MSU Beat Writers...

[Faustdog]

Hadad's interview with Horka got me thinking about the great beat writers who have covered MSU sports. There have been some really good ones, and a couple of awful ones.

Since MSU sports is basically in a dead period now until portal season and then baseball, I thought I would rank them based on my personal preference alone. Rusty Hampton did a heck of a job evaluating talent.

Sekou Smith - RIP, the goat

Ian Rappaport - also somehow the goat

Ross Dellinger (don’t believe he covered MSU exclusively, but did cover MSU)

Kyle Veazey

John Talty - got sucked into the Freezus hype, but redeemed himself

Rick Cleveland

Courtney Cronin

Michael Bonner - meh

Brandon Marcello - meh and a really high opinion of himself

Hugh Kellenburger - the ultimate Reb apologist

Tyler Horka (no redeeming qualities)

I'm sure I missed some, including whoever is doing it now. Feel free to add.

 

[John Deaux VII]

Sekou was great and Veazy did a good job.
Talty was and remains a massive tool.

 

[Dawg Raid]

Horka is at the bottom for his CWS crap

 

[vhdawg]

Kyle Veazey

Kyle's a really good dude. I met him probably at an MSU summer extravaganza and became friendly with him. He was emailing me or texting me the day Ron Polk went ballistic over Cohen being hired over Tommy Raffo and couldn't believe what he was hearing.

I think the last time I saw him was after the 2011 Music City Bowl at the hotel bar in Nashville with Brandon Marcello (who is also a good dude in person). When he got out of the newspaper business he went to work for a mayor of Memphis and now works for St. Jude as chief of staff of the fundraising division.

When my dad died five years ago, completely out of the blue one day I got a handwritten sympathy card in the mail from him. I have no idea how he knew my dad had passed or how he got my address, but I was incredibly touched by his thoughtfulness.

I have a school friend whose son is a St Jude miracle story, and he called me in the past year or so from some St Jude golf tournament and was paired up with Kyle and I got to chat with him for a few minutes.

Just the nicest guy imaginable.

 

[The Peeper]

Sekou was great and Veazy did a good job.
Talty was and remains a massive tool.

I totally agree but would show a big tie between Talty, Kellenburger, and Bonner at the bottom of the list.

 

[FreeDawg]

Talty was cool. He kinda had a relationship with a OM super fan that might have clouded some things for a bit but that worked its way out pretty quickly. Hugh Kellenburger was awful. Courtney Cronin was terrible. I always thought it was incredibly weird how she latched on to Malik Newman's recruitment to get career exposure. She seemed like a cleat/hype chaser.

 

[dawgstudent]

Talty was cool. He kinda had a relationship with a OM super fan that might have clouded some things for a bit but that worked its way out pretty quickly. Hugh Kellenburger was awful. Courtney Cronin was terrible. I always thought it was incredibly weird how she latched on to Malik Newman's recruitment to get career exposure. She seemed like a cleat/hype chaser.

I disagree about Cronin. She's obviously talented for as high up as she is at ESPN.

 

[MSUDC11-2.0]

I liked Will Sammon a lot. He’s now a senior writer for the Athletic covering MLB.

When I met Dellenger he was actually the Jackson State beat writer for the CL. His career started to take off not long after that.

I know people have soured on this guy some in recent years but I thought Gregg Ellis did a really good job covering us for the Daily Journal in the Croom era. Obviously ended up getting hired to be our basketball SID, but thought he was a very good writer.

 

[Drebin]

I miss Killaburger because the jokes wrote themselves.

 

[thedoubledeuce]

Hadad's interview with Horka got me thinking about the great beat writers who have covered MSU sports. There have been some really good ones, and a couple of awful ones.

Since MSU sports is basically in a dead period now until portal season and then baseball, I thought I would rank them based on my personal preference alone. Rusty Hampton did a heck of a job evaluating talent.

Sekou Smith - RIP, the goat

Ian Rappaport - also somehow the goat

Ross Dellinger (don’t believe he covered MSU exclusively, but did cover MSU)

Kyle Veazey

John Talty - got sucked into the Freezus hype, but redeemed himself

Rick Cleveland

Courtney Cronin

Michael Bonner - meh

Brandon Marcello - meh and a really high opinion of himself

Hugh Kellenburger - the ultimate Reb apologist

Tyler Horka (no redeeming qualities)

I'm sure I missed some, including whoever is doing it now. Feel free to add.

Would be nice to see the years they served. Do the ones up top coincide with the good years of MSU sports?

 

[FreeDawg]

I disagree about Cronin. She's obviously talented for as high up as she is at ESPN.

I think ESPN made a huge push the last 10-15 years to get as many women involved as they could and many of them are not near as talented as their ascensions would suggest. If you’re cute and can kinda talk the language, you get elevated quickly. She’s done a great job of promoting herself and taking advantage of opportunities, but I’m not personally a big fan of her commentary.

 

[vhdawg]

Talty was cool. He kinda had a relationship with a OM super fan that might have clouded some things for a bit but that worked its way out pretty quickly. Hugh Kellenburger was awful. Courtney Cronin was terrible. I always thought it was incredibly weird how she latched on to Malik Newman's recruitment to get career exposure. She seemed like a cleat/hype chaser.

Yeah, Talty is cool too. I've only met him twice. The first time was when he was a broke green CL recruiting writer and he sent out a distress signal on Twitter in need of his car being jumped off, and I happened to see it and was close. Second time was a month ago when his Kiffin book came out and I went to his signing at Lemuria. He recognized me right away, well over a decade later, told his fiance the story, and said I had wondered if you'd be here. He's done really well in his career.

 

[dawgman42]

MSU's own Donald Dodd was one of the worst beat writers we ever had (back in the mid-90's before he left to go to the Atlanta Journal Constitution). I got into an almost "meet me at South Farm" email exchange with him in '95.

 

[FreeDawg]

Yeah, Talty is cool too. I've only met him twice. The first time was when he was a broke green CL recruiting writer and he sent out a distress signal on Twitter in need of his car being jumped off, and I happened to see it and was close. Second time was a month ago when his Kiffin book came out and I went to his signing at Lemuria. He recognized me right away, well over a decade later, told his fiance the story, and said I had wondered if you'd be here. He's done really well in his career.

I want to read his book. He’s a talented writer

 

[Lucky Dawg]

Was Kellenberger the cheap, lying, no good , rotten, four flushing lowlife MFer who wrote the “almost interception” hit piece on Dak?

 

[Drebin]

Was Kellenberger the cheap, lying, no good , rotten, four flushing lowlife MFer who wrote the “almost interception” hit piece on Dak?

 

[vhdawg]

I want to read his book. He’s a talented writer

It's very good. Very fair, too, and not sordid.

 

[vhdawg]

Was Kellenberger the cheap, lying, no good , rotten, four flushing lowlife MFer who wrote the “almost interception” hit piece on Dak?

There was an episode of the old Bulldog Sports Radio Brandon Walker show where he went off on Kellenberger for 30 straight minutes and I listened to it three times. I hate none of that stuff still exists.

 

[Willow Grove Dawg]

Cronin never was a MSU/UM beat writer for the CL though, she mainly covered high school sports. She has worked her butt off & made herself a success.

David Brandt from the CL is now with the Associated Press covering NFL, MLB, NBA, & NHL in Phoenix.

Riley Blevins covered Ole Miss during the early stages of the Hugh Freeze investigation for the CL and got his *** exiled to Siberia for mentioning it because they were trying to keep it quiet.

I absolutely loathed Rusty Hampton & Todd Kelly. They looked for opportunities to write MSU hit pieces. My wife worked with Rusty's wife (now ex I think) back in the 90's.

How ya'll forget MacKenzie Salmon? She is national writer with USA Today and has huge social media followings since she is HOT.

 

[DAWGSANDSAINTS]

I know Rusty Hampton was more ole miss back in the day. Billy Watkins wrote a bunch of articles but I may have been too young to know if he was being negative about State or just doing his job of covering.
I think Rick Cleveland was and still is very fair and unbiased even though he’s now longer with a newspaper.
Sekou Smith was very good as someone mentioned and I never had an issue with what Donald Dodd wrote.

 

[Faustdog]

Yeah, I'd put Todd Kelly toward the bottom, but certainly not lower than Horka and Kellenberger.

 

[Fighting Irish.sixpack]

I disagree about Cronin. She's obviously talented for as high up as she is at ESPN.

Cronin was the one who over hyped Malik Newman as the next LeBron James.

 

[dawgstudent]

Cronin was the one who over hyped Malik Newman as the next LeBron James.

He was the #1 shooting guard in the nation.

 

[Bobby Ricigliano]

Horka is at the bottom for his CWS crap

What’d he do?

 

[GiantInternetAsshole]

Hadad's interview with Horka got me thinking about the great beat writers who have covered MSU sports. There have been some really good ones, and a couple of awful ones.

Since MSU sports is basically in a dead period now until portal season and then baseball, I thought I would rank them based on my personal preference alone. Rusty Hampton did a heck of a job evaluating talent.

Sekou Smith - RIP, the goat

Ian Rappaport - also somehow the goat

Ross Dellinger (don’t believe he covered MSU exclusively, but did cover MSU)

Kyle Veazey

John Talty - got sucked into the Freezus hype, but redeemed himself

Rick Cleveland

Courtney Cronin

Michael Bonner - meh

Brandon Marcello - meh and a really high opinion of himself

Hugh Kellenburger - the ultimate Reb apologist

Tyler Horka (no redeeming qualities)

I'm sure I missed some, including whoever is doing it now. Feel free to add.

Brandon Walker hasn’t done too bad

 

[Puppychow]

David Murray has been covering MSU since reconstruction.

 

[uptowndawg]

Kellenburger, Talty and Horka all did a really great job acting in Superbad

 

[Maroon90]

Ian Rappaport covered Croom's first 2 or so seasons--and somehow made interesting writing out of that!

 

[Drebin]

If this were a lookalike thread...

 

[RBcoach]

I honestly think Cronin spent a few nights at Malik's house.

 

[MSUDC11-2.0]

If this were a lookalike thread...

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I met Kellenberger in person once and yes he is 100% as weird in person as he seemed on the internet.

 

[RiceDawg]

whole lotta meh the last few years

 

[Felonious Junk]

The way Horka went through Baker Mayfield’s old tweets when he was the OU QB exposed him to be the petty douchebag that he truly is.

 

[CochiseCowbell]

There was an episode of the old Bulldog Sports Radio Brandon Walker show where he went off on Kellenberger for 30 straight minutes and I listened to it three times. I hate none of that stuff still exists.

I'll add Haddad's rant on the "Toxic" Rivalry to this list as well.