Rick Reilly: I participated in Paterno hagiography

I am quite certain that I will be encouraging my children, as best I can, to attend a school where sports doesn't rule the roost. It's unfortunate, because schools like Michigan, Purdue, Wisconsin, and Notre Dame, among others in the Midwest, deliver quality educations and a high quality of life in many respects even outside the sports scene. But these days, places like Wabash College, Kalamazoo College, and the University of Chicago look real, real nice.

 

Does Phil really hold himself out to be a moral authority like Paterno and K? He may be arrogant, 2 fists of rings will do that. Bill Russell also had a high opinion of himself, but he didn't preach. Rex Ryan would have to cure childhood obesity in order to be viewed as anything more than a dufus. Coughlin has never pretended to be anything other than a football coach.
Calipari, Calhoun, Boeheim, William and Pitino are preening schmoes who need to be treated as nothing more than extra-ordinarily paid gym teachers. And that starts by sending Dick Vitale to the dog track. I blame him, in basketball, for putting these on a pedestal above Mt Rushmore. He's the most recognized sports figure in college basketball and it's impossible to tell where his tongue ends and Mikey K's taint begins.

 

Probably not, but the point wasn't to draw exact parallels.

Just to point out that most of what we write about these people is like trying to describe the surface of Pluto. We really have no fucking clue.

And Paterno and K likely wouldn't have been holding themselves out to be such moral authorities had they not been abetted by the Rick Reillys of the world. This stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum.

 

First, I was just making a point about how if you are going to revisit SOY for moral failings, then Bird may not be the best choice to replace someone with.

Second, Bird did in fact refuse to pay child support for the first few years of his daughter's life and only did so after a blood test proved paternity. Was he paying it in 1986, yes. But you're the one spreading misinformation if you're claiming there was never an issue over financial support.

 

Jesus christ, I wasn't trying to discuss Larry Bird. Was merely making a point about SI wishing it could walk back that Paterno choice, I mentioned Bird only because he's the guy I recall everyone thought would win it that year until Paterno was the surprise choice. Care to drop it now?

 

I think you are selling yourself and your brethren way too short. You know so much more than you write. How about guys on press row actually writing what Coach K says on the sidelines? How about trying to define motivation, criticism and abuse. The stories you hear and the rumors you know are the beginning. follow up. I know that the NCAA partners in the media don't want to do it, but this is clear avenue to make written journalism relevant again. It can't just be yahoosports and Sarah Ganim.

Anybody here know the Steve Spurrier rumors from his year at Duke? A Cheerleader and a baby? Is it true? Do you know it? Have you written it? What college coach was screwing who on a table where? I forget, did it happen years ago? Is the coach still active. Is anyone willing to start there, draw a line to Calhoun's total abdication of the STUDENT-athlete part of his job. Anyone willing to tell Calipari that playing by the rules is the minimum standard. Not everyone who could legally own slaves did own slaves, by moral choice. The University of Maryland accepted millions in private donations to put a turf field in the football stadium at the same time cut 8 non revenue sports teams from the roster.

You journalists' are important, to quote the late great editor of the Shinbone Star, Dutton Peabody:

Good people of Shinbone; I, I'm your conscience, I'm the small voice that thunders in the night, I'm your watchdog who howls against the wolves, I, I'm your father confessor!

 

I would say with the possible exceptions of Coach K and Phil Jackson, the bulk of the public knows all of those guys are douches, (on varying levels obviously...).

 

Bill Belichick: A Football Life framed him in a way no profile I've read has. It actually made him appear carbon-based.

 

But everybody knows the guy is a dick. People who have never been in a NFL press conference can watch him on a sideline and make a pretty good guess that the guy is an asshole.

Coach K is the big one left. He's treated like a deity when the locals know better, much like Paterno. That's not to say he has anything in his closet like Paterno did, but he's the big coach left where the public perception of how he is, is probably completely out of whack about how he really is.

 

And people don't pretend pro coaches are sainted quite like they do with college coaches.

I don't think anyone gets the level of fawning that Paterno did, but I'd say the two closest are Coach K and Pat Summitt. I'll be interested to see if anything changes with the tone of coverage there.

 

There is a significant minority harboring the opinion that Coach K has more than a little douche in him, and those waving him into the E-Z-Pass lane to the Celestial Sphere had best not be too hasty . . . especially since he's enjoyed pretty-much the same kind of ironclad control over his program that "Who? Me? (Shrug)" enjoyed over his little fiefdom in Unhappy Valley.

 

Great post.