Pflugerville Ag
10-12-2007, 09:48 AM
I think its pretty obvious that this guy does not like Fran. I think he is one of the best Aggie beat writers of any Texas paper in a long time. He makes his opinion of MM well known as well.
I read the email that he references in this article yesterday. So, he not only broke the story about the newsletter, but also has MM lying about him to boosters.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/big12/stories/MYSA101207.WEB.AggiesMailbag.en.160c23233.html
That wasn’t as bad as what happened to his handler, Mike McKenzie, who concocted the harebrained scheme to sell injury and personnel information in Franchione’s name at the public university.
An angry athletic director Bill Byrne – and you should’ve seen the look in Byrne’s eyes on Thursday – has fired McKenzie, and rightly so.
Franchione was lucky he wasn’t already in line with his publicist (a lot of Aggies never quite figured out why he needed a publicist), but, barring a Big 12 South title, he will be at season’s end. And based on Franchione’s breaches of his contract, a relieved Byrne will be relieved of a multi-million dollar buyout.
But back to McKenzie, who brags that he won a Pulitzer Prize. Not quite. The staff he worked on at the time, the Kansas City Star, won a Pulitzer. There’s a slight difference – and, for some reason, his name doesn’t show up on Pulitzer.org.
He also has often referenced his time at Sports Illustrated before he latched on – or is that leeched on – to Franchione when the coach was at TCU.
Not quite. McKenzie, who also worked for Byrne in the athletic department, was never a staff writer at SI. He was a correspondent – a stringer. Somewhere along the way, Franchione bought into McKenzie’s line of bull, and along the way the writer penned the coach’s to-be-published biography.
“Coach Fran: The Mission … The Method … The Man.”
The rest, as they say, is history. Just like McKenzie, who’s got Franchione in a mess that he won’t be able to escape – at least not in College Station.
Shoot, I was pleased as punch on Thursday to see that I had made the VIP Connection, which Byrne, good for him, demanded be released in its entirety to the public. You’ve got to be special to make the VIP, right?
The following Tuesday after A&M’s victory over Montana State, I asked Franchione about the Aggies’ vertical passing game.
But let’s let McKenzie, in the VIP Connection, take it from here (In an aside, he spelled my name wrong, and got the name of the paper wrong. I’d expect more from a Pulitzer winner):
“The best exchange was when Brent Zwernemann from S-A News-Express asked Fran if he was concerned about the vertical passing game. The head coach replied, ‘Now just what is a vertical passing game to you?’ Z didn’t have a response, of course, so the head coach helped him out.”
First, S-A News-Express? What is that, my mystery competition? Second, I did respond.
I told Franchione that apparently it takes his running back (Mike Goodson) and backup quarterback (Jerrod Johnson) to get it going, since those were two of the guys the coaches cited as being a part of their vertical passing game in the opener.
But I guess that wouldn’t have made as good a tall tale in the VIP Connection, when Franchione apparently was puffing out his chest (at least in the eyes of his beholder) for the Xs and Os-challenged sportswriters.
I read the email that he references in this article yesterday. So, he not only broke the story about the newsletter, but also has MM lying about him to boosters.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/big12/stories/MYSA101207.WEB.AggiesMailbag.en.160c23233.html
That wasn’t as bad as what happened to his handler, Mike McKenzie, who concocted the harebrained scheme to sell injury and personnel information in Franchione’s name at the public university.
An angry athletic director Bill Byrne – and you should’ve seen the look in Byrne’s eyes on Thursday – has fired McKenzie, and rightly so.
Franchione was lucky he wasn’t already in line with his publicist (a lot of Aggies never quite figured out why he needed a publicist), but, barring a Big 12 South title, he will be at season’s end. And based on Franchione’s breaches of his contract, a relieved Byrne will be relieved of a multi-million dollar buyout.
But back to McKenzie, who brags that he won a Pulitzer Prize. Not quite. The staff he worked on at the time, the Kansas City Star, won a Pulitzer. There’s a slight difference – and, for some reason, his name doesn’t show up on Pulitzer.org.
He also has often referenced his time at Sports Illustrated before he latched on – or is that leeched on – to Franchione when the coach was at TCU.
Not quite. McKenzie, who also worked for Byrne in the athletic department, was never a staff writer at SI. He was a correspondent – a stringer. Somewhere along the way, Franchione bought into McKenzie’s line of bull, and along the way the writer penned the coach’s to-be-published biography.
“Coach Fran: The Mission … The Method … The Man.”
The rest, as they say, is history. Just like McKenzie, who’s got Franchione in a mess that he won’t be able to escape – at least not in College Station.
Shoot, I was pleased as punch on Thursday to see that I had made the VIP Connection, which Byrne, good for him, demanded be released in its entirety to the public. You’ve got to be special to make the VIP, right?
The following Tuesday after A&M’s victory over Montana State, I asked Franchione about the Aggies’ vertical passing game.
But let’s let McKenzie, in the VIP Connection, take it from here (In an aside, he spelled my name wrong, and got the name of the paper wrong. I’d expect more from a Pulitzer winner):
“The best exchange was when Brent Zwernemann from S-A News-Express asked Fran if he was concerned about the vertical passing game. The head coach replied, ‘Now just what is a vertical passing game to you?’ Z didn’t have a response, of course, so the head coach helped him out.”
First, S-A News-Express? What is that, my mystery competition? Second, I did respond.
I told Franchione that apparently it takes his running back (Mike Goodson) and backup quarterback (Jerrod Johnson) to get it going, since those were two of the guys the coaches cited as being a part of their vertical passing game in the opener.
But I guess that wouldn’t have made as good a tall tale in the VIP Connection, when Franchione apparently was puffing out his chest (at least in the eyes of his beholder) for the Xs and Os-challenged sportswriters.