The buzz in the college basketball world Saturday was University of Arizona head coach Sean Miller was replacing Gary Williams at the University of Maryland.
ESPN 980 in Washington DC tweeted that the deal was done according to sources.
Miller eventually declined the deal and the station’s director of programming, Chuck Sapienza, issued an apology:
Over the weekend, one of our staff members received inaccurate information about the coaching search at the University of Maryland. The source utilized was someone we have used many times in the past and their accuracy, up until yesterday, was stellar. I apologize for the mistake, and am embarrassed by it.
Breaking news, while always a difficult animal to tame in the era of social media, is still as simple as getting the story 100% correct. You have my word we will improve our fact checking and sourcing. While mistakes do happen in our business, this will not be tolerated or taken lightly. I appreciate all of our listeners and take our credibility very seriously. I can be reached at ChuckSapienza980@gmail.com.
Kudos to ESPN 980 for acknowledging they were wrong. It would have been easy for the station to brush off the tweet and ignore it ever happened in the first place.