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Edgar C. Jones

Uploaded the photo yesterday, so I went ahead and created Edgar C. Jones today. Hopefully, you have some additional print works that can help flesh it out. Cbl62 (talk) 21:48, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

See also Tootie Perry, another photo upload inspiring an article. Cbl62 (talk) 04:35, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I see that. Nice work on finding the mainstream newspaper articles to support his notability. I had made a cursory search several years ago, and quickly concluded that there was not enough significant coverage in independent sources to support a stand-alone article. Well done proving me wrong. BTW, Tootie was a first-team All-Southern Conference selection at least once. I'll find a linked newspaper article, and layer it in when I get a chance. Tootie was an icon of Gators football from the 1920s through the 1940s. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:40, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Thank you, sir. Tootie was apparently a hell of an athlete in his generation, but became something of a cartoon character as the "All-American waterboy." Newspapers.com and Google News Archive search results are always somewhat random. Like I've said before, sometimes the obvious keyword search is not the one that produces the desired results, and it requires multiple search variations before you can find what you're looking for. I'll dig some more tomorrow. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:56, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Wow. You've been a busy beaver. Dupree has been on my to-do list forever; there's plenty of good material I can add from several hard-copy sources. His exploits were well chronicled, as he had three good years on good Gators teams. Bethea is a little murkier, and will require a little more homework.

Alex Obomese

I am tempted to seek deletion of this one. It is a blatant copy vio that I tried to ameliorate years ago, but a user has reverted to blatant copy vio. Thoughts? Cbl62 (talk) 23:29, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

  • @Cbl62: A Google News Archive key word search yields zero articles; Newspapers.com produces two, both fine-print sports transactions columns when he was released by the Cowboys. A Google key word search produces 262 results, but a quick survey seems to show a random collection of Wikipedia mirror articles, blogs, stats sites, non-independent sources and other trivial to routine mentions. It's certainly nothing I would fight to save. Given that there have been no edits since last year, I might try PROD'ing it. If you want to take it to AfD, I'll go through the Google search for you and make sure there's no real significant coverage buried amongst the garbage. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:46, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
The copyvio piece adds to the problem. I haven't found any significant coverage, and you don't either, I'll put an AfD on my "to do" list for the next week. Cbl62 (talk) 23:48, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
One part from the UTEP site, another part from a scout 2006 season preview. Both copied verbatim, removed previously, and re-inserted. Cbl62 (talk) 00:04, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Coaching tenures in infoboxes

All I can say is you have got to be kidding me. Navboxes have always been part of the eight-digit discussion. There are thousands of pieces of consensus on this in the form of basketball and football navboxes. It literally turns my stomach to read you pushing this. Rikster2 (talk) 01:16, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

  • Rik, I'm not "pushing" anything. If I were, I probably would not be rationally discussing the history with you on your talk page. I think you know me better than that. I have always advocated consistency in formatting, and I don't usually engage in arbitrary changes. BTW, let's keep this discussion in one place. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:31, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Murphy

Hey, check the edit i made... I undid your edit BUT put the thing back on you asked... Kante4 (talk) 15:41, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Did you see it? So your revert was wrong. Kante4 (talk) 15:51, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
No image so there is no reason for caption/alt in my opinion. But why not just reinsert them? Kante4 (talk) 15:56, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

RE:Individual tennis player season articles

Of course feel free to jump in. I followed WP:Notability(Sports) talk page for a couple of days but the comment activity faded out quite quickly and with the sudden turn of events in tennis I felt it necessary to not let this topic drown the same way at WP:TENNIS. I'd really like to see a somewhat status quo one GS/given year criteria come to life if we'll be unable to elaborate anything better. Lajbi Holla @ me • CP 17:26, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

  • Your thinking is similar to my own: I believe that a good WP:Tennis rule of thumb would be no individual season/year article for a given player unless the player won at least one Grand Slam event during the specific individual season/year for which an article is to be created. I have little doubt that such a standard would track WP:GNG in the overwhelming majority of cases, thus avoiding any future WP:Tennis-vs.-the-World AfD dust-ups. My goal in all of this has never been to pick on WP:Tennis, but to ensure that single-season articles for individual athletes do not become a new de facto norm for all of the sports WikiProjects. In all events, the existing WP:Tennis standard (one Grand Slam win entitles the individual player for single-season articles covering the player's entire career) is way, way overbroad and is completely divorced from the notability guidelines. Please let me know your thoughts, and I will do what I can to promote a rational outcome. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:38, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Cricket single season articles for players

I don't get involved with sports article much, but I did notice that you were involved in a discussion about single-season articles. I wasn't sure if you were aware of articles such as Donald Bradman with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948, which is a featured article. If you look through the FA sports bios you'll see others. I don't have a strong opinion on this either way (though for tennis I think the idea of a player getting a season article when they win a major seems like a good compromise); I just thought you might want to be aware of these other examples of the form. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:15, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

  • @Mike Christie: Thanks for alerting me to the existence of these articles, Mike. My position in dealing with the WikiProject Tennis folks is that single-season articles for individual athletes (a) should be few and far between, (b) should only be created for truly extraordinary years/seasons of individual achievement, and (c) the year or season itself should clearly satisfy the general notability guidelines. As an American raised on baseball, I must confess I've never learned to appreciate the subtleties of cricket (the outdoors version, not the pub version) despite a year of university in England where my classmates did their best to indoctrinate me. That having been said, the several single-season articles for cricketeers would appear to more than satisfy GNG and my suggested caveats for inclusion. The WP:Tennis folks had adopted an internal WikiProject "guideline" that permitted the creation of single-season articles for every year/season of the entire career of any tennis player who had ever won a Grand Slam event. Clearly, that standard is not going to track a GNG analysis for most seasons/years of a given tennis player's career, even for a player who has won several major events. Several of the WP:Tennis members understood my point, while several others did not or thought it irrelevant. After the 2013 Maria Sharapova season article got deleted at AfD recently, they are trying to thrash through a new internal standard for single-season articles. I am watching their discussion, contributing from the sidelines without trying to badger them or dominate the discussion, and give them a little space to see if they can come up with something workable on their own.
As for the bigger picture, I am contemplating submitting a new single-season specific notability guideline at the WP:NSPORTS talk page in the future. If you come across any other articles outside of cricket and tennis which you feel are relevant to such a discussion, please ping me. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:35, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
I agree that the cricket FAs seem fine in terms of notability. I do think a single-season specific notability guideline would be a good thing, and I'm glad to hear you're considering submitting a draft. I'll definitely let you know if I run into more of this sort of thing. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:47, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Florida DYK nom

Dirtlawyer and @MisterCake: I have nominated seven of our recent Florida Hall of Fame articles for DYK at Template:Did you know nominations/Tootie Perry. I have shared DYK credit as appeared appropriate. I did not include Ark Newton, as it is not long or developed enough. If there are any other newly-created articles that could be included in this hook, or if you believe the hook needs to be modified, please let me know. Cbl62 (talk) 21:32, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Regarding Cy Williams (American football), not seeing any matching miltary records. He would have been 38 on Pearl Harbor day, so he may not have served. The 1940 U.S. Census includes an entry for a "Burton" Williams living in Tampa, FL, in 1940 (Oakland, CA in 1935), born in Alabama, age 36, employed as a wrestler, married with a wife named Margaret. He appears to have then moved back to the Bay Area, as California death records have a "Berton C Williams" born 12 Oct 1903 in Alabama, died 28 Sep 1965 in Alameda County. There is also a fairly well-developed family tree on Ancestry that shows his parents as Benjamin Collis Williams (1871 – 1913) and Maria Prescott. There is also a member-uploaded photograph of him from the late 1940s or 1950s. Cbl62 (talk) 21:52, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
I start getting nervous when I see multiple data points for the same parameters: NFL.com has the birth date as October 10; Pro-Football-Reference.com has the first name spelled "Berton"; IMdB.com (never one of my favorites for reliability) has the year of death as 1975; the Florida football media guide and other Gators sources mention "Cy Williams," but the media guide lists a "Buton William" having lettered in 1923, '24 and '25. Then add to the mix the much more famous "Cy Williams" of MLB, and you have to sift through a lot of irrelevant newspaper articles to find anything about the subject.
Does the Ancestry.com family tree connect Cy to the Burton C. Williams (born c. 1943, Florida '65) who lives (was living) in the Florida Panhandle (last known address in Carabelle)? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:02, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
No. The tree that is on-line does not reflect any children for the Burton C. Williams born in 1903 in Alabama. However, this may simply be due to lack of completeness. Cbl62 (talk) 22:17, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Expanded Ark Newton a bit. Cake (talk) 05:50, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
MC, you're finding some good newspaper articles about Ark from the 1920s with Google News Archives searches. Good work. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 11:31, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Callie Rivers

Hey DL, Callie Rivers was created a bit ago. I'm not sure if she's notable (don't care really), I just figured I'd alert you since a UF athlete would be in your wheelhouse. Cheers! Jrcla2 (talk) 20:29, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

  • @Jrcla2: Thanks, Jrcla, but it looks like a missed my chance: it was already deleted by the time I could check on the article. Apparently, the article was a re-creation by a banned user, and it got whacked as a G5 speedy. FYI, Callie is Doc Rivers' daughter. She was a first-team All-SEC and an honorable mention All-American on a top-10 Gators team as a senior in 2010, but given the relative lack of media attention the volleyballers receive outside of The Gainesville Sun, that's probably not enough to get her over the GNG hump. The best coverage of Callie looks to be on the GatorZone website and the Sun. If I'm not mistaken, there's only one article about a Gator volleyball player, and that was created because she's on the Puerto Rican "national" team.
It's not really fair to some great athletes, but that's the way the "significant coverage" cookie crumbles. I generally won't create an article unless I'm 95%+ confident that it would survive a GNG analysis at AfD -- I was even a little iffy on the Dan Cross article until I reviewed the coverage and got my memory refreshed as to what a big deal he was in 1994. I might push the envelope a little for a volleyball player who was an AVCA first-team All-American and a UF Hall-of-Famer, but otherwise I'm going to rely on GNG. FYI, if you ever come across something interesting about a UF Hall-of-Famer who doesn't have a stand-alone article, I can probably incorporate it into the List of University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame members. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:21, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Ok gotcha. Yeah there's a reason why college football and men's basketball players are 98% of the college athlete articles on Wikipedia - they have the fan bases and the coverage. Not fair to Callie Rivers, but hey, GNG is what it is. I'll let you know if I stumble upon any UF stuff. Jrcla2 (talk) 23:01, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

That IP user

Hello, I happened to see your concern about the IP user who has been taking the country flag icons away. The other day, I saw an IP user doing the exact same thing, so I left a message on their IP user talk page, for what that's worth. -- (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:173.48.43.111) -- I see that the IP user today has a different IP address than the one from a few days ago, but, perhaps it is the same person? Hopefully the situation will be resolved soon, as we put in a lot of effort to make these pages look good, and we don't need the flags taken down. Thanks for expressing concern. Johnsmith2116 (talk) 19:00, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Dirtlawyer1. You have new messages at Rikster2's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Rikster2 (talk) 01:47, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

"Problems with concussions in high school athletes"

Thanks for thinking of me, but this is not really a topic that is of interest to me. Cbl62 (talk) 15:51, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Still sort of on a break

I'm not nearly as active as I was before. But I guess I've been creeping back... Zagalejo^^^ 00:52, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks!

Always nice to see someone willing to step up and really dig into an article to improve it when it's brought to AfD. Much appreciated. Cheers, --j⚛e deckertalk 18:48, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

  • Well, Joe, this was a subject about which I knew a little something. I'm a three-time University of Florida grad, and our Florida Gators women's gymnastics team is one of the two big rival programs of the Alabama gymnastics program (Georgia being the other). I work on a lot of different college sports articles, but of course I know the Southeastern Conference best. When I saw the Dana Duckworth article on the AfD list, and knew the subject was clearly notable, I figured I better do something about it because it was likely no one else would -- never a shortage of editors who want to work on SEC football articles, but try getting some of these guys to work on an article about NCAA gymnastics championships by the same SEC schools! Anyway, now that the Duckworth article is in pretty good shape, I need to spend some time with the article for the Gators' coach, Rhonda Faehn. The Faehn article is still a mess, and her team just won consecutive NCAA championships in 2013 and 2014. Cheers, Joe. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:58, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Florida Gators gymnastics

Hi,

Thank you for this opportunity, it sounds brilliant. Yes, I would love to help with these articles, please tell me what I would be required to add. Theworldgymnast1 (talk) 17:54, 23 September 2014‎ (UTC)

1. new article to be created for Valorie Kondos Field, UCLA Bruins women's gymnastics head coach for 25 years, four NCAA national championships;
2. Suzanne Yoculan article to be expanded and improved, 26-year head coach for Georgia Gym Dogs, 10 NCAA national championships;
3. Sarah Patterson article to be expanded and improved, 36-year head coach for Alabama Crimson Tide gymnastics, six NCAA national championships;
4. Rhonda Faehn article to be expanded and improved, 11-year head coach for Florida Gators women's gymnastics, two NCAA national championships;
5. Greg Marsden article to be expanded and improved, 38-year head coach for Utah Red Rocks (Utah Utes gymnastics), one AIAW and nine NCAA national championships;
6. D-D Breaux article to be expanded and improved, 36-year head coach for LSU Lady Tigers gymnastics, perennial NCAA national contender;
7. Possible second new article to be created for Danna Durante, third-year head coach for Georgia Gym Dogs (article to be created only after thorough notability check);
8. All of the existing articles should include a completed "Template:Infobox college coach";
9. All existing articles should include a completed "Template:Persondata";
10. Review of categories included in all existing articles for consistency; and
11. All existing article leads should be rewritten to include (a) present position, (2) links to current team and university articles, and (3) brief summary of coaching career and relevant championships won (by total numbers) -- for a good example, see the Dana Duckworth article.
After that, the hard part starts when we read the university profiles and media guides to settle on outline career narratives, and then start looking for secondary sources in Google News Archive and Newspapers.com for articles to support all factual assertions in the rewritten and expanded text. After upgrading the coaches' articles, we should be in a much better position to upgrade the relevant team articles next.
Does that sound like a working plan? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:11, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • P.S. Don't forget to sign your talk page posts with the four tildes, i.e., ~~~~! The wiki code automatically converts the tildes to your signature after you click the "save page" button. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:11, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Latest sports GNG jackassery

This and the set of other D1 head coach articles AfD'ed by this user is another example of how messed up things are in this arena. Rikster2 (talk) 13:28, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

  • No reason to get worked up over this one, Rikster -- it was well in hand about 30 minutes after it came up on my radar screen. The AfD nominator is not some anti-sports crusader; "GauchoDude" is UC Santa Barbara guy (with an interest in UCSB baseball, etc.) who is still learning the ropes. San Francisco State is obviously not the basketball program it once was, but it's still a Division I program located in a major urban area. And even if I had not been vaguely familiar with Phil Mathews' saga, I would have bet $100 that a 9-year head coach at SFSU would have satisfied GNG if not NCOLLATH, sight unseen.
As for the application of NCOLLATH and GNG to Division I football and men's basketball coaches, I think we both recognize that FBS football coaches will satisfy GNG with near 100% certainty, and we can say the same for the top 150+ Division I men's basketball programs, too. Where I am more inclined to go through the AfD analysis is for football and basketball coaches at Division II, III, etc., as well as secondary sports at Division I schools. Ditto for Division II and III football and basketball coaches. There is nothing like 100% certainty of GNG notability for Division I baseball coaches, let alone Division I women's basketball, golf, gymnastics, lacrosse, softball, swimming, track and volleyball coaches. I just had to go through the AfD exercise for the new gymnastics coach at Alabama (one of the two or three premier programs in the country -- see here). Personally, I think a lot of BS was thrown back in 2008 by several sports editors who pushed the envelope and claimed that virtually all head football and men's basketball coaches are notable, regardless of the program size and history. Beyond Division I, that is not the case, especially the further back in time we go, and we have a lot of very marginal stubs for football coaches at Division II, III, NAIA and historically small colleges to show for it. Recently, I've seen that same AfD argument applied to athletic directors at smaller Division I programs, which may be true for most of the present holders of those AD jobs in 2014, but it certainly was not true historically (with the obvious exception of head football coaches who also held the AD jobs when that was the typical practice).
Anyway, I see an "educational" value for AfDs like the one for Phil Mathews, and it's one of the reasons that I participate with longer explanations at AfD. We've gone through a generational change of regular sports editors in my 5+ years on Wikipedia, and it's important that we educate the younger guys (e.g., GauchoDude) as to the applicable guidelines, policies and precedents. If we take the time with the newbies, we have a reliable base of informed !voters for future discussions. And half the battle in dealing with sportscruft is getting the new guys up to speed on what the standards are for new articles. Frankly, our newbies spend too much time on creating navboxes for marginal awards, lists of obscure stats, and barely "notable" rivalry articles, and not enough effort expanding and improving quality text for our core articles on teams, head coaches, All-American players and championship seasons. We need to figure out how best to bring the newbies into that "program." Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:42, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Fair enough. Pretty aggressive PROD activity for a new user, though (wholly inappropriate to PROD D1 head coaches IMO). As for WP:NCOLLATH, I don't disagree that it should be tightened. It should cover D1 football and men's basketball coaches, then indicate that many other college head coaches at other sports and divisions will also meet GNG. But today it states that college head coaches meet the standard. My point was mostly about this being another problem with notability standards in sports - in a "real" (not WP defined) sense, D1 men's basketball and football head coaches are pretty much always notable. A division 3 baseball coach usually won't be. But the standards are what they are. Sometimes laughably permissive and sometimes stupidly restrictive. But if I have to live with the ones that are too restrictive, I feel like others need to be the ones to live with those that are too premissive or undertake a good faith discussion to improve the guideline. Rikster2 (talk) 21:35, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Questionable Rivalries

You asked me a couple weeks ago to consider which Big Ten rivalry articles might warrant further scrutiny.

At least one non-Penn State entry probably requires some scrutiny as well: Colorado–Nebraska football rivalry: I don't know about the history, but the article suggests it wasn't a big deal until the 1980s and now they're not even in the same conference, so it was short-lived at best.
Maryland is new to the Big 10 and has 5 rivalry articles, which is on the high side, but I don't yet know enough about the Terrapins to offer an informed judgment on these. User:Strikehold would have been a good person to check with, but he hasn't been active for a couple years.
Michigan has five rivalry articles, but one (Chicago–Michigan football rivalry) is purely historic in nature. The other four (OSU, MSU, Notre Dame and Minnesota are solid.)
  • Leaving the Big 10, but staying in the Midwest, Notre Dame might appear to be a bloated list with 10 rivalry entries. However, there's so much lore built up around Notre Dame that I doubt that any of these 10 series could/should be AfD'd. The Northwestern series was AfD'd a year ago (here), and Jweiss, PaulMcDoanald, Ejgreen, TonyTheTiger and I all voted "keep" after reviewing the sources.Cbl62 (talk) 21:26, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the feedback, Cbl. Several of the non-Big Ten rivalries you listed above are already on my hit list, and I think your Big Ten weak sisters are dead on the money (and, yes, I've been around long enough to be familiar with Big Blue vs. the Maroons). I voted to keep Bama-Penn State in 2011; my level of scrutiny and my !vote would both probably be different now. You're right: the Notre Dame cluster is tough because it's a collection of active rivalries plus notable historic rivalries. I did the SEC first because I know it best, and also to set an example for everyone else; I will probably do another round of SEC (mostly SEC vs. non-SEC), and then look at the Big Ten and MAC. The ACC has a handful of weak sister "rivalries," too. The Big 12 has a bunch, but they have series names and trophies, which means somebody is attached to them, even if they aren't particularly notable per GNG. I expect to raise 20-25 more at WP:CFB, and then take the ones to AfD which a majority of WP:CFB editors give the thumb's down. I think it's a smart process for two reasons: (1) it's educational for all the CFB editors to clearly understand the NRIVARLY/GNG standard, (2) it creates a built-in consensus of 5-10 !votes at AfD, and (3) it allows us to avoid any obvious mistakes with a pre-discussion. I also think it's important that all of the regulars feel like they've had their say and their articles got a fair hearing. Apart from holding all of them to a strict GNG standard, I also think we can apply a certain measure of common sense to some of the relatively recent, short-lived series. Inevitably, there will be some squealing. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:04, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
  • You mentioned the sheer number of LSU rivalry at 7 as being indicative of overreach. Yet, there are almost as many supposed rivalry articles for Florida -- six. Do you think they all qualify as traditional, notable rivalries? When I think of Florida's rivals, I pretty much think of Florida State and Georgia. Sure, the Fulmer-Spurrier games were classics, but does that make it a traditional rivalry? Likewise, everyone gets excited to play Alabama, but can the Crimson Tide really have 8 current rivalries? It would show some real balance to include one or two of Florida's questionable rivalries in the next batch. Cbl62 (talk) 23:03, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I hear you, but do remember we've already deleted Alabama-Florida and Florida-South Carolina. What makes Florida's situation problematic is two historical rivalries, both legit: Auburn (SEC cross-division, formerly annual 1927-1940, 1945-2002), Miami (in-state, formerly annual 1938-1942, 1944-1987). The four active rivalries are annual: Florida State (in-state, annual since 1958), Georgia (SEC in-division, annual 1926-1942, 1944-present), Tennessee (SEC in-division, annual since 1990), and LSU (SEC cross-division, annual 1953-1967, 1971-present). From my perspective, the only candidate is LSU -- it has the least character of a traditional rivalry. Tennessee, which you suggested, has been the second most important rivalry, after FSU, over the last 24 years. It is, of course, also the newest/youngest in terms of total games played. The most obvious Bama candidate for AfD is Penn State, as you suggested.
You know Florida football best, though I'm surprised you would rate the Tennesee series ahead of the "World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party," which I've always thought of as one of the biggest rivalry games in college football. I thought the "bigness" of the Tennessee series was limited to the decade from mid-90s to mid-00s when things were actually competitive. Cbl62 (talk) 01:22, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oh, I think the alumni probably have a greater emotional investment in the Florida-Georgia game, but the Florida-Tennessee game has had conference and national title implications more frequently since 1990. I chose my words carefully: the "most important," not the most popular, not the most bitter. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:41, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Fergie Ferguson

I have serious reservations about the contention at Fergie Ferguson Award that Ferguson was an All-American in 1941. There is considerable evidence to the contrary. First, the NCAA guide does not reference him as an All-American. Second, and more significantly, not even one of the sources cited at 1941 College Football All-America Team lists him as having been a first, second, or even third-team All-American. Third, and this is the clincher for me, the 1942 Seminole states that Ferguson won All-SEC honors in 1941 but makes no claim that he received All-American honors. It states: "Forest Ferguson - 'Big Ferg' ... All Southeastern ... best pass receiver in Florida history, third best in nation in 1941 ... led team in scoring with 36 points, in time played with 420 minutes ... defensive bulwark ... colorful ... unpredictable." (approx. p. 161) If Ferguson had received All-American honors, it is highly unlikely that such honors would not have been mentioned in the write-up in the Seminole. Cbl62 (talk) 19:44, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, Cbl, I've been checking on this for some time, but I have hesitated to call foul because he's listed in the media guide. The media guide says he was a Collier's (Grantland Rice) and NEA first-teamer. I've found newspaper clips for those 1941 All-America first teams, and he wasn't on them. On the other hand, I have found several second-team, third-team and honorable mention All-American honors from 1928, 1929 and 1930 that the media guide does not list (see List of Florida Gators football All-Americans); you helped create new articles for three of them. All of which tells me the media guide is not 100% reliable for the 1920s and probably some later years as well. I think Norm Carlson or someone in the SID probably reconstructed the AA honors list in the late 1950s or early 1960 from old newspaper clippings when Gators started to get AA honors with some frequency. Why? Because I did find clips from Ferguson's 1954 death that said he was a Collier's first-teamer in 1941. Ferguson did make two out of three lists of All-SEC first teams, and was a second-teamer on the third. I also suspect he was a Collier's honorable mention, but I cannot find a copy of the full 1941 magazine article on line (I have found other years, and Collier's usually had a long HM list). I think whoever was doing the after-the-fact list reconstruction conflated the obituaries with the first-team All-SEC honors, and presto, Ferguson became a first-team All-American 15 or 20 years after the fact. You will note that I very scrupulously omitted Ferguson from the List of Gators All-Americans because of my suspicions. I've wanted to put a thoroughly documented package together and send it to the Florida SID guys for review. I would prefer to send them the newspaper clips for the 1928, 1929 and 1930 second-team, third-team and honorable mention honors first, before raising the Ferguson issue -- which I expect will be sensitive. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:09, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
The claim in the media guide (a non-independent source) that Ferguson was a Collier's and NEA first-teamer is directly belied reliable, independent sources. The Collier's and NEA first-teams are identified at 1941 College Football All-America Team, cited to reliable sources, and Ferguson was not a first-teamer as named by either organization. Even if he were an "honorable mention" on Collier's, that doesn't support referring to him as an All-American, and we don't even have evidence from a reliable, independent source that he even received that notation. Given the present state of the evidence, I really think it's inappropriate to assert in the Fergie Ferguson Award article that: "Ferguson was an All-American in football in 1941." Cbl62 (talk) 20:29, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
I was in the process of replacing the purported AA honors with the documented SEC honors when you edit-conflicted me! If I can substantiate my suspicions regarding the HM mention honors, I will restore the reference as "received honorable mention All-American recognition" with a footnote. In the mean time, I agree with you. When I'm layering in the AA and conference honors into the player bios, I usually omit second-team and lower honors when the player also earned first-team honors in the same year from the infobox. I inherited 250+ Gators football player articles when I started editing Wikipedia in mid-2009, and the overwhelming majority of them were complete messes. While many of them still require substantial work (especially on their pro career sections), and several others still need to be AfD'ed, they're in a lot better shape when I started imposing the uniform WP:NFL formatting, rewriting the leads and college sections, and adding appropriate footnotes. It's been a process. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:43, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Understood. There are a lot of Michigan player articles that are also a mess. Only so much that can be done at once. The 1942 Seminole does not list Ferguson in its section on graduating seniors. Do you know how solid the sourcing is for his receiving a bachelor's degree in 1942? Cbl62 (talk) 22:52, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Another interesting tidbit from the 1942 Seminole. It lists "Jack Youngblood" as the treasurer of the "F" Club that year and includes a photo. Was THE Jack Youngblood a second-generation Gator athlete? The chronology would be about right with the younger Youngblood being born in 1950. Cbl62 (talk) 22:58, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Pretty solid: the online alumni directory of the University of Florida Alumni Association, as well as the TCPalm.com article I just added. In 1942, he would not have been eligible for OCS without a degree; the Army lightened up later in the war when there was a shortage of second lieutenants, and they started accepting more prior enlisted guys with no degree. FYI, he did not letter for the baseball team; he might literally have been "filling in" for an injured player for a few games, as suggested by the yearbook. The anecdotes about Fergie as a great natural athlete are almost unbelievable -- he was the kinda guy who could pick up a lacrosse stick without ever having played before, and be instantly competitive. Completely consistent with his D-Day actions; you can't find the gruesome detail in any of the contemporary newspaper stories -- but he took a headshot while leading the frontal assault, and then tried to keep leading his platoon. He was in a coma for two months afterward. Mind you, this is the same wound that killed the guy 10 years later. Unbelievable. The guy did more with his life in 25 years than I have in 49. BTW, there was a stand-alone article for Fergie previously (prior to me joining Wikipedia in 2009), but it was converted into the award article because the people working on it thought there were insufficient independent reliable sources to demonstrate his notability as an individual. Thank you for pulling the trigger on this.
Regarding Youngblood, I would not rule it out, but it strikes me as odd that I've never seen it referenced before. I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that Hall of Fame Jack was a first-generation college grad. Jack was barely recruited by Florida -- and no one else -- and it was only because of the persistence of the baseball coach, Dave Fuller, that Jack was even offered a scholarship. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:19, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
  • BTW, I found the online Collier's magazine site again: it's linked in the footnotes for the Forest Ferguson and Dale Van Sickel articles. The site is not particularly user-friendly, but it apparently has all of the old Collier's All-America team issues. You may want to use it for the annual College Football All-America Team articles, rather than random newspaper articles that reported Collier's All-America selections second-hand. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:07, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll check it out. Cbl62 (talk) 00:16, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Matthew Smith American Football player

I don't think the author cares since the article says Smith created it himself. If that is true, then it is Hey let's have fun on the net time! Postcard Cathy (talk)

Sport Notability

DL - here are some of the main issues I see with sports notability. I am not suggesting solutions to them at this point, but I'll put some of those I see out there. If you are truly interested in solving some of these in good faith, I will take part (though I know we won't agree on every point). Feel free to add or respond:

  1. standards probably too loose for HS players/coaches, particularly including recruiting coverage (and defining what recruiting coverage actually is)
  2. Inconsistency of sport specific notability standards. For instance, I found out today that players who appear in at least one USL Pro soccer game are part of WP:NFOOTY - that is a third-tier league while in WP:NBASKETBALL only half a dozen leagues are included in the standard, excluding leagues in places like Greece and Turkey.
  3. Better definition of coaches and ADs in WP:NCOLLATH. Clarity that at least Division I football and men's basketball head coaches are presumed notable, and make decisions on other sports and divisions.
  4. Final decisions on what "local coverage" is and if it should be excluded when considering notability of college athletes.

Are there others you see? Are you interested in actually tackling these? Rikster2 (talk) 01:16, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

  • I think those are all among the key issues to be addressed, and most of your comments are foursquare on point. I'll give it some thought, and ping you back in a few days. In the mean time, I suggest you ping User:GiantSnowman regarding the obvious disparity between the treatment of association football/soccer and that of other sports, and get his take on it. If you don't know him, he's English (Yorkshireman), a very knowledgeable and rational football/soccer fan, an administrator, and a good guy, and if anyone has widespread influence among the FOOTY guys, it's him. He's also been a valuable ally when we've had to deal with MOS, formatting and other project-wide issues that have impacted the various sports projects globally. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:34, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
    • I probably won't reach out to Snowman. Looking at his comments at the archives at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Fully professional leagues, it appears that he's pretty locked into the status quo. Rikster2 (talk) 00:06, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
      • Maybe so. I do know that the FOOTY guys delete about 90% of the soccer player articles nominated for AfD; they like their bright-line SNG rule and they enforce it with a vengeance. Virtually no GNG passes for association football players, at least in part because their specific guideline is pretty wide open, but they will occasionally ding a player who passes the SNG, but not GNG. They also fight a lot about what constitutes a "fully professional league," which usually involves deleting an article about an east European or Asian player. I typically avoid their AfD discussions because the work required for me to back up my !vote as an American non-soccer guy takes too much time. I see you got involved in an association football AfD where the subject is an American former college player and current minor league pro. I've been watching that one for my own education, and I agree with several of the issues you raised. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:23, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
        • Take a look at Jalen Brunson. He isn't one of the very top recruits, but he's fairly high profile. Do you think he meets GNG? Should be a good barometer for how high school player notability would go. As I have said, there are some editors who won't want to see a reduction in high school player notability standards. Rikster2 (talk) 13:10, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
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