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How Can the Left Make Even Football Depressing?
I’ve been looking forward to this moment for months. I wake up today like a kid on Christmas morning, scarcely able to believe that the glorious day had finally arrived: The beginning of the college football season. This most wonderful of seasons officially begins, as every American knows, when The Ohio State Buckeyes first take the field. And all our troubles melt away, at least for a few hours, on Saturday afternoon.
I knew that this year’s holiday would be somewhat marred by the recent scandal involving Ohio State’s coach, Urban Meyer. One of his assistant coaches was accused of domestic abuse by his wife and Urban did not fire him until the day after the court ordered a restraining order. This is difficult because if he would have fired him before the court finding, based on hearsay, the assistant coach would have sued and probably won. But this scandal is beautiful for the media and other leftists. Meyer, like most high-level coaches, speaks openly of meritocracy on his team, and thus is widely suspected of being a closet conservative, although to my knowledge such vicious rumors have thus far remained unsubstantiated. Also, domestic abuse is still trendy in the #metoo era, especially as it relates to … eww … football. So this is the story that will not die. It’s a leftist’s dream.
Anyway, at noon I go out on the patio to turn on the TV, and tune to the only channel that has any reason to broadcast at this moment. The “football announcers” start the coverage of this exciting event by looking sad and talking about “the scandal.” While no one is specific about what exactly Urban did wrong, or what he might have done differently, they find ten different ways to say that “this matter was handled poorly by Ohio State.” I quietly wonder if this broadcast would have been possible if the network used the same criteria for hiring and firing amongst its own employees that it ostensibly recommends for football coaches. Eh, no matter, I suppose.
I anticipated this broadcast, so I watched this just long enough to confirm my suspicions, and then went to go get a beer and a cigar. Virtue signaling can take a while, so I took my time. I eventually wander back out, and they’re still talking about it. (When I finished typing this, in the middle of the 2nd quarter, they were still talking about it.)
I used to think that sports journalists and broadcasters simply had no idea who their audience was. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but I’ve come to the understanding that they just don’t care. How many football fans were tuning in today in hoping for the 1,000th update on the assistant coach’s marital problems? Anybody? Heck no. We are tuning into a football game to watch football. To escape this stuff. We just want to watch some football. Please.
But no. The “sports announcer’s” job is to indoctrinate his audience. The football is an afterthought, to the powers that be. It may be partly that all sports journalists started their careers hoping to be the next Walter Cronkite, and jump at the chance to discuss something of true societal importance, rather than merely sports. But I also think that if this announcer doesn’t start with leftist talking points, he will be unemployed by tomorrow afternoon.
Sports used to be an escape from politics. Republicans and Democrats, at the water cooler, at least could talk about sports. The left has infiltrated even this neutral ground as well, probably because they recognize the impact of sports on our society. The loss of common interests and a neutral space to enjoy one another’s company – this is a big loss.
The left poisons everything it touches. Even football.
Note: While I was typing this on my laptop with the game on in the background, the local station had some technical difficulties and the sound went off. I can still see the game, but I can’t hear anything.
The next time an atheist tries to tell me that God doesn’t exist, I intend to use this miraculous event to testify to the all-powerful wisdom of my living God, and the compassion he has for his flock. Hallelujah!
Published in General
Can’t anyone just watch the games and enjoy? Not an OSU fan, but you have to be have some love for any group of people that consistently pound the University of Michigan football team into smithereens. For that reason alone, Urban Meyer is a national treasure.
Michigan is going to have spring training in Italy.
I generally like Clay Travis’ contrarian and pot-stirring commentary on the current SJW-infested sporting news, but this screed just reads like an opportunity to spread some more hate onto a coach who he already despised.
If you’ve ever been involved with a couple who have a dysfunctional marriage, you know that ‘Truth’ is unknowable. I don’t believe either the assistant coach or his wife is likely telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Travis drops Meyer into the middle of this mess and shouts that he should have immediately fired the guy based on a conversation with his wife who got a text message from someone who talked with, wait, what? … is he serious? That would set quite a frightening precedent for every big-time sports program, or CEO, in the nation. Mr. Travis, himself, is now just one tweet away from unemployment.
My question for Mr. Travis would be whether a head coach should immediately fire anyone on his staff based only upon a charge that was dropped and never litigated or adjudicated by judge or jury? As a small-business owner with several dozen employees, I hope that I’m never placed in that predicament, but I am certain that Mr. Travis’ over-the-top emotionalism comes through in this article far more than sober argumentation. Maybe he’s just trolling for clicks; it worked on me.
Travis also has some issues with OSU stemming from the Greg Schiano debacle at Tennessee — Travis was one of the leaders of the effort to keep Tennessee from hiring Schiano away from Ohio State as their new head coach. Toss in the SEC conference rivalry with Florida, and at the very least you have to say Clay isn’t coming into the issue without some earlier emotional investment.
Football for young men of this age is closely connected to universities in our country. (It wouldn’t have to be.) Universities, except for a couple that don’t accept government student loans, are largely controlled, albeit indirectly for the most part, by the government. Government is political. So how can football not be political?
And even in countries in which sports are not connected to universities, they are often political. For example, there is the Gaelic Athletic Association, which has been associated with Irish nationalistic politics from the beginning. However, I didn’t notice a hint of politics when watching (on television) a couple of the hurling matches, including the national championship. So it is possible sometimes to just play the game. And these games were mostly action — no commercial breaks except during halftime — so there was not much opportunity for blah, blah, blah from the announcers. (I was late to the first period of the championship, so don’t know what was said at the beginning.)
Meyer does have a history of convenient blindness when it comes to certain situations, though. If Paterno should have dealt with Sandusky, Meyer should have done more about his asst coach and about Aaron Hernandez. There is a bit of a disquieting pattern here. Meyer is no Grant Teaff.
Let’s see. A Partaga with a Coors Light? Hmmmm…
I wasn’t going to say anything…
My older brother is a (successful) dentist. He chews tobacco when he golfs.
Do you not see there is no actual logic to this argument? Comparing the Paterno situation with the Meyer situation ought to proceed with a detailed analysis of facts. (I suspect that Paterno got a bad rap too, by the way, but I have not read any investigative report as I have the Meyer report).
The “disquieting pattern” seems to be an assistant does some wrong (and in the Paterno case, the wrong was done to players, don’t forget) and the head coach serves to be blamed? Wait, Joe Paterno head did roll. In Meyer’s case, he lacked credible evidence of alleged wrongs not involving players. What exactly is the “disquieting pattern?”
I am generally reluctant to defend the head of any sports “program” (as opposed to a “team”) given that questionable acts seem to be part of the job description.
But I would defend Meyer in part by saying I don’t know what the standard to be applied is in this case. If the victim of domestic abuse chooses not to make use of law enforcement, nor of civil law protections and thus ostensibly wants the matter to remain private, does the abuser’s employer have an obligation to make the matter public by firing or suspension? An obligation to compel the abuser to seek treatment? An obligation to have the snot kicked out of the abuser by way of therapeutic feedback?
It is characteristic of domestic abuse that the response of the victim (assuming blame, dreading embarrassment, hope for reform on the part of the abuser) is often conflicting and counterproductive. But who bears the moral and legal responsibility to intervene other than the immediate family if the police are denied agency?
Legally and contractually it would seem that if Meyer had reason to know this would hurt the program if publicly known then that would have been a more substantive duty to act than a general awareness of a serious personal problem on the part of an employee. The moral ethos of university administrators is that anything that provides good PR and/or revenue is good and bad acts are only bad if they are not kept properly secret.