not learned.

Two logical observations from your post:

1. "Never been caught in a lie" does not equate to not having lied. It just means he has not been caught. However, if merely misstating facts, and passing them as truthful is a lie, then in fact he has been caught lying. Many times Ruesse has spewed bile as fact, when in fact, at best, his comments merely had a faint shadow of the truth.

2. You compared with Ruesse or Brewster has a better chance of being truthful. However, you must remember that you Pat's "truthful statement" is based upon hearsay. further, the hearsay is coming from an undisclosed third party. really the comparison the general public should make is between Brewster and the undisclosed commentator that Ruesse is "quoting."

Disclaimer: I in fact do not trust Ruesse any farther than i could throw him, or any better than i can spell his or barrerios names correctly on a consistent basis.

 

[anonymous]

Zales,

The answer might be none of the above.

 

[harrys ghost]

I have no idea what really happened (and I'm not sure I really care) but, if you look at all Brewster's tweets (and there are not that many) they are typically along the lines of "It's a great day to be a gopher." There are no negative or even slightly negative entries. The one in question here sticks out like a sore thumb so I tend to discount it.

 

[Monty519]

Yeah, it's highly questionable that was a Brew tweet. It just was SO far off what he's done so far, why would he just randomly do that all of a sudden, like Fat Pat hasn't pissed him off three or four times before? I mean look at the current one: "Hope everyone woke up this morning lovin life!! Its a great day to be a Minnesota Golden Gopher!!" Are you kidding me? The dude's almost positive to a fault lol.

 

[UpnorthGo4]

Quote; "Yeah, it's highly questionable that was a Brew tweet. It just was SO far off what he's done so far, why would he just randomly do that all of a sudden, like Fat Pat hasn't pissed him off three or four times before? I mean look at the current one: "Hope everyone woke up this morning lovin life!! Its a great day to be a Minnesota Golden Gopher!!" Are you kidding me? The dude's almost positive to a fault lol."

File this under "My Sh*t Doesn't Smell."

 

[Maximus]

Disclaimer: I in fact do not trust Ruesse any farther than i could throw him

Pretty much writes its own punchline.

 

[Maximus]

Reusse writes: "I’m very suspicious of the manner Brewster is running his program."

Fine. Evidence?

 

[lakesbison]

Reusse is FAT! whats the problem here?

 

[youngstowngopher]

It appears this city is not big enough for both of them!

 

[UpnorthGo4]

Quote: "Reusse writes: "I’m very suspicious of the manner Brewster is running his program." Fine. Evidence?"

This is not a Court of Law. It is the Court of Public Opinion and Brewster is getting his ass kicked.

 

[MRJ]

Quote: "Reusse writes: "I’m very suspicious of the manner Brewster is running his program." Fine. Evidence?"

This is not a Court of Law. It is the Court of Public Opinion and Brewster is getting his ass kicked.

If this is the case, then Reusse isn't kicking anybody's ass in the "court of public opinion."

 

[Bo Darville]

"Football coach finds sports writer to be portly and uses incorrect grammer in doing so." Must be a slow news week.

 

[calminnfan]

I think that this still being discussed among the media is absolutely idiotic. Any reasonably logical person would never believe Brew would stoop to this. It is far more logical that Ruesse had one of his crooneys hack into Brews Tweeter site, if it happened at all, and place it in there just to try and discredit him.

Brew is far to positive a person to resort to cheap, juvenile stuff like this. And CJ is also showing the low level of her abilities as a reporter, highly desperate to write something...anything!

 

[UpnorthGo4]

Quote: "I think that this still being discussed among the media is absolutely idiotic. Any reasonably logical person would never believe Brew would stoop to this. It is far more logical that Ruesse had one of his crooneys hack into Brews Tweeter site, if it happened at all, and place it in there just to try and discredit him."

You could not be more wrong. I have been a member of GopherHole since the day Brewster was announced as the new coach. Until this incident happened, not one of my over 500 posts has contained anything but great support for Brewster. I am still a huge fan of Brewster, and believe that if anyone can finally get Gopher fans a Big 10 Championship, it is him. This incident does not change my belief in him at all.

However, there is no way I can convince myself that anyone would take the time and effort to hack into Brewster's computer system and send only one tweet as benign as the one about Reusse. It is far easier for me to believe that Brewster sent the twitter because he thought it was funny, and after it became a public media issue he was too embarrassed to admit to it.

In my opinion, the fact that the twitter was sent and Brewster's denial that he sent it is a very small matter. What would have been a very large matter is if Reusse had manufactured this whole thing and was found out. He would have been fired from the Strib within five minutes. You are asking me to believe that Reusse would have risked his 35 year newspaper career for something like that? No matter how much you dislike Reusse it is neither logical nor reasonable that he would do something like that. You guys that continue to believe it are allowing your blind hatred of Reusse to affect your reason and judgment. I will even go so far as to call your view of this incident irrational, plain and simple.

 

[calminnfan]

Quote: "I think that this still being discussed among the media is absolutely idiotic. Any reasonably logical person would never believe Brew would stoop to this. It is far more logical that Ruesse had one of his crooneys hack into Brews Tweeter site, if it happened at all, and place it in there just to try and discredit him."

You could not be more wrong. I have been a member of GopherHole since the day Brewster was announced as the new coach. Until this incident happened, not one of my over 500 posts has contained anything but great support for Brewster. I am still a huge fan of Brewster, and believe that if anyone can finally get Gopher fans a Big 10 Championship, it is him. This incident does not change my belief in him at all.

However, there is no way I can convince myself that anyone would take the time and effort to hack into Brewster's computer system and send only one tweet as benign as the one about Reusse. It is far easier for me to believe that Brewster sent the twitter because he thought it was funny, and after it became a public media issue he was too embarrassed to admit to it.

In my opinion, the fact that the twitter was sent and Brewster's denial that he sent it is a very small matter. What would have been a very large matter is if Reusse had manufactured this whole thing and was found out. He would have been fired from the Strib within five minutes. You are asking me to believe that Reusse would have risked his 35 year newspaper career for something like that? No matter how much you dislike Reusse it is neither logical nor reasonable that he would do something like that. You guys that continue to believe it are allowing your blind hatred of Reusse to affect your reason and judgment. I will even go so far as to call your view of this incident irrational, plain and simple.

I'm just saying it is "more logical" for me to believe Ruesse did this than for me to believe Brew did it. I could also see someone hacking into Brews Twitter account, if the posting truly happened anyway, and see someone do that for the purpose of getting at Ruesse on behalf of Brew as a joke, not realizing there is consequences to humor of that sort. Probably a 17 year old computer whiz who has yet to figure out that even though you can do something that does not mean you should do it.

BTW - Are people scouting Brews twitter account when he has his own web site?