Posted by Basketts on 11/2/2022 2:59:00 PM (view original):
I just wanted to re-post this for Robinhood as he isn't able to on the forums. But this was his response on the discord channel:
hey everyone, this is robinhood. I’ve never been to discord – didn’t even really know what it was – before this. but, my brother told me that he was doing something called an Ask Me Anything. again, didn’t know what that even was until now. but, I do appreciate this opportunity to be able to say something. I hope I don’t ramble, but this is just an off-the-cuff kind of stream of conscious, so I probably will. you don’t owe me anything, so ignore me if you’d like
first of all, I’m sorry. not “sorry because I got caught,” but sorry because I have broken the trust of a community of which I have been a part for almost 20 years. when the admin post came out today and I saw the numbers, I was pretty embarrassed. I honestly had no idea that we were the only ones who knew about this (other than swenske, whom we’ve never met and have absolutely no idea who he is). and, knowing that now, I see how this was a huge advantage and one that was unfair. I get the outrage. if I were reading this about someone else, I’d probably be ****** too. I’m not excusing anything nor am I claiming to be a victim. I take full accountability for what I did and will accept whatever punishment is deemed necessary. that said I hope you believe me when I say that, given what I knew at the time, I didn’t consider it blatant cheating, in any way. I’m not trying to excuse anything or plead ignorance. I knew it helped and was probably more than intended, but, to be honest, I thought of it as a part of the game that required using open, permissible actions, so I did it. It’s not unlike knowing that all internationals accept a redshirt (I had no idea about this and wish I had, but I don’t consider knowing that to be cheating). I’m not trying to diminish it, I’m really not. I own what I did and am willing to face whatever penalty is deemed just. I just don’t want people to think that we were sitting back here, rubbing our hands together and saying “oooh, we’ve got a way to cheat the system, let’s do it!” anyway, bottom line about this is that I just wanted to apologize to the community for breaking that trust. it doesn’t matter what I thought when I did it or why I did what I did, what matters is that the community of which I have been a part for 18 years now legitimately questions my integrity. so, for that and anything that I may have unfairly robbed anyone of, I’m very sorry.
also, I’d like to clear up a couple of things, if you don’t mind. I hope you see me as forthright and honest about all of this because that’s really how I am
1). I understand and totally appreciate the point of “why didn’t you share this with the community?” that’s completely fair, and we probably should have. but, for lack of a better answer, we just didn’t even think about it. we weren’t trying to keep some big secret. we talked about it openly amongst us (just as we discuss the phillies world series or the next eagles game) and just didn’t think to make it public on the forums or send a follow-up to CS. we probably should have, but we didn’t. I wish we had done that or had a better answer as to why we didn’t, but believe me it wasn’t some nefarious conspiracy here. It was just a couple dudes who don’t really post much on the forums
2). I have absolutely no idea who swenske is, where he’s from, or what he was doing (other than what has been put out in these posts), so I can’t speak for him. but, yes, cimmy, doogan, and I all know each other. cimmy is my brother and doogan is our cousin. it was doogan who discovered Hoops Dynasty back in 2005 (while I was out of the country serving in the Peace Corps) and when I got back to the states, he told cimmy and I that we would love this game. he was right. we did. so, yes, we all know each other and have never once tried to hide that. but, we were not in any collusion and live in different states. do we avoid battling each other sometimes, sure, but I also avoid battling a lot of really good coaches because they’re good. do we, subconsciously, avoid battling each other more than someone we might not know? I don’t know…probably? but, I’m not sure how to fix that except to say “no friends or family can ever play together.” so, please understand that we were not in collusion other than the fact that we know each other, we’re a tight-knit family, and we loved WIS, so we talked about it a lot
3). I tried this tactic or whatever you want to call it in D2 once and it completely backfired (didn’t sign a single guy I wanted), so I never used it again in D2. believe what you will, but that is the truth. one of the things that hits me the hardest about this whole thing is the community I built in the GLIAC in Allen and, especially, the Heartland in Crum. those were my two favorite teams, and that was because of a bunch of people I’ve never met, didn’t even know their real names, but still considered friends (which is weird for me, a guy who isn’t a very online kind of guy). so, if any of them are able to see this, please know that I respect you all, never got any unfair leg up in D2, and am sorry that I have tainted our great conferences. I will probably miss those Heartland guys more than I miss the game itself. I have also built great relationships in the SEC in Naismith and will miss all those guys (nams, getiguy, sne – also a heartland guy, etc) too, but they might not be as quick to forgive me seeing as I did use this tactic at Ole Miss for the past couple of years, and that’s fine, I own that. either way, I will miss the guys that I respect and competed against for years and years
4). I’d like to say I don’t care about my legacy on some random sports simulation site, but I’m human, so I do a little bit. again, this will likely fall on deaf ears (and that’s fine), but please know that cimmy, doogan, and I were highly successful championship-level coaches long before this thing started. and, as I’ve said, I never used it in D2, so anything I’ve accomplished there was done without any unfair advantage. again, this is probably shouting into the wind here, which is fine, but it makes me feel better to say it
5). I do think CS seriously dropped the ball here in multiple ways throughout the process, but I don’t want to make a big deal about it because I don’t want to deflect from my own accountability or seem like I am trying to make excuses. but I really was under the impression that they knew about it and decided not to fix it. was that a subconcious version of some willful ignorance on our part? ya, probably. I fully admit that. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think that the benefit was probably a lot more than would have been intended, but we honestly thought that we had appropriately reported it to those that need to know. in retrospect, you all are probably right in saying that we should have brought it up again, but we really were under the impression that we had immediately exposed what we thought was potentially a loophole and nothing was done. and, we were not explicitly ignoring some directive to re-report it. we thought we had and then went on our way. is that okay? no, probably not, in retrospect. but, we never explicitly decided that we had “gotten away with something” and never actively chose not to re-report it. again, I’m not at all saying that we did enough and I am not blaming CS for our actions here. I own what I did and I’m sorry.
I am glad that WIS has such a strong and engaged community. and I respect those of you with well thought-out opinions on either side. that says to me that the site will sustain itself for years to come, which is a good thing
okay, I think that’s it. I like to think I’m an accountable person, so I will answer any questions or take any comments when I get a chance. even if it’ll make you feel better to call me whatever you want to call me and have me hear it. that’s fine too, I’m sure I deserve it. I just want to thank you for reading this with an open mind
ps…I have no ability to speak for myself on the site, so if someone were to repost this to a forum, I wouldn’t hate it. if not, no worries
I cheated, I just didn't think it was a big cheat. We still talked about other stuff and didn't go around thumping our chest about cheating, we just did it. Don't know why we didn't tell WIS that their program wasn't right, I guess we just didn't think about telling WIS about this problem, mainly because we gained an advantage and if we told them, we would lose that. This can't tarnish our records becasue we were good Coaches even before we cheated. Lastly, I'd like to blame WIS for allowing us to cheat, even though we are adults and knew better.
That's how I read it. They cheated, PERIOD.......kick em all off.
I've been at this game a long time, I haven't won Jack, but I enjoy playing and I don't cheat and anyone who cheats on a game for fun and entertainment...show them the door. Everyone playing this game understands "sportsmanship" or "gamesmanship" and if they choose to set those aside, they need to quit playing and go work on themselves.....no amount of word salad makes this better. I'm not saying they are bad people I'm just saying those are the kind of people I don't want to play with.
Thanks to WIS for the transparency here, much appreciated!