Investigative Sports Journalism Buried At ESPN.com: Secret to SEC's Football Success Uncovered

I want to preface this by stating that I really struggled on whether to post this entry.  The colors of TNS like to think of this special webspace as a safe place to visit for competition, pageantry, and the occasional worship/mockery of Deion Sanders.  We have yet to really use it as a political stump, mostly in attempt to keep the mystery of our true color(s) identity intact.

We are, however, sports enthusiasts (we like sports) and fans with allegiances.  And as such a partisan, I could not help but scoff at ESPN.com yet again.  Whether it's letting YAHOO! Sports break all of very true allegations about ESPN LA's darling USC, or burying NCAA banned substance usage as the third fourth link on the offseason espn.go.com/college-football webpage, ESPN never ceases to amaze.

I want to make one point very clear: I do not think that some guy convincing a bunch of people to buy a spray that will help them grow deer antlers is newsworthy, nor do I think it realistically gave LSU or Alabama advantages over opponents.  The main thesis of this post, however, is three-fold:

1. It is being reported the nearly 25% of the Alabama players purchased and used a substance banned by the NCAA at the hotel of which they were staying awaiting the National Championship Game

2. After approximately 18 hours of this story breaking, it has found its way off of the ESPN.com homepage.  Exactly where the Ray Lewis story, documenting similar antler growing attempts, sat for 2 days

3. Were this any conference other than the SEC (the only schools that have been named so far)*, I have a hard time believing it would not be more readily available through ESPN's online content.

Thoughts?

To Read More on This Story, Please Navigate to:

-ESPN.com
-Click on Fifth Sport Tab in the menu bar, "NCAAF"
-Look in the news links on the right column
-Fourth link from the top, "Deer-antler seller saw Bama players use it"

Or Just CLICK HERE


*Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss are all implicated in the ESPN article.