You had to know something would happen — and, boy, did it. If I had one worry about the news of last week it was that the initial story would lead to other stories that were no way as sound and secure as the ones that broke Wednesday morning. For two months there had been whispers of other incidents, though no success in finding them … or finding them to be anything more than a small incident that became larger because of who was involved.

Yet when one hits the public, this profession has a way of forcing others out into the public, too. Sometimes that’s good — we call it letting the story tell the story — but oftentimes it is not.

When Saturday’s papers arrived, so, too, did a thinly sourced second-hand version of an event a lot of us had heard and been told about and finally saw in print … though buried in a column about a larger point. Sunday saw the hammer fall with much more force, though without much certainty, if any at all. There were also a few things plainly incorrect included in the story.

I was in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., when I was made aware of it all and I became immediately and legitimately worried about Mike Leach and whoever was standing next to him when his head exploded and shrapnel from his considerable acumen flew around the room. And this time, I’d have to agree with him.

Listen, there are certain ethical and professional virtues in play here and I don’t want to bore you with any righteous recitation of them. Nor do I think I have to. I just think, well, I think it was wrong on a few levels, none greater than using a column to deliver news because you can tiptoe around providing facts in an opinion-based format … and very few people will realize the distinction.

This is what happened over the weekend. Rumors and allegations were presented to be factual because they were disguised in a column. If push ever comes to shove, a writer can always fall back to the defense of, “It was a column, just my opinion.” I think this is too heavy for that.

Many others did, too, and we saw a wonderful and emphatic return to form of erstwhile ship pirate Colin Dunlap on Twitter. (Begin with the May 29 Tweets). Had things worked out, it would have happened on the radio, too, though I can understand, if no one else can, why the invited guest did not accept the invitation.

But here’s the thing: Where are the denials? I called every one of the named establishments — not the one in Huntington; that’s too egregious of a reach for me — over the course of several days. I spoke with different employees and managers as part of different shifts. Not only did no one confess or even have a clue what I was asking about, but many offered some form of a lecture about how businesses don’t do business that way. They don’t publicize what patrons do, short of a crime. They don’t like to be connected or implicated when it’s not of their own doing.

And I completely understood that. Where’s that now? Does it come out soon?

And maybe it’s just me — and when I say that, is usually is — but it’s odd, at the very least, the state lottery commission declined to release the footage of whatever happened in the Cross Lanes casino. Remember, we don’t have an on-the-record account of the actions that preceded the call to the police. We don’t. A Nitro police officer said they’re usually called when a customer is cut off and disagrees, but he made a point to say he didn’t know that to be what happened with Holgorsen. All we know is he was asked and eventually made to leave.

So stack the weekend’s printed allegations next to the non-alleged alleged incident in Cross Lanes. It’s easy for people to paint a very bad picture even as people in and around WVU insist it wasn’t a truly ugly scene. Why not show that footage then? It could defuse a lot of perceptions … and if you doubt WVU can get involved to reverse the lottery commission’s decision, we’ll have to agree to disagree.

WVU can do other things to help and we have to go a gigantic step further here. Slander and libel are frightening words. There are some things that, if the definitions and conditions align, are slanderous and libelous. If the allegations are untrue, it’s unfair to Holgorsen. It’s probably even unfair if WVU doesn’t pick up the saber on his behalf. WVU, as a practice, doesn’t respond to such shenanigans and that usually works because the problem usually goes away until it happens again. In this instance, that practice might not be perfect. It might require something combative.

If not, you run the risk of seeing more things like this.