Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Jeremy Lin is not Retiring (more short-lived April Fool's humor at Forbes)

I'm not the only Forbes blogger to make up a headline that was treated as news at Google.  Allen St. John had this hilarious April Fool's Day post announcing that Knicks' sensation Jeremy Lin would retire to attend Harvard Divinity School.


Breaking News: Injured Jeremy Lin Announces Retirement To Pursue Harvard Graduate Degree 
The story of NBA phenom Jeremy Lin took a startling turn early this morning when the NBA star announced his retirement from professional basketball in the wake of a knee injury that may be more serious than previously thought. “I’ve just had it with professional basketball,” said the Knicks point guard in a hastily prepared announcement at the Knicks training facility in Purchase, N.Y.   “Everyone thinks being an NBA player is  glamorous, but it’s not. Practice. Ice your knee. Game. Ice your knee. Practice again. More ice. Pack for a road trip. Some days I feel like I’m just pushing a boulder uphill.”
Why is Lin quitting the NBA? Evidently to pursue his Ph.D. at Harvard’s Divinity School.”We’re really excited to welcome Jeremy back to campus,” said Dean Arthur T.S. Jackson, who was Lin’s thesis advisor when he was an undergraduate.  ”He was always a very smart and engaged student in all his philosophy courses. He displayed a real Kant-do attitude.”
Indeed, Lin may have telegraphed his intentions after last week’s win over Charlotte Hornets, when he dropped an obscure reference to the Greek stoic Epictetus in his post-game comments. “A man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things,” Lin told reporters at Madison Square Garden, as he iced his sore left knee. “And since I cracked the starting lineup I haven’t had five minutes to sit down with The Confessions of St. Augustine.”
I'd like to give you the link to the whole post, but Forbes pulled down the post (which coincidentally went online at almost the same time as my fake story about Romney's withdrawal from the GOP race).  However, you can find it by searching Google for jeremy lin retirement forbes, clicking on the first hit that pops up, and opening the cached version.  If you click the actual link, you'll get an error message.

Here's a screen shot of the Google News page showing the "scoop," from a story about the joke on latinosports.com.



Oh, and for the humor-impaired, Lin is not retiring. If he were,  Forbes would not break the news, or be the only non-robot source covering it.  Chill.

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