Well first of all thanks again to that Bruin fan (from Canada?) who went after that Tarkanian toady Dan Wetzel for writing his hit piece on Coach Wooden. Thanks to the Canadian (is he really Canadian?) and bluestreet's xpost on the Nation, the story exploded over the internets forcing Wetzel to respond:
I plan on looking into the points you made in a further investigation and will correct any mistakes from there.
If you'll allow, I think I am actually going to reexamine the entire John Wooden/Sam Gilbert relationship, which will take longer.
Wetzel went on to write how he was going to investigate this issue further hoping "to get to a new level of truth." Of course no where in that response he admitted that he had made an obvious mistake.
Again big ups to the Canadian for his outstanding work. From Wetzel's response it is clear right now that this guy (and other Bruin Haters) has an agenda to sully, defame the integrity and reputation of Coach Wooden. Quiet simply these low life vultures circling over the Coach and are looking to pounce. Canadian to his credit is keeping his eye on the issue at hand and asking Wetzel to retract his misinformation from that hit piece of Coach Wooden:
Thank you for your reply.
I am sure your "further investigation" and "reexamin[ation]" may provoke all sorts of new issues, which can be debated at the appropriate time. The historical record is no doubt benefited by truthful and objective accounts of past events. However, before you embark on that process, you plainly have an obligation to your readers and to the truth to immediately correct your false attribution of Jack Scott's statement to Bill Walton. Since I cannot imagine that you printed that "quote" without having a copy of the book from which you incorrectly quoted, it should be easy for you to quickly look at your copy of the book and determine whether the statement was from Walton or Scott, without any "investigation." As you probably know, the phony "Walton quote" is circulating rapidly on the internet, defaming not only Mr. Walton, Mr. Wooden, and Mr. Gilbert's family, but (indirectly) your reputation as well. See, e.g., www.heismanpundit.com.
I would also submit that you have an obligation to explain to your readers the circumstances under which your Yahoo! article incorrectly attributed this quote to a book written by Bill Walton ("Those quotes come from none other than Bill Walton ... in his 1978 book...") when just last year, in the book you co-wrote (and co-own the copyright) with Jerry Tarkanian ("Runnin Rebel"), you attributed authorship of the same book to Jack Scott, not Walton. How you somehow forgot, within the last year, that Jack Scott, not Bill Walton, wrote that book, is a question that ought to be answered and explained to your readers immediately, prefatory to any "further investigation."
This story is exploding on the Blogosphere, and the time has come for truth and transparency, not threats and obstruction. I am sure you are an honorable man and will do the right thing.
[I also copied his boss, Berger, on this e-mail exchange.]
We will see if Wetzel or his superiors at Yahoo Sports are sincere enough to make the correction. Again to echo the sentiments expressed in that thread right now it looks clear to me that Wetzel has an anti-Wooden agenda. He completely bypasses the opportunity to correct an obvious (intentional?) mistake in his article, and in an obnoxious response pretty much threatens to investigate his version of the "truth." The guy has the arrogance talk about "selective enforcement" of the NCAA (most likely alluding to the troubles of his hero Tarkanian), yet he doesn't have the decency to own up to his mistake of "selective reporting" by picking and choosing or in this case almost making up quotes and randomly attributing to Bill Walton. So keep filling up those Yahoo Comment boxes by going here and here. Obviously our concerns are having an effect.
There is also a bigger concern here as pointed out by Bruin8Clap on BRO:
Well there is a decent chance the lazy traditional media may just take crap like this from Wetzel and other Bruin haters like the TrojanPundit and repeat them without actually going back to the sources. In fact the TrojanPundit is claiming he is close to the situation and that he knows, "many former coaches, players and media people who were around during the Gilbert era." Well then - if he really knows the really story then he should come out and name names instead of hiding behind that cowardly moniker of unnamed sources. Right now based on the information that is available in public these incendiary implications concerning Coach Wooden's program is only coming from bunch of cowardly hacks like Wetzel and TrojanPundit whose agenda only agenda in this case is not to offer impartial commentaries on what is going on with college athletics, but to sully the character of Coach Wooden, which is beyond reproach. These cowardly liars ought to be ashamed of themselves.