WTKA Roundtable 7/13/2023: Who's Gonna Haze Chris Floyd?
Things Discussed:
- HTTV: the only 2023 Michigan preview magazine advocating wheel routes to Edwards and Loveland! Digital Edition, Kindle Edition, Print Interest List.
- Pat Fitzgerald & Northwestern: Seth recounts getting hazed at his fraternity, which ended those practices in 1999.
- Who for Northwestern? Brian says they should go retread. Seth thinks they can do better: There are worse lives than being rich in Evanston, Illinois.
- NIL: Why they can't make all of the donations tax-deductible: Some of the schools were sloppier than HAIL! but the fundamental principle is if you're running a charity, the purpose has to be CHARITABLE.
- Seven collectives coming together: Is it a union? Call it what you want; industries always have organizations within them to create leverage to benefit them. The big pie is the TV money, but the collectives right now are just trying to bring some kind of quality and standardization to their products.
[Hit the JUMP for the player, and video and stuff]
You can catch the entire episode on Michigan Insider's podcast stream.
Segment 2 is here. You can watch the video here:
MGoBlog Roundtable https://t.co/rbTlZLqedu
— Sam Webb (@SamWebb77) July 13, 2023
The Usual Links:
- Helpful iTunes subscribe link
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Direct download link (right-click/save as)
- What's with the theme music?
I went to Medellin it's really nice.
Interesting and provocative roundtable this morning, especially (to me) Seth's point that college football head coaches who succeed at one school and stay there for a while (~10 years or more) almost inevitably create a culture in which bad stuff like hazing can occur. Hmmmm.
Unless you're winning titles, like Saban, I've always put the expiration of a coach at about 10 years, as well. Not saying every situation would end like NU, but I think things do get stale and lead to apathy, which can lead to bad things. I was worried that JH was approaching that milestone. Not that he strikes me as type of coach who would let staleness and apathy seep into a program, but it would be nice for everyone for him to add that championship to his resume before too long.
The one notable recent exception to the rule, granted wins became a problem at the end, was Ken Niumatalola. If I'm NU, that's the first person to whom I reach out. The parallels between NU and Navy are plenty, and he gets a chance to coach on a bigger stage. There's not a whiff of scandal around him, of which I'm aware. Hell, his current title at UCLA is "Director of Leadership". If that doesn't scream out to a school who needs an actual leader, I don't know what does. Not only do you get a guy who can come in and keep the program afloat, but you also don't have to go through the dance of going through back-door channels getting turned down by every other coach preparing his team for the upcoming season.
I believe the Navy is more or less famous for hazing:
Been awhile, but yes, Army hazing, especially in 'elite' units such as the 82nd (where I was) had brutal hazing experiences. Not a fun experience and pretty traumatizing for a 18 year old who hadn't done organized sports (soccer did not qualify in those days).
Seemed like about once a year someone would get seriously injured in hazing and there would be a crackdown, but it never lasted.
I've always assumed whenever you get young people living together like this hazing is just part of the experience. It's really up to leadership at various levels to make sure it stays under control, and is more of team building experience than brutalization.
Buddy from high school went to the Army straight outta high school and he was telling me that one hazing routine was blindfolding newbies and making them do atomic situps, where the upward momentum of the blindfolded situpper rams their face into someone else's unwiped ass.
I'm not sure if that was something he knew about firsthand or secondhand, but it definitely squelched my already nonexistent desire to undergo basic training.
I can’t handle that truth
Never had any issue in Basic. We were much too tired and downtrodden in our existence to waste time and effort on hazing in those 13 weeks of hell. It was the regular units where shit like that happened.
I tell you what though. If you have never done competitive sports at a high level, there is nothing like Basic training to prove to you at a basic atomic level that you can do a LOT more than you think you can. I will always recommend the services to those people who don't really know what they want to do in life and aren't particularly motivated.
I agree that Ken Niumatalola seems like a good dude but Pat Fitzgerald's entire thing was about leadership and "The Wildcat Way", and when he was winning seemingly everyone bought it up. As a general rule I think any time someone tries to bottle up some ephemeral characteristic such as "leadership" and sell it to others I get suspicious that it's real. People around here questioned Harbaugh's ability to lead the team when they were 2-4; shockingly few are questioning his leadership ability now because he's won a bunch more games.
I do think NU should look at Ken or a guy like Paul Chryst, who is out there, has had success in the conference, knows the region, and can (probably) recruit to NU reasonably well. My concern with a guy like Niumatalolo is that his teams really fell off toward the end and you wonder if a 58-year-old guy who's basically only coached one place can pivot to a new environment, especially given the fact he'd also have to change his offensive outlook significantly from the option-based attack he had at Navy.
But in this case, it sounds like the hazing was there throughout Fitzgerald's tenure (and perhaps before). It doesn't seem to have just set in after he became untouchable as a coach. It also seems like this is something that's associated with their athletic department in general - there are reports of similar hazing in other NU sports.
I prefer listening and watching but the video feed now only opens in twitter, which I don't use. Is there a way to use Twitter without joining, or would it be possible to return the video feed back to universal access?
Same here. This is the only social media type substance that I use (intentionally.) - ok I guess you can count YouTube also technically, but commenting and interaction doesn't happen, just watch/listen to videos.
I watch on YouTube--just search on Michigan Insider and it comes up. Commenting does happen on YouTube, although personally I find most of the comments to be silly. But they are available if you want them, just can't watch the feed in full screen format at the same time.
Thanks!
Re: Chris Creighton, the issue may be as simple as his record at EMU (46-61). We know how tough a job EMU is, and that he's done extremely well to take them to multiple bowl games, but people outside the state may not. They may just see a MAC coach with a sub-.500 record.
I do think he'd be a good hire for Northwestern, though.
How surprised about NU's situation? Dial it up to 11.
I was today days old when I realized that player did not mean someone in maize and blue but instead an interface by which to listen to the podcast
Face palm dot emoji
Seth, you usually make eminent sense but it doesn't seem likely that NU can hire an up-&-coming coach. The chance of improving NU's situation are long-term, longer than a young coach can wait before jumping to a better job.
And, yes, it's great living in Evanston. I've done it myself. But ambitious coaches care much more about the job than the house. (Though, with a nice Evanston house, you can join the group protesting the stadium upgrade.)
Yea they need their Bill O'Brien to come in and stabilize things.
Couldn't be happier after watching that idiot jump around on the sidelines like a 6th grade cheerleader.
As a Michigan fan who lives in Iowa, I think it's interesting (and pretty hilarious) in that an extensive discussion about possible NW coaching candidates, no one mentioned Matt Campbell once, not even in passing. He's a decent coach and youngish, but holy smokes is he overrated. And that's mostly because there aren't any other decent, youngish coaches out there.
I, for one, am eternally glad Michigan didn't jettison Harbaugh at the height of the pre-2021 panic to hire the fool's gold that is Matt Campbell.
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