How the Grapevine Gets Outta Control

When “Nategate” was all the rage (literally for some folks) I rec’d the following email. Running it here with permission, though names and locations redacted – like all those Area 51 documents. Some not redacted but substituted because that’s the way my brain works.

But names and locations don’t much matter for this, and bear in mind this occurred on a level FAR from the beeg leagues.

Here is an interesting angle on the cheating thing and one that no one has posted or even you brought up. In [month] of this year my team partner and I were simply accused of cheating – like, “They got to be cheating to catch a big bag and beat us.” We won the first tournament of the year at [Shalbatana Lake on Mars] by [less than] a pound.

It evidently ruffled the lake’s heavy hitters enough that when we showed up at the second tournament [of the series], people went to the tournament director before the tournament even started and requested we take a polygraph.

Well, we happened to win that tournament by [a mid-single-digit-lbs margin] and these [locals] went through the roof. As we are sitting there waiting to polygraph, I tell my partner [Dr. Johnny Fever], “I’m sure glad they have the polygraph guy here seeing as we have won two in a row.”

I passed the polygraph with flying colors, and the funniest part is we never knew we were “accused” of cheating. We thought the whole thing was random – until I got the dreaded “the reason the polygraph guy was there was because you were accused of cheating” call.

It took almost 6 weeks to put all the rumor fires out. In 2 days the news traveled [hundreds of miles to different states]. One rumor was I was choked and threatened to be killed if I ever came back, another was that two other tournament trails had already kicked us out – and those where among the nice ones!

Fortunately a strong network of fishermen were able to vouch for us. You would think the polygraph would have done that, but with locals that doesn’t work.

The [point] of this email is [to show] how hurtful the rumor of cheating is. Wonder how many times this has happened to others. I have learned that this happens all the time at the local level. Those boys can have their lake back.

First, thanks to that gent for sending this in. Second, guess this is exhibit [somewhere in the middle of the alphabet] for resting my case on the two things I’ve said before:

> Bassers are worse than a bunch of gals at a quilting convention who see a streaker (or think they do).

> There’s something too over the top about how folks react to…what? As the above email shows, it’s not cheating they’re reacting to. What is it…maybe anything out of the ordinary at a tourney?

It’s a tough one. On the one hand cheating is bad and sometimes you need to have your spidey senses on overdrive to detect it. On the other hand, maybe someone had a few too many Red Bulls in the boat, if you know what I mean….
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1982 baby!