Jack’s Blog

Now is the time of year when directors of athletics whose football teams haven’t won as much as they need 1) financially or 2) to please the boosters/fans, face difficult decisions.  In a few months, basketball coaches’ heads will be on the guillotine.  “Today’s” ADs, i.e. guys with backgrounds in finance or business, pretty much solve the problem the same way.  Fire the coach and hire a headhunting firm give them a list of three or so.  Then have a committee interview each - with the loudest mouth in the room usually making the final decision.  The reason for such a solution is they really don’t know any other way.

These directors have such limited playing or coaching experience, certainly on the college level, that hiring becomes a hit-or-miss operation.  Teams can win and be poorly coached, lose but be well coached, yet these guys are out of their element in evaluating the team’s performance.  What they understand is the bottom line.  And there’s a reason for that: it’s why they were hired.  Even casual sports fans know that college athletics has become big business.  Football and men’s basketball are the revenue producers.  On several campuses those coaches are making more than the president!  ADs are under more pressure than ever before because, as Eric Kaler, president of the University of Minnesota said, “Athletics and our facilities serve as a front door to—and a window into—the University.”  I would be willing to bet that if Kaler and his fellow presidents voted on whether football and basketball coaches ought to be paid more than the prez gets, I could predict the outcome of that vote - within 2-3%.  So when teams lose, . . .  

Throughout history there have always been coaches get fired, mainly because in every league, someone has to finish last.  When their bosses were former coaches (usually football coaches), the head man nearly always got the benefit of the doubt.  Of course, it was easier when the coach was making high five figures/ low six-figures instead of low-to-mid seven-figures (doesn’t sound like that much of a difference when it’s put that way).

Sometimes, a coach doesn’t give the university a choice, e.g. Bobby Petrino and his indiscretion/poor road skills/worse coverup at Arkansas (although he wound up on his feet, apparently at a school that believes in second chances - as long as the team wins, more fans show up, fund raising increases, etc.)  Other times, the coach should never have been hired, e.g. Derrick Dooley at Tennessee.  What he had going for him was 1) his success at Louisiana Tech and 2) his dad.  I spent seven years at UT and that was plenty long enough to know what football means there.  La Tech is not a good enough proving ground for a job of that magnitude and once the team started losing, the Vols’ fans didn’t care if his father was Knute Rockne.  Sure, he was dealt a miserable hand by Lane Kiffin who left so abruptly for SC (a job opening which he coveted but I truly believe he had not seen coming open when it did).  In any case, it screwed up UT’s next two recruiting classes.  That is why they needed to hire a powerful figure.  With the money they have, they could have gotten it done.  With all it’s costing them now - in severance and rebuilding - hey, it’s just my observation.

Probably the greatest example of a former coach who became director of athletics sticking with his coach, understanding he had the right man, even though the team was losing, was Tom Butters at Duke.  Butters was also a former major league baseball player (a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates).  The basketball team had lost - with allegedly top talent - yet Butters knew he’d hired the right guy.  So he didn’t fire Mike Krzyzewski.  Wise move.

Due to obscene amounts of money, the new breed of ADs have infinitely more difficult positions than their “coach-turned-AD” forefathers, but as the best sports columnist of all-time, Jim Murray, once said:

“Nothing is ever so bad it can’t be made worse by firing the coach.”

Athletes have found themselves in slumps they wish they could climb out of just as coaches have had to deal with players not getting the job done as effectively as they knew they could.  There simply seems to be times when the player can’t call on the ability he or she knows is there.  Other times coaches get frustrated because they’ve seen the athlete perform and wonder what could have happened.

Is it malaise?  Poor nutrition?  Sophomore jinx?  Girlfriend/boyfriend problem?  Trouble with family?  Anxiety?  Running with the wrong crowd?  We’ve all had to face the issue as players or coaches.  Some of us as both.  And possibly more than once.

When there’s a problem, the first thing to do is get help.  Just yesterday I read an article about the Los Angeles Clippers’ Lamar Odom.  As NBA fans (and probably those who watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians) know, the big fella, husband of Khloe, was traded to the Dallas Mavericks last season.  Odom, an integral player on the back-to-back world champion Lakers during the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons, was terribly upset that he had to leave LA - even though the Mavs, his new team, had just won the 2010-11 championship.

He never could find his form with Dallas.  It got so bad, he even served a stint in the D-League.  In an effort to find out what, exactly, what was going on with his new investment, Mavs’ owner Mark Cuban questioned Lamar about his commitment to the team - was he was in or out?  Allegedly, that was the last straw for Odom.  He didn’t even finish the season in a uniform.  This year he was traded to the Clippers, not the Lakers, but in the same old tinseltown as his previous stop.

Unfortunately for Odom and the Clippers - and for Khloe and their baby daughter - his “game” never returned to its previous LA form.  Game after game, week after week  - basically no production from the former Sixth Man of the Year.  It’s not that the Clips were losing.  On the contrary, they were playing the best ball since anyone could remember.  If only they could get the Lamar Odom of old back.

While his numbers aren’t great, since this month began, he’s been getting an average of about 21 minutes/game.  His coach, Vinny Del Negro has been quite patient, saying all along, it would awhile before Lamar got into playing shape.  VDN even commented that his guy has recently lost 12 pounds and would continue to drop weight.  He was very pleased with Odom.  Of course the Clippers are on a six-game winning streak.  However, it would be a very Merry Xmas if the “Lamar Odom of Years Past” were to make an appearance.

Asked about the reasons for his sudden production, Odom disclosed what every coach and player needs to commit to memory:

“My mind and my body are starting to attach again.  That feels good.”

Stan Van Gundy “occasionally” had his differences with the media.  Not surprising since Stan knew his craft well, certainly better than the people who covered him and his team.  Rumors abounded during his tenure as head coach of the Orlando Magic and it definitely rubbed him the wrong way.

Since the invention of the Internet, writing the game story isn’t enough.  Sportswriting has become a sport.  So many people are writing about the same team that writers are looking for the “story within the story,” i.e. the gossip.  I have to admit that my memory is not nearly as good as it was - from what I’m told, the result of reaching 60 plus - but I can’t remember the term “anonymous source” being used in sports stories - or any other stories for that matter - when I was growing up.

Possibly, I shouldn’t have been surprised when I read that Stan, on a radio show in Orlando, made the seemingly outrageous statement that Chicago Bulls’ superstar Derrick Rose might leave Chi-town.  Rose, a Chicago native and former #1 overall pick, signed a $50 million contract extension that keeps him from free agency until the summer of 2017 but Van Gundy said “the league has changed.”  While Stan said Rose is a great player and ambassador for the NBA, in today’s world guys want a chance to win it all and if Rose doesn’t get better players than his current supporting cast, he might be tempted to go to a team with that has a superior roster.

The turning point in the NBA came when the Boston Celtics obtained Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to go along with their all-star Paul Pierce - and proceeded to win the championship.  LeBron James and Chris Bosh hooking up with Dwyane Wade took a couple years but won a title this past season.  Van Gundy cited Chris Paul leaving a bad roster in New Orleans for a better one, that he wants to improve even more, with the Los Angeles Clippers.  Add to that the recent transactions of Steve Nash and Van Gundy’s former stud Dwight Howard by the LA Lakers and you can see Stan’s point.

Basically, it comes down to winning - and winning it all - which ain’t easy.  As the saying goes:

“If winning was easy, losers would do it.”

Call it the curse of Lane Kiffin.  After Kiffin fled Knoxville after only one year, bad things began happening for the University of Tennessee football team.  First of all, I don’t believe Kiffin had planned on leaving UT after just one season but Pete Carroll pulled an unexpected departure of his own when the Seattle Seahawks gave him the opportunity to redeem himself as far as coaching in the NFL.

Granted the NCAA was coming down on USC but Carroll had rebuilt the Trojans program into the power they hadn’t been since their heyday.  Did he long for the pro game and a desire to show his first couple NFL stints weren’t the real PC?  Or did he bolt to stay one step ahead of the posse?  Either way, he is a rich man and according to most in the know has done a reasonably good job with Seattle.

No one in Knoxville believes there’s any better job in the college game than the Big Orange.  I can vouch for that having spent seven years on the basketball staff there and witnessing what UT football means to the entire state.  Just as I understand the Trojans faithful who would have been shocked and appalled if a college coach were to turn down SC if he were offered that prestigious position.

Whatever the case, Kiffin left and being a man of not so high moral standards, did so in such a way that the Vols’ program was in quite a disarray.  Even with all the facilities and resources UT has, it will probably take two years before the program is in top 25 shape.  If you don’t believe me, just ask current coach Derek Dooley.  Kiffin’s departure was so untimely that the Vols lost recruits for this season.  Some of those who had committed, including some already enrolled, were allegedly contacted by the new staff at SC, setting the integrity bar incredibly lower than even football coaches would stoop.

The season went on in spite of all their problems.  Losing talent in a conference like the SEC is bad enough, but creating depth problems on top of that is, as DeNiro says in the disappointing movie The Little Fockers (that my wife and I saw last night), “double dose.”  The new UT staff dealt with that rather courageously, although for a while it looked like the Big O might go oh-fer.

Then, the real bad luck began.  An apparent upset win (upset is putting it mildly) against LSU was taken away after the Vols were whistled for too many (as in two many) men on the field and the Bengal Tigers were given another play on which they scored.  The tragedy was that Tennessee outplayed LSU that game and deserved to win.  LSU’s clock management at the end of the contest (not exactly a one-time problem for the Tigers) was the picture perfect definition of SNAFU.

Behind Kingsburg’s own Tyler Bray, a freshman QB right out of the San Joaquin Valley, the Vols started playing better (against admittedly the weak part of their schedule) and strung enough W’s to become bowl eligible.  The bowl gods were smiling down on the crippled UT program by awarding them, not coincidentally, the Music City Bowl in centrally located Nashville.  Volunteer fans are the definition of a school that “travels well” and in a situation where they didn’t have far to travel packed the stadium.

But wouldn’t you know it, the end of regulation was basically a repeat of the LSU contest.  With Tennessee ahead of (equally battered) North Carolina, the last play of the game might not have been FUBAR (to use a different acronym with the same meaning).  Some of UNC’s players thought they were going to attempt a game-tying field goal, while others . . . didn’t.  The result was the Tarheels’ QB spiking the ball with one tick on the clock remaining.  With all the confusion, the referees correctly assessed the penalty on Carolina, but incorrectly marked off five, rather than the fifteen, the penalty deserved.  UNC’s kicker put the ball through the uprights and UNC won in double OT.  Would he have made the longer try?  We’ll never know but the way UT’s season went, there’s only one pertinent quote, and as a Dodger fan in the ’50s I know it all too well:

“Wait ’til next year.”

The official final score of the LSU-Tennessee game was 16-14 in favor of LSU, meaning the Vols tacked on another loss to a disastrous season which began when the Seattle Seahawks lured Pete Carroll away from USC.  The dominoes started to fall and Lane Kiffin, public enemy #1 in Knoxville, left to take over the Trojans’ program.  I truly believe that Kiffin had intended to stay at UT.  Although you’d have a hard time convincing any Big Orange fan that SC is a better football job than their beloved Vols, most present day football coaches - and others “in the know” - believe it is.

Kiffin didn’t just leave the program, he left it hurriedly and in a mess - at the worst possible time - when prospects had already selected their schools.  This meant that Tennessee had to try to re-recruit the kids who committed to it.  That’s tough to do without a coach - and tougher when the character of Kiffin and his staff was revealed in the way they may or may not have tried to talk the kids they told about Knoxville being the center of the collegiate football universe that that wasn’t exactly the case.  Consequently, the Vols are short-handed in the talent department - relative to the make up of a “normal” Tennessee squad.

This season has produced a double OT win vs. UAB and a bunch of good first halves against better competition.  Yesterday, in Death Valley, the Big Orange season was about to be given a major boost.  They were going to a signature win, against an undefeated, ranked Bengal Tigers team in Baton Rouge - if they could hold LSU for one play - albeit at their own 1-yard line.  Turned out they didn’t have to.  LSU held themselves by setting a record for poorest time management in a team sport.  They stumbled and bumbled, with the clock winding down, until an errant snap from center effectively ended the contest.

Wait!  A flag on the play.  Tennessee had too many men on the field or, in this case, two many men on the field.  Instead of the legal 11 participants, UT had 13 defenders - for, as it worked out, a play that didn’t need any.  When fans question why NCAA entrance requirements have gotten more strict, it’s because counting is a necessary skill for today’s players, what with instant replay and all.  No more winning a national championship on 5th down.

How could this have happened?  It turns out, according to Dr. Lou (Holtz), it shouldn’t have.  Volunteers’ coach Derek Dooley said as much in his post-game remarks.  Apparently, there’s a rule that states if the offense substitutes, a referee is to stand over the ball and give the defense an adequate amount of time to sub as well.  What took place in Baton Rouge resembled a poorly performed fire drill.  With broader use of instant replay, referees can’t win either.  As if their job weren’t hard enough.

What about LSU?  They had to be winners.  After all, when the final score of a football game is 16-14 and you’re 16, you win!  Not in this case.  This is the SEC.  Sure, Les Miles won a national championship for the Tigers and then withdrew his name from consideration for, according to sources claiming to know him well, his dream job - the University of Michigan.  Whether he regrets that decision now, keep in mind that LSU fans tend to be a tad more violent than Tennessee supporters and Cleveland Cavalier followers - and consider how those people reacted when Lane Kiffin and LeBron James left their areas.  As most people are aware, politics in Louisiana are at another level compared to anywhere else in the country, with the possible exception of Chicago.

So Les stayed.  And the Tigers’ program has gone downhill.  To many an LSU fan that would mean they haven’t won another national championship.  To sink to the depths LSU has in the past few years has considerably turned up the heat in Miles’ kitchen.  “Undisciplined,” say some - and the excessive number of penalties yesterday might been seen as proof of that allegation.  “Poor game management,” cry others.

During LSU’s final drive, down 14-10 and facing a 4th & 9, the Tigers failed to get off a play in time, resulting in a 4th & 14.  Although they had one time out left, some might have thought they wanted to save it for an emergency situation later in the drive.  So what ensues?  They call that last time out - right after the penalty is marked off.  It’s been said that a true LSU fan’s first word is, “Boo!”  After the TO was called, that syllable was echoing throughout the stadium.

Then came another reason the favorite cheer at LSU has changed from “Let’s go Les” to “Please go Les.”  Miles has a riverboat gambler reputation, something fans revere - when your unconventional calls work out.  All of them.  And you win games.  All of them.  Shuttling quarterbacks is Miles’ latest ploy.  He’s not the only coach in the country using this strategy, just the only one LSU fans care about.

He switched QB’s with the ball on the three-yard line and the play only netted a couple yards.  With the clock running (”damn, I wish we’d held onto that last time out”), it was decided they’d go back to the original signal caller.  Only the team couldn’t decide which formation to be in or which play to run or where they parked their cars - and as the snap went by its intended receiver and the clock hit 0:00, it’s safe to say words stronger than “Boo” were being uttered - loudly.

Then came the flag - and the subsequent LSU TD. It’s just that human nature being what it is, people who make the kind of statements rabid fans make are very hesitant to take them back.  They’ve already distanced themselves from the team and to start cheering wildly would lose face.  So they stick to their guns and call their favorite team lucky - and maintain the coach should face the guillotine.

Oh yeah, LSU is undefeated this year.  Only time will tell if Dr. Lou’s assessment of a college football season is true:

“To the fan, a perfect season is when the team goes undefeated - and they fire the coach.”

Rex Ryan, coach of the J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets, has been using one of the oldest tricks in the coaching book by intentionally holding his head high, sticking his chest out, flapping his gums and breaking all the rules of “limit the bulletin board material you give your opponent.”  The stomach’s out there too, but that’s not necessarily by design - unless his doctor told him to watch his weight, so now he’s got it out there where he can keep an eye on it.

No knocking the Jets’ head man as he readies his team for the NFL version of the Final Four.  It’s worked so far - like a charm - so why stop now?  Actually he can’t.  Imagine if all of a sudden, Ryan clammed up when asked what his team’s chances were against Indy. When someone is bragging about what he (or, in this case, his team) is going to do, then one day, shuts down the rhetoric, think of the message it sends to those whose efforts caused him to pop off in the first place.

Usually, there is a method to a coach’s madness when they use this particular strategy.  Just go back to Lane Kiffin’s boasting when he took the job at Tennessee (gosh, it seems like only yesterday, or fourteen months ago, whichever is sooner) and made caustic comments about Florida and Coach Urban Meyer, going so far as calling them - and him - cheaters.  After a much-closer-than-everyone-thought game in the Swamp, Kiffin emerged from the visitors locker room, saying he took all the pressure off the players, i.e. that the Gator fans were seeking him out for ridicule, thus allowing the team to march in unscathed and play to their potential.

Another reason might be a bonding experience.  Kind of like, “Look fellas, it’s us against the Big Bad Wolf.  I’ve pretty much managed to upset our opponents entire fan base - and that’s where we have to go.”  It fosters a “United We Stand” mentality as the game the Colts (as the Vols back then) are about to play is full of “them.”  And, depending on what the coach is saying to his team behind closed doors, the shrewd leader can motivate his squad beyond any Tony Robbins seminar by expressing his true belief in what he’s so vocal about.  If he can come off sincerely, his guys will tear down doors and bust through walls.

With all that said, do I think the Jets have a shot against the mighty Colts?  Only if a flu epidemic strikes down the home club, starting with #18.  Barring a medical turn for the worse in Naptown, or some other natural disaster, the Jets’ magical run has come to an abrupt end.  As the writer Ayn Rand said:

“We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.”

Often, we look at the world of sports and coaching at the highest of levels, i.e. the jobs with the most “glamor” and highest salaries.  These are also the ones that are, simultaneously, the most coveted and have the greatest pressure.  Win and you’re deified.  The financial sky’s the limit.  Lose and you’re vilified.  You get pink-slipped, many times after only one season.

What we seem to have lost in today’s sports environment are the real reasons most of us got into coaching in the first place - to make a difference in the lives of the players, to fulfill our “competitive jones” and simply “to stay in the game.”

I brought up the subject, as host of his radio show, to Jerry Tarkanian last night.  He agreed that the amount of money has grown beyond the imaginations any of the coaches from his era (or, for that matter, from mine, as Jerry has me by a shade less than two decades). He admitted that, when salaries (and shoe contracts, speaking fees and endorsements) grew exponentially that he wasn’t complaining (I doubt many coaches were, except for those who got what they felt was prematurely fired), but that the fun and camaraderie (Tark often talks about how, after a game, opposing coaches would go out for a beer) were replaced by other, more tangible, rewards.

A loyal reader of this space is Dave Pickford, the boys’ water polo and swim coach at Buchanan High School.  Yesterday, I received an email from Dave in which he made some extremely enlightening comments on some of my recent blogs, in particular, yesterday’s regarding Lane Kiffin’s quick departure from Tennessee and the local boy, Tyler Bray (Kingsburg HS), who was left behind at UT.  Here, printed without his knowledge or permission (he’s a forgiving soul), are a couple selections from that email:

“This latest coaching merry-go-round just makes me cringe when I think of the concept of trust . . . in the coach-athlete relationship. . . It seems to me that the further away one gets from the ‘big money,’ the more legitimate the coach-athlete relationship is.” 

Dave hit the nail squarely on the head with this comment.  As a matter of introduction (and so the reader doesn’t think Dave Pickford is just some whining coach with average skills from a non-revenue sport), let me inform the readers that this past season his team won the water polo championship in the Tri-River Athletic Conference (TRAC), the most competitive league in all of aqua-obsessed Central California.  He was also voted Coach-of-the-Year (not a first for him).  His record and awards as a swim coach parallel the success he’s had in polo.  This guy knows 1) sports and 2) how to coach - the methods of which are identical, independent which sport you choose.

His email continued:     

“Very little politics in swimming; if you are one of the fastest four freestylers, you’re on the relay; if you’re not, you’re not.  On the other hand, you don’t see a lot of coaches bolting for greener pastures (maybe deeper pools, but not greener pastures).  Both my kids are in sports that are easily measurable (and) most people have no clue about, but I like it that way.  I’m not sure I could handle some of the people associated with the more lucrative sports either as a coach or a parent.  Remember that I am one of those spectators who enjoys the hard working success stories rather than a lot of what seems to get (into) the news today.”

That, my friends, is well-said.  Every once in a while, it’s a good idea to get another’s point of view.  And not just some pompous, know-it-all sports talk show host who wakes up daily and begins his search for the latest sports item he (or she) can find something negative to pontificate on, so as to rile up his (or her) listener(s) into some “riveting” dialogue between two people who know very little about what they’re sarcastically bad mouthing.  The true “depth of knowledge” there is questionable.

Sports and coaching has certainly changed - which is inevitable.  Yet, we’d be wise to keep in mind the line:

“There is no progress without change, but not all change is progress.”

Note to readers: A quick trip to the Stanford Pain Clinic today and tomorrow (in an effort to find some “answers”), so the blog will return this weekend.  

 

    

Fans know weird things can happen to their teams.  When they actually do, though, there’s still major shock value.  For youth, e.g. players, the first time something like occurs, especially when it directly affects them, their world can be turned upside-down.

Take, for example, a group of America’s finest football players who recently, after having their senior years adjusted so they could graduate early, enrolled in the University of Tennessee.  In many cases, these youngsters gave up winter and spring sports in which they may have excelled (not even taking events that become lifelong memories like the prom, the senior class trip and graduation parties into account).  No matter how cool a front a kid puts up, i.e. like he’s not really fazed by all the attention and gear (and that’s some pretty sweet swag), you know there’s an little man inside him jumping up and down, excited as all get-out.

One of those youngsters is the San Joaquin Valley’s Tyler Bray, player-of-the-year, billed as UT’s next quarterback savior - and if you think there’s no one the people of Knoxville have to compare him to, let me remind you of a guy who just won his (unprecedented) fourth NFL MVP.  It’s fair to say the bar is rather high for a QB in Big Orange Country.  Ty was an outstanding (6-7) shooting guard/”small” forward for KHS’s basketball team and an accomplished pitcher for the baseball squad. 

Yesterday, the man who recruited him, Lane Kiffin, as well as the guts of his staff, called an emergency meeting.  We can only wonder what went through his mind when the reason for the hastily called meeting was to inform one and all that the head coach was leaving to replace Pete Carroll at USC.  Obviously, this was a quick courtship of Kiffin, since SC seemed to be directing its efforts elsewhere.  Nonetheless, this has to be quite a shock for young Mr. Bray too.  I mean what if the Big Orange brass decide to hire a guy who prefers the “Wildcat?” 

At least he’s not alone.  His family recently moved to Tennessee.  However, all of this hubbub may not be any cause for concern.  In fact, if rumors are true that Duke’s head coach, David Cutcliffe, is being offered the job, Bray will be trading a young, talented and brash mentor for a wise football mind who tutored the Manning brothers, Peyton as QB coach at UT and Eli as the head man at Ole Miss.  

That depends on whether Tennessee can lure Cutcliffe to Knoxville.  While some may question whether SC’s a better job than UT, the opinion’s as close to unanimous as one can be that the Vols program trumps Duke’s - although Duke is certainly the superior academic school.  Then again, if the institution’s graduation rates really mattered in college football, Stanford and Vanderbilt (or maybe even Duke) would play each other for the National Championship every year.

What Bray and the other “new Vols” are experiencing is similar to what SC’s recruits are going through.  Some, allegedly, “uncommitted” to the Trojans when Carroll left.  With Kiffin and what may be the strongest coaching staff ever assembled coming to SC, they might wish they never reversed field, especially if some of them popped off about loyalty, etc., as young kids are prone to do.  They will surely welcomed back - after all, talent wins out in the end - but their first meal on campus may be crow.

As far as loyalty and breaking hearts, consider that Tyler Bray had verbally committed to San Diego State prior to changing his mind.  I remember one coach saying that a kid backing out of a commitment was akin to saying, “I’ll commit to you . . . unless I get a better offer.”  The coach then made the statement, “How would kids like it if schools offered a scholarship and then, withdrew it saying they found a better player?”  How prophetic.

Egos may be bruised, dreams (temporarily) crushed, but ultimately everybody will survive.  The lesson that will be learned is one articulated by the late John Lennon:

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

When I got my first college coaching job in 1972 (as a graduate assistant at the University of Vermont), the pay was $12,500.  Not for me - I got $1,000, plus tuition for my graduate school classes.  The $12,500 was the salary for Peter Salzberg, the head coach.  The following year, I left UVM for an grad assistant upgrade - to Washington State.

I joined George Raveling who had just completed his first year as the Cougars’ head coach.  Both he and Peter got their first head coaching jobs in 1972.  Peter must have envied him.  While Peter had to get by on $12,500, Rav got Pac-8 money (the Arizona schools weren’t in the league yet).  His salary was $32,000.

While I don’t want people to think our players were choir boys, I can’t remember even one kid we had at Vermont who ever got in trouble.  Cynics will say that could be one of the reasons we went 9-17.  During my two years at WSU, we did have a player shoplift on a road trip and he was sent home as soon as we got back to Pullman.

Today, coaches’ salaries are astronomical, far more than the entire budgets some of the schools where I worked.  But, somehow, as if to justify the obscene amount of money coaches are being paid, the players are causing problems in direct proportion.  If you don’t believe this, just ask Lane Kiffin, Tennessee’s head football coach.  Although he’s in only his first year, he has put a better-than-expected product on the field, and one that seems to be improving with each game.

Not exactly a wallflower, Kiffin put his personalized stamp on the program from the day he was hired.  Stepping on toes, upsetting some of his peers within the SEC, none of that bothered the young coach.  And he was living up to nearly every promise - and, not surprisingly, was the toast of the town - and most of the state.  His message was not only about football, either.  He made the bold statement that there would be no off-field transgressions by UT football players.  Coaches don’t just make statements like that unless they have plans in place to deal with inappropriate behavior, whether it be athletic, academic or social.   

So you know he had to be devastated when it was reported that three of his highly ranked recruiting class got in trouble.  Anytime a coach starts off the press conference with the statement, “We said there wouldn’t be any problems and for 11 months and 11 days, we haven’t had any.”  Almost like, in this day and age, it’s inevitable.  Oh yeah, the kids’ error in judgment?  Armed robbery!  What in the name of General Neyland were those guys thinking?  As today’s thinking goes, I’m sure they’ll be some people (Big Orange fans who are a tad too fanatical) saying, “Why weren’t there mentors in place for these kids - who are away from home for the first time in their lives?”  Hold on now.  Does anybody think that if any or all of these three needed a mentor to let them know that armed robbery is an act that’s frowned upon?  Granted, it’s probably not mentioned specifically in the handbook.  

UT was one of the stops I made in my college coaching career and I’ve told many people that if I were an athlete and had the opportunity to pick from among the nine universities at which I worked, Tennessee would be my choice. 

The reasons?  The resources there are unlimited.  From the food you eat, the clothes (practice, game and, even casual) you wear, the facilities, the medical treatment and academic assitance you’re afforded, even your living quarters (when I was there, every scholarship athlete had to live in the dorms through their junior year, so the athletics department made it first class), all were the best any of the athletes ever experienced.  Plus, the entire city revolves around the university and wherever you go, you’re recognized - to the point of being idolized.  Your self-esteem would skyrocket with all the adulation that was going be heaped upon you and the capacity crowds you’d play before.  With scholarship checks, Pell Grant money (nearly every athlete qualifies if they’ll fill out the forms - and there are people who will help the players do that), the NCAA needy student fund (another legal avenue to have some pocket money), athletes are never hurting for dough.  Besides, while they’re in season, they don’t have enough free time to spend money anyway.

Why, then, would three Volunteer football players be out at 2:00 am at a convenience store with a pellet gun in their car, allegedly shaking down a couple people for the contents of their wallets?

The only answer can be found in the quote:

“The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.”

Although I’m originally from New Jersey, I lived in the South for 10 years (1977-87), the last seven of which were in Knoxville as an assistant basketball coach at UT.  Among the many items indigenous to that culture that I picked up was Tennessee football is not a religion.  It’s much more important than that.  You see, you might miss church if there’s a driving sleet and hail storm on Sunday, but if identical conditions exist for a home football game in Knoxville, you’ll be there.  One year, this actually happened and over 89,000 fans showed up - to see two teams with losing records (I think the other one was Kentucky).  At that time, Neyland Stadium’s capacity was only 98,000.  I believe the no-shows were part of the mandatory ticket allotment the SEC dictates the visiting team receives.

Another little tidbit I learned is that football is bigger at Alabama than Tennessee, due, in all likelihood, to the fact that there aren’t as many cultural distractions in Tuscaloosa than there are in K-Town.  An example is that at the very top of the must-see(do) experiences in Tuscaloosa is to “dine” at Dreamland - home of the tastiest (and greasiest) ribs you’ll ever eat (and wear).

Next to visiting (worshipping) Graceland, going to a Tennessee-Alabama football game is simply an event you attend before you die.  There was a major uproar when the SEC expanded to 12 teams and two divisions (Alabama in one, Tennessee in the other) because it meant that the sacred third Saturday in October no longer was the date for one of the nation’s biggest rivalries.  When it was announced (many years ago) that in 2009, the game was being held on October 24 (the fourth Saturday in October), people had to erase what they’d written in their calendars, i.e. their ten-year planners.

One year duirng my tenure at UT, the Vols’ footballers snapped a long losing streak to the Tide and, as might be expected, the goalposts came down.  The fans were so excited they decided to march with the goalposts - out of the stadium and all the way down “The Strip,” a street lined with restaurants that marked the edge of campus.  I never did find out how they got the goalposts out of the stadium, but where there’s a win over ‘Bama, there’s a way.

That is the importance of the Big Orange vs the Crimson Tide in football.  Imagine how much bigger it was yesterday, with UT and a young, brash coach (who has riled up every SEC fan - one way if you’re pro-UT and the polar opposite if you’re for pretty much anybody else) entering the house of the #2 team in the nation (don’t say that too loud anywhere in that state unless you want to hear a lot of bad words associated with Florida’s football team).

A terrific defensive struggle ensued, with Alabama winning, but not dominating, the entire game.  Near the end, the score was 12-3, favor of the Elephants, when Tennessee - first, recovered a fumble and then finally scored a touchdown - the only one either team scored the whole game.  No worries, less than two minutes to go and the crowd feeling like it was their time to take over (if anyone had left the stadium, and I doubt it, it would have been in an ambulance).

Somehow, the young, brash Vols (it is true that the team takes on the personality of its coach) recovered an onside kick (no fluke either, replays showed it was perfectly executed) and, how do you do, they marched right into field goal range, lining up for a very makeable 44-yard field goal.  The sideline shot of Lane Kiffin (the Vols’ new leader) pumping his fist brought to mind someone who, without anyone in the audience being the wiser, had choreographed the game exactly the way he wanted and now, all that remained was the closing scene of the final act.

The Tide had already blocked one Big Orange field goal attempt and replays (as well as UA coach Nick Saban’s post game remarks) showed that all 11 Alabama defenders were going hell-bent for the block, so had the UT holder picked up the snap and run left, he’d have been able to run to all the way back to Knoxville if he’d so chosen.  But even Lane Kiffin’s aren’t that large.  So, the ball was kicked - and, again, blocked - by Terrence Cody, a massive human being, who had blocked another field goal earlier in the contest.     

In his exuberance, Cody tore off his helmet - while the ball was still in play, meaning the game was not yet over.  A rule that was instituted a few years ago, in an effort to cut down on excessive celebration and showboating, was that, should a player take off his helmet while the ball is still live (or even following a score), it would result in a 15-yard penalty.  It was mainly put in for those players who were trying to draw attention to themselves and I do not believe that was Cody’s intent yesterday.  But he did do it nonetheless. 

So, did the officials make the right call?  No . . . not in terms of the flag that should have been thrown for “excessive celebration.”  However, the penalty would not have affected the game’s outcome because the infraction came after the block, meaning it was Alabama’s ball.  And there would not have been another kick from, gasp, 15 yards closer!

Let’s get back to the theme at the beginning of the post.  Another fact - and I’m calling it a fact because I truly believe this to be true - had the referee called that penalty on “Mount” Cody, the officials (plural) would not have left that arena alive.  That part of the country is “shoot first, ask questions later.”  Now, if you’re asking me if I don’t think that saner heads would have prevailed and the Tide fans wouldn’t have been reasonable enough to wait for the explanation before turning Bryant-Denny Stadium into a riotus venue on the order of a South American soccer facility, you’re right.  I don’t think that would happen and I’m as serious as I can be when I say bodily harm would have come to at least one and maybe more of the officials.  Which is why, as William James said:

“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”   Â