Athletic director says he spoke with newspaper officials after flare-up between Spurrier, Morris
South Carolina athletic director Ray Tanner said he did not pressure The State newspaper to reassign columnist Ron Morris, calling the suggestion “ridiculous.”
Tanner said he spoke with the publisher and top editor of The State after a flare-up between Morris and football coach Steve Spurrier. He and publisher Henry Haitz III became friends, he said, because they both coach baseball.
“I had some conversations after the incident that we had, but it’s just professional people working through a situation that developed,” Tanner said in an interview Friday afternoon. “They run The State newspaper, and we run the department of athletics.”
Messages left for Haitz and The State’s executive editor, Mark Lett, were not immediately returned.
The relationship between the university and the newspaper came under scrutiny this week after media blogger Jim Romenesko reported that Morris was told he couldn’t cover Gamecock football. In the days since, The State has shifted policy, saying it would allow Morris to do so.
In 2011 and 2012, Spurrier refused to take reporters’ questions because of columns Morris wrote, garnering national headlines at the time.