NC State Wolfpack: Fact Checking Russell Wilson
NC State Wolfpack former quarterback Russell Wilson’s speech in Wisconsin was not the most accurate account of his State experience in some respects.
It turns out there is more to former NC State Wolfpack quarterback Russell Wilson’s commencement address which suggest the former star is not the best at fact checking. This comes from an analysis done by Will Brinson of CBS Sports.
Wilson’s speech to Wisconsin graduates attracted attention first for its comments regarding former coach Tom O’Brien. Wilson revealed the extent to which O’Brien had committed to not bringing back the three year starter for his final year of football.
However that was not the entire speech which also included stories from Wilson’s baseball days at State with the general idea that there was lots of adversity for Wilson to overcome. Brinson noted that Wilson was not above twisting his memories to fit a narrative not entirely rooted in fact.
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Brinson noted that Wilson’s ‘nobody believes in me’ narrative didn’t make sense given comments made by coaches about the player. Marc Trestman was impressed as the first offensive coordinator that Wilson had during his redshirt year. Wilson’s story seems to fall more in the line of Bill Simmons’ world of ‘nobody believes in us’ or Michael Jordan’s history of remembering every slight, real or perceived.
As a result, Wilson may have been unduly harsh on his baseball coach Elliott Avent in his address. Avent is the one who got the Chuck Amato staff to look at Wilson. Brinson pointed out that Wilson’s speech included the myth that Wilson had been a big player on the baseball team his first two years and suddenly was benched as a junior.
Statistics show that Wilson had relatively few at bats his first two years and significantly more as a junior. Avent was and remains one of Wilson’s biggest advocates, not a guy who gave up on Wilson in any sort of way.
So it would seem that Wilson’s speech to Wisconsin graduates was more about the message and less about the messenger’s precise memory of things. Since I went all in on O’Brien yesterday, I wanted to make sure that I gave equal time to this other side.