I too read McDonough's column in the Globe today that slammed Walsh, and was
as annoyed as Mike M. was at McDonough's moronic comments.  However, I had a
different interpretation of why McDonough brought up the old-news Tory case.
 
McDonough had another, even more moronic comment about Walsh in his column
a few days earlier.  In fact his earlier comments were not just moronic,
but potentially libel material.  (I believe it was in the Saturday paper --
it was the one that praised local racquetball star Cliff Swain.)
In the earlier article he
slammed Maine, including Walsh, for the Tardif situation.  McDonough displayed
an almost total ignorance of the facts in the Tardif case and, unless there
was something in my Cheerios that morning, claimed that everyone INCLUDING
WALSH knew that Tardif was ineligible while playing.
 
First of all, the casual reader would very easily infer from the wording that
everyone in the Maine program knew about Tardif for his entire twenty-something
games that he was ineligible rather than the one weekend at
BU.  This is the difference between night and day.  Unfortunately the
average Joe out there may now consider Walsh a sleezebag comparable to the
worst football or hoop offenders.  Which is not fair.
 
But as if the ambiguous wording which (perhaps) inadvertantly smeared Walsh
were not bad enough, McDonough's claim that Walsh himself knowingly played
Tardif while he was ineligible was IMO libelous.  McDonough wrote a flat-out
falsehood and he *should* have known better.   (I'd rather not get into a
discussion of whether Walsh is a "public figure" that must go further to
prove libel.  This is not LAW-L.)
 
What I suspect happened, *and this is pure speculation*, is that someone
informed McDonough that what he wrote was flat-out wrong and that he could
have opened himself to legal problems.  As a result, McDonough took the
the-best-defense-is-a-good-offense approach and in today's paper brought up
the Tory case for which Walsh *does* bear *some* responsiblity.
 
So my interpretation is that McDonough has simply muddied the waters with the
old-news Tory facts to cover his earlier disregard for the facts and give the
sum of the two articles a higher factual percentage to dillute any legal
problems he may have opened himself to.  That may well be wrong, but it's the
first thing I thought of.
 
I considered writing an angry letter to the Globe, but I've decided that it'd
be like trying to fight city hall, so instead I'm gonna erase my anger with
a trip to the hospital to see my new niece who is now very healthy thank you,
despite getting the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck *six* times and
spending her first half day hooked up to more medical equipment than you can
shake a stick at.  Not even Will McDonough can take away this biggest of all
possible smiles.
 
*****************************************************        ,-******-,
* Dave Hendrickson "Robo" [log in to unmask] *     *'     ##     '*
*        A Hockey Polygamist and Get-A-Lifer        *   *##   ___##___   ##*
* GO BROONS!!!      Go Red Wings!!     Go LA Kings! *  *   ##|   ___  \##   *
* GO UMASS-LOWELL!!!    Go Maine!!           Go BU! * *      |  |___)  |     *
* --------------------------------------------------* *######|   ___  <######*
* Although I can't remember ever having an original * *      |  |___)  |     *
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* not Hewlett-Packard's.                            *     *,     ##     ,*
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