The link, posted this morning on a Davidson message board, sent folks to what apparently was the home page of the school's official athletics site. There, the headline for the top story, smack in the middle of the page, read, "Stephen Curry to enter NBA draft."
Underneath those words were the sentences, "Guard Stephen Curry has announced his intention to enter the NBA draft and hire an agent. Curry leaves Davidson as the program's all-time leading scorer."
Above the headline was a picture of Curry, the Wildcats' all-American junior guard.
Below the text on the fake page was a supposed link to "full story," but that one didn't work.
That supposed front page did work on a bunch of people, though, spreading across the Davidson campus and fooling a couple of Observer editors in the process.
The perpetrator of the prank was a Duke graduate student named Gavin Taylor, who is working on his Ph.D in, well, computer science. And he has a mathematics degree from Davidson.
We had to talk to Taylor; congratulations were in order. And maybe a slap for interrupting my breakfast.
"I got the idea about 11:30 last night," Taylor said. "I was doing my usual procrastinating, thinking of reasons not to go to bed. It only took about 20 minutes. I just dropped a picture in there and added a little text."
Taylor was laughing as he spoke, obviously pleased by the joke's success.
"It might have gotten a bit more out of control than I planned," he said.
Not at all, Gavin; you got us.--Stan Olson
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Curry heads for NBA...April Fool!
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11 comments:
Not funny! Next there will be posts that so-and-so Duke or UNC basketball coach has died of a heart attach or something similarly offensive. Blogs are fine for opinions; posting opinions as fact is unfair!
To the previous poster - Lighten up, it's April Fool's Day.
Lighten up Anon 12:23pm. This is what April Fool's Day is all about. And Stan, about your comment on slapping the kid for interrupting your breakfast, yes I know it was simply in jest, this kind of reminds me of the April Fool's joke the Observer played on the City back when the Hornets were in town. I'm sure you remember the one where you guys had Michael Jordan joining the Hornets. You guys had a picture of him in the Hornets uniform on the front page of the Sports section. Looks like turn about was fair play, huh? lol
Anon has a point IF the joke were about some coach having a heart attack (or being in a plane crash or something that was life-and-death.) THAT would indeed be offensive and over-the-line. This prank skates right up to it because it looked so factual, and that's what makes it so good. (Excuse me while I get the rest of this damn hook out of my mouth....)
-Mike
Does anyone have the link to this page? I would like to share it with some friends...
http://www.cs.duke.edu/~gvtaylor/davidsonwildcats.html
It cut off on the prior post. It should end in "...cats.html"
http://www.cs.duke.edu/~gvtaylor/davidsonwildcats.
html
Not just the hook from your mouth, but the line and sinker, too. :-)
LOL its just a JPEG image!! Nice work Dukie. And the main headline for other UNC news is the prosecutor that got arressted for fixing tickets is wearing a UNC SHIRT to the JAILHOUSE HA HA HA HA!!! My point exactly to all the tarhole fans.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/breaking/story/635750.html
Thanks for having some fun with this, Stan, and for all your Davidson coverage. Here's hoping your editor brings you some very different news soon.
Can he post one on the CMS site?
GORMAN RESIGNS!!
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