Meanwhile, Stupidity Marches On

As the grand imbécillité that is American electoral politics continues to dominate the news, the petit imbécillité of everyday American life marches proudly on in the form of an ongoing dispute between cheerleaders and atheists. (Don't worry, Rick Perry is getting a proxy involved. That should make things simpler.)

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said Wednesday he will defend high-school cheerleaders who want to use Bible verses on banners at football games.

Mr. Abbott filed court papers to intervene in a lawsuit that cheerleaders at Kountze High School filed against the school district complaining that a new policy violated their freedom of speech. In September, district officials told the cheerleaders to stop using Bible verses at football games after the Freedom From Religion Foundation complained.

The atheist group argued that using banners with phrases such as, "I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me," violates the First Amendment prohibition on the government establishing a religion.

ATTN Atheists: It is profoundly stupid to think that "Congress shall make no law..." should somehow be interpreted "Cheerleaders shall make no banner..." and that's before we even get into the stickier issue of what "establishment" is.

ATTN Cheerleaders: It is profoundly stupid to think that Paul wrote Philippians 4:13 with anything like the herculean struggles of the Kountze Varsity Lions (Ra! Ra!) in mind, and that's before we even get into the stickier issue of whether or not the piece of paper you're going to have athletes run through is the appropriate place to write religious slogans or the appropriate arena to take legal stands.

ATTN State of Texas: It is profoundly stupid to insert yourself into the middle of a conflict between two demonstrably ridiculous disputants, and that's before we even get into the stickier issue of whether or not the state even has a legitimate interest in this debate.

Just a little reminder to all the parties involved, including those of us watching at home, how readily we allow ourselves to be distracted by the most absurd "problems."

An Apology for Louisville

It has been well over a week now since I read Dan Wetzel's analysis of the new marriage between Notre Dame and the ACC. So much of what Wetzel offers strikes me as true, though I find myself stopping short of declaring this move the great stabilizing moment for all of college football that Wetzel wants it to be. More definitively, I object to his analysis of how this effects the prospect of expansion for the Big 12:

The Big 12 could still come after the Big East's Louisville, Cincinnati or someone else, but that league is adamant, both on and off the record, that it is excited about having just 10 members right now. Everyone from commissioner Bob Bowlsby to Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds has spoken of the advantage of playing a true round robin in football and basketball and avoiding the additional challenge of a conference title football game, which can knock a team out of national title contention.

Besides, the league just signed a huge new television deal. With Notre Dame and any ACC powers now no longer a possibility, there isn't any program out there that would make economic sense to add. Everyone else just waters the league down.

For someone who just expended a great deal of energy arguing that the Big East had just been saved as a major league, Wetzel sure doesn't seem all that impressed with its top teams. His most basic claim that adding Louisville would water down the talent pool of the conference is easily debunked. Since joining the Big East, Louisville has posted a 72-42 record, one that becomes more impressive if you exclude the deeply unfortunate years under Steve Kragthorpe. Sure, that was a record achieved in the Big East, but it is nevertheless better than Iowa State's record during the same period. Better than a resurgent Kansas State as well. Without even doing the research, I'd be willing to wager it is notably better than Baylor and Kansas's records as well (maybe combined). Not all of that success is attributable to being in a weak conference either. Just before joining the Big East, Louisville would finish its season ranked sixth in the AP poll, a feat it would achieve again two years later after beating the ACC champion Wake Forest in the Orange Bowl. Undefeated and well ranked again already this season, I think it is indefensible to suggest that their addition to the Big 12 would just be a watering down of the conference.

But I had a problem with Wetzel's analysis even before I sat down this past weekend and giddily watched the Cardinals handle the Tar Heels, and I will still have a problem with it even if by some miracle Louisville is upset by Florida International (1-2) this weekend. There are at least two reasons beyond football prowess why the Big 12 should continue to keep Louisville in its sites. The most obvious is basketball. While college basketball certainly isn't the money machine that college football is, it is hardly something to scoff at either. Louisville's basketball credentials are familiar and impressive. Even just a quick perusal of some reputable sources would have taught Wetzel that Louisville has the 9th best winning percentage in college basketball all time, two national championships, nine final four appearances, and 38 tournament appearances with 64 tournament wins. All in all, they are variously ranked either the seventh or sixth best men's collegiate basketball program in the modern history of the sport. With the obvious exception of the Kansas Jayhawks, no one in the Big 12 even comes close. In fact, the rest of the teams don't have a national title between them, unless, of course, you want to count the two noteworthy championships of Oklahoma A&M in the forties. Adding Louisville would dramatically improve the basketball profile of the conference.

There is an even greater contribution the Cardinals could make, though we may be loath to admit it. Adding the University of Louisville to the conference would substantially improve its academic profile. The Big 12 is constantly fighting with the SEC for the title of the toughest conference in football. The two are equally determined to squabble over which can have the poorest academic standing. With the departure of Texas A&M for the SEC, the Big 12 is pulling ahead (maybe in both categories). While adding Louisville is not likely to replace A&M and it certainly won't be like adding another Texas, it will represent a substantial improvement over the present academic state of the conference. (And the same would be true of adding Cincinnati, but I am less taken with that idea.) Louisville has a much better track record of producing substantial research, particularly in the field of medicine, than most of the Big 12 schools and a much larger endowment to student ratio. With schools like Texas Tech and Baylor on the cusp of pulling their universities into the Tier 1 category, adding a school like Louisville can only aid the academic standing of the conference.

There are, of course, more if less compelling reasons. For example, it might be nice if poor West Virginia was floating off on a veritable island east of the Mississippi. It would also be great to start to develop a fan and recruiting base in the South, particularly now that the SEC has its claws into Texas. It is also almost too delicious to bear to imagine the Louisville-Kentucky rivalry being an annual weekend for the Big 12 to gloat over the SEC.

So no, Mr. Wetzel, I will not be content with ten teams, or at least not the ten teams presently in the Big 12. I don't think the powers-that-be in the conference should be either. While Wetzel's vision of the future is more probable than my own, I would like to continue to naively believe that the Big 12 is run by people who are capable of seeing beyond mere football in the decisions that they make. It is not too much to hope that the Big 12 can be the SEC in football, the ACC in the classroom, and still entertain bored fans in the spring while we wait for colleges to start playing a real sport again in September.

Inter-Generational Gay Kissing Causes Distraction

Now there's a headline for you. A former junior college freshman has taken to the media to protest his dismissal from the football team at North Dakota State College of Science. The dismissal centers around this curious incident:

Kuntz, 18, had been injured much of fall camp and had only practiced a couple days prior to the trip. So, the coaching staff asked him to film the game from the press box. While in the press box, Kuntz invited his 65-year-old boyfriend, who lives in Colorado, to join him to watch the game. During the second half of the 63-17 blowout, Kuntz took a minute away from the camera to kiss his boyfriend. The kiss was caught by some of Kuntz's teammates and word started to spread.

Kuntz believes homophobia is at the root of his dismissal. He had kept his sexual orientation secret prior to the incident and, consequently, lied to his coach about the relationship with the man he was seen kissing. Admitting that he had shared a passionate kiss with his grandfather was apparently less embarrassing than admitting he was homosexual.

In any case, if you read far enough down in the article--farther than the average reader will go--you will find this tidbit floating between the long examinations of theoretical homophobia and Kuntz's speculation: "The football team rules state that lying to coaches is a dismissible offense." Which invites us all to ask, why is this newsworthy? A member of a team with full knowledge of the team rules commits a dismissible offense and is dismissed. Maybe the coach is homophobic, maybe not, but Kuntz ought to have a tough time garnering sympathy when he gave the coach an ironclad reason for dismissing him. Sure, raising the specter of institutional discrimination is easier than admitting any kind of personal failure. We all understand that impulse. Next time, though, if you want the world to be righteously indignant on your behalf, you can start by not making out with your significant other in full view of your superiors and peers while you are supposed to be engaged in official team activities.

That'll Teach You to Play by the Rules, Penn State

The verdict is in, the dust has settled, and, guess what, people are outraged. And why shouldn't they be? After all, the recent sanctions handed down by the NCAA are just one more in a string of knee-jerk reactions from the public on the final great unifying force for Americans, sex abuse scandals.

The punishment begins with a sixty million dollar fine. This and this alone seems like an appropriate punishment, and the number could have been much higher. That sum, equal to only one year of Penn State football revenue, will come exclusively from the athletics fund and will be used exclusively to fund sex abuse charities across the country. There is a logical connection here between the sexual abuse which was, to some extent, permitted by some members of the institution and the consequence for that complicity. From there, the NCAA added a loss of athletic scholarships and a four year post season ban, which is non-sensical but expected. Perhaps it may have some value as a deterrent, assuming, of course, that there are institutions out there who actually care more about the integrity of their football program than about pedophiles in their midst as so many fast-tongued commentators are implying about Penn State.

The real source of unrest, both mine and the Penn State community's, is the nullification of fourteen years of wins. The NCAA, in their inscrutable wisdom, decided that they would begin with the first abuse allegation and just erase the history of Penn State football from then until the present. Explain to me, who does that serve? Certainly not the victims, unlike the sixty million dollars about to flood abuse charities. And who does it punish? Not Sandusky, who has the tender affection of his fellow prisoners to look forward to as punishment. Not anyone in the administration who may have been complicit, since they have all been indicted, forced out, or fired.

It actually is pretty obvious who the revision of history is meant to penalize. None other than Joe Paterno, who, in losing those wins, has forever lost his place as the winningest coach in major college football. If you'll pardon the indelicacy, I'd like to congratulate the NCAA on coming as close as imaginable to literally using their authority to beat a dead horse. For my part, I agree with the Paterno family, that JoePa continues to be presumed guilty until proven innocent:

The point of due process is to protect against this sort of reflexive action. Joe Paterno was never interviewed by the University or the Freeh Group. His counsel has not been able to interview key witnesses as they are represented by counsel related to ongoing litigation. We have had no access to the records reviewed by the Freeh group. The NCAA never contacted our family or our legal counsel. And the fact that several parties have pending trials that could produce evidence and testimony relevant to this matter has been totally discounted.

Unfortunately all of these facts have been ignored by the NCAA, the Freeh Group and the University.

But let's say that Paterno is every bit as guilty as the most rabid conspiracy theorist believes him to be. You tear down his statue. You un-paint his halo. You--which is to say, Nike, Brown, the Big Ten, and so many more--blot out his name. Now you re-write history just to strip him of his records. What is this obsession with punishing the dead? He's dead! Dead and buried. It makes it very difficult to take all this self-righteous scapegoating very seriously when the scapegoat has already been slaughtered. The fact that an organization the magnitude of the NCAA has felt the need to jump on the bandwagon and actively repudiate Joe Paterno in the sternest way it knows how shows just how little courage and conviction remains in the world.

Stripping Penn State of those wins serves no purpose, except to satisfy the obligatory indignation of the corporations and the masses to whom they peddle their wares. It certainly doesn't actually bother the dearly departed Paterno (though it seems a trifle cruel to his entirely innocent family who have to suffer through the public flogging of his corpse). Instead, it sends a message to past and future players of Penn State, that their efforts on the field, the victories they achieve by the sweat of their brow, the brutality they subject their bodies to, are all in the hands of a fickle overlord who, at any moment, may wave a wand and erase them. "This is not a football related issue. We didn't cheat at football and they shouldn't take our wins," observed a Penn State freshman. That simple, off-the-cuff logic has all the rational force necessary to overturn the NCAA calculated decision.

Nevermind that football doesn't really matter. Nevermind the pious but empty cries for "justice" that thinly mask bloodlust. The principle at stake here is fairness and a rational ordering of society. This ruling proudly announces the message that you can do everything right, play by all the rules (as the players did), and you can still be punished. Punished for someone else's crime. Punished to satiate a media fueled public outrage. Punished retroactively and without recourse to appeal. That, to me, is a greater catalyst for evil than leniency. After all, if they can come for you anyway, why be good to begin with?

The End of an Era

Goodbye, JoePa.

The big question that keeps running through my mind is "why?" What did JoePa do to deserve a perfunctory phone call bringing an even more perfunctory end to the most storied career in college football history? After all, he did what was legally required of him, which is precisely why there are no charges against him. He is a football coach and not a detective. When an allegation came across his desk--one of what we should imagine were countless accusations, suppositions, and rumors to be reported to him over 46 years--he reported it to the people whose job it was to launch an investigation. Could he have done more? Of course. Hindsight has a beautiful clarity to it. (Imagine if Sandusky were innocent and JoePa had led a crusade slandering a civic leader and founder of a charitable organization. Would we be any less judgmental then, armed as we are with afterthought?) The fact that JoePa himself recognizes, in retrospect, that he could have done more and offered as a voluntary penance his own retirement ought to have been enough. The difference would have been allowing a man who has revolutionized the public image of your university (so that people even care if there is a scandal there) and dedicated more than half of his life to developing and mentoring college athletes to coach four more games.

That apparently seemed like too magnanimous a path to the board of trustees. Why? What was JoePa's crime?

“I’m not sure I can tell you specifically,” board vice chair John Surma replied when asked at a packed news conference why Paterno had to be fired immediately. “In our view, we thought change now was necessary.”

Well that's a little vague. Perhaps they could clarify for us why they felt the need to eschew all courtesy and professionalism and destroy a four decade career over the phone.

Asked why he was fired over the phone, Surma said, “We were unable to find a way to do that in person without causing further distraction.”

So, in short, they remove the greatest fixture in college sports, ultimately confound the university's fundraising ability, athletic ability, and character, and incite mob violence, and their reasoning for doing it was "I don't know" and for doing it the way they did "It seemed convenient."

It all leaves me feeling a little unsatisfied. The victims have not been healed, the perpetrators have not been punished, and Happy Valley is no happier. I hope, in addition, that the board of trustees have trouble sleeping tonight.

You have been weighed in the balance...

On this Lord's Day, let us give thanks for the punishment which is dolled out against that most heinous sin of apostasy. Particularly those apostates Colorado, Nebraska, and Texas A&M, each of whom suffered upsetting losses yesterday in their new home conferences. Texas A&M's sins must have been particularly heinous, since--to match their loss to a middle-of-the-pack SEC team this week--they had an equally embarassing loss to a middle-of-the-pack Big 12 team last week. Clearly, "the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish." (Psalm 1:6)

A Touch of Confusion

Explain something to me: if a state university cannot be sued for breach of contract because of "sovereign immunity," then what is the point of universities signing contracts with individuals at all? And should professors, administrators, coaches, and custodians really feel safe with the supposed protections built into their contracts with the state?