BL: N&O's John Drescher taps on the aquarium glass and...

John Drescher taps on the aquarium glass…

What happens when you “tap on the aquarium glass”? Supposedly it drives all the guppies insane. Wonder if that is what happened with Maxine Waters? Nevermind…

Drescher

John Drescher – Former N&O Executive Editor and now N&O Columnist-At-Large – recently tapped on the local sports’ aquarium glass and… sho’ nuff… all the regional guppies began darting about quite helter skelter and willy nilly.

Rattling the (board) monkey cage might be an even better metaphor but let’s stick with “tapping aquarium glass”.

DISCLOSURE: As I noted a month or so ago… John Drescher is a long-time friend of mine. In much the same way BubbaTheRealAD is a friend.

Seriously… I know/like both these oft-maligned guys. We oft-maligned guys tend to stick together.

They are both employed as senior executives by two of THE most reviled reprehensible organizations in this area – The News&Observer and UNCCH – at quite impressive salaries. Each of us “puts a price” on our professional integrity… their prices are mid-upper six figures. Bubba closing in on seven figures.

John became N&O Executive Editor about 11.5 years ago. As soon as McClatchy “suits” could quietly extradite former Editor Melanie Sill as far away from Raleigh – and The Duke Lacrosse Scandal – as possible… to a remote gulag in Sacramento CA where the name Mikey Nifong is rarely if ever spoken.

A month or so ago, in one of The N&O’s frequent “reshuffle-the-deck” management fruit basket turnovers, John gave up his cushy Exec Editor corner office to “some gal from Dallas”.

John and his laptop, coffee mug and family photos relocated to his choice of dozens of empty cubicles in what was once a frantic N&O newsroom. That once busy newsroom now has all the hustle bustle of Downtown Creedmoor… on a rainy Tuesday afternoon… in February.

Milton

John’s reassignment coincided with the long-awaited departure of one Jim Jenkins after 30 years as an N&Oer. “They say” that “Jenks” offered to bequeath John both his title and job description until Edith in HR realized“Jenks” never had a title or a job description.

“Jenks” was The N&O’s version of Office Space’s woeful Milton Waddams with his stapler.

John opted for Senior Associate Vice Chancellor of Opinions. His job description, apparently, being to “tap on the aquarium glass” as often as possible… also known in social media parlance as “chumming for clicks and page views”. The Holy Grail of Digital Media. Which brings us to yesterday…

Yesterday – March 14, 2018 – John wrote an Opinion Column strongly urging that Duke University

“Make Coach K stop recruiting One & Dones…

…and make him stop RIGHT NOW.”

Here is the LINK – THE LINK.

The column is pretty much what you would imagine it would be… what any Incredibly Insightful Commentary is on the Internet… a lot of jibber jabber that causes easily excitable people to become easily excited.

I’ve been doing that for 20 years. I oughta know…

At the end of the day, society still clings to the edge of the abyss by a fingernail… what it was doing before whoever wrote whatever whenever…

John Drescher telling Mike Krzyzewski “don’t recruit One&Dones” is as ridiculous as Mike Krzyzewski telling John Drescher “write something nice about President Trump.”

John Drescher’s beseechings notwithstanding… Duke’s “snooty suits” – past, present or future – ain’t about to suggest Mike Krzyzewski do anything.

• Coach K could throw water balloons off the top of The Duke Chapel… and no one will say anything.
• Coach K could bite the heads off of live bunny rabbits and leave their bloody carcasses in the lap of Old Buck Duke’s statue… and no one at Duke will say anything.
• Hellfire, Coach K could run thru East campus hurling racial/ethnic slurs at the 129 different ethnic groups inhabiting that Gothic Rockpile… and no one at Duke will say anything.

John’s impassioned suggestion was never intended to change anything about Duke Basketball. It was solely intended to “stir up all the guppies in the Triangle aquarium”. Which, of course, it immediately did. DUH!

Back in October, I did a tribute to the late Caulton Tudor. Tudor was a member of TeamDrescher for many years until, like with so many, he wasn’t any more. But back about 10-12 years ago when CT was still covering the local college sports scene, he wrote a column about an upcoming State v. Carolina game.

Whatever he wrote somehow managed to incense both warring factions of raging nitwits… PROVING that he – Caulton Tudor – was OBVIOUSLY 100% “in bed with” State / Carolina.

Drescher’s Duke Bashing has done likewise…. He references both State and Carolina obliquely enough to ruffle their feathers… and, of course, West Durham (NOT “Wes Durham”) is en fuego over his insinuations.

Raging nitwits representing all three “hated rivals” are offering PROOF that JD is indeed “bought & paid for by” UNCCH or NCSU, and/or Duke. To wit:

John Drescher HATES Carolina… EXCEPT:
JD is a mid-80s graduate of UNC J-School and a former editor of The Daily Tar Heel.

John Drescher LOVES Carolina… EXCEPT:
As N&O Executive Editor, JD had direct supervision of “Damn Dan” Kane thruout DDK’s world-famous EXPOSE of The Most Egregious Eligibility Scandal in NCAA History. Not a word from DDK was printed over eight years that John did not sign off on.

John Drescher HATES Duke… EXCEPT:
At least one of John’s children – a daughter, I believe – recently graduated from “over there”. Granted John might have begrudged writing gianormous tuition checks Payable To: Duke University, but there is a Drescher Family connection to Duke.

John Drescher is a STATE fan… EXCEPT:
During the Great Jimmy V Scandal in the late 80s-early 90s, JD would have been a minor functionary at The N&O… far below the legendary quite Eeeevil Mickey McCarthy and Claude Sitton. McCarthy & Sitton were the N&O’s Dynamic Duo assigned to takedown Jim Valvano… legend says at the order of N&O Publisher Frank Daniels Jr and his good friend one Dean E. Smith of Chapel Hill. Among the volumes written on The V Scandal, John Drescher’s name never appears.

John Drescher HATES State… EXCEPT:
One of the many cyber spec ops team employed by all three local fan bases has discovered that John Drescher is A SEASON TICKET HOLDER for either/or NCSU FB or MBB… or maybe even BOTH. Noooo, NOT BOTH! Yes, possibly…

So, on this eve of March Madness 2018, a high profile media celebrity has publicly beseeched Duke University to do what is right & proper and to immediately cease & desist in the recruitment of and/all young men not sincerely intending to fulfill a degreeing matriculation at their institution…. a.k.a. “No Mo One & Dones”.

Such “ceasing & desisting” to involve literally or figuratively “jerking a knot” in the winningest college basketball coach in recorded history.