Rick Reilly: I participated in Paterno hagiography

The most courageous column/story will be the one where the writer basically says, "I have been a party to this for too long, and I simply cannot do it anymore. I don't know what I will do with the rest of my career, but it will not be this."

Still waiting for that one. Meanwhile, the whorehouse piano players are still playing the piano --- mixing in some blues tunes --- after slapping themselves on the wrist.

It was a well-written column --- he is, after all, a very good writer. But in the end all this just sounds to me like a repeat of the post-9/11 self-flagellation we all went through. "We take sports too seriously! We should never use war references with sports. We should remember they are just GAMES!" Eleven years later, we still treat these coaches and players like gods and the big events like Armageddon. We'll be on the Paterno self-flagellation beat for a few months; then we'll get bored with it and will return to our regularly scheduled deification of these people.

 

I think you're also going to start seeing a lot more ax-grinding going on in such columns. Here's a quote from this week's Chronicle of Higher Education coverage:

So pick some facet of the modern university you don't like -- I take it this guy doesn't like the "corporate university,"whatever that is -- and then use the Penn State story as the medium in which you make your case.

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1065673/index.htm

If anyone's curious, above is the referenced "hagiography" piece Reilly wrote in 86. Gee, ya think SI wishes it could do over that "Paterno over Larry Bird" choice as 86 SOY?

 

A state-sponsored, for-profit $30,000-a-year diploma mill for the incurious delivering cruise ship amenities and 4 years worth of blackout drinking and fucking whose motto and mission statement translated from the Latin would now read "Compliant Citizens and Football"?

 

Folks, you still have plenty of chances.

Mike Krzyzewski
Nick Saban
Bill Belichick
Phil Jackson
Urban Meyer
John Calipari
Bob Stoops
Lane Kiffin
Rich Rodriguez
Sean Payton
Tom Coughlin
Rex Ryan
Mike Shanahan


Maybe they have not/are not enabling child molesters, but who are they? Coach K is the current SI co-sportsman of the year. Beyond letting loose with a few "fucks", who is he? Who are any of these people? Would be nice to know . . . while they are still alive.

I won't hold my breath waiting to find out, however.

 

Of all those people, I would say that only Coach K receives the kind of hagiographic treatment we're really talking about. Not many professional coaches are fawned over that way because you're removing the whole fallacy of "shaping young men's hearts and minds" bullshit. But the Coach K deification certainly needs to cease post haste.

 

Rich Rodriguez and Lane Kiffin? Some of these things are not like the others. And I don't think there are many illusions about the people pro coaches like Ryan, Payton, and Shanahan are either. Now Phil Jackson on the other hand...

 

Had Bird started paying his child support, yet, in '86?

 

I just blasted a previous Rick Reilly column about baseball, a sport which I'm pretty sure he hates, and how long it took to play a game. Basically thought he could take that column and shove it.

I won't say that about this column. Holy shit. These are the types of columns he does very well. I'll back it up.

 

Yes. This column, though painful to me, is Reilly at his best.

 

Do you enjoy spreading misinformation? Bird never had issues with child support. The issues with his first daughter were about the estranged relationship (apparently his choosing), not financial support. He didn't want a relationship, but he did mail the checks.

And what the hell that has to do with this topic I've no idea. Sorry for the Bird jack.