There have been quite a few misidentifications by reporters over the years and one of the most significant recent ones came Thursday when Lauren Withrow (a reporter for PGA Tour-produced Korn Ferry Tour coverage on The Golf Channel) interviewed The Citadel assistant football coach Everette Sands as if he was Vince Young (who was also in the same BMW Charity Pro-Am at Carolina Country Club in Greer, SC).
I’m dying laughing they thought they were talking to Vince Young, might be the most awkward interview I’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/cjz0gYqg9D
— Carter Donnick (@CDonnick1) June 6, 2024
That interview went viral. But a notable follow-up came from Scott Eisberg, sports director of Charleston (SC) ABC affiliate WCIV, who interviewed Sands afterward.
I haven’t laughed this hard in a while. On live national TV, a Golf Channel reporter thinks she’s interviewing Vince Young.
She’s in fact interviewing Citadel football great and assistant coach Everette Sands.
Had call Everette to see what was going through his head during… https://t.co/l1tmx0TJLK pic.twitter.com/Hdk9JgrcqZ— Scott Eisberg (@SEisbergWCIV) June 7, 2024
Sands told Eisberg he didn’t initially realize the mistake here.
“The young lady came up, and she said ‘Vince,’ and I thought she was introducing herself to me. And she said ‘Can I get an interview after you tee off?’ and I was like, ‘Sure.’ And I teed off, and then she came up, and she started talking about being one of the best quarterbacks in the NCAA, playing for Texas, and a six-year NFL career, and I was like ‘She thinks I’m Vince Young.’ It was a very interesting moment.”
He said the phone reactions he got were a little delayed, but they quickly became notable.
“It didn’t start buzzing then. But about an hour after we got finished, it’s been buzzing non-stop ever since that point.”
Sands told Eisberg he hadn’t spoken to Withrow, but he did hang around to speak to Young.
“I haven’t seen her, but I waited so I could talk to Vince and tell him what happened. And then about 30 minutes later, actually, my college roommate was the first one to send it to me, send me the video of the live reporting.”
He said he wasn’t too worried about trying to plug The Citadel, but he did think Withrow would realize where she went wrong at some point.
“I didn’t think necessarily about the recruiting aspect, but I wanted to make sure she knew I was a Citadel guy and I was a football coach. So I can talk football, so I can answer the question intelligently, because I have that football background. So as I watched the video, I was sort of waiting for her to change gears, but she didn’t. But it was all good.”
Sands did eventually talk to Young about this. And he told Eisberg Young was entertained by the mixup.
“Vince came up, I said, ‘Hey, Vince, how you doing, my name is Vince Young.’ And he just sort of smiled. So I said ‘Well, let me tell you the story behind it.’ So he did get a good chuckle out of that.”
There should be some empathy here for Withrow. Identifying people out of their normal context can be difficult, and has gone wrong for many. We don’t know how much of this mistake was on Withrow and how much of it was on anyone who told her “Hey, that’s Vince Young, go interview him.”
Ultimately, Sands handled this incredibly well and non-judgmentally.
[Scott Eisberg on X/Twitter]
