Sorsby and Texas Tech Football

 

I am a Texas Tech football fan. I would like having Brendan Sorsby playing quarterack for TTU next season. I also would like having Patrick Mahomes playing quarterback for TTU next season, but Mahomes could not do it even if he wanted to, because he is not eligible to play college football, having long since moved on to the NFL. Sorsby should not be eligible either.

The NCAA was right to ban Sorsby from the game after he was caught betting not only on college football but on a game or games the team he was on played. His guilt is not in question, and his defense is risible. Excessive gambling is not an addiction. It is a character flaw. But even if one accepts the dubious notion of the existence of an addiction to gambling, there is no way being so addicted would force someone to bet on his own team’s games, given that there are thousands of other things on which to bet. So the claim of addiction is irrelevant to the thing Sorsby did which caused him to be banned.

Texas Tech should do the right thing and announce that it will follow the NCAA’s decision and not play Sorsby during the coming football season. The ethical reason for this is clear. Sorsby is guilty according to the rules of the NCAA (and according to ordinary fairness and fair play), and TTU as a member of the NCAA is obligated to follow its rules (and should practice ordinary fairness and fair play). For those who do not worry about that, there also is a strong pragmatic reason for benching Sorsby permanently or kicking him off the team. If this is not done, TTU athletic programs will be treated as pariahs by other programs in the Big 12 and around the country, and will be subject to whatever revenge and punishment the people at the NCAA can come up with for years to come. The short term benefit of having Sorsby is not worth the long term cost, particularly since Hammond may be ready before TTU has a tough game next season.

TTU and Oregon

 

Texas Tech’s football team had a very good season, winning the Big 12 twelve conference championship and being seeded as one of the top four teams in the country for the playoffs. Then it lost to Oregon 23-0. Some people took the loss as a sign that the program was not ready for prime time and unable to compete against the top teams in the country. I think they were wrong. TTU’s defense performed very well in the game. The offense failed completely from play calling, to line play, to the running backs, receivers, and especially the quarterback, but I do not think this indicated Tech being completely over matched. Oregon had a good team, but its defense had given up 34 points to James Madison, 24 points to a Penn State team so bad that its coach got fired in the middle of the season, and , of course, got humiliated against Indiana in the next round of the playoffs. Experts say offenses need to get in a rhythm. TTU’s got off to a bad start, and things just went downhill. I have seen similar things in super bowls where it is safe to assume both teams were ready for prime time. To me it seems better to write the game off as one where the offense picked a bad time for its worst performance and not to relapse into the old TTU inferiority complex.

Hail to the Vandals

 

The Washington Redskins are looking for a new name, the old one having been judged insensitive to the sensibilities of many white leftists posting on social media and/or working in the traditional media and of perhaps a few real or pretend Indians working a victim grift.  Judging by  the names that have appeared in print, the people running the team need some help with this. An obvious choice, given the way the team has played recently, would be the Washington Generals. But that one is probably trademarked by the Globetrotters and so not available. Fans who dislike the Redskins have offered a number of rude and unhelpful suggestions. Neither the Washington Soviets nor the Washington Weasels nor the Washington Swamp Rats nor the Washington Woke Wimps would be appropriate.

People like to give  football teams names suggesting something  powerful  - such as patriots, lions, bears, titans, Vikings, giants, rams, chargers, chiefs, falcons, jaguars, Bengals, and broncos. They sometimes also like to give teams names saying something about  the city they came from – such as steelers, cowboys, 49ers,  or packers.

There is a way for the Redskins to do both. The basic business of their city is tax collecting, and the outfit doing it is surely powerful.  Calling the team the Washington Tax Collectors would be appropriate but would mess up the team’s song. So I suggest the Redskins become the Washington Vandals, which would fit in just right with the song and other things too.

A New Name

Some people have wondering  why the NFL has decided to be so vigorous in displaying its political correctness – with plans for mass Kaepernick-style  kneeling, playing a so-called black national anthem before games along with or instead of the American national anthem,  dropping millions of dollars annually in “social justice” protection money, and  so on – given that the percentage of leftists among its fans is probably very small and the percentage of fans who find this stuff offensive is probably pretty high. It could be that Goodell is acting from the heart without regard to consequences, but that is not a guess anybody  should put money on.  It is more likely that he and the owners have made a cynical calculation that they can buy off the lefties for political reasons without offending the ordinary fans enough to get them to stop watching games.  They may be right, but it could  get interesting if they are wrong.

The latest news from the league is that the team in Washington will no longer be called the Redskins, but will get a new and presumably politically correct name.  In the spirit of the times,  I would like to offer a suggestion for what I think is the appropriate new name.  The team should be called the Washington Soviets.  I don’t remember where I first heard this idea, but it surely makes sense. The team’s colors are more  burgundy and yellow than a true red and yellow but they are close enough. The profile of the Indian would be replaced by one of Stalin. In place of the dangling feathers, there would be a hammer and sickle. It is a natural. It would please BLM, antifa, traditional media people, and other important influencers. It would reflect the culture of the team’s home town as well as “Steelers” does for Pittsburgh.  The corporate goofs who have refused to sell shirts with the Redskin logo would have no problem with hawking the image of a man who wanted to liquidate people  like them. The Internationale would make a swell substitute for Hail to the Redskins.  

The NFL needs a to make a progressive statement like this.  It deserves for this to happen.

After it is accomplished,  it will be time to get on to fixing Cowboys, 49ers, Packers, Vikings, Saints, Buccaneers, Texans,  Chargers,  Jets, Raiders, Chiefs, Patriots,  and other problematic names of teams. Doing good has no end.

Football Season

When I was a boy,  there was a saying that playing football builds character. I didn’t  believe it. I knew a number of the football players at my high school. Some were good guys, and some were jerks -  just as with the rest of us. I did not notice the quality of anyone’s character improving or worsening over the years from being on the team.  Nor have I seen much evidence for the idea in the following years.  Big time college football’s and the NFL’s present and recent collections of  thugs,  “domestic abusers”, prancing narcissists, bullies, belligerent near illiterates, and felons do not offer it strong support.

Neither does the behavior of some of the coaches who are said to be instilling all those upright character traits. Urban Meyer, coach of the prestigious and well beloved by the sports media Ohio State Buckeyes recently lied about a serious subject (accusations  of wife beating by one of his assistant coaches and what and when he knew about them)  to reporters and the public at an event where he was officially representing the university. He was caught in his lie and changed his story from a claim of complete ignorance of the matter to one of following the rules explicitly to one of maybe not doing all he should have but only because of his fondness for the accused man’s grandfather.  The university’s bosses suspended him for the time  up to the end of  the season’s first game and prohibited him from  being on the sidelines for two more games.  Most of the arguments I have read have been over whether this was too severe or not severe enough a punishment for failing to do more in 2015. While I have not followed the story thoroughly, I have not seen many people saying he should have to pay for his  lying. It may be that to many fans and people in the sports media, lying by coaches is to be expected and treated as no big deal.

College football often is a sleazy business.  Cheating and buying players in recruiting are said to be fairly common.  Coaches regularly sign up players lacking ability or preparation for college and bring hoodlums and criminals to their campuses while prattling about character and “student athletes”.  Trying to injure opponents in games gets some coaches’ tacit approval or even encouragement.  There is reason to be a little skeptical of the idea that all those three hundred pounders on college teams are the result only of weight lifting, clean living, and eating lots of Wheaties and to be curious about how prescription pain drugs are used on players.

One can know this and still like the game, but a person should take the game as it is and not fall for the character building stuff or participate in any silly idolatry of successful coaches.  

Not the Glory Days of the NFL

This week football players in the NFL were again kneeling, raising fists, or otherwise acting badly while the national anthem was playing before their games. The people running the league had considered prohibiting  such  behavior before the season started but decided to back off.  This is more evidence against the notion that executives in the entertainment businesses care only about money and make their decisions solely  to maximize revenue.

It is usually not a good idea to spit in someone’s face before asking him to continue purchasing your product so you can remain  rich.  However that is what the NLF and the players  did and likely will keep doing. In the context of the tradition of playing the anthem at the beginning of sporting events, the players’  actions are obviously gestures of disrespect and for the country and contempt for most of the people in it.

Most of those who applaud  this stuff probably are not football fans, and most football fans probably  dislike it, many  to the point of stopping watching.  Yet those in charge in the  NFL continue to allow it. It could be the bosses worry more about offending the players than about driving their customers away. It could be the result of  a desire to fit in with and be approved by the leftist traditional media, including the sports media. It could be the usual corporate cowardice in the face of the demands of political correctness.  It could be that  people such as Goodell do not care any  more for America or most Americans than the hateful players  do.  Whatever it is, it is not a decision driven by  the bottom line.  That is what makes it interesting.

Anyway, fall is a nice season in most of the country, and there are plenty of pleasant ways for former fans of the NFL to spend an autumn Sunday afternoon.

Kneelers

When I was a kid,  Sunday mornings were not a time to watch TV.  There were only two or three channels, all local,  and all of them showed someone preaching.  I thought back to that yesterday while looking in on NFL football.  People watching NFL games or ESPN were treated  first to the preening and  self-righteous posturing  of  players kneeling or otherwise showing their contempt for the country during the playing of the national anthem at the start of the games and then to a string of homilies from the people in  the networks  praising  their glory.  Both the players’  actions and the encomia to them were silly and trivial, but sometimes one can learn something from the silly and trivial.

The first thing worth noticing is the fairly gross display of ignorance about free speech and the First Amendment from   players,  owners of the teams, and some people in the media.  The first Amendment protects the right of free speech and expression from  actions of governments – the only organizations that can impose censorship.  It does not prevent an employer from requiring  standards of behavior from employees while they are on the job and representing the employer.  (Such requirement do not infringe on  the right of free speech. If a person does not like a particular boss’s stupid rules, he can go work somewhere else.)   Neither does it  grant immunity from criticism and ridicule.  Just as person A is free  to express his opinions, person B is free to express his evaluation of them and of person A for holding them. 

 No one in government has  threatened the kneelers with punishment or reprisals of any sort or stopped or attempted to stop them.  Trump (who should have kept his mouth shut or expressed his disapproval differently on this one) merely said they are wrong, and their bosses should fire them for behaving that way on the job. He did not send out armed federal agents to disrupt their protests. As far as we know, he has not sicced the IRS onto opponents  because of their views. (That was the Obama administration.)  He certainly has not tacitly supported violent mob “resistance”  to stifle dissent.  (That was the local Democratic authorities in various cities and campuses around the country. )  There simply is no known issue of the right of free speech or the First Amendment in this stuff.

Rather there is a matter of taste, propriety, and, of course, political bias.  It is quite reasonable for Americans who like their country and its principles to be offended by spoiled, pampered,  arrogant, self-righteous,  and often hugely ignorant  entertainers thumbing their noses at that country at events they are paying to watch or attend.  There is nothing wrong with such an offended  person telling the kneelers and their bosses something like “if you don’t like my country, I won’t like giving you my time or money”.   In some respects it would serve them right. 

The political bias from the media is obvious.  Imagine that instead of kneeling in support of opinions  favored by the Democratic Party and  leftists,  some players in 2016 had  knelt sporting Make America Great hats, and  after criticism from Obama, their teammates had joined them  in gestures of solidarity.   It is likely the sermons on that Sunday would have taken on a different tone. 

Kaepernick in the News

A few days ago Colin Kaepernick, a benched quarterback for a mediocre team in the NFL, made big news by denouncing the United States as oppressive to  minorities and by refusing to stand during the playing of the national anthem at the beginning of a football game.  Since then the news has been full of articles and commentaries defending or denouncing him. While I found nothing worth noticing about either Kaepernick or what he might say about  this or any other topic, I did find something  a little interesting in  some  of the reactions.  

The most amusing thing to me was the phony basis for the  praise he got for being brave, daring, and controversial. In  fact he took no risk at all with anyone who matters, because his actions fell within the boundaries of what is acceptable by the rules  of political correctness.  The officials of the NFL whose usual demands for total uniformity have had them in  tizzies over  such things as slightly deflated footballs,  someone wanting to wear  high  top football shoes to honor a deceased player, and stickers honoring dead cops,  said this  was just fine.  The officials of his team did the same. Many in the establishment media were effusive in supporting  him, and many others were at least appreciative of his “message”, if not his methods.   What he did seems no more brave or daring  than speaking out in favor of dolphins or puppies.  (Now if he had, for example, waved a little rebel battle flag while running onto the field and rhapsodized to reporters about the Lost Cause, that actually would have been bold, risky, and controversial, albeit bizarre.  It would also have gotten him fired, exiled from the league,  and left without support or sympathy  in the media.) It may even have saved him from being cut from the team for incompetence, since his bosses  may now be afraid to let him go.  

Manning and the Media

The recent flap in the sports media over Peyton Manning is worth noticing. The story itself is trivial and insignificant. Depending on whom one believes,  about twenty years ago Manning as a young college player either mooned a teammate while a female trainer was working on his ankle, giving her an unintended but unwelcome view of his testicles and backside, or flashed her with that view intentionally.  As might have been expected in those post- Anita Hill and pre-Monica Lewinsky days, there was a series of  accusations, legal actions, and settlements which went on for a good while.  There was no hint in any version of the story of sexual assault, groping or striking the woman,  or anything beyond puerile and  moronic horseplay of a sort not too unusual in teenage boys.  The story was old news and had been so for over a decade until several sportswriters and commentators revived it after the Super Bowl.

Now, all of a sudden, we are getting a campaign of shocked and sanctimonious denunciations of Manning and pompous ruminations about whether or to what degree this destroys his “legacy” or even proves he is a phony and an evil person. That is odd enough that it’s useful to try to figure out why.

The first thing one might notice is that the offense, even Manning’s version of it, violates the canons of political correctness as they apply to gender. Here was a woman working in the locker room with a bunch of youthful jocks.  One of them behaved like a youthful jock in a locker room, instead of realizing that women are  strong, tough as nails,  and able to function in any environment  or situation and simultaneously  delicate Victorian flowers who will be horribly damaged by any sort of unseemly conduct or language, and then conducting himself accordingly.  The horror is there for all to see.

The next  thing which comes to mind is that Manning is white, and for many in the media there are different standards  for white and black athletes. Violent run ins with cops and ordinary citizens, profligate fathering of illegitimate children, beating up women (so long as no pictures or videos hit the news), and rap sheets  of assorted felonies are accepted as  normal and unremarkable and either unmentioned or quickly dismissed or forgiven if the athlete is black. White guys generally are more likely to be  expected to behave themselves and to be given nothing like this sort of slack when they do not  - even in comparatively minor ways.   (While on the surface this might appear to be sensitive to and solicitous of black people, in fact it shows a clear prejudice against them, since the indicated  conclusion is that the people doing this  do not think blacks are  worthy of being held to and capable of meeting usual behavioral standards.  In that assumption  they  find themselves in agreement with a common opinion of anti-black bigots and racists.)

Politics may also be part of it. Manning is a Republican and  young, attractive, popular, articulate, competitive, and in need of something to do with the rest of his life. Most of the people in the media are on the left, and there could have been a desire to torpedo a possible political career in the wrong party.  Then there are the simple explanations of envy, resentment, and schadenfreude which always should be considered in such cases.

This is all  just guess work, the product of lazy speculation on a warm Saturday afternoon, but the scope and intensity of the thing  are  strange.  

Tiptoeing Around the Obvious

Reporting of  recent instances of professional football players beating women has featured a lot of feigned surprise,  obligatory outrage, and cautious  tiptoeing around the question of possible causes and remedies when the answer as to causes is obvious. The NFL is comprised in fairly large part of brutal, lower class hoodlums who behave in the manner of brutal, lower class hoodlums. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that many of these particular hoodlums have been coddled and protected from facing the consequences of their misdeeds since the time in their youth when some coach noticed they could be good football players. (In the NFL most of these hoodlums are black, but race is mainly irrelevant to the situation, and there is little reason to suppose things would be very much different in a league populated with lower class toughs of another race.)

The reluctance in the traditional media to face the obvious is informative and illustrates a general problem.  Political correctness often makes it difficult , or in some venues impossible,  to state things as they are. Beating women is mainly a practiced by  those in the lower social classes and is a result  of the culture and character of men in those classes.  (Yes, as the politically correct insist on reminding us, there are middle and upper class women who get beaten by their middle and upper class husbands. There are also non-smokers who get lung cancer, but in neither case is that where the main problems, risks, and need for attention are.)  The solution for football is either to have fewer such  people  in the game, starting in the colleges, or to police the goons better with draconian punishments within the teams and league. Neither is particularly likely. Instead those in the league probably will try to smooth  things over with public relations work, pink uniforms and other things designed to fool the foolish.

Something similar is  true with respect to poverty. While there are many exceptions, a habitually poor, healthy adult man is usually poor because of his own choices and failings.  The fault is not society’s, nor his more industrious neighbors’, but his. He is not trashy because he is poor. He is poor because he is trashy. Of course one won’t likely be hearing that noted in traditional media either. 

Sports Fantasy

Many sports fans probably have at one time or another contemplated what they would do to fix things if they were suddenly made an all powerful commissioner of a professional league. It is an interesting fantasy to think about. Here are my ideas.

League: the NBA

When it was best: 1960-1990.  This period covers the best years of Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Kareem Jabbar, Rick Barry,  John Havlicek, Sam Jones, Elgin Baylor, Julius Erving, Moses Malone,  Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and others. It was a time after the coming of the modern game but  before the league degenerated into its present  combination of roller derby, professional wrestling, and a remake of The Longest Yard shifted to basketball and filmed by MTV.  

Changes:

1.      Treat all players, even the stars, the same. When the next Michael Jordan comes along, it will be legal to guard him, even in the fourth quarter.

2.      Enforce travelling and palming rules. There will be no more NBA three (or six) step.

3.      Enforce three second rule and restrict wrestling in the paint.

4.      Eliminate the three point shot.

5.    Punish showboating and taunting with technical fouls.

League:  Major League Baseball

When it was best: 1911-1961 (excepting the war years 1942-1945).  This period covers the time when baseball became and remained the national pastime. It covers the great teams and great players from the time of Walter Johnson, Honus Wagner,  and Ty Cobb to the time of Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, and Willie Mays.

Changes: 

1.      Eliminate the abomination that is the designated hitter rule.

2.      Eliminate inter-league regular season play.

3.      Completely ban steroids or other such drugs, and really do it.

4.      Enforce the strike zone as defined, i.e. allow the high strike.

5.      Return all fields to natural grass.

6.      Eliminate playoffs and divisional championships. The team in the National League with the best regular season record would meet the team in the American League with the best regular season record in the World Series in the first week of October.

7.      Play Sunday double headers again.

League: The NFL

When it was best: Now. The NFL is probably at this time more exciting, interesting, and dominant  than ever.

Changes:

1.      Vigorously and draconically enforce the rule against head shots. The penalty for  flagrant violations would be thirty yards,  ejection, and  a suspension for the greater of one game or one game more than the victim of the shot misses.  For less vicious hits, a thirty yard penalty plus ejection would be enforced.

2.      Be almost as tough on cheap shots not to the head.

3.      Get more serious on preventing use of steroids and similar drugs.

4.      Restrict taunting and showboating with more liberal use of penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct.

5.      Switch to the college overtime rules, with a three possession limit before a tie in the regular season. 

That’s my list. It's fun to make one up.

Observing a Controversy

About this time two years ago Texas Tech fired its eccentric, successful football coach Mike Leach.  As would have been expected, there was lot of controversy, anger, and taking of sides at the time.  As would have been less expected, there still is.   People  are still agitated, still posting  to web sites, and still bitterly at odds. The continuing conflict is interesting apart from the events and merits of the case (which are instructive and worthy of study in themselves). It is interesting because of what  I think it illustrates  about the “sociology” of people in West Texas.  

 

In West Texas you have large numbers of  some of the most ornery, independent, tolerant, freewheeling,  and hard to control people you might find anywhere. The frontier spirit and the cowboy way are alive and strong. On the other hand you have - also in large numbers  - some of the most dogmatic, authority revering,  hierarchically minded, and obediently rule accepting people you might find anywhere. The notions that the people in charge and  the official version have to be right are also alive and strong.
  

The controversy over Mike Leach displays the two strains of thought fairly clearly.  Leach was a very unconventional college football coach. He ran a daring, innovative, and high speed offense, eschewed coach-speak, kept his religious opinions to himself, avoided suits and ties, had little or no interest is stroking bosses, boosters, or local big shots, often said what was on his mind, and reveled in the idea of representing the anarchic  spirit of a pirate.  The chancellor and regents  who fired him (and Craig James who provided the triggering event) were and are representatives and examples of order, authority, and publically proclaimed propriety.  

You can observe a lot just by watching it.