On this day in 2020, UH fans accomplished something remarkable: they exposed a crybaby journalist, John Feinstein, who had been mailing it in for some time. The next day, Feinstein quit his role as AP voter in a huff after going on an epic rant about how UH fans are dirtbags, the school’s SID is incompetent, and Kelvin Sampson is a cheater. He blamed UH fans for being the final straw in pushing him to quit as an AP voter.
And that should be celebrated! No one can ever take away the fact that their team earned their way to the Final Four in the same year that UH fans exposed John Feinstein. Thank you, John!
How it starts
The 2020 Preseason AP Poll was released on November 9th, and the Cougars were #17. But a closer look showed that an accomplished author, John Feinstein, omitted UH in his poll. GoCoogs.com tweeted about it but didn’t tweet at @jfeinsteinbooks because we were just speaking to the UH fan base, not trying to get him involved.
Somehow, John found out – perhaps a fan went to him and casually asked WTF? He did not like his ballot or his views questioned. Cougar fans had 100% legitimate gripes, of course. UH had been a national power for the previous three years.
But Feinstein chose to stay in his ACC bubble, voting for his friends, brand names, and acceptable schools. He would not admit that he had goofed in the voting when challenged. Instead, he came out gunning.
If UH folks started the name-calling, that’s unfortunate. But a superstar writer and TV personality should ignore it and move on. Instead, he got stupid:
As an AP voter, John often ranked Auburn much higher than others. Auburn’s coach is Bruce Pearl, a guy who has been nailed for NCAA violations and for lying to investigators and later had an assistant arrested by the FBI for bribery and corruption. But he’s mad about Sampson? Then Feinstein got very angry at UH fans and accused them of being unable to read. A real highbrow insult:
To be clear: UH has an incredibly competent and decent man as their MBB SID, Jeff Conrad. Jeff has been a dedicated professional for two decades while working at the University of Houston.
Slandering the UH SID without doing 3 seconds of research is embarrassing for Feinstein. John thought that it was the school that highlighted his ignorant AP ballot. But it was GoCoogs.com, very clearly not the “official Houston cougar (sic) website.” If only he could read!
He then took a shot at Major Applewhite – the only point we can all agree on:
How it ends
And then went back to hurling insults:
He woke up early the next morning to throw his pity party:
Sad trombone. Feinstein did not rank Houston, but the Cougars ended up in the Final Four. Whoops.
John: Please note that those are gifs, moveable images popular on the Interwebs. The use of these gifs does not suggest that Kelvin Sampson and/or the UH basketball program are participating in John Feinstein Day. Please don’t lash out at them!
And predictably, he ended our love affair:
Post mortem: Feinstein returned in April after UH had made the Final Four to take another shot and one at SVP(?!?). You’re a big man, John!
Houston fans will always appreciate John setting the table for the Final Four run. We’ll celebrate his contributions every year on John Feinstein Day!
