Alright, folks, calm down. Cal-... No. I said relax. Stop... will you stop screaming? Okay... good. Now come out of the corner. Good. Now lets have a bit of a history lesson, okay. Just a little.

In the early 20th century, the wealthiest man in America, without question, was one John D. Rockefeller. The name associated with so many good works and warm, fuzzy thoughts of a better time was a rich son of a gun, as I'm sure you all knew. What you did NOT know, however, was that, prior to 1914, he was also one of the most hated men in America. He was regarded as selfish, materialistic, out of touch, curmudgeonly, grumpy, old, ugly, and an easy target for the media.

Being an older gentleman, he only had a partial knowledge of the exact goings on of his companies, and being christian, he chose to make all of his philanthropies private. He also did not make himself available to the press because they insisted on lampooning him. This personality and style of living carried on to his children, most notably John Jr., who was just as lampooned.

In 1914, things got their worst, when Miners at a Ludlow, Colorado mine owned by Rockefeller organized a strike due to the extremely poor conditions and pay at the mine. I won't go into great detail, but eventually the National Guard arrived, and though reports dispute the specifics of what happend, it is known that 19 people (including two children) from the strikers and their families' were massacred.

After this, Rockefeller Jr.'s already horrible reputation dropped like a rock to the point that people were calling for him to be brought up on criminal charges, and all of his companies, which employed many, many thousands, were at risk.. It was only this horrific turn of events that caused Rockefeller Jr. to take care of his image. He visited the mine site after this, met with the miners, improved their conditions and pay, made public the information regarding all the money he gave to charity, and worked with specially selected press and media to cultivate the right image. In a short time, he transformed his image to a genial, kindly, giving, worldly gentleman with a soft spot for the public interest.

This is generally known as the birth of Public Relations. Here's where this ties in to our story today.

He only did so much image work because his livelyhood and those of all his thousands of employees were at severe risk. He did not care, one whit, what the public thought of him. Simply put, he was too important for that. He didn't read articles that insulted him, his person, or his choices and get upset that people might be thinking poorly of him. He didn't worry that he was a discussion of negativity at dinner tables around the world. Important people do not care what you think. They don't, and they shouldn't. You, your friends, your local newscasters and their bosses don't matter to important people.

Rich Rodriguez is our coach in 2010. It's a fact. He will do everything within his power to ensure it stays that way in the future. He doesn't care if Drew Sharpe insults him. He doesn't fear that somebody in the Admissions department has it out for him and is keeping his recruits out. The only man at his workplace more important than him does not have it out for him, and therefore, his livelyhood is not threatened. Dave Brandon and MSC aren't going to let somebody mess with the rules just to mess with RR. They want him to succeed. If they didn't, they'd not be defending him. Then he would care. Here's what he cares about, wins and losses.

So the next time you worry that our coach is staying up nights worrying about what the papers will print tomorrow, or that somebody in cubicle 12 in admissions wants to put a knife in his back, stop. He is too important to care what they think. He cares about wins, and losses. Be a fan. Support him, and help him win. Then, it won't matter if he cares what the detractors think. Because their won't be any.

Edit: Since some people have been unclear on the point of all this, let me respecify. Quite simply, the point is to show that it takes a boondoggle of EPIC proportions before important people care what the less important people think. It takes something that is truly, truly threatening to them. Nothing to that level has yet happened. A couple of bad years and a recruiting/admissions snafu, with the support of Brandon, aren't leaving Rodriguez feeling threatened.