John Gustafson
No picture of this jabroni.
John Gustafson shared his ignorant insights in ESPN The Magazine. In the October 18, 1999 issue, he wrote a story called Bleeding Red. He takes shots at Nebraska football coach Frank Solich. Now, let's understand, I am not a Husker fan. Nebraska is the enemy. However, one should respect his enemy, and not believe falsehoods about him.
Gustafson's article tries to project Solich as a spineless coach afraid to make decisions and a coach who insists on calling all of the offensive plays, even though, according to the message Gustafson tries to get across, Solich is incompetent at calling plays.
Gustafson uses a wide variety of (cough, cough) reliable sources. He uses Nebraska people who hang out at a bar and he quotes DeAngelo Evans, the former Nebraska tailback who quit the team and who Solich refused to let re-join the team. This is the same Evans that claimed that the 9-4 Huskers of 1998 would have won the title if he had been healthy. After he was refused re-admittance on the team, he said that Solich would ruin the team, and then the Huskers went on to a 12-1 record. To those who followed the story locally, Evans came off as nothing short of a egotist with an overblown sense of self-worth, but that's just an opinion.
Why did Gustafson check into the Hotel? Because he had an axe to grind? No. He was checked in because he is a lazy reporter who didn't take the time to do his research. In the article he said about Evans "This was the guy who broke all of Barry Sanders' national high school records."
For starters, Barry Sanders does not hold the national records. Barry Sanders did not even win the Wichita City rushing title his senior year. He could have, but in the final game, he told the coach to let the younger guys play, since they had the game well-in-hand. As for Evans, he rushed for 8,473 yards. Impressive, yes, but far short of Ken Hall's 11,232 yards. Evans ranked 4th nationally. (To read more, click here).
Gustafson is the quintessential sportswriter. He makes up facts, uses questionable sources, and then tries to use this to influence the public. Many other mediots claimed that Evans broke Sanders' city records, but Gustafson took Sanders' mythical records to the national level. He writes for ESPN's magazine, a supposedly respectable source, but ESPN and ABC are both part of the Disney family, and neither have proven to be reliable, and this and the BCS is proof.
Because of Gustafson's foolishness and laziness, he has earned a room in the Hotel of Fools and his room has a nice view of jabroniville.
