04/03/25
April 02, 2025
SportsFilter: The Wednesday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
And an infuriating article about McAfee and a few other sports radio talkers spreading unfounded rumors about an 18 year old Ole Miss freshman that is completely ruining her life.
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Five weeks ago, she was a first-year business major dating another Ole Miss student. Happy. Confident. Outgoing. Then her idyllic freshman experience was pierced on Feb. 25 when a spurious claim about her and her boyfriend's father spread on YikYak, an anonymous message-based app popular among college students. It then gained traction on X and collided with the sports talk ecosystem to become a top trending topic that day. Many posts featured a picture of Cornett pulled from her Instagram account.
The following day, McAfee became the most influential sports personality to address the rumor when he shared it with his ESPN viewers. (His show also has 2.8 million subscribers on YouTube.) But he was not alone. Former NFL receiver Antonio Brown posted a meme about Cornett on X. Two Barstool personalities " KFC Barstool and Jack Mac " referenced the rumor on their personal social media accounts (the former posted a video that was later deleted, and Mac promoted a memecoin with Cornett's name on X). ESPN radio hosts in St. Louis eagerly dissected the "saga" on their morning show, with Doug Vaughn, a longtime local sportscaster-turned-host, doing a dramatic reading of a purported Snapchat message that accompanied one of the original posts. The station then promoted the clip on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram as part of an "Infidelity Alley" segment.
"When the more popular people started posting, that's when it really, really changed," Cornett said, adding that they brought legitimacy to "something completely false."
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Of course Barstool would be in on this as well.
posted by NoMich at 11:25 AM on April 03, 2025
For anyone who subscribes to The Athletic, a moving article on Amir Abdur-Rahim, who passed away unexpectedly last autumn. Well worth the read.