Ah, yes, baseball season and there’s a championship to defend. I was curious what your take is on the Mike Rice fiasco. While I’d love to see the former president of Penn State University (Graham Spanier) thrown in jail for allowing Sandusky to molest children for so many years, the Rutgers thing comes nowhere close to PSU when it comes to requiring the attention of a university president. I don’t know much about Robert Barchi but it seems to me that people like Mike Lupica are way out of line calling for him to be fired. I liked what one of my commenters said, in agreeing with me about Barchi: “… if I was the chancellor/president of a major university, athletics would be priority number 412 out of my top 100. I’d hire somebody who had a good reputation as an AD, and give them free rein, because my priorities would be about teachers, classrooms, academics, research, and etc.”We don’t really know each other, but I do know you’re a teacher so I thought you might be interested in discussing this subject.
I’m not that familiar with the story, but I do know a few things about coaches, having been a play director for a number of years. To me it is a lot like the steroids issue in baseball. It is the great unspoken. I didn’t direct sixty plays by being Mr. Nice Guy. I used to scream at kids who were lazy, and I would throw chairs against walls. That’s a young coach. They’re crazy. They demand perfection, and when they don’t get it, they go overboard. I no longer do those things, because I realize that it IS abusive, and frightening to young people, especially those who were raised in violently abusive households. He is the tip of a very large iceberg. It seems hypocritical, but they probably had to get rid of him, because some things just roll downhill. The great unspoken is Bonds not showing up to Posey’s award ceremony. He would have been booed. Rice is a scapegoat, unquestionably, as is Bonds. I would imagine that both Harbaugh’s are probably pretty abusive, or they wouldn’t be so psycho about success. You could point to any number of coaches who do that stuff. Also, college sports are businesses. They have sponsors who don’t wish to be associated with scandals. They bring lots of revenue to colleges. There are many issues going on, but you can bet that money and sponsorship are up there in the mix.
@bharrington - Thanks for sharing your insights. Even though the general view is there’s a lot of Rice-like behavior, I have trouble believing that there are others as extreme in their behavior — but I do recognize that athletic scholarship recipients have to put up with the abuse if it’s there (if they want to keep their scholarships, that is) — so I guess I have to stop being naive. However, I will remain naive if I have to regarding what I think of Jim Harbaugh. A guy needs heroes, and Jim is mine. I was a little late seeing this comment. Thanks again.
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Ah, yes, baseball season and there’s a championship to defend. I was curious what your take is on the Mike Rice fiasco. While I’d love to see the former president of Penn State University (Graham Spanier) thrown in jail for allowing Sandusky to molest children for so many years, the Rutgers thing comes nowhere close to PSU when it comes to requiring the attention of a university president. I don’t know much about Robert Barchi but it seems to me that people like Mike Lupica are way out of line calling for him to be fired. I liked what one of my commenters said, in agreeing with me about Barchi: “… if I was the chancellor/president of a major university, athletics would be priority number 412 out of my top 100. I’d hire somebody who had a good reputation as an AD, and give them free rein, because my priorities would be about teachers, classrooms, academics, research, and etc.”We don’t really know each other, but I do know you’re a teacher so I thought you might be interested in discussing this subject.
I’m not that familiar with the story, but I do know a few things about coaches, having been a play director for a number of years. To me it is a lot like the steroids issue in baseball. It is the great unspoken. I didn’t direct sixty plays by being Mr. Nice Guy. I used to scream at kids who were lazy, and I would throw chairs against walls. That’s a young coach. They’re crazy. They demand perfection, and when they don’t get it, they go overboard. I no longer do those things, because I realize that it IS abusive, and frightening to young people, especially those who were raised in violently abusive households. He is the tip of a very large iceberg. It seems hypocritical, but they probably had to get rid of him, because some things just roll downhill. The great unspoken is Bonds not showing up to Posey’s award ceremony. He would have been booed. Rice is a scapegoat, unquestionably, as is Bonds. I would imagine that both Harbaugh’s are probably pretty abusive, or they wouldn’t be so psycho about success. You could point to any number of coaches who do that stuff. Also, college sports are businesses. They have sponsors who don’t wish to be associated with scandals. They bring lots of revenue to colleges. There are many issues going on, but you can bet that money and sponsorship are up there in the mix.
@bharrington - Thanks for sharing your insights. Even though the general view is there’s a lot of Rice-like behavior, I have trouble believing that there are others as extreme in their behavior — but I do recognize that athletic scholarship recipients have to put up with the abuse if it’s there (if they want to keep their scholarships, that is) — so I guess I have to stop being naive. However, I will remain naive if I have to regarding what I think of Jim Harbaugh. A guy needs heroes, and Jim is mine. I was a little late seeing this comment. Thanks again.