Does the public care?

It's probably a cold, lonely, barren existence, but $4 million a year -- that's $10,958.90 of spending money per day -- undoubtedly helps ease the pain.

 

Why be a prick, though?

I mean, what's he get from that?

I don't get it.

 

We all get frustrated, in work and non-work spots, but to live life with a screw-you edge sounds empty and exhausting. I hope Saban enjoys his severence after another five-year flameout.

 

He will be the central preoccupation of the Alabama beat writers' waking hours as long as he is there, he will make nearly every day and story feel like a combative, exhaustive enterprise, and when he leaves it will be as if a siege has ended. If that sounds like an exaggeration, you haven't covered a Saban team for 3-5 years.

 

Point of Order made the point that I was angling for, which is "Moon griping about Saban's media policies at Alabama is odd, seeing as how he really did WONDERS on said beat for the short time he was on it."

Put perhaps a less-dastardly way, it just kinda came out of left field from a place and person whom I do not believe has been in Tuscaloosa since the Sabanator's arrival. Perhaps it would be a little like a guy covering Alabama-Huntsville griping about the Auburn coach's various media policies. I wonder how that would go over on the Auburn beat and beyond?

And BYH made a funny.

rb

 

I'm not saying anyone has to take sides on this one. But if you're going to take a side, why go with Saban, one of the biggest pricks in sports? What happened to taking care of our own?

And more to the point, did Moon say anything in his column that wasn't 100 percent true?

The critique that the public doesn't care is totally justified. But the idea that it wasn't Josh's place to criticize Saban's media rules is ridiculous.

 

Due respect, M_W, go back and look at my original post. It needed to be said. And I respect Moon for saying it ... not as much as Mandel or Dennis Dodd for basically saying the same thing, as they actually have GONE to Tuscaloosa to experience the madness. But still.

If anything, however, it will be fascinating to see how this all plays out with Saban. Because you KNOW he is reading all this (well, not SportsJournalists.com ...) and leaping to his own warped conclusions.

rb

 

No shit? And I missed it....

 

You have weird ways of showing respect.

 

The thing that sucks is Saban can be very insightful about Xs and Os when he wants to be. He used to be that way on the Big Ten teleconferences, to the out-of-town writers anyway.

Another problem I have with the author is calling the guy overrated. In the pros? Yes. But he is 91-42-3 in college, with three league titles and a national title in 11 seasons.

Prick or no that isn't too shabby.

 

That's a very good point. And that's a totally justified criticism of Moon's column, as is the fact that readers don't really give a shit about Saban making it hard to do our job.

But the personal anti-Moon slant of a few posters (who assuredly have their own agenda) is uncalled for.

(And no, I'm not him.)

 

Built basically on three big seasons. (9-2 at Toledo, 9-2 at Michigan State, and 13-1 at LSU).

Also, incidentally, he never had a season at any of his coaching stops significantly better than the best season of his predecessor: his predecessor at Toledo, Dan Simrell, went 9-2 and 9-2-1 in successive seasons; his predecessor at Michigan State, Perles, had a 9-2-1 season, and his predecessor at LSU, DiNardo, had a 10-2 season.

He didn't do anything anywhere somebody else hadn't done before. To listen to his trained media shills, you'd think he invented the game and tutored Einstein in nuclear physics in his spare time.