The College Sports Forum

Southern Cal formally complained that ABC-TV’s Brent Musberger revealed privileged information in his commentary during last Saturday’s game against Nebraska.

The complaint was sent to ESPN, which oversees sports programming on ABC, saying Musberger, with less than ten minutes to go in the game and the Trojans leading 21-10, began describing how John David Booty lets his recievers know he has spotted a certain kind of coverage.

The exact quote was:  “John David told us that his signal when he finds one-on-one and they’re coming, it’s that ‘hang loose; that familiar sign you’ve seen surfers use.”  USC considered the discussion private and background-only.

The information was learned by Musberger during pre-game interviews.  Musberger claims that USC was told that the information would be used during the game.  ESPN apologized and wrote the situation off as a misunderstanding.

I blame USC totally for this blunder.  They should know better than to tell the media anything.  If the media has something interesting, they are going to use it even if they said they wouldn’t.  Hopefully other teams will learn from this experience, and realize that you cannot tell the media anything that you want to keep secretive.