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George O'Leary at it again

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Steak Snabler, Sep 30, 2014.

  1. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Meh. He isn't Archie Bunker.

    Even if he did grow up as that caricature, the guy has been a college coach since the early 1980s. He was at Syracuse and Georgia Tech, and had the NFL stops over 30 + years. It's really hard to believe that you could have succeeded at as many stops as he has, and have survived in football, if you are saying and doing blatantly racist things. You are just around too many people for whom that wouldn't fly. A coach can get away with being an extreme asshole. It's even admired in football culture. Being a hardass and ordering the trainers and water to be removed from a practice, a la the Erick Plancher thing, is entirely believable on the face of it. But if he is walking around dropping brutally racist comments in conversations in the way that lawsuit alleges, I just find it hard to believe it wouldn't have become a problem long ago -- not just when someone with an axe to grind is filing a lawsuit. But who knows, right?
     
  2. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    I should have been clearer. I was thinking more along the lines that his
    father might have been Archie Bunker like. Generations of police / firemen/ dock workers all moved out to Long Island where O'Leary was raised. Ragu you've been around the city long enough to see how the old school Irish cops and firemen think. It's not a stretch to think of Kelly along the same lines.
     
  3. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Well, a good number moved to Staten Island, too, but your overall point is well taken. When I was growing up, a lot of my friends' were focused on taking the civil service exam to line up careers as cops, firemen and sanitation workers.

    There's no question lower middle class Irish and Italians were often pretty overt in their racism in the '60s, '70s and '80s.
     
  4. RecoveringJournalist

    RecoveringJournalist Well-Known Member

    I have no idea what was said and wasn't said. I just wish the person making the accusations wasn't someone who was only on the staff for three months.
     
  5. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    I grew up with some of those types. The google just told me O'Leary was from Central Islip. That was probably a bit more working class than where I grew up, but not much. Where I was, was a good mix of Irish, Italian, Jewish. My first girlfriend when I was a kid came from a family like that. I think her dad was a firefighter, actually. She invited me over for family dinner, and her uncle -- young Archie Bunker type, but with a much redder nose -- wasn't having any part of me (Jewish kid). I was so psyched to be dating her -- she was a really pretty girl -- that I sat there and listened to him crack himself up with lame, "Do you want some HAM?" questions. My memory is of him stopping just short of flicking pennies at me.
     
  6. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    Exactly what I was talking about. If O'Leary did not become a coach he would have
    been a NYC firemen or cop.
    The "do you want ham" uncle likely had no idea how bigoted he sounded. It's a generational thing. Look at Joe Biden sometimes he even slips and shows his generational bigotry.
     
  7. TigerVols

    TigerVols Well-Known Member

    What? I thought the media tells us that only Southerners are racist.

    Which is not to say I didn't hear construction foremen looking for "blue gums" on my site to do the heavy lifting when I was framing apartments in high school.
     
  8. tapintoamerica

    tapintoamerica Well-Known Member

    That gums line is so specific that it's hard for me to believe it was made up.
     
  9. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    O'Leary does like the ponies. Maybe he was talking about how to find a winner at the track and
    Ferraro misunderstood.
     
  10. novelist_wannabe

    novelist_wannabe Well-Known Member

    Anyone around here ever heard of Dustin Vaitekunas?
     
  11. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    Yup. Still cant believe that fucking turd has failed upward the way he has. Two cases of player abuse - one resulting in death - and his fat ass hoists a Fiesta Bowl trophy.
     
  12. LanceyHoward

    LanceyHoward Well-Known Member

    I don't know if what is alleged is true. But from what I have read about O'Leary I think he wins the award for coach I would least want my son to play for. My impression is that he is just flat out mean.
     
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