Thursday, November 12, 2009

Getting Caught Up

So where do I begin to get caught up? The obvious is the fact that my beloved New York Yankees won their 27th World Series title. It’s been a long time and I loved every minute of it. I had also called it for the Yankees in six, which impressed those who heard me say it, although it shouldn’t have. At some point I’ll write about the economics of baseball because it’s of interest to me, but this had nothing to do with the Yankees “buying” another title. (and by the way that claim has been made since Ruth led them to their first title in ’23.) Salary level has little to do with success, just ask the Mets. Many of the players that contributed are also home grown talent, including the “core four” as they are now being called. The first team to win the series without a single player drafted by that team (I have been told) is the 2004 Red Sox. What was also very apparent from revenue and television viewership numbers is that the MLB does very well when the Yankees are very good, and all the teams benefit from that.

Tim Tebow was cleared to play and has been doing well, but there have been more troubling trends on the concussion front since then. Last Saturday, Jahvid Best, the running back for the University of California, was taken off the field on a stretcher after having lost consciousness in a dive into the end zone and suffered a serious concussion. It happened that he has also been diagnosed the prior week with a minor concussion suffered the week before which had not been caught. So, in less than 10 days he has now had two concussions. There has been some debate about how long he will be out for, which is ridiculous. The coaches, the medical staff, the university and the fans should all be telling him that he is done for the season. These injuries are way too serious to be taken as lightly as they are and the long-term risks are terrifying. It is in Best’s best interest to be done. I know that this flies in the face of the toughness issues of football players as well as the win at any cost mentality, but we have to start thinking of what is in the best interest of the players not for the fans, the university and the coach.

If you still don’t think this is a serious issue, please read this article by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker. You MUST read this if you have a son playing football, know a friend’s son who plays football, know someone who knows someone whose child plays football, etc. In other words you must read this article. If what the doctors he interviews suspect is true it is terrifying.

LeGarrette Blount, whom I also wrote about, has also been reinstated for this week’s game against Arizona State (Go Devils!). I wrote at the time that I believed that Oregon had made the right move, and I still stand by that. I’m also still waiting for Boise State to make any show of punishment for their player who instigated the whole thing, although I know the wait is in vain; and Florida’s half game suspension of Brandon Spikes for attempting to gauge out the eyes of another player was just ridiculous. I think you can also be sure that had Florida been playing someone good the next week instead of Vanderbilt (sorry Commodore fans) that there would not have been any suspension, because Florida, like Boise, has cleared made it clear that sportsmanship and good play are secondary issues to winning. That is not the statement that Oregon made.

At the time I also wondered were forgiveness came into the picture. That is where we are now. We have to give applause to Blount for dealing appropriately with this issue. He could have just walked away from everything and gone back home to wait for the NFL draft, but he didn’t. Instead he continued to go to school and to practice in order to prove himself and show that this was a mistake which he was aware of and wanted to atonement for (one of those big church words). And apparently he has done that and more, to the point that not only Oregon but the PAC-10 were willing to change their minds and reinstate him. I again applaud Oregon for their original stand, for giving him the opportunity to change his ways and earn a place, and for changing their original position when there was a new reality. If only other institutions would operate the same way. You have been given another chance Mr. Blount, make the most of it.

Navy beat Notre Dame again for the second time in three years, both times on Notre Dame’s field, and also for only the second time in the last 46 years. I used to be a Notre Dame fan, but now I root against them every chance I get. When they fired Bob Davie after the 2001 season, they interviewed Tyrone Willingham, who had turned around Stanford’s football team (Stanford has a much higher academic acceptance level than Notre Dame by the way), but instead decided to higher George O’Leary from Georgia Tech. When it turned out that he had lied about not only his playing career but also his academic career, he was forced to resign, and they then hired Willingham.

In his first year Willingham had a better record than Weiss, although in Weiss’ first year he was given a ten year extension. (Willingham also gave credit to Davie for the players he had that he was succeeding with. Weiss took all the credit for himself because he was such a great coach.) At the end of his third year, before he had his recruiting classes playing for him as seniors, Willingham was fired with a record of 21-15. At the end of Weiss’ third year he had a record of 22-15, but he was not fired. There were lots of reasons for this, the money left on the stupid contract he had been given in the first year being one of them, but when you look at the numbers, which are basically the same, and how one man was treated against the other the only differences are that one is black and not an alumni, and the other is white and an alumni.

I do not believe that the alumni piece plays all that big of a role, so that leaves race as the defining difference. This is only substantiated by comments made by the president of Notre Dame, Rev. Edward A. Malloy, at the time that Willingham was fired who said that the most embarrassing thing to happen under his leadership at Notre Dame (he was also leaving) was the way that Tyrone Willingham was treated, and he had been there since 1987. Here is a good editorial on the issue. Go Pitt!

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