Return of the Tribune curse?

The day after our feature on Chad Mendes ran, the Cal Poly senior wrestler injured his knee in practice on Sunday.
The unbeaten wrestler, who has been the story of the winter sports season at Cal Poly, didn’t wrestle at Tuesday’s Reno Tournament of Champions – an event that Mendes said he was looking forward to when I spoke with him Friday night because it was drawing several top-25 teams such as No. 5 Oklahoma State and No. 6 Central Michigan.
Mendes’ injury got me thinking about curses, whether it be a Tribune Jinx or a Cal Poly Curse. The idea of a curse surfaced a few years ago when we were blowing out features on the likes of Jordan Beck and Chris Gocong prior to their season-ending injuries as rookies in the NFL. Similar fluke injuries occurred after features ran on former Cal Poly quarterbacks Anthony Garnett and Chris Peterson, when they went down with injuries.
Or was that the Madden Curse, since they were football related and John Madden is a former Mustang?
Mendes’ injury, however, doesn’t sound like a long-term deal. I’ll have update on his knee injury in Thursday’s print edition.

Mendes photo by David Middlecamp