LaLa Land

What can Brown do for you?  Los Angeles Laker fans are asking themselves that question today as the Lakers have reportedly offered Mike Brown the head coaching job to replace legendary coach Phil Jackson, who retired after the Lakers were eliminated by the Mavericks in the second round of this year's NBA playoffs.  Mike Brown is the winningest coach in Cleveland Cavalier history.  He guided the Cavs to the 2007 NBA Finals and two trips to the Eastern Conference finals in five seasons with an incredible record of 272-138.  Oh yeah, that LeBron guy might have had something to do with that, too...which is exactly why I for one would not be too excited about this hire if I'm a Laker fan.

Mike Brown will be under constant pressure to produce championships in LA,
something he has yet to do in his young yet successful career.

Mike Brown is widely-known as a coach that stresses defense, so it will be interesting to see how fans that are used to "Showtime" will like watching their team be more "Slowtime". But anyway, back to that LeBron guy...is it just me or did it always seem like Mike Brown coached 4 of the guys on the court and LeBron kind of did his own thing?  Now, what will Kobe do and how will he react when the Lakers did not hire Laker assistant coach, Brian Shaw, who Kobe had publicly endorsed for the job.  Mike Brown seems like a nice guy and a hard worker and I wish him luck in LaLa land, but I wonder if Jack Nicholson and the other Hollywood starlets want a nice guy as a coach or someone who will be able to continue to do what Phil Jackson has done so often during the past 10 years - win NBA championships.

Meanwhile, just 3 miles south of Staples Center, USC learned today that the NCAA infractions appeals committee upheld all penalties and findings against the USC athletic department for the improper benefits received by Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush and star basketball player OJ Mayo.  The penalties, which were issued last year, include the loss of a significant amount of scholarships over the next three years and prohibits the football team from playing in any postseason games after the upcoming 2011 season.  Also upheld was the provision that any USC senior football play can transfer this summer to any other Division-I school and play his final season at a school of his choosing without the standard one-year penalty.

Reggie Bush was exciting to watch as a USC running back
in the 2000's but USC fans and players are still paying the price.

It's hard for me to understand why the NCAA continues to penalize players and administrators that have to clean up the mess of those that were directly involved in the infractions.  Bush is now in the NFL and has won a Super Bowl ring, OJ Mayo is in the NBA and a contributor to Memphis' run in the playoffs this year, former USC coach Pete Carroll split for the NFL prior to the penalties being handed out last year, etc., etc.  The current USC players were in junior high school when the infractions were committed, but they will have to pay the price for Bush's and Mayo's sins.  If the NCAA really wants to teach players, coaches, and administrators a lesson with appropriate penalties for serious infractions, why doesn't a program like Ohio State receive similar penalties while the players and the coaches that have committed the infractions are still at the university where they can at least feel a little bit of the same pain USC is experiencing for their actions?

Welcome to Big-Time College Football, Boise

Boise State, Utah, TCU, and BYU are the pre-eminent college football programs that have been trying for 10+ years to try and break through The BCS (which in my mind stands for The Big "Cartel" Schools) and play consistently in BCS bowl games and be a contender for the BCS National Championship.  In 2011, Utah heads west to help form the Pac-12, BYU has declared its football independence, and TCU will be awaiting its entrance into the BCS fraternity next year in 2012 - all done with the intention of leaving the dark abyss that is playing in a mid-major conference as long as the Cartel is in charge.  So where does that leave the Boise State Broncos?  The Broncos are making the lateral move to another mid-major conference (Mountain West Conference) where it will battle with TCU for one year until the Broncos will assuredly dominate another mid-major conference and yet again hold out hope every year that the Big Cartel Schools (as well as the voters that support them) will allow them to play on the biggest stage of college football.  If the MWC still doesn't work out for you, Boise State (which it won't), you can always try the Conference USA, the MAC, or the Sun Belt Conferences.  Plenty of good seats still available.

Come on down, Boise State, you're the next contestant on
the NCAA recruiting violation ruling schedule this Summer.

Boise State has elected, instead, to prove the new and soon-to-be-popular adage of the Blue Turf Broncos: "If you can't join 'em, act like 'em."  That's right, Ohio State, you have yourselves some serious competition because the Broncos have proven they belong with the Cartel by committing a series of violations that have drawn the ire of the NCAA.  And just as the Cartel does in situations like this, Boise State has released a statement to address the violations and self-impose various sanctions, which is BCS-talk for "Let us slap our own wrists and hopefully the NCAA won't do anything else to us."  Self-imposing sanctions is the off-the-field version of the Hail Mary, or in Boise State's case, the Hook-and-Ladder or the Statue of Liberty play.  The sanctions include at least three fewer preseason football practices before this year's and next year's opening games.  The school will also have three fewer scholarships to give in the next two years.  The violations range from coaches organizing low-cost summer housing and transportation for potential football players, to tennis and track and field athletes getting meals and housing in violation of NCAA rules.

Boise State football coach, Chris Petersen, is glad that he coaches Bronco
football as opposed to the women's tennis team as the NCAA makes its
way through the Bronco athletic program investigating potential violations.

In fact, when the University learned about the alleged violation in the women's tennis program the school immediately fired the head and assistant coach.  The tennis coach was accused of giving a potential player benefits before the player was enrolled, then lying to investigators about it (See, the Broncos know which sports are the revenue-generating sports...just like the Big Boys).  The NCAA can either accept the self-imposed sanctions by the school, or they can raise the consequences and hand out even larger penalties for the Broncos.  The Boise State president is hopeful that the NCAA will be lenient in its ruling given the self-imposed sanctions and the school's firing of the two tennis coaches:

"I'm hopeful the (NCAA) infractions committee will understand.  It's not as though we tolerated an individual who would commit a major violation".

So, Boise, even after all this effort to try and fit in with the Big Cartel Schools, I guess you still don't belong in the BCS as long as schools such as Ohio State continue to employ their coaches that do commit major violations (See Jim Tressel).

The Winner's Manual For The Game Of Life?

In the middle of all this March Madness, a big-time college football coach for one of the most prominent programs in the country was suspended on Thursday by his school for the first 5 games of the 2011 college football season.  You might be saying: "What?  How did I not hear about this?  That's almost half their football season!"  Well, once the rest of the sports world had diverted its attention to college basketball on Thursday and Friday of this week, Ohio State announced that Jim Tressel would not coach in the first 5 games in 2011.  It was barely even a line item on TV news ticker.  It was barely even a story on ESPN Sportscenter.  But on Thursday night Ohio State announced that Jim Tressel's original 2-game suspension was extended to 5 games (at his request) for not notifying the NCAA, the OSU athletic department, and his school's compliance department that he was aware for more than 9 months - including the entire 2010 football season - that 5 of his players had received improper benefits for selling autographed memorabilia and receiving discounted tatoos.  The 5 players were suspended in December for the first 5 games of 2011 because they had admitted to receiving the improper benefits in the Spring of 2010.  Inexplicably, the NCAA ruled they were eligible for OSU's January BCS Sugar Bowl appearance against Arkansas (which OSU won) even though it is still a possibility that OSU may have to forfeit their entire 2010 season because at least Coach Tressel knew he was playing ineligble players. 

Clearly, the announcement that was released towards the end of the first day of March Madness was a two-pronged public relations move: 1) The original 2-game suspension for Coach Tressel was met with significant public backlash not only because it didn't meet the 5-game suspension his players received from the NCAA, but also because the 2 games he would be missing would be against 2 of the easier opponents on their schedule (Akron & Toledo); 2) By announcing the extended suspension on a day where the nation's attention towards college sports is at the arena as opposed to the field, OSU saved itself additional public scrutiny as the layers of the Ohio State "Tat-gate" onion are peeled back layer by layer - no public backlash if everyone is worried about their brackets. 

Ohio State's quarterback, Terrelle Pryor, is one of 5 players
who are suspended for the first 5 games in 2011 for
receiving improper benefits.

But those can't be the real reasons Ohio State extended Tressel's suspension, can it? Oh no, we should also remember the NCAA has yet to rule on Tressel's punishment (the now 5-game suspension was "self-imposed" by Tressel and Ohio State).  The real reason Ohio State's announcement was released on Thursday was because it was made shortly after the NCAA denied Ohio State's appeal that the punishment for the 5 players be reduced or removed entirely.  The real public relations move was Tressel jumping behind his punished players immediately after the appeal was denied hoping that the NCAA won't impose any additional suspensions or sanctions on him or his program.  What makes it worse is that Tressel never came forth on his own and he has hid behind his players the whole time!  Ohio State discovered Tressel was aware of the benefits received by the players only as they were preparing the players' appeal to the NCAA. 

I have lost all respect for Jim Tressel.  I'm sure he is a good man.  I'm sure he is a good coach.  But he is also a terrible leader.  His "leadership-from-behind" approach since April when he received the first email regarding the players' infractions has been both hypocritcal and unacceptable in a world where sports athletes and coaches are put on a public pedestal.  I'm not even going to draw comparisons between Jim Tressel and Brandon Davies and how they handled their individual situations, but it is something to keep in mind as we await the finality of the Tressel / Ohio State situation.

Jim Tressel has tarnished his name and his coaching
legend by not coming forth with knowledge
of his players' infractions in April 2010.

In 2008, Tressel wrote a book entitled "The Winners Manual For The Game Of Life".  I have not read the entire book, but in the Prologue, he writes:

"To many people, winning is everything...I've seen the positives of setting a goal and pushing a team of players to achieve it, working together and striving for something as a team.  But I've also seen the destructive force of that kind of ruthless search and what it can do to young people and the coaches who try to win at all costs...So how can you know if you're a winner in life?  Must we redefine the word?  And if your life's game ended this second, would you consider yourself a winner?  How can you measure such a thing?  The book you're holding is my attempt not only to answer those important questions but also to distill the heart of a nearly four-hundred page handbook we give to our football players as they enter each new year at The Ohio State University."

Kids make mistakes but those who are set up to "coach" these kids in both football and life need to actually follow the manual, not just write about it.