BOL Round Table

I am relatively new to this board. Is this type of thing typical? I mean both the premptive statement, and the tone used.

Lucky - are we not all adults? Do we not all PAY to have an association on this board? The tone - and maybe I read it wrong - seems very much like you are talking down to the very people who through their time & finances have helped make BOL great.

I'm a big boy. If I dont like something someone posts then I can choose to respond in an educated manner or ignore them. I dont need a "baby sitter" and I doubt many other posters appreciate the assumption that they do.

Unfortunately, Lucky's pre-emptive strike was entirely necessary.

Down vote? Really? Wow. Ok. Re-read my post. Still can't find something worth a down vote.

Lucky isn't singling any one person out, but making a general statement that people need to keep their wits about them when/if JW goes to the Noles. If you were board when Calloway flipped to AU, or when Cyrus announced for AU initially, you would understand the necessity of saying such a thing.

^^^THIS^^^ and please no one post on his FB or blast JW on Twitter.

(edit: boy, I'm in a mood today. I stand behind all the points below, but not the general bitchiness of the post. Sorry for that.)

BeastlyTide: Are you relatively new to ALL internet message boards? Surely, you don't think "many other posters" on an anonymous Alabama recruiting site will respond with the same calm reserve and quiet dignity if (when?) a high-profile recruit selects a different school? I appreciate your point, your grown-up perspective, and -- to a certain extent -- your naivete, but I don't think it's appropriate or fair for you to take some kind of offense at your reading of Lucky's "tone."

(Here begins a rant.) I hope I'm talking about the exception(s) and not the rule, but I'm pretty sure you can click around these threads right now and find posters, united in fandom, calling one another out like unsupervised, undereducated children. Imagine how easy some of these posters most find it to turn that anonymous (and often race-biased) aggression towards a target who lacks the facilities to respond. Except, critically, that target is a young man under tremendous pressure and media scrutiny, with as easy access to this board as anyone who's worked 80-something minutes for federal minimum wage.

Oh, wait, you don't have to imagine it. All you have to do is look at the entire history of this site, the other site, the OTHER other site, and all other sites regarding recruiting to see how lunchmeat-stinking troglodytes attack athletes who deign to go to another school. It's sad, it's embarrassing, it's data for your sociography thesis... and, most importantly, it's consistent.

To your question: no, the preemptive statement doesn't seem typical in content or tone. I think that probably makes clear that "we" are not all adults, since one of the guys who has to read all of the things "we" post (and who has ALWAYS been professional, courteous, engaging, and unfailingly supportive of his clientele) made such an atypical statement. That's just calmly encouraging the kind of behavior you purport to practice; if you don't need a baby sitter, then shelve your infantile egocentricity, put your man pants on, and thank Lucky for telling the unfortunate goons soliciting these boards to NOT INSULT A KID IF HE DOESN'T DO WHAT THEY WANT. (Rant over. Fist bump. Roll tide.)

Thank you, Lucky, for maintaining a quality site; thank you, fellow 'Bama fans who strive to be better than all other fans, in all other ways.

No worries. Though it seems unlikely, it's a fact that not everyone on earth has a message board account and spends as much time as some of us here spend discussing things with anonymous strangers about topics of interest.

You seem like a classy, level headed dude, so welcome aboard and I'm glad you're here!