Say It Ain't So Joe

Some of you will remember the line from baseball days a very long time ago, and Shoeless Joe Jackson and the "Black" Sox scandal, but I had to borrow the phrase for a moment.


ESPN is at it again, as are many other so called sports outlets as they are trying their best to put all of this on Joe Paterno and the Penn State Football program when in fact, if you look at the Freeh report and you pay very close attention, this was a gross administrative f-up of mammoth proportions, but not a football issue.  I realize that this will not be a popular statement, and I am not saying that Joe Paterno could not, or should not, have done more as a human being, Joe said that himself, but ESPN continues to conveniently forget that Joe Paterno was not the one in the shower with these boys.  Joe was not the 28 year old, 6' - 4", 220 pound graduate assistant that heard something going on in the shower, did nothing, ran home to daddy, and then decided to speak with Coach Paterno more than 24 hours later.  Joe was not the one in charge of campus security.  He was not at any point in his career a Dean, a Vice President, a President, or a trustee!!  And, oh by the way, he was 75 at the time he was told by Mike McQuery whatever he was actually told.


It is hard for me because I am a 48 year old coach and I know that if I was told this I would have gone and found Sandusky and confronted him, to put it nicely, but by the same token, I am not a head D-I football coach in my mid seventies.  I am guessing that if I were, and I was in my office preparing for the weekend, and someone told me "he thought he heard something that sounded like," especially more than twenty four hours later, I probably would have picked up the phone and called the President of the University, or the State Police, or the Chief of Police on campus.  I do know that at Chico State I got to know the Chief of Campus Police there quite well and he was always my first call regardless of what the issue was, and I know that I have campus security on speed dial here as well.


Let me be clear, I firmly believe that anyone that molests someone, rapes someone, harasses someone, woman, child, whomever, anything other than the rack, tar and feathers, and then maybe stoning, slowly, is too good for them.  Just going to jail is far too easy an answer, the death penalty is far too easy an answer.  This type of behavior makes me seethe, as I know is does many people, but it is also important that we punish the right person, or people, and that in the rush to judgement and blame, which is very natural, that we don't let organizations like ESPN skew the truth and the reality to the point that 120 student athletes that were in middle school when all of this started don't end up the ones that suffer the most at Penn State.


I believe that the majority of the Board of Trustees should be replaced, for two reasons, one because the Freeh report does suggest quite strongly that a large portion of the board, not just the chairman, knew more about this scandal than most, and two, because their handling of this entire event since ESPN set up shop on campus with three games to go has been anything but professional.


Should Joe have done more, yes.  Was he the lead culprit in a "cover-up," if that is what we should call it, no.  Was the football staff, other than McQuery and Sandusky, actively involved in this horrible mess, no.  Does anyone really believe that any of the players, then or now, knew what Sandusky was up to and let it happen??  I do not know if anyone believes that or not, but I do not.  Division I college football players are a bizarre collection of individuals to say the least, and a large percentage of them seem to find ways to make really bad decisions, and act in some pretty awful ways, but I just find it very hard to believe that this was the fault of the players in 1998, and 2002, and I know it was not the fault of the current players, so please Penn State University, fire your whole administration, all of your trustees, interesting that that is what they should be called given this situation, and send Sandusky and the then President, and hopefully Mike McQuery to jail (for criminal negligence, or behavior unbecoming a decent human being), but please don't make this about football, and athletics.


This was about a large number of humans, beginning and ending with Jerry Sandusky, that did not act very human, and did not put the children first.  This was the equivalent of a large group of people in the middle of a city watching a man get mugged because they did not want to get involved, except the victims were far more vulnerable, and far less able to defend themselves, and significantly more valuable.


I just wish someone would go back to making this about these victims and their families getting some measure of justice, not just for what was actually done to them, but for what others allowed.


Thank you ESPN for spurring today's sports thought!!

All Is Definitely Not Lost

Well, it is another day, and as with every day ESPN has done something that has completely boggled my mind.  In this case though I have to say it is not just them, but people all across this country that count themselves as college football "experts," or even "avid" fans.  I think all of the above need to find a dictionary and look up some of these words.

I have to admit that this time last year, having been in Boise just over a year, and having been in Bronco Stadium for Senior Day the previous fall, I was a little curious if Boise State would be just as good as the previous year given all the talent they had lost, but knowing a little something of the history of the program, Junior College National Champs, I-AA National Champs, a full decade of steady climb to the top ten under two different head coaches, with Coach Peterson being the consistent theme in that decade as QB Coach, Offensive Coordinator and then Head Coach.

The result? I believe the 2011 version of the Boise State Broncos Football Program was significantly better.  I believe the win over Georgia in the Georgia Dome proved to be an even bigger win than the previous win over Virginia Tech in 2010.

Now Kellen is gone, and Douggie Martin is gone, and a whole bunch more, but this is a great "program," and I am sure, no confident, that Coach Peterson has a shelf in his office with quarterbacks stacked up like cord wood and when he needs one he just goes in there and picks one.  Do I think this year's version of Bronco Football will be just as dominant and just as amazing?  No idea.  Do I think they are deserving of a national ranking, and even a top 15 ranking?  Absolutely yes!!

Alabama graduates a Heisman Trophy winning running back and they are still in the top of the poll.  USC graduates a Heisman Trophy winning QB and they are still in the top 10, and oh by the way, the next quarterback wins a Heisman.

Coach Peterson and his staff are great at what they do, and it is not just Xs and Os.  They have built a program that is a national program and deserves all the same respect as LSU, Alabama, USC and the like.  I truly would have loved to have seen Kellen and the boys against Alabama at the end of last year!!  Great offense against great defense!!  That would have been a fun, exciting game to watch, unlike "the rematch," which was unbearable to watch.  Who has been better than Coach Peterson at managing the five weeks off before bowl games the past five or so years.

Mark May is a complete moron by the way...just saying.

Thank you ESPN for spurring today's sports thought!!

Can't Sit This One Out

Just received notice that a very good friend of mine, and phenomenal kicking coach is being inducted into the Wittenberg University Hall of Fame!!  Congrats Coach Sit!!

Sitler is one of the finest punters in Wittenberg football history. He earned first-team All-OAC honors three times during his career and Lutheran Brotherhood All-America honors in 1975 and 1976. Sitler's name appears frequently in the program record book, standing atop such lists as career punts (177) and punting yardage (6,934), while his punting average for a game (51.6), season (41.1) and career (39.2) all rank second in school history. The Tigers compiled four-year records of 39-5-1 overall and 20-1 in the OAC during Sitler's career, winning two conference championships and the 1975 national championship, in which Sitler set the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl record for punting average (46.4). He earned a tryout with the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League, making it to the final round of cuts. A native of Newark, Ohio, Sitler currently resides in Granville, Ohio, where he has served as kicking/punting coach for Wittenberg's NCAC rival Denison University for 12 years. He continues to coach youth of all ages, including four former Wittenberg kickers/punters and numerous high school standouts.

Gary Sitler

I will try to make this short and sweet, but ESPN has me fired up again.  Today ESPN.com had a headline that read "John Fox...the Coach not Tim Tebow Saved the Broncos."  I do not get why Tim Tebow seems to threaten so many associated with professional football.  I realize he is not the ideal, prototypical pro quarterback these people dream about at night, but all he does is win, and give credit to God, his coach, his o-line, the Broncos defense.  Why can't ESPN and the rest of the so called experts just accept that the Broncos are winning and their is a lot of credit to go around and stop trying to find fault??

Even better, at the beginning of the week, just after the Bears lost from what I can tell, someone associated with ESPN in Chicago reached out to Brett Favre and asked him a question.  Monday morning they came out with "breaking news," Favre says he would listen to offer if Bears called.  Talk about manufacturing headlines.

If ESPN would simply go back to showing sporting events, and reporting sports news once a day, and maybe if they got rid of 4 or 5 of their stations they would not have to continue to be the National Enquirer of sports television.  By the way, after getting Joe Paterno fired and insighting a riot on the Penn State campus, ESPN finally covered the Sandusky side of the Sandusky scandal, ten days later!!

Thank you ESPN for spurring today's sports thought!!.

Favre Too Much ESPN

They have done it again. I guess they almost have to at this point, or at least they can't help themselves, but it is amazingly annoying, aggravating, or down right frustrating that these people contiue to get away with creating stories.  They may even turn out to be right this time, although they are wrong more often than right, but we are half way through day two of non-stop analysis, discussion, and reflection on Brett Favre's career, and impending retirement, without any announcement from Favre or the Minnesota Vikings.

On top of simply creating  the story, there are also no shortage of opinions on whether this "decision," and I use the term very loosely, was a good decision or bad, was good for Favre or bad, fair to the Vikings or not!!  Who at ESPN is truly qualified to speak to any of these questions at all.  There are a couple of folks, but not many, and the ones that are ex-NFLers do a great job with this "story," the only problem is that it is not even an actual story yet.  The least qualified of all of these folks, who shall remain nameless because I don't want to give him that much credit, now has his own bus.  There is no way that anyone other than Madden, Jaws, or Mike and Mike should have their own buses.

It would just be nice to see ESPN cover actual sports NEWS, as opposed to creating, and covering, sports gossip!!

Thank you ESPN for spurring today's sports thought!!

Miss Universe

"Imagine if you go there to see Miss Universe and you end up having Miss Iowa, you might get those kind of boos. But it's OK," he said. "They had to understand that as an organization we have to make sure the kid is fine."

The quote above came from tonights emergency starter for the Washington Nationals, Miguel Batista, or Miss Iowa, I guess. Batista pitched tonight because rookie "phenom," Stephen Stasburg, Miss Universe, had inflammation in his pitching shoulder.

Now, it is easy to understand what Batista meant, and it is even easy enough to see how maybe you could use this as a good comparison, sort of, but my question is why on earth did he pick poor Miss Iowa, and more importantly how must she be feeling right now.

Maybe I am wrong, and maybe nobody will be offended, but I will be very surprised if that is the case. How about saying it would be like coming to see the President of the United States and you end up seeing the Mayor of DC. After all, they are the Washington Nationals, and they do play in Nationals Stadium, and call it a hunch, but I have to believe it would be hard to offend almost anyone if you compared seeing them to seeing the President, but Miss Iowa??

This one just struck me as funny and felt I had to share!!

Thank you ESPN for spurring today's sports thought!!

Layup

"Not everybody agreed with ESPN's decision to air LeBron's live TV event. ... it ultimately undermined the network's journalistic integrity and spun out of control."

This one is not tough, what journalistic integrity?

ESPN will write, print, show, air whatever they need to in order to keep the masses coming, to keep them entertained. ESPN has become the Barnum and Bailey of Sportscasting. Yes they have some good reporters out there in the field, but the percentage of "journalistic integrity" at ESPN versus not has actually had me writing the occasional email to ESPN writers that do write a great story, or cover a story with sensitive content in a classy way.

ESPN is no different than our society in this way, unfortunately, but it is true that there is no so little "journalistic integrity" that the rare appearance of such is what catches the eye, rather than a lack thereof.

The Lebron James "Decision" show was simply a manifestation of Lebron and all his ills and ESPN's lack of journalistic integrity all coming together in one place. The perfect storm of US sports absurdity.

It is time that ESPN, professional sports, professional athletes and US sports in general get back to the basics to clean up our act in this country.

Here is the real question, if Lebron had stayed in Cleavland, and that whole show had been a celebration of that fact and of Cleavland and Cleavland sports, would ESPN be admitting any error in judgement at this point?? And yes that was a rhetorical question.

Thank you ESPN for spurring today's sports thought!!