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Internet inquisitor lax with Bielema facts

Jen Bielema, left, wife of Arkansas Razorback head coach Bret Bielema, stands on the sidelines before the start of an NCAA college football game against Texas A&M in Fayetteville, Ark., Saturday, Sept. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Beth Hall)
Jen Bielema, left, wife of Arkansas Razorback head coach Bret Bielema, stands on the sidelines before the start of an NCAA college football game against Texas A&M in Fayetteville, Ark., Saturday, Sept. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Beth Hall)

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of all things Arkansas Razorbacks and Texas A&M Aggies, let's set the record straight about Bret and Jen Bielema for the last time.

First, no one will ever accuse yours truly of being an expert on social media, but it seems some people can write anything they want without sources or confirmation, but usually those people are not trained journalists.

Yours truly does tweet, like most sports reporters around the country, but usually just about sports and primarily during games. It can be found on Twitter at @Wallylikeitis. There's a blog by the same name. Yes, Facebook, too, but that's checked about once a month whether needed or not.

Sunday night was spent reading tweets by guys like Chuck Monan, Dennis Dodd and others, when one popped up from Jen Bielema.

She was defending herself against an innuendo-filled slam by an Internet reporter who said he wasn't buying the story about how Bret Bielema met Jen Hielsberg.

The guy, who works for mostly respected Tucker Carlson, who started the Internet website Daily Caller, didn't call her names but it definitely had a mean undertone.

Jen, who spent the first 25 years of her life in Florida, was accused of knowing who Bret was when they met. Both have said that was not the truth.

In fact, and this is how that story got started last week, Bret was on Clay Travis' show on Fox Sports.

Bret, being Bret Bielema, was open, honest and candid and even admitted he didn't tell Jen what he did for a living the night they met, saying instead that he was a professor at Wisconsin.

Being a professor at some school had been his favorite way to introduce himself to ladies when he was single. It is called a line, and some might think that was a good line.

Apparently, this Internet writer read or heard about the Travis interview and decided to question how they met.

Here are some facts that the Internet writer questioned, something he apparently knows nothing about.

Jen and Bret met at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas in 2008. Bret was there for a Wisconsin fundraiser, Jen was there with a couple of friends who thought she needed to get away.

Bret was playing blackjack, saw Jen and left his money on the table and approached her. To this day, he can describe exactly what she was wearing.

He invited her over to his blackjack table and offered to teach her how to play.

Jen and her friends were a little apprehensive, but Bret pointed out the Wynn literally has security cameras everywhere.

They talked and talked and talked, and Bret won money and her phone number. She was a bank teller and pursuing a modeling career in Chicago.

What she knew about Wisconsin she learned about during summer vacations while growing up. Until she was 14, Jen's family headed to Wisconsin every year to escape the Tampa heat.

They began to talk on a fairly regular basis, but it wasn't until four months later he admitted he was the head football coach at Wisconsin, and by then they were texting several times a day.

They were also officially dating, and it was more than two years later when she surprised him by attending a game against Ohio State, which Wisconsin won.

Bret didn't see Jen for the first time that day until after the game. He was history as a bachelor.

Four months later, while in Naples Fla., Bret secretly asked Jen's father for permission to marry her. Thirteen months later they were married, almost four years after meeting in Vegas.

It is a Cinderella story, not a "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" tale.

Sports on 09/20/2016

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