Way OT: Lou Holtz compares college football players to the troops at Normandy.
First, a little trigger warning: This Twitter user (Justin Baragona) is a Daily Beast founder.
In this video, Lou Holtz makes a comparison between college football players and the troops at Normandy (just shy of the 1:00 mark):
https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1293267651591012352
August 13th, 2020 at 7:22 AM ^
Florida governor DeSantis compared reopening of schools to the seal operation that killed Bin Laden.
These military comparisons out of left field are.... Odd. And shows the complete lack of insight into the problem.
August 13th, 2020 at 10:04 AM ^
I took a poop this morning that was just like the battle of the Somme
August 13th, 2020 at 10:49 AM ^
and not the Battle of the Bulge?
August 13th, 2020 at 11:04 AM ^
Nah, that’s just when I wake up in the morning
August 13th, 2020 at 12:18 PM ^
This is appropriate humor. Going to a poop joke is always a strong play. The author was able to mock the poor use of a metaphor without devolving into a spittle-flecked political rant. Well played sir.
August 13th, 2020 at 12:55 PM ^
Trench foot migrated to your butt hole? Not good.
August 13th, 2020 at 2:06 PM ^
I ate a bowl of spicy cajun peanuts last night, so my poop today is like Viet Nam—a guerrilla war of attrition consisting of constant minor skirmishes punctuated by periodic major battles.
August 13th, 2020 at 2:23 PM ^
sounds like a quagmire
August 13th, 2020 at 3:01 PM ^
Sitting Bull fought many great battles.
August 13th, 2020 at 3:08 PM ^
Know thy self, know thy enemy.
A thousand battles, a thousand victories.
August 13th, 2020 at 10:09 AM ^
Well...invoking the military is a good way to slap the 'support the troops' idea onto these things. I'm sure it's meant to further solidfy support for reopening things amongst right leaning folk
August 13th, 2020 at 7:27 AM ^
As someone who was below average in high school sports, and played 1 year of DII football, then served in the Army and was fired at in anger by the enemy in Iraq, I cannot emphasize enough how overplayed the connection between sports and the military are when comparing one another.
I like sports. They are fun to watch, fun to play, and gratifying on many levels. The Normandy invasion, patrolling in Sadr City, or going through Hell Week, are not comparable on any level. The leadership style is vastly different, the objective is different, the sense of purpose is different. Just because both entities "do stuff outside in the heat" and have other adult men yelling at them acting as "leaders" do not make them the same.
/Get off my lawn
August 13th, 2020 at 7:59 AM ^
#NIMBY
???
August 13th, 2020 at 8:26 AM ^
Same thing when people use "Military grade" to sell a product. Well that means its the cheapest product that may or may not get the job done.
August 13th, 2020 at 10:05 AM ^
In my field, military grade means it operates from -55 to 125 C and costs 10x more than a COTS part. (And it may or may not get the job done as you said.)
August 13th, 2020 at 10:29 AM ^
And has one component manufactured in every congressional district?
August 13th, 2020 at 10:24 AM ^
I have to say, as someone who only played organized sports to high school level and although I served my 4 in the infantry, I never saw any shots fired in anger, I still feel I disagree with some of this.
The military and team sports have quite a few things in common when it comes to leadership of men. Both are about the brotherhood of men (mankind) doing more collectively than they could individually, and leaders being able to sell that concept to 18 year old men and women who generally only think of themselves.
The game itself, football or any other sport, is just a simplified, sterilized proxy for actual warfare itself.
I get that normally no one dies in sport, but the premise to the point of contact is the same.
I'm sure there is a treatise in here somewhere, but this is a blog.
August 13th, 2020 at 11:00 AM ^
I played sports and served in the military. Level of sacrifice is impossible to compare. We played sports in the military, when we could, as an entertaining release. Didn't think too much of holtz to begin with.
August 13th, 2020 at 4:46 PM ^
Yep. "Coach, I know about war. Football is a sport." (Haynes's father, who lost an arm in WWII, offering Bear Bryant some perspective in "Junction Boys.")
August 13th, 2020 at 7:30 AM ^
Any players standing directly in front of Lou Holtsch would be just as drenched, after being showered by all the spittle spewing from his mouth.
August 13th, 2020 at 7:57 AM ^
The visual is a COVID 19 masking commercial.
Lou Holtz in a fabric mask evokes a waterboarding reference.
August 13th, 2020 at 3:21 PM ^
Oh, yea, we got this, "Holtsch". Very naughty.
August 13th, 2020 at 7:39 AM ^
Lou’s probably right. He was 47 during the Normandy invasion so maybe he knows what he’s talking about.
August 13th, 2020 at 10:46 AM ^
It's been a while since I read the Bible... but I'm pretty sure Lou Holtz was one of the Ten Plagues of Egypt. One of the ones in the middle that just get lumped together, I think.
August 13th, 2020 at 7:59 AM ^
Have they not watched saving private Ryan! Wtf
August 13th, 2020 at 10:23 AM ^
Lou Holtz watches Shaving Ryan's Privates all the time.
August 13th, 2020 at 8:00 AM ^
This would be accurate if the troops leaping out of the boats on to the beach were made up of the elderly and others particularly vulnerable to Covid 19. So no.
August 13th, 2020 at 8:02 AM ^
Cancelling the B1G Fall season will eventually be remembered as the single dumbest management decision in the history of college sports.
August 13th, 2020 at 9:59 AM ^
I remember people saying the same about lockdowns in March
August 13th, 2020 at 10:08 AM ^
It was true and still is. Locking down NYC and goodly portions of the Northeast and Detroit, Smart!
Locking down the rest of the country. Stupid beyond measure.
August 13th, 2020 at 10:40 AM ^
Agreed because check us out now. We're doing AWESOME.
August 13th, 2020 at 1:35 PM ^
Chef's kiss for the casual but powerful trolling in this comment!
August 13th, 2020 at 10:07 AM ^
Nope, that’s still going to be inviting Rutger to join the Big 10.
August 13th, 2020 at 2:56 PM ^
Hauer?
August 13th, 2020 at 10:12 AM ^
Loosen your grip on your pearls man. Let's check back in October when all college football has been cancelled and see how your opinion looks
August 13th, 2020 at 11:05 AM ^
Or the best.
August 13th, 2020 at 2:14 PM ^
"Cancelling the B1G Fall season will eventually be remembered as the single dumbest management decision in the history of college sports."
I would expect such brilliant opining from the same account that posted this on August 2nd, 2019 at 6:32 PM
"We never went to the moon."
August 13th, 2020 at 3:06 PM ^
So you are wrong as often as your avatar.
August 13th, 2020 at 8:07 AM ^
I’ve never been a soldier (much less stormed the beaches of Normandy to literally save the world from Nazis) or played college ball, but you’ll have to forgive my skepticism that these two items are even remotely related.
One is a game. One is life and death
August 13th, 2020 at 8:14 AM ^
This isn't *that* OT... it's a former CFB coach talking about CFB players.
That said, it should come with a different label warning people about the presence of Lou Holtz.
August 13th, 2020 at 8:39 AM ^
Well he sure seemed to have put hook in Spindler.
August 13th, 2020 at 8:19 AM ^
Old Lou. Went to seed many years ago. Dragging him out for comment at this stage is sad, kind of like those years Dick Clark was still doing New Year’s Eve shows when anyone with compassion would have gently removed him from the broadcasts.
August 13th, 2020 at 8:22 AM ^
This is a good time to realize that otherwise intelligent and well-meaning people sometimes don't say the smartest things.
August 13th, 2020 at 9:18 AM ^
This is extremely generous to Lou Holtz.
August 13th, 2020 at 10:47 AM ^
For real, I was gonna say...Lou Holtz and intelligence aren't often mentioned in the same sentence.
August 13th, 2020 at 12:31 PM ^
Fair enough. He managed to convince ND to lower their academic clearance for a few years. That seemed clever in its own way.
August 13th, 2020 at 8:22 AM ^
Holtz has always been, and will always be, a blabbering fool that likes to hear his own voice. When is he going to go away and just retire, already? Please, gawd, just go away Lou...
August 13th, 2020 at 10:13 AM ^
Holtz was one of the most prolific cheaters as every school he coached at was busted and penalized for violations. As soon as penalties were to be announced, he would leave for another school.
August 13th, 2020 at 8:37 AM ^
Sounds reasonable.
August 13th, 2020 at 8:45 AM ^
Then we have "11 Warriors". Also, some advertising genius also co-opted "Weekend Warrior" (used to describe the National Guard/Reserves) for an ad for people to buy kayaks or something.
I served, but never was shot at. I did lob 105mm howitzer shells in the direction of North Korea, but that's as close as I got to the horror others experienced.
Comparing football/sports players to the military is just intellectually lazy.