I know this subject has been done and done again, but I think that Rick Reilly offers up a good mea culpa in article form.
The subject of deifying our coaches has been something that bothers me a lot. I worry that by building the false facades of morality, that we open the door to the unspeakable.
Good article
Ringo Starr is a good person
Ringo Starr is a good person solely because of his prowess at playing whatever John or Paul told him to play.
shrim
Whenever somebody mentions
Whenever somebody mentions ringo starr, I think about that family guy clip where he brings a song to the band and they put it on the fridge.
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia - but only slightly less well-known is this: Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!
Whenever somebody mentions Ringo Starr
I die just a little bit. Thankfully, the mentions are fewer and further between.
----
Pete Best
precisely. I've often
precisely. I've often wondered why we put so much value in people in these fields. It's not that I don't have respect for prominent people in these positions, but it has to be kept in check.
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia - but only slightly less well-known is this: Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!
Fear not! Our almighty Hoke
Fear not! Our almighty Hoke shall smite the evildoers back to the depths from whence they came! Praise be to Hoke!
wont happen here?
Are we past the day where a coach gets so powerful, he can dictate his own rules of morality? Where the Program no longer has to do what is ethical -- but, rather, what the Program does is ethical.
Was in Disney World two weeks ago. Lots of scarlet Ohio fans, more than UM, down there - was weird. Saw one really fat, ugly Ohio guy wearing a big white T shirt, with a huge smug picture of Sentaror Vest's smiling face on it, and a lot of words around it about what a great guy he was etc etc. I thought to myself, the Senator was such a good liar, he still has some people in Columbus fooled.
But maybe these aren't the days a coach's power will go unchecked. The media really loves pulling down guys on pedastals. The closer someone in the public's eye gets to sainthood, the more each guy and gal in the media wants to be "the one" to break "the story" and pull him/her down. Point of fact -- Paterno did, eventually, come down from this, due to an intrepid young reporter in State College.
I'd like to think Brady Hoke, if he's here 20 years and wins 10 national titles and only loses the other remaining 9 because he feels sorry for the SEC and wants to avoid a Congressional hearing because all your top linebackers is ours, can't become a Joe Paterno. But power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and JoePa is the posterchild for that. Can happen to anyone.
I whole-heartidly agree with
I whole-heartidly agree with you. This is exactly why we need to take this horrible tragedy and learn a lesson from it as sports fans. We cannot let our real-world values become skewed because we place such a high priority on winning extra curricular activities. don't get me wrong, I love college football (i'm here, on this blog in the off season as a perfect example), but we should never lose sight of what is really important.
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia - but only slightly less well-known is this: Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!
agree and disagree
don't get me wrong but i agree that people deify athletes and coaches in general. however, in joe pa's case, it is taken to a whole other level; not just because of the wins but because he was perceived to have run his program the "right way". now, the world finds out that it was complete BS. he turned out to be no different (in fact much much worse) than many others - protect the program at all costs. this is the bigger gut punch. not that a coach was crooked, but it was perhaps the most "sainted" coach ever.
it's like if we found out that george washington was a british spy and we won the revolutionary war anyway, despite his efforts to do otherwise.
never happened to bo
it never happened to bo. bo would never have covered up anything, much less child rape.
I will fucking cunt punt the next person I hear about doing something like that, and I don't give a fuck if you SOR me, I WILL FUCKING ASSAULT YOU.
Did you just equate Paterno's
Did you just equate Paterno's cover up to Tressel's?!
I would be shocked if Bo and Woody and many other coaches, especially back then, didn't cover up mundane things like tattoos.
This sounds like the ideology
This sounds like the ideology people in Happey Valley had/have about Joe Pa.
I honestly don't think
I honestly don't think anything like Penn St. will ever happen at Michigan. Conversely, just because it happened at Penn St., doesn't mean it will happen anywhere else. I think at PSU it was a perfect storm of factors unique to the university that caused the unthinkable to happen. Elsewhere, not so much. This is a Penn St.-specific crime, and will never happen again at another university, IMO.
shrim
Ask all those kids playing junior hockey...
If it can't happen again...
wait
not too long ago we had a baylor basketball coach try and cover up a murder. and more recently there may have been efforts to cover up an alleged rape of a college co ed by two basketball players (school intentially left out). the truth has yet to surface as to what occurred there.
It would be much more
It would be much more difficult at Michigan or Ohio State or almost any school for this to happen. Penn State's geographic isolation allowed the normal level of college athlete/coach worship to grow into a malignant cult of personality. Besides Penn State, what else is there in State Center? The local media certainly weren't going to do anything to upset the golden goose, and it was almost impossible for outsiders to do anything more than repeat the line that was fed to them over and over. "Success with Honor. The Penn State Way. Joe Pa is a saint." That isolation, coupled with Penn State's exemption from open records law, enabled Sandusky more than anything.
The sportswriters have this one right.
There are frequent occasions when I think that national writers are out-of-touch and have a worse grasp of sports than the sports-watching public.
In this case, I think the writers as a whole are properly outraged, apologetic, and centered in their deservedly intense criticism of Paterno in the light of the recent Freeh report.
I have no idea why the public outrage is not matching the media outrage, but take these ESPN polls as an example of the stubbornly lingering positive impression of Paterno:
Surprisingly, Pennsylvania was not more than 10% more pro-Paterno in these polls than the U.S. as a whole. But, I simply do not understand how 2/3 of U.S. sports fans can remain to have some significantly positive feelings about Paterno.
I compulsively downvote any usage of "lol".
people will continue to hold
people will continue to hold onto the image that they have of Paterno simply because it would require too much self reflection to change it. imho.
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia - but only slightly less well-known is this: Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!
The scary thing is
The scary thing is we offered our job to him before Bo.
"You're fat and you're mine". Bo to Dan Dierdorf.
I'd like to think that our
I'd like to think that our top brass at the school would handle this better, but that's naive. You never know how people will react in these situations until they're placed in them.
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia - but only slightly less well-known is this: Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!
I think the reason something
I think the reason something like this is much less likely to happen at Michigan is that Michigan's reputation is not built on the success of its football program, its based on the strength of its academics. With Penn State it's the other way around.
Agreed
I could believe scum bags could infiltrate our athletic teams and hurt our kids, but I can't imagine those outside the athletic department (and hopefully within) would ever in a million years allow this to happen like it did at psu...can you imagine dudderstadt condoning this? Mary sue Coleman? even under Bo? No way. Different culture. Think of how they handled our dust up with the ncaas or the fab five scandal. No way. That is the greatness of our institution...has its priorities right and achieves greatness the right way...the Michigan way. That said, I would expect our institution to be thinking differently now to redouble efforts to ensure nothing like this could ever happen.
PSU should be shut down
I don't know if you're equating the right parts of each situation. The initial "crime" in Michigan's case was the payments to players/stetching (for their respective violations). Whereas the crime (actual, legal terrible, terrible crime) in PSU's case were the multiple rapes. The next step (the step to which I believe you're referring to), Michigan's brass report and take their medicine. In PSU's case, they covered it up even more. Add on top of that the nature of the situation and, I have to believe that there aught to be some serious consideration to eliminating their program. Let's think about this for a minute. The program at the school became so out of control that they were able to strongarm the president of the university into covering up a series of rapes. If SMU's violations and LOIC warrented shutting down the progam, I'd say that the situation at Penn St. most certainly does too. For at least a year, if not even longer.
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia - but only slightly less well-known is this: Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!
I agree that it takes a
I agree that it takes a powerful public figure in order to orchestrate something like the Penn State coverup, but I believe the only individual at any university who can be both sufficiently powerful and a public enough figure is the football (or possibly basketball) coach. I believe that the administration at an academics first institution would not risk its reputation protecting the football team.
And do you really think there's any informed individual out there (including Rich Rod) who thinks Michigan is not an academics first institution?
For what it's worth, Hoke's
For what it's worth, Hoke's boss is not one of his former players.
Finally, Rick Reilly writes something true and worthwhile...
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What an idiot I was.
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What a stooge I was.
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What a sap I was.
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What a chump I was.
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What a tool I was.
Joe Paterno, SI Sportsman of the Year, by Rick Reilly.
I think it's very interesting
I think it's very interesting that a PSU professor would be the one to break the news, back in 1986, that Paterno would "do anything to win." What information would that professor have to offer? Did he teach some of PSU's players?
I always thought it didn't quite square up that a big NFL feeder school like PSU, which recruited plenty of marginal student-athletes, always had this sky-high graduation rate. Could it be that JoePa, who seemed to lord over the whole school, was bullying professors to give players passing grades?
I doubt JoePa was directly
I doubt JoePa was directly bullying professors over grades, but pressure doesn't need to be that overt to be successful. More likely (and what I have first hand knowledge of at another Big Ten instituion (neither PSU nor UM) is that the football players have their own academic advisors and tutors, and they steer the players into certain programs and certain sections. The tutors and advisors know which faculty members and sections to put students in and which to avoid, even to the point of transferring failing students from one section to another.
There are other ways of finagling the system too. I remember in the late 80s a top basketball player at OSU was ineligible after the fall semester, meaning he would have to sit out the spring semester, but lo and behold, he somehow took courses (some he re-took) over Christmas break and became eligible. The way it was done then is, if I'm not mistaken, something that the NCAA no longer allows.
I doubt JoePa was directly
I doubt JoePa was directly bullying professors over grades, but pressure doesn't need to be that overt to be successful. More likely (and what I have first hand knowledge of at another Big Ten instituion (neither PSU nor UM) is that the football players have their own academic advisors and tutors, and they steer the players into certain programs and certain sections. The tutors and advisors know which faculty members and sections to put students in and which to avoid, even to the point of transferring failing students from one section to another.
There are other ways of finagling the system too. I remember in the late 80s a top basketball player at OSU was ineligible after the fall semester, meaning he would have to sit out the spring semester, but lo and behold, he somehow took courses (some he re-took) over Christmas break and became eligible. The way it was done then is, if I'm not mistaken, something that the NCAA no longer allows.
Real And Unreal
"Could've tried a simple "I'm sorry." But he didn't. Instead, he just lied deeper. Right to her face. Right to all of our faces."
A part of the tragedy is that Paterno, in the end, honestly didn't feel that there was anything to be sorry about, from the sound of it. He seemed to believe that he was what the media, fans and university had made him over the course of years, and that he was - for all intents and purposes - Penn State football and that it's image was worth the terrible ruination of lives these victims had experienced at the hands of his ex-defensive coordinator. He seemed to think that these were acceptable losses, if you will, if it meant that Penn State football could continue as normal, whatever "normal" was in State College.
When the reputation of a man and his program is placed in higher esteem by a school than the well-being of children, then it certainly does provide a somber insight into what things can look like if you allow the culture around the sport to deindividuate people so much that basic humanity becomes secondary to the success of the enterprise, if you will. It seems like, in the end, that unreality was simply more palatable to Paterno than the reality of the situation.
"Funny isn't it, how naughty dentists always make that one fatal mistake."
Follow the random tweets of a Michigan alum - http://twitter.com/#!/LorneEC3
The Cult lives on. PSU
The Cult lives on. PSU fans have apparently made a film called "The Joe We Know." Here's its website:
dead on as usual Reilly...
dead on as usual Reilly...
I definitely love playing and watching sports. There is really not much more than I enjoy than fall saturdays spent watching Michigan football.
But I've always been uncomfortable with the amount of adulation our society places on athletes and coaches -- no different from CEO's, politicians, entertainers, etc.
Just because someone is good at something like sports or music doesn't make them a good person.
Third generation Michigan alum