Among the things that I learned about myself from getting dragged on Twitter the past couple of days by the fans of a UVA Football alum: I’m “elderly.”
This was what one guy, who is on at least his second Twitter account – he links in his bio to a former Twitter handle, which was suspended, shocker there, right? – lobbed at me by way of trying to be insulting.
That I’m “elderly.”
Seriously?
Dude had to have something better than that.
Another one of these life winners, from a West Virginia area code, got my cell number and tried to call me four times at 1 a.m., you know, because that’s normal.
Same guy actually tried me at around 6 yesterday, but all he could manage to do was breathe heavily into the phone before hanging up.
This, apparently, is the best you can hope for when you try to incite a social media mob.
My mob was unleashed at me by a guy who also just happens to get a live mic and camera that puts his voice and visage on the big screen at UVA home football games.
Ahmad Hawkins, the hero of the 1998 comeback win at Virginia Tech, posted to his Twitter account earlier in the week about how I write “lies for clicks,” and something about “fake news.”
It was hard to tell at first what he was getting at, but the comments under the posts revealed that Hawkins seems to think that I made up a quote to attribute to UVA football coach Tony Elliott.
The backstory there: it starts with Elliott telling reporters after Virginia’s 36-35 loss to JMU on Saturday about the scene in the locker room during the weather delay that preceded the two-score Dukes fourth-quarter rally.
“That’s a challenging situation to manage because you don’t know how long it is. You’re trying to get the guys refueled and rested. You want them to stay locked in, so you’re trying to keep them off their phones and keep them focused,” was what Elliott said.
There’s video of Elliott saying this.
The transcript sent to reporters by the media-relations folks at UVA Athletics included this quote.
But, per Hawkins, and his legion of Twitterers, I made it up in a “lies for clicks” scheme.
Hours of dumb back and forth over this ensued, with Hawkins’ fan base taking their turns with me, me clapping back.
I woke up this morning to one of his fans, whose Twitter profile tells us is an attorney, suggesting that the way to resolve the matter would be for me to go on Hawkins’ podcast, which Hawkins endorsed.
My counter – we could hash things out on my podcast – is still out there without a response.
The box score from the last two days includes some rather depressing line stats.
I was threatened with physical violence twice. (By the guy who called me “elderly.” Same guy whose other account got suspended. Hard to figure why.)
Number of “insiders” who tried for years to plant stories through me who liked a post about me not having any actual inside sources: one.
(No, MikeySurf, just because I don’t do your bidding for you doesn’t mean I don’t have other supposed “insiders” – alums, coaches, donors, the rest, trying to get me to write what they want.)
The virulently anti-trans dude who jumped to Hawkins’ defense here needs to be mentioned.
Then there’s the TikTok marketing guy (with a dead business website) who called me the c-word.
The number of college basketball play-by-play guys who weighed in with a kick to the shins: one.
(The George Washington guy. I wish I was making that up.)
It strikes me as, I don’t know, funny, I guess, how many people, like the basketball play-by-play guy, the lawyer, numerous teachers, are willing to sign their actual names attached to profiles that detail what they do in their day jobs to the kind of nonsense that took up everybody’s time the past couple of days.
I do have to admit to feeling sorry for the poor schlub who actually got me on the phone yesterday, no doubt having thought out his zinger to the word, before totally bombing.
Note to the dude in West Virginia: that was me calling you back four times this morning, trying to give you another chance to give me holy hell.
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Chris Graham
