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Deadspin's Cory Gardner fumble

On Wednesday evening, Deadspin published a report claiming that Colorado Senate candidate Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) has been lying about his supposed high school football career.

Deadspin reporter Dave McKenna searched Gardner biographies and news reports. He also reached out to Chuck Pfalmer, a now-retired high school teacher from Gardner's very small town of Yuma. Pfalmer told McKenna, "Cory Gardner wasn't on the football team."

A spokesperson for Gardner didn't respond to McKenna's interview request, and up went the story. But it wasn't long before the evidence started piling in.

Gardner, who played football from junior high school through sophomore year of high school, began posting football photos of himself as a young man on Twitter. Then McKenna's main source in the story seemed to retract his statements, telling McKenna "Cory did play football for three years."

Pfalmer told the Denver Post that Deadspin mischaracterized his comments and that he doesn't remember telling McKenna that Gardner never played football. He said he tried to email follow-up information to McKenna after they spoke, but that he has trouble with email.

Instead of issuing a retraction, the full story still appears on Deadspin, though with an "update" note that Gardner did, in fact, play football. McKenna did take responsibility for the piece, telling The Washington Post's Erik Wemple, “It’s my responsibility to get everything and to the extent that anything in there is not right, that’s my fault and nobody else’s. If it’s wrong, it’s my fault.”

Hadas Gold is a reporter at Politico.