Convicted, but not accused

            This should come as no surprise to anyone, but the NCAA, that great bastion of hypocrisy, has come up with a doozy. 

            The organization hit Penn State with $60 million in fines, a four-year bowl ban, a scholarship reduction and the threat of more sanctions if the school misbehaves again or if the NCAA feels like it.  The Big 10 decided to pile on by yanking $13 million of bowl revenue.

            All this because Penn State violated the NCAA’s rules against … well, that’s the rub.  Penn State didn’t violate any NCAA rules.  It violated the laws of Pennsylvania, of nature and of God, but it didn’t actually violate any NCAA rules.  (That we know of.  One theory has it that the NCAA and Penn State, knowing an investigation would uncover rules violations, skipped to the last page).

            Now the State of Pennsylvania has taken it’s pound of flesh, having convicted JerrySandusky of raping numerous boys, a case in which Penn State and its revered coach Joe Paterno, were all but unindicted co-conspirators.  And Paterno, having died, is getting his just reward from God himself (and finding out that he wasn’t God might be the cruelest punishment JoePa could suffer), Who, of course, knows exactly the extent and nature of Paterno’s guilt.

            But the NCAA, which holds itself above the duly constituted laws of the state and nation, has decided taking a backseat to God might give folks the wrong impression about who is omnipotent around here.

            Mark Emmert, the latest hairdo to serve as president of this August organization, has stepped up and proclaimed himself God.  At least Roger Goodell pretends to listen to a defense before handing down threats.

            Emmert, having put Penn State and the JoePa’s corpse in their places, will now presumably attempt to put Notre Dame on probation since the Catholic Church at it’s highest levels covered up child rape, the same crime for which Penn State stands, not so much accused by the NCAA as convicted. As for Baylor, it’s quite possible that Emmert will declare the death penalty for the Bears since they tried to cover up the murder of one of their own.

            The NCAA has ignored the rule of law here and they are doing it for PR reasons, the same reason that led Penn State to act as it did.

            But a closer inspection shows the penalties handed out are as meaningless as they are ridiculous.  Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

            First, let’s remember that Penn State’s football program made a profit of $43million last year. 

            So they’ve been fined $60 million, payable over five years.  That’s $12 million a year, leaving us with $31 million in profit. Then there is the $13 million in lost bowl money over four years, a loss of $3.25 million a year, leaving us with $27.75 million.  Then you have to add in the $280,000 a year the Nittany Lions will save from cutting 10 scholarships.  So the NCAA busted all precedent and threw out the rule of law in order to cut Penn State’s profit to $28 million a year.

            Then there is the 65-scholarship limit.  Well not exactly.  Recruiting is over this year, so they will have 85 on scholarship this year.  They lose 10 so they’ll have 75 on scholarship in 2013.  It won’t be until 2014 they’ll have 65 and then for just two years.

            And having 65 shouldn’t hurt.  That’s 3 deep on both sides of the ball. When was the last time you saw the fourth-stringer make a huge difference in big-time football?

Remember, Penn State, unlike SMU, doesn’t have 8 other instate teams to share it’s fertile recruiting home base.  It only deals with Pitt. Penn State will have to recruit a little smarter. But they can also tell recruits, “Son, we’re being super selective. We used to take only the best.  No we’re taking only the best of the best. Plus, if you come here, you’ll have less competition and a better chance to start.”

            Not to mention that they can tell their mamas that the program will be under such scrutiny that no one gets laid.

            Finally there is the bowl ban.  That will hurt.  But you can appeal to your current players’ pride and redshirt the next class so that they will be the first class to have a chance for a bowl.  It will be an honor.

            The bottom line is we won’t know if Penn State is suffering until the season starts. If they are selling out, then it’s all been for naught.

            But other schools need to be wary.  If Penn State can get hammered for not breaking the rules, so can you.  If the NCAA decides that the integrity of its member institutions is paramount, what happens when it realizes that Nick Saban makes 10 time what his boss does?  Or that Mack Brown is the highest paid employee of the state of Texas? Followed by Kevin Sumlin? Followed by Rick Barnes?  The NCAA adds very little to the football school and if they decide to walk, they can take the basketball tournament with them. 

            Of course, if they do, the NCAA will probably put Lamar on probation. 

You might be right, but you still aren't getting the guns

            I don’t own a gun.

            I am 43 years old and have lived in the South all my life.  Eleven years in Tennessee, 32 in Texas.  Growing up we had one gun in our house, an old carbine that belonged to my great-grandfather as legend had it.  Everyone once in a while my dad would go out and shoot it, reporting back to us that the bullets would go through trees.  I never saw him fire it, but Dad’s the most honest guy I know.

            I don’t have guns for a simple reason.  I have no reason to own one.  Crime is down significantly from the time when I was a child and I live in a low-crime area.  I have children in the house and as anyone with any curiosity knows, a gun in the house is six times more likely to injure a friend or family member than a bad guy.  I don’t hunt.  I prefer to stalk my meat in the aisles of my local H-E-B. 

            Most importantly, I believe I am free of the insecurity and machismo that seem to prerequisites for most people I know who own weapons.  The gun culture that has always pervaded the South and seems to be spreading across the nation comes from fear.  In the old days it was fear of the Indians (a realistic one) or fear of the slave uprising (a logical one, if not that realistic).  It has evolved into fear of The Other, to use a fancy literary term.

            When Hurricane Rita hit my hometown my father returned home almost before the storm had blown out.  He lives on five acres in a development about 10 miles out of Beaumont.  Beaumont had no power.  Streetlights weren’t working, power was out, gas stations couldn’t pump gas.  Our subdivision was worse. Heavily wooded trees made getting in or out problematic.  Dad had cut his way, having to walk the last quarter-mile to our house and use the tractor and chainsaw to get back.

            I was there on assignment and I tried to get him to come back with me.  Despite the fact that he was wobbling around on knees that needed replacing 20 years before and despite that fact that there was no way to call for help if he got hurt or sick he stayed.  Stayed there with the pistol he had inherited from my grandfather and, of course, Grandad’s old carbine.

            There was no looting going on in town and you can rest assured no one was going to waste precious gasoline to try to loot Bevil Oaks.  But he was staying and he wasn’t giving up his gun.  He was scared someone was going to take his stuff, so he was staying to fight them off, cowboy style.

            That’s the thing that gun owners forget.  They assume the bad guy will come calling, setting up a time to meet in the middle of the street, preferably High Noon, then the fastest will win.  It never enters their mind that the bad guys are likely to act out of self-interest when flouting the norm of decent society.  They never think their enemy might sneak up behind them, point the gun without so much as humming a Journey tune a moment before the screen suddenly goes black.

            The horrible news from Colorado has already brought out the gun control people, arguing that guns should be banned, an argument that is infantile and pointless.  It’s the right policy.  Guns do far, far more harm than good in this country.  One needs only look at a SWAT team outfitted like the Marines as they serve a warrant.  This militarization of the police is justified because they have to assume everyone has a gone, and they do.  No one is going to go hungry if all the guns are banned and a lot fewer people will be killed.

            Don’t listen to the fear mongers who want to tell you that guns are needed to defend us against muggers, rapists, druggies and other assorted misfits. And really don’t listen to the morons who tell you that we need guns to defend ourselves against a tyrannical government.  You really think you are going to bring down the tank, the RPG and that drone sneaking up behind you with the deer rifle?  There are a thousand reasons people will give to justify clinging to their guns. My favorite is heritage.  Well, I've got a family heritage with guns too and it's nothing to brag about.  

            There are no good arguments to allow this country to have such a lax gun policy.  But to all my liberal friends, especially those who aren’t from these parts, it doesn’t matter.  You are not going to get the guns.  The fear that creates the gun culture runs too deep and is too irrational.  We are having a run on guns because we elected a president who has never, not once, not a hint, not a single time made the slightest move toward gun control.

            You can bloviate all you want, but banning guns will be about as effective as banning marijuana.  You can talk a good game.  You can even throw a bunch of black people in jail. But the people who really own the guns aren’t giving them up.  They aren’t giving up the rifle their granddaddy used to show them how to hunt. They aren’t giving up the pistol Ma-Maw kept under her pillow. That gun is in their blood.

            You can get all fired up for a month or six months or a year or even until the next shooting. But you don’t care as much about getting the guns as my friends and family do about keeping them.  So you’ll keeping on yelling and you’ll keep on losing and the NRA will keep on raising a shit load of cash of your words.  And reasonable people who keep their guns locked in safes with the ammo locked in a separate safe, people like my dad who might be amenable to things such as registration, a ban on cop-killer bullets, better training an stricter laws against felons and lunatics wielding weapons, those people will feel the only options are all or nothing AND THEY WILL NOT GIVE UP THEIR GUNS.

            So you can ignore the fact that the salient point in Aurora, as it was in Columbine as it was in Oslo was some crazy motherfucker running around free because the treatment needed isn’t available and keep yelling about the guns.  You can continue to focus on the irrelevant and unchangeable or you can look hard and try to solve problems that are solvable.

It’s in my blood and I wouldn’t give up the family guns if I ended up in possession of them. I’d lock them away in a storage facility far from home, but I’ll be Goddamned if some Yankee liberal know-it-all son of a bitch is going to take my family’s guns.

            

From a winner to a whiner: The story of Lance Armstrong

            Just when you thought Lance Armstrong was getting it, his old habits come back to haunt him.                        

            If it were I, I wouldn’t give a shit.  I’d go all Gaylord Perry on them. “You think I was cheating? Hmm, interesting.  Good luck catching me.”

            Ol’ Lance should have Gaylord beat.  He’s literally on top of the mountain; actually he’s atop the Alps. Doesn’t mater (as in mater horn, get it?) how he got there.  I get tired just watching the cars follow those guys. Besides, he got there the same way everybody else seems to get there.

            Lance has never been known for his laid back acceptance of criticism, be it from snot-nosed wannabe sports writers or state senators questioning his demand that taxpayers fork over $3 billion to move the cancer closer to him.

            But last month in an interview with Men’s Journal, he seemed willing to reign contentedly while the delinquents blew spitballs at his greatness.

            “Other than a health issue or something with [my] kids, nothing will rattle me ever again,” the seven-time Tour de France winner said. 

            Looked like Ol’ Lance was content to swim, bike and run off to Hawaii to win the world Ironman championship.

            But that was before the United States Anti Doping Agency lobbed a grenade into those plans, announcing an investigation into possible performance enhancing activities had a bunch of witnesses and would prevent him from triathloning for a while, even though the USADA can’t actually take my freedom or my money.

            It’s not a health issue and doesn’t threaten his kids, so you gotta figure Ol’ Lance would slough it off, maybe call Ol’ Gaylord and have a good laugh.

            Or you thought he’d do what I’d do if I had that kind of jack and all those trophies. Tell the world to Fuck Off.

            I wouldn’t admit anything.  I might point out that all the steroids and doping allow you to do is work even harder.  I’d allow how you might take my name out of the record books, but I’d also point out that I’ve still got a copy and seven pictures of me on the stand, drinking the champagne, kissing the girl and wearing that yellow jersey.

            If I got real cocky, I might ask who the hell you’re going to give the wins to.  All those guys behind me, they’ve been caught.  I might even say, in world of artificially-created superbikers, I was still baddest son of a bitch among them, so go pass your resolution, reprint the record books, do what you have to do.  It doesn’t matter because those pictures of me sipping Champagne as I cruise down the Champs Elysee' will be harder to get off the Internet than a sex tape.

            You know what I wouldn’t do? I wouldn’t go all 9^th-grade girl and claim they just hate me because I’m beautiful. I wouldn’t try to poke holes in the case, if for no other reason than doing so might make people look even closer at the record.

            They might just start wondering how a guy who was a middle-of-the-pack rider gets a disease linked to PED use then comes back as a cross between John Wayne and a Kenyon on wheels.

            They might just begin to wonder why the testers are always behind the dopers and they might look into the tests I’ve passed and find something.  I don’t know. 

            But I wouldn’t worry about any of that. I’d just tell them all to kiss my spandexed ass.

Fun with Youtube

I have come to believe that Lisa from the Jessi Colter song is the woman he stopped loving today from the George Jones song. I wonder if Lisa showed at the funeral.

Tejus gets benched

Sorry Tebowmaniacs. Not even Elway believed in your guy. I guess the only thing to do is start praying for Him (or him) to strike Peyton down. Florida guys might be all right for schoolboy games, when there is money on the line you better get someone from Tennessee.

Here's the kicker. While Tebow has always been lauded for his work ethic and Christianity, its clear that his film study never approached the level that Manning attained. And while Tim was in the Philippines trying to convert a Catholic nation to Christianity, Peyton was giving millions so poor children could have medical care. You know, actually practicing Christ's teachings instead of looking for cameras in front of which he could kneel.

So you've got a better quarterback and better man in Denver. Tejus looks to be sent packing to some team that can either teach him to throw and put him him at tight end where he just might become a hall of famer, that is if he can ever learn to put his team's needs before his own.

Dividing the Body

When I was 15 I did something stupid.
Well, that’s a little like saying Stalin had an empathy problem. But I did one particular stupid thing that had the good fortune to be saved for posterity, should I ever wish to run for office. I was photographed giving the finger.
I still remember it. It was the homecoming parade my sophomore year and I was on the football player’s float when the photographer, a good friend, said something obnoxious and I responded. He was a photographer for the yearbook, and when the they came out at the beginning of the next school year, there I was, extending both my perfectly formed teeth and my perfectly formed bird to the viewer, looking dead into the camera.
I cannot imagine that word could have spread quicker. Say what you want about Twitter and Facebook, nothing spreads information as efficiently as a Catholic high school grapevine. If memory serves the annuals were handed out at lunch, the picture was pointed out to me by the end of the day and I was standing in the assistant principal’s office the next morning.
I haven’t thought about the incident in years. By the time we graduated, it had stopped being mentioned. I’m not sure my wife knows about it and I know my children don’t. I’m not particularly ashamed. I wish I hadn’t done it, but my kids will hear about it one day and I’ll try to teach them the lesson I learned from it. But the GOP race for president and the general direction Christianity has taken in this country have me thinking about it more often these days.
There is a harshness and divisiveness in the language that’s deeply unsettling. The New York Times reported yesterday that Bishops were attacking a group set up to support victims of clergy sex abuse.
William Donahue, president of Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights sums up the bishops’ position by saying “The bishops have come together collectively. I can’t give you the names, but there’s a growing consensus on the part of the bishops that they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough. We don’t need altar boys.”
He went on the say the victims should be fought. Note the emphasis on the Catholic Church as the victim, as the one that needs defending. It’s worth nothing here that what the suits are about is boys were raped by priests with the knowledge of church officials reaching all the way to the current Pope. Those priests were not turned over to the authorities, but shuffled off to other parishes where they were free to rape again.
A mandate that insurance companies pay for contraception was met by the Bishops with the same type of rhetoric as Pearl Harbor. The idea, which would not require a single person to violate the church’s archaic and misogynistic ban on contraception, is framed as an attack on the church. What the church really wants is a ban on contraception, a ban that will take away the free will that is the basis of Christian theology.
We’ve seen politicians refused communion for not voting to ban abortion (though we’ve never seen the Bishops attack politicians who support torture, unjust wars, the death penalty or universal healthcare). A lesbian was denied communion at her mother’s funeral. The Church, which is supposed to be a unifying force, the body of Christ, is instead moving away from the tenants of Vatican II and becoming more and more of a divisive force. Somewhere along the line attacking the sinner has become the norm, or in the case of the church’s complicity in child rape, transferring the onus of the sin from the sinner to the sin’s victim has become church policy. One wonders what happened to the idea that we should love the sinners, even the abortionists, the Pill takers and violated alter boys. Somewhere along the line the hierarchy has decided Catholicism is more important that Catholics. It is what Andrew Sullivan calls Christianism.
Which is why I’ve been thinking about that picture lately. It’s not my only sin and it’s nowhere near my worst. I certainly didn’t put the thing in the yearbook. But nonetheless I found myself in Mr. Conway’s office, almost a year after it happened, listening to him explain how he’s not punishing me for the picture, but for the action itself; that he’d be handing out the same punishment if he saw me doing it across the room.
He told me how he had to take show the picture to our principal, Mrs. Gagne, a tiny, soft-spoken woman, whose utter lack of wrath made you fear her disappointment more than anything. He actually had to point to my finger because she didn’t catch the gesture at first glance. Then she had to do the same for the Bishop.
My punishment was to write a letter to the Bishop apologizing and explaining what I learned. I can’t remember a single thing I wrote and it doesn’t matter because the lesson wasn’t taught until after I finished the letter. I had to hand it to Mrs. Gagne. She took the letter and without reading it, she hugged me.
“We love you Michael.”
That was all she said. It brought me to tears and quite frankly I cry much easier now than I did then.
“We love you Michael.”
It remains the purest expression of Christianity I’ve ever witnessed. I had embarrassed the school (which had a great sense of it’s standing in the community), my family, my church and myself. The response?
“We love you Michael.”
I had spent a lot of time in Mr. Conway’s office up to that point, all of it involuntary. I cannot remember being called to his office again, though I made it point to stick my head in every once in a while to say hello. The forgiveness that was offered and which I so greedily absorbed had a profound effect on this sinner. Mrs. Gagne reminded me that no matter what I did, I was part of that school, part of that church, part of that body of Christ and that there is no sin that is so great that it can’t be redeemed by love.
And with that gesture I was no longer angry at the photographer who shot the picture, nor with the editor who put it in nor the yearbook sponsor who allowed it to go to press. I was no longer even angry with myself for being so stupid.
I suspect that Bishop Dolan and Bill Donahue would demand my head if they were to become aware of my transgressions. For them it’s about ideological purity. These are the men who want to purge the church of its sinners. When they are done, and they look around, who will be left? A Jewish Carpenter and his mother. And I wonder if that Mary will put her arms around Donahue and tell him, despite it all, that she loves him. I suspect she will. And then maybe they will learn what I learned. And they will be filled with relief, love and forgiveness.

The selfishness of Tebow

I don’t like Tim Tebow.
Right up front I should tell you that as a Tennessee native I naturally hate anything that’s come through Gainesville, from Spurrier to Erin Andrews to Lane Kiffin’s wife, but my distaste for Tebow goes beyond that. As Bill James once wrote of Hal Chase, there is something about him that shines through so false, yet looks so true to so many.
I should also confess I have a natural suspicion of those who wear their religion on their sleeves. I am a bad Catholic, but I take Matthew 6:1 seriously (or at least I hide behind it). But it’s not Tebow’s public displays that bother me per se, but the theology that lies behind them, a prosperity gospel the belies everything I was taught and believe.

This idea that Tebow’s success is a direct result of his piety is patently offensive. Many have pointed out the flip side of that position. If Tebow’s goodness is responsible for his success, then those he vanquished must be evil. The idea that God is punishing evil football players when there are so many doing evil in so many more important positions seems a waste of His time. And what are we to make of Tebow’s losses? Did he lust after a cheerleader?
Even more offensive is Tebow’s chip on his shoulder, when he should be carrying humility. This attitude isn’t uncommon among evangelicals. They always see themselves as under attack. Tebow hasn’t bothered to step forward to contradict his supporters when they lash out at his critics as heretics, as if a slow delivery without accuracy is sanctioned in the Gospels. Tebow himself, after breaking his vow not to do any commercials until he was the starter, stars in a commercial stating that no one thought he could get a scholarship, and no one expected him to play pro.
The problem with that is Tebow was one of the most sought after recruits of all time coming out of high school. He was the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy and no one believes he can’t make it in the NFL. It’s just that few who watch him believe he belongs at quarterback.
Tebow’s Christianity, Christianism Andrew Sullivan would call it, is utterly lacking in humility. He gives lip service to God, but he gives him no credit. Instead he claims it for himself, referencing how hard he will work, how much time he will log in the weight room, in film sessions, working on his mechanics. Tebow tells his he will become a great quarterback through a supreme act of the human will. He mouths platitudes about how “first and foremost I want to give credit to Jesus Christ,” but first and foremost he’s finding a camera. Otherwise he would have already given credit to Jesus before the interview began.
In doing so he’s denying God, as is every professional athlete who claims their success is due to their hard work. Hard work is required, of that there is no question, but there are is minimum amount of athleticism one must have to even get a chance. Tim Tebow is 6-foot-5, weighs 240 pounds and runs like a deer. That’s a gift from God, a gift he has worked hard to maximize, but he works no harder than my friend Ronnie Grable who was 5-foot-3, weighed 130 pounds and ran a 5.0 40-yard dash. Ronnie busted his ass every bit as much as Tebow does. But he didn’t get a single call from a college coach.
I don’t want to get into a deep discussion of x’s and o’s, but Tebow’s wins all have the same look. He plays poorly, the defense plays great, keeps Denver within a single possession of taking the lead and Tebow rides his athleticism and ability to make something out of broken plays to pull out a late win. It’s not a bad strategy. It was the one that Dan Reeves used with Elway. But I’ve never heard Tebow give any credit to the staff’s strategy of taking the game out of his hands, or completely gutting their offense for him.
In the end, Tebow’s ethos is selfish. His idol is himself. Football is a team game. It’s about sublimating your needs to the needs of the team. Was Tebow doing that when he was whining this summer when he was whining about not having the starting job handed to him? Is Tebow acting selflessly when he insists on playing a position where he is a liability rather than switching to one, say tight end, where he really can be great? When was the last time you saw him defer the postgame interview to Von Miller?
Tebow and his fans like to frame his life in terms of his religion, from his missionary work converting a population that is 90 percent Catholic to “Christianity,” to his success on the football field. But what the story is missing is the humility on which Christ’s teachings rest.