A Replay of a "Day in the Life" series on The mtn. featuring Chad Bunn aired Sunday night.
When I learned of the rebroadcast on the Mountain West Conference's network, I almost fell out of my chair.
You remember Bunn, he was a hot topic last week after he worked part of a three-man video replay team in LaVell Edwards Stadium during the San Diego State-BYU game.
I bring it up because the excellent TV piece by Sammy Limebaugh on Bunn, an employee of BYU, should have been redone for the weekend with a fresh take, "The Week in the Life of Chad Bunn."
Last week, Bunn, a nice and honest guy, got hung out to dry. He took the brunt of public scrutiny of a MWC's private, closed-door investigation into what looked like a blown non-fumble call in that BYU-San Diego State game. And from what we know of what happened, which is little, it wasn't entirely the fault of one, Chad Bunn.
It may have been a collective perfect storm in that booth because there were three people disciplined, but is he Bunn Osama Bin Laden? No.
This isn't a rehash of the call, which I believe was a fumble. It is commentary on a mysterious public slaughter of Bunn that was unwarranted, uncalled for and allowed to go forward.
Three items of MWC policy:
A. The MWC has a policy of not identifying game officials who are disciplined and do not announce publicly any action taken against them in course of their duties.
B. Until last Friday, the MWC had no policy restricting who could assist a replay official in the video booth; they just had, in the estimation of the MWC, to be guys who are qualified and trusted.
C. The MWC has a sportsmanship policy (Section 4.2 of the league handbook) that prohibits any athlete, coach or any other institutional athletic personnel from: "Publicly criticizing or disparaging a game official, the Conference or its personnel, another institution, a student-athlete or personnel of another institution."
Now, here's the catch.
Any coach, athletic director or president in the league would be ticked over that SDSU non-fumble and subsequently raise heck, like the Aztecs did following that BYU game.
But in days after the Aztec loss, head coach Brady Hoke and SDSU officials made a series of public announcements after private talks with a MWC official about the case. These included news that the replay crew had been suspended one game, and identifying two of the three replay officials by name, head replay referee Mike Angelis of Reno, Nev., and Chad Bunn, a BYU employee.
By MWC policy, those people are to remain invisible.
Whoever shared that information at SDSU broke a league code of privacy.
In the meantime, the mass media gave this message: BYU cheated SDSU with its own an employee, Bunn, in the video replay booth.
Armageddon.
Once word got out, the MWC issued this statement:
"Consistent with existing evaluative protocols for its on-field and instant replay officiating systems, the MWC has conducted a thorough review of the play in question to assess whether a correct call was made and, if not, identify the source of any error(s). This has included extensive video analysis, interviews with all involved parties and investigation of any potential technical malfunctions. Once the final determination was made, appropriate actions were taken via established internal conference channels."
Let's see, "via established internal conference channels."
Right.
The MWC refused to enlighten the public as to details of the review failure, suspensions, or identity of the officials because all nine schools agreed.
By policy, league dirty laundry gets washed behind closed doors. SDSU, however, decided that wasn't enough.
What we got was Bunn time in the Free Whack Zone.
That is terrible, far worse than a bad call. Bad calls happen every Saturday, a guy, his family and reputation have to stand up for a lifetime.
Last week media in San Diego and Utah held Bunn up to massive scrutiny. Sports radio personalities questioned his integrity and professionalism based on incorrect information about his role in the review booth, and, by innuendo, linked him to a judgment call that was not his responsibility to make.
This criticism of Bunn in the booth came in spite of school employees or alumni of schools across the country serving similar roles to the review officials, who make the actual calls.
In essence, SDSU took private MWC information, lit the fuse on a powder keg and let it explode. It was like saying, "Here, take a swing at this piñata, smack it as many times as you like; it is justified cause we lost."
The entire thing hit a crescendo last Thursday when SDSU's radio color commentator Chris Ello went on the air with one of the most hateful, inflammatory emotional monologues I've heard from any member of WAC or MWC media in 35 years.
Ello represents SDSU's athletic program and the university, while he may not totally represent the university's views, he is a powerful public voice of the Aztecs, one of the nation's largest universities of public education and knowledge gain.
Ello questioned the honor, integrity of everyone at BYU from President Samuelson to the janitor in the Richards' P.E. Building. He even used the race card while assailing BYU for allowing Bunn in the review booth.
Ello apologized for 95 percent of his tirade the next day.
Here's the conclusion:
It wasn't BYU who invited Bunn to the booth, it was the MWC and they paid him, like they do for a myriad of league labor. It was Bunn whom the MWC hired to put together the instant replay equipment and software in every league stadium. It is Bunn who is the video coordinator for the MWC basketball tournament in Las Vegas. It is Bunn who organized and founded an organization for all college video coordinators. It is Bunn whom the MWC writes a check to for work they approve as outstanding, year after year.
Listening to Ello last week, it was obvious he got his information on Replay Gate from Hoke or SDSU athletic department, who wanted a public vilification over the bad call. Bunn was an easy target. What part of Section 4.2 wasn't violated?
Javan Hedlund is the MWC's official spokesman. An able, affable, work-a-holic who has always been helpful and even corrected me many times, made no announcements to help with this last week. Neither did his boss, commissioner Craig Thompson. But Hoke and SDSU did, on their own terms.
At no time last week did the MWC explain anything but that they were investigating the review in the booth. By week's end, the MWC announced a new policy that prohibited schools from having employees or alumni work as the communicator, one of a trio working in the booth.
It may be a landmark decision that other leagues in the NCAA will look at. It may be best policy to avoid perceived conflicts of interest. We can all live with that.
That policy, by association, implicates that Bunn did something terribly wrong. He didn't. Did he unplug equipment, hide a replay, gag Angelis, cutoff communication to TV replays? Did he poison somebody? Or was he part of a three-man team that just blew a call, something I'm told could happen anywhere in any game.
To this day, nobody making inquiries to the MWC, can get an explanation of what happened in that booth, who failed to do what, how did it all break down and who is to blame.
But SDSU is allowed to run a MWC public information operation all last week in violation of policy adopted by all nine schools?
Go figure.
e-mail: dharmon@desnews.com