Less than 24 hours ago, USC announced that defensive back and team captain Josh Shaw had injured himself while jumping off of a second-story balcony to save his nephew from drowning.
Here is USC's version of events:
Shaw was called a hero, not only by the media or Trojans fans, but by his own head coach. "That was a heroic act by Josh, putting his personal safety aside. But that's the kind of person he is," Steve Sarkisian said in a press release. "It is unfortunate that he'll be sidelined for a while and we will miss his leadership and play, but I know he'll be working hard to get back on the field as soon as possible."
Hold your horses there, USC.
"Within the last few hours or so we've gotten a few phone calls contradicting what Josh said occurred Saturday night, so we're going to continue to vet it. And we're looking at it," Sarkisian said. "But beyond that, I only know what I know, and Josh is adamant that that occurred, and we'll continue to vet some of the other stories that have come across our desk and across our phones and see where we can go from there."
Sarkisian was then asked who called USC denying Shaw's version of events, and he declined to answer and asked the media to give USC time to vet the story "so we can give you a really solid answer instead of hearsay or more of what might have occurred or what might didn't occur."
When you trot out a player's so-called heroic actions as "the kind of person he is" - and then the story turns out to be embellished, misrepresented or flat out false - you then beg the question of "Well, what type of person is he really?" Credit to USC for being out in front of this story but, then again, if they hadn't rushed to call Shaw a hero in the first place, they wouldn't be dealing with this p.r. crisis, and the tweets you see below, in the first place.