Monday Roundup: The Hit Piece On Ben Howland

It’s Final Four week and so its the season for UCLA basketball. We want to keep the focus on that. And we will. We have to interrupt our programming though to bring you something of note. If you haven’t heard about the ugly hit piece on Ben Howland by Dennis Dodd of CBSSportsline.com you have to give it a read. It’s unbelievable how a national sports journalist can turn what appears to be a personal vendetta against a college basketball coach into a front page article and pass it off as fact. Two flashpoints appear in his article. First, he calls BH “an a–hole” in the very opening sentence. Second, he writes that BH treats his players “like dogs” later in the piece as if it were fact.

We can write pages on what is wrong with those two statements right there, let alone all the transgressions Dodd makes in his piece. But BH an “a–hole”?! That’s just going too far and requires a response. If you haven’t already, please email this sob and let him know that such attacks are completely out of line and uncalled for. But should you wonder what Dodd was thinking and why he wrote what he wrote, he appeared on Roggin & Simers AM 570 show this morning to explain himself to Bruin Nation. You have to listen to the interview (bottom column on the right) to believe it. What a mealy-mouthed, backpeddling, contradictory, lying sack of shite.

He contradicted himself so many times we lost count. He first appeared to downplay the whole thing as if he was shocked that calling anyone an a–hole, including a public official of a renown public university reaching the peak of his profession, was old hat. THEN he says it was sort of tongue-in-cheek. It was meant to be humorous. When Simers called him on that load of crap, bringing up the fact that he put it in the first sentence and the tone was anything but tongue-in-cheek, he flip-flops again and says BH was being a jerk. Well, which is it Dodd??!! Which explanation are we to believe?

Simers then tries to pin him down on the comment he made about BH treating his players “like dogs.” Did Dodd actually witness that?? Did he have any evidence?? Did he do any research?? No, No and No. Then why write it? “Because I hear things.” Wait, didn’t you just say you didn’t have any knowledge of it?? Mumbling, mumbling, mumbling. And on and on. No evidence, no explanation, nothing but contradictions and equivocations.

To be frank, Dodd sounded like he was on medication … seriously, like he had a mood disorder. He sounded despondent. Either that or he was taking the blowback from his hit piece really hard and was just trying to make excuses. But it was a pack of lies. He couldn’t get his story straight, his interview was a mess. Listen to it and you will wonder how journalists can get away with this.

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