Locally, again, not much going on today. The best local story is a sordid Seattle Times piece detailing the efforts of fanatic UW football boosters to get the Athletic Director, Todd Turner, and football coach, Tyrone Willingham, fired last month after a disappointing season. (Disappointing, but predictable, given the nation’s toughest schedule.) One booster went so far as to offer $200,000 in law school scholarships if UW President Mark Emmert would pull the plug. (He did, but only on AD Todd Turner, presumably gaining the school a tidy $100 k to help offset the contract it had to eat.)
Moronic UW fans tend to overlook that along with winning, idolized former Husky football coach Don James left one other legacy: cheating. (OK, two: quitting on his team when he got caught.) And that while the wild successes of some of James’ teams mostly left when he did, the culture of lawlessness and a football program run amok pretty much continued up until Willingham, by all accounts, was brought in by Turner to run a clean ship. Obviously, the ugly old ways are dying hard.
Idle thought: what on earth does a football team (or any scholarship athlete, for that matter) have to do with a state land grant university’s mission to educate its state’s residents? Just wondering.
What else? Local TV was all over the dramatic video of a rare tornado in Vancouver, Wash., damaging property and “causing moments of fear” but injuring nobody.
The top world story: a brief moment of silence for Sir Edmund Hillary.
Nationally, American media, embedded in the Middle East with George Bush, continued to credulously report the cruel hoax that is the “Peace Process.” (Overseas, they’re not being quite so sycophantic.)
Meanwhile, the New York Times is once again doing its patriotic duty to whip up war fever this morning. Even as the official Pentagon/White House story of the kayaks and the aircraft carrier, er, “naval confrontation” between Iran and the U.S. unraveled, the Times was busily looking elsewhere for reasons to remind Americans that They are, after all, an obliteration-worthy Axis of Evil.
We now pause for a brief word from our sponsor.
Geov: Why not tell us who the rich white $200,000 alumni booster is? What is his party affiliation? Why force us to read the paper?
Puddy knows who it is. Puddy knew three days ago. And this booster is big time in FUWA circles.
Can any of the 16% tell me who without looking at the linked article?
From the ny times article cited by Geov:
Sounds a bit like a right wing paradise. No wonder they want to bomb the place. Wingnuts are pathological self-loathers.
Geov…
The UW isn’t a Land Grant University; the honor goes to WSU.
Don James wasn’t a cheater. The other schools in the Pac-10 couldn’t beat him on the field, so they figured the only thing to do was clip him in the conference room.
Whether football, or any sport for that matter, has a place in a university setting, is an unusual question to ask given the boost it gives the University.
“How can we pay a football coach $1+ million per year, and still face cuts for the real work of the university? The UW is funded from a variety of sources, one of which is the intercollegiate athletics program. This program receives no state support and pays for all salaries within the program. The UW program is the only athletic program at a Washington public college or university that receives no state funding.
http://www.washington.edu/admi.....aq.htm#q15
See also http://www.athleticmanagement......rdles.html
Is your question intended to foster a debate on whether football – probably all intercollegiate sports, for that matter – should be eliminated?
I can see the headlines now: Defying History HA Happy Hooligans Hate Huskies – Vow to Crush UW Cash Cow.
OK…let the games begin.
The Piper
I’ve got 15 minutes to scan the news and flame the wingnuts.
Here goes:
HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY
ESCALATION“SURGE”!!!YLB Comment: there is a really rich treasure trove of stuff here including a major policy shift that I WILL comment on, but I gotta go.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2hcqgq
Pooper: I suppose you’re going to ask your silly question again. It’s a compulsion with you. Seek medical attention.
@piper
Don James … Coach James was famous, inter alia, for saying his players could carry guns because otherwise they might hurt someone. He also used some pretty interesting recruiting techniques .. coed consort anyone?
Land Grant .. Technically you are correct, hoever the UW WAS part of the statehood grant.
Football … no way Jose. UW football has generally lost money. The myth about making money is based on the amzing assumption of zero overhead. Even with that, the uW usually loses money.
Nor is their any evidecne that alums give $$ to anything BUT the ath dept because of the football team.
Other than that …
You missed the biggest story!
Hillary died!
Thoughtful HAers may ask will this effect the Presidential election?
It will effect my vote. The conquest of such epochal goals, the struggle to do what no person has done before, the commitment to others … aren’t these what made Hillary great?
Now he is gone and I am not sure I will vote for his namesake.
Ty Willingham SHOULD have been fired. Husky football is a JOKE! 3 straight losing seasons, only in Seattle would a coach of a major program still have a job. I have no doubt that Seattle political correctness is a major factor why he is still the coach. If he were white, do you think he would still be the coach?
If he were white, do you think he would still be the coach?
Of course not; he’d still be at Notre Dame.
@2…YoursistheLoathingBehavior…
The question remains…
If you find Iranian policies so abhorent, why are you that country’s biggest defender? Why are you oppossed to the most aggressive policies possible to effect change in the Middle East in order to bring it out of its less-than-Middle-Ages mentality?
You’re always bitching about what you’re against without ever offering detailed, in-depth, results-oriented alternatives and their probablities for success.
As you rail against the efforts of others, you have no efforts of your own to bottom your assertions and, as in the case of yesterday’s exchange, false and defamatory accusations.
Where’s your pledge to achieve higher, better, safer, more honorable results?
Where? Nowhere, since you have none to offer. All anyone ever gets from you is the tearing down, never the building up. Even with many others at HA, while there are profound differences in belief systems, points of view, and ideas on what should or should not be down, there’s a willingness to listen, consider, and respect.
With you there’s simply emotive spit.
There’s one thing to get into blogging’s pro-wrestling-like over-the-top-rope-battle-royal cage match spectacle of entertainmet that’s taken with a grain – or bag – of salt, but that’s still a long way from genuine hatred, which you exemplify.
Your thinking, world view, perspective, and respect for others has the width of a crushed drinking straw, and that’s genuinely sad. To disagree and debate ideas and details can be an uplifting, educational, and even ennobling experience, but with you it’s like stepping on rusty nail.
Continue to stew in your juices while knowing this: Yours is the losing approach because at the end of day and the discourse, all you have to offer is pain and loss and a poke in the eye.
In Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, he spoke of, “the better angels of our nature.” In your case, all I see are worse devils.
The Piper
@5…Steve…
Without getting into the nitty-gritty of whether Husky football per se is a money maker or loser, please consider also the impact it has on the University of Washington as a brand in and of itself.
What’s the cash and national prestige value of the Husky logo? Pretty considerable, I’ll wager.
Does a college or university have to have football? No, ask them over at Seattle U or SPU. But it sure ain’t half bad when you have a competitive team that the entire community, not just students and faculty, can identify with.
Don James gave us all many heart-stopping moments (think 1978 Rose Bowl, Washington 27, Michigan 20 – Moon to Spider Gaines), while, to date, Ty Willingham has given us too many heart-deadening moments.
Can’t anybody here play this game?
BTW…even non-football sports greatness means something. Who nationally has paid attention to SU since it decided to cut NCAA basketball bait instead of fish for greatness? Think the halcyon days of the late 50’s, early 60’s with the Elgin Baylor-led then-Chieftans (name changes are another issue entirely) playing for a national title against Adolph Rupp’s Kentucky Wildcats.
If a college or university education is supposed to be complete rather than simply a glorified and expensive voc-tech, then the entire experience is important. The classical notion of a liberal arts education (considered, for these purposes, to include non-pure-liberal arts fields of study) is not just to teach facts and data, but how to view the world and be a seeker after truth.
In the old sense, the educated man, and now woman, was instructed in all the disciplines, not just ones necessary to get a fat offer from Microsoft. Sports, the arts – where, oh God where, on HA is any sense of an esthetic value? – the culture, the classic canons of Western Civilization are all necessary parts of the curriculum of life.
Conceived in the Middle Ages and blossomed in the following epoch, the purpose of a higher education was less to meld facts as it was to mold the student, hence the concept of the Renaissance Man.
Diverse in perspective, conversant in many fields of endeavor, cultured, literate, knowledgeable and sophisticated witout being haughty, a man or woman of learning should be comfortable not just in the classroom or lab, but also in the grandstand or theater – know both how to play with a computer and play a musical instrument. And capable of interacting with all levels and types of people from the bar room to the board room.
Hence the value of football as part of the total package experiential deal. Ditto the UW’s world-class school of drama.
Life is more than your job or politics.
The Piper
@8
Nice.
BTW…in that tornado footage? Anyone catch a glimpse of that little house flitting about? You now the one: Auntie Em and Uncle Henry’s place.
Maybe Dorothy will send a postcard?
The Piper
Geov, you don’t believe the president when he says he can bring peace to the middle-east in less than a year?
re 3: “Whether football, or any sport for that matter, has a place in a university setting, is an unusual question to ask given the boost it gives the University.”
You are so right, Piper! Who would have ever heard of Yale, Harvard, or MIT were it not for their football program?
re 13: He can bring an erie, nukular stillness and call it peace. Then we can all put on our HazMat™ suits and fill up those oil barrels in peace.
re 12: Piper, I can see that you are a huge Judy Garland fan. Can we see a photo of your ruby-red slippers?
re 10: Too long. No time for your huge, verbal turds.
Is this what you consider ‘thrashing’ someone on the comment threads? It looks to me like you are just abusing your comment priviliges.
Who has time for your long-winded, inane nonsense? Not me!
@11…Lee…
Not hardly…
Check it out:
http://www.coldhardfootballfac.....p?Page=165
Ty Willingham ain’t no Tony Dungy. If he were, he’d be writing any ticket anywhere he wanted. Put up the “W’s” and you don’t get complaints. If you have to go into OT as the #19 team in the country to beat the Wazzu Cougs, then you get a vocational egg timer set on you.
Hell, now days he can’t even beat the Couqs, going one for three since becoming Husky head dog, and even the one win was a bare three-point eke out.
But I’ll lay a lot of the blame for the current Husky mess at the feet of Barbara Hedges, Husky AD when Don James was crucified who replaced him with the wonderfully avuncular but too ineffective Jim Lambright, “Lambo.” He was followed by the Little Surfer, Rick Neuheisel, whose references obviously weren’t sufficiently checked.
And now we have what? A losing program with the past season a particularly bitter disappointment given all the games where the Huskies seemed to go out of their way to find creatve losing methodologies.
Now Ty Willingham gets another year, another chance, and fans everywhere wish him both well and good luck. But the onus is now on him to produce results, not just be a nice guy.
One more loss to the Cougars and it’s Ta-Ta Ty!
The Piper
@14…HL…
I know you have the attention span of a corpse, so I’ll make this brief.
MIT:
“At MIT, exceptional students apply to athletics the same passion, drive and work ethic as they do in academics to reach their complete potential. Intensity and commitment to excellence fill the rosters of MIT’s 41 intercollegiate sports, one of the largest programs in the nation. In the past 10 years, the Engineers have received 189 All-America honors, and sponsored individual national champions in seven sports.”
http://web.mit.edu/athletics/www/
Harvard:
“The Harvard Department of Athletics is committed to providing “Athletics for All Students.” Competitive and recreational athletics are an integral part of the educational process and experience. Students should have opportunities to participate and compete as appropriate to their interest and skills.
Harvard values the lessons that have long been taught by athletic participation: the pursuit of excellence through personal development and teamwork; ethical and responsible behavior on the field and off; adherence to the spirit of rules as well as to their letter; leadership and strength of character; and sportsmanship — including respect for one’s opponents, acceptance of victory with humility, acknowledgment of defeat with grace, and respect for the value of cross-cultural understanding and acceptance. In teaching these lessons to its students, Harvard instills habits that will lead students to better and healthier lives. While winning is not an end in itself, we believe that the efforts by our intercollegiate teams to be their best will lead them to succeed.
Athletic participation is a way for students to grow and learn and enjoy themselves and to use and develop their personal, physical and intellectual skills. The entire Department, including coaches, medical and training staff, facilities and equipment personnel, and administrators, works to achieve these goals, honors the values of the College, and supports the principles of the Ivy League and the NCAA.”
http://www.gocrimson.com/ViewA.....PSID=45055
Yale:
“With over 150 years of athletics at Yale we have developed a proud tradition of a broad-based program where our participants share the exhilaration that the development of athletic skill provides as well as a camaraderie that endures beyond the recollection of game statistics.”
http://yalebulldogs.cstv.com/
I was unable to find information about your last educational institution, the reform school from which you flunked out, but I have it on good authority that since good sportsmanship isn’t terribly high on your list of priorities, even members of a chain gang wouldn’t want you on their team.
The Piper
@16…HopelesslyLost…
You making some sort of insinuation? If so, out with it plain and simple. Don’t hide your bigotry, put it on display so we can all be repulsed by you.
Something wrong with appreciating artistry and artists? You feel uncomfortable in and around the creative process and creative people? Insecure in who you are as a person?
The Piper
Here in Oregon we’re rooting for a “Husky Free Northwest”.
There is only one reason to fire Willingham and that if he’s not smart enough to hire an expert on the spread offense to utilize the skills of Jake Locker.
re 19: Believe it or not, I am fully aware of this information. However, it is not relevant to my question, which was:
“Who would have ever heard of Yale, Harvard, or MIT were it not for their football program?”
You need to pay closer attention, Piper, and answer the actual question and not try to wow everyone with your contrarian ‘Gee, whiz, whod’a thunk it!?’ blather.
re 20: Would you feel secure and creative in your kilt and ruby-red slippers?
Piper Scott @ 19,
Headless Lucy did not claim that MIT, Harvard and Yale had no athletic programs.
He was providing counterexamples to your comment about the benefits of a high-profile athletic program on a university’s branding.
His examples demonstrate that a top-tier athletic program is not a prerequisite to being a top-tier University.
(Furthermore, I would point out that there are numerous examples that demonstrate that having a top-tier athletic program does not make a university top-tier in terms of academics.)
Pooper, I’ll address your slander and k/b diarrhea later.
FOR NOW:
I highly recommend this excellent article co-authored by Thomas Ricks one of the best chroniclers of the clusterf*ck fiasco that is the neo-convict looting of the U.S. Taxpayer and civilian bystander collateral damage enterprise in Iraq. (Registration required)
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yp248r
Some excellent quotes:
YLB Comment: Wow!!! WTF!!! If they learned the “hard way” that it was better to let Iraqis solve their own problems why couldn’t they just let THEM overthrow Saddam! Maybe the U.S. taxpayer would then keep more of their own money! Thanks for the expensive OJT there people costing lives, limbs, body parts, PTSD and that little bit of “collateral damage” on the part of the Iraqi (we don’t hear too much of that on Faux Noise, do we?).
The neo-convict experiment is dead and buried – all that’s left of it is the bald-faced looting by KBR, Blackwater, Brown and Root, Parsons, Bechtel and all the rest which was the whole point anyway! This looting will reach a fever pitch in the waning days of the Chimp administration culminating in a desperate, pitched battle to crown a new greedhead suit to keep this stinking pile steaming.
It ain’t gonna happen if sane people have anything to say about it.
25 – Damn, scratch “Brown and Root”..
Piper Scott @ 20,
What kind of mind-altered state are you in when you read people’s comments? I trust you haven’t been hittin’ the bottle since you arose…
For example, this reply to Headless Lucy’s comment:
How the hell did Headless Lucy’s comment suggest that he frowns on an appreciation of the arts?????
If anything, his response suggest he is knowledgeable about at least one particular artistic classic. If anything this is a tiny piece of evidence to suggest that he appreciates the visual arts. So your reply comes off as completely at odds with the evidence.
“You feel uncomfortable in and around the creative process and creative people?”
WTF??? How could Headless Lucy’s comment suggest he is uncomfortable around the “creative process and creative people?” Once again, his reference to the actress’ name in a classic could be taken as evidence that he is comfortable and secure in discussing the topic.
Do you use some random question generation software to come up with these “gems?”
@23…HardlyLegit…
Only someone secure in their sexuality and sense of self has the capability of wearing a kilt.
How’re those Pampers working out for you?
The Piper
From the “If you didn’t laugh you’d have to cry” department:
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/co.....t_nonsense
More from Larry Johnson:
I won’t link this propaganda, but see the link in my last comment and you can check it out if you’re curious.
@10: Life calls, so I’ll make this quick.
Football: So it raises money for the school! So? If a dedicated lottery raised money for UW, would that justify scholarships for compulsive gamblers? I’ll repeat the question: what does scholarship for athletes have to do with the mission of educating students? The athletes are being used as fundraising props, getting (unless we believe SJ) millions for the university in exchange for $50000 educations some may not even be interested in.
As an activist in the community, I actually interact as much or more with the faculty and facilities at SU than UW; UW is too often off in its own not-so-little world. Your assertion that nobody cares about SU since they dropped D I basketball is staggeringly ignorant.
My quarrel isn’t with football or the entertainment it brings the community; it’s the scholarships and the farcical notion of the “student-athlete.” Your comparison to the drama department proves my point: how many of those drama students are getting a free ride due to their high school acting ability?
As for Willingham, he inherited one of the worst teams in Division I in Gilbertson’s last year, with virtually no talent for the future. I don’t know if he’s a good coach or not; it’s too early to tell. With the mess he inherited, and the schedule last year (including three BCS teams, another that should have been [ASU], another riding the nation’s longest winning streak when UW played them, and two more ranked #2 in the country at different points) no coach would have produced winning records. The fans expecting a Rose Bowl in three years – or even anything more than the competitiveness Willingham has produced – are idiots.
@22…HowlingLoon…
The discussion was on Tyrone Willingham and football at the UW, not MIT, Harvard, and Yale.
While certainly top-tier academic institutions with many notable and outstanding graduates (George W. Bush, B.A. History, Yale; MBA Harvard), these schools still glory in their sporting accomplishments, and, as even cursory research will show, regard athletics as both necessary and integral to, for example, being a “Harvard Man.”
The Duke of Wellington probably never actually said it, but he should have, “The battle of Waterloo was won the playing fields of Eton.”
The tenor of your comments is to be both dismissive and dirisive toward scholar-athletes. Care to tell that to one of your own, former Senator and Princeton and NBA basketball great Bill Bradley?
I’ll bet your self-loathing on this issue comes from getting cut from a Pee Wee football squad as a boy.
The Piper
Hah-vahd may not have general reknown as a football school, but on the other hand their rowing team is the stuff of legend.
Now, the tailgaters among us may snort at the comparison, and that implies the real difference from a social/economic standpoint: rowing and other sports don’t take place in a stadium where 75,000 people ponied up major cash for a seat.
I used to work for a company whose CEO said he “worked his way through college on a football scholarsip”. (He played quarterback for Ole Miss.) He also said it taught him the importance of teamwork: “You can’t throw a pass from your back”. That bit of knowledge served him well as the leader of a “team” of 12,000 souls, in that he always kept in mind that the efforts of everyone else were as important as his.
That sort of thing, ultimately, is the true justification for varsity athletics–it teaches lessons in practical morality that ideally benefit not only the athletes but, by example, the rest of the students.
Varsity football and basketball, on the other hand, have turned into “big business”, and there’s enough money flying around to corrupt the people running it. In the case of a public university, the AD, the coach and the rest of the staff are public servants, and their first priority should be how the program contributes to the educational mission of the institution the taxpayers have paid so dearly to establish and maintain.
@31…Geov…
Never said in re SU that nobody cares. My point was that since downgrading from Cadillac sports to something akin to Geo Metro sports, nobody notices.
When was the last time an SU sports triumph was trumpeted above the fold on the sports pages of either The Times or P-I?
You’ll get no quarrel from me that the balance oft times seems askew, witness the scholarship disparity between the athletic and drama departments. But since some are awarded not on need as much as on how many butts will this potential Husky put in that department’s seats, then there isn’t a readily easy or quick solution to what will probably be an eternal dichotomy.
It does beg the question: pay for performance?
To what extent is the notion of student-athelete hypocritical, and shouldn’t those whose performances generate all the kwan have some piece of that action?
And yes, Tyrone Willingham inherited a disaster. Yet, no, nobody is getting on his case for not being BCS-ready after three years. But people, especially Tyee Club-types who gin up a lot of the dough, would like to see some consistent progress and an upward trend.
Was the past season progress? Or was it singularly disappointing? Many coaches have been fired for less.
Adding insult to injury, @21…phastphil…offers the creme de la creme: Oregon anything dissing the UW.
Have we no shame? No sense of honor, pride, or dignity? Not long ago, the UW OWNED the Ducks and the Beavers much the same way a dominatrix owns a submissive. But today? I can barely stomach the thought!
Again, Ty has a final shot, and it’s his to lose. But God forbid he again loses to both Oregon schools and the Cougs.
That’s all…
The Piper
Piper Scott @ 32
“The discussion was on Tyrone Willingham and football at the UW, not MIT, Harvard, and Yale.”
No…that’s just how the discussion started. You expanded the discussion by making a claim about the importance of athletics in the identity of Universities as wholistic academic institutions. Headless Lucy provided counter-examples to your claim.
“While certainly top-tier academic institutions with many notable and outstanding graduates (George W. Bush, B.A. History, Yale; MBA Harvard), these schools still glory in their sporting accomplishments, and, as even cursory research will show, regard athletics as both necessary and integral to, for example, being a “Harvard Man.””
But you are sidestepping the issue. The fact is, when people think of Harvard, Yale, and MIT, they don’t identify the school with a top tier athletic program. I’m guessing that only a tiny fraction of Americans could tell you the team name for these Universities. A much larger fraction would be able to say the name of the UW (Seattle), UW (Madison), U-TN, Miami U, U-OR, Boston U, U OH, etc. team names. The fact is, there are universities with no (or minimal) athletic identity.
“The tenor of your comments is to be both dismissive and dirisive toward scholar-athletes.”
No. You misunderstand HL’s comment. He was being sarcastic—but not about University athletics, per se. He was critiquing your claim.
“I’ll bet your self-loathing on this issue comes from getting cut from a Pee Wee football squad as a boy.”
I could only imagine the strange and fanciful interpretations you would read into such a statement if Headless Lucy made this about you.
re 32: “Only someone secure in their sexuality and sense of self has the capability of wearing a kilt.”
Piper, I’m just kidding you. Kidding you is like trying to get Fred Gwinn to laugh at himself for dressing up in a Frankenstein suit and acting.
Only a really good actor has the security of self to dress up in said Frankenstein suit and act.
If you have to go into OT as the #19 team in the country to beat the Wazzu Cougs, then you get a vocational egg timer set on you.
Yes, a hard-fought win over a team that went on to win 10 of its remaining 12 games (including a bowl win over Texas for its third straight 10-win season) is cause for polishing up the ol’ CV.
And the way Weiss has been treated by Notre Dame is an interesting contrast to the way Willingham was treated.
Fred Gwynne
http://www.space-debris.com/com_gwynne_munst.jpg
Piper’s marching boots
http://www.news-antique.com/pr.....ippers.jpg
@35…Darryl…
Curious…has HL retained you as attorney/PR rep?
In reading over your comments, I don’t have any particular quarrel with anything you say.
Whether sports, including NCAA Division I-level sports, are appropriate is a legitimate topic of discussion about which reasonable people with reasoned arguments can disagree.
BTW…I knew that Harvard is The Crimson and Yale the Bulldogs, but didn’t know MIT is The Engineers until I looked at its website.
Be that as it may, each of those schools, while perhaps best known for Ivy League (a sports-related term?) or other affiliations, still regard inter-scholastic athletics as hugely important and vital to the overall success of the school.
No doubt if someone advocated dumping sports at, say, Yale, there would be a massive student and alumni BOOOOO!!! HISSSS!!!
Don’t screw with their Saturday afternoons!
As to HL being sarcastic? Not sure of that since it requires a modicum of clever wit to be sarcastic. Suffice to say and either way, just as I expect to get slammed for saying anything more controversial than, “Good Morning!” (and most of the time slammed even for that!), if he/she/it is going to put it out there, then expect it to get cut off.
At HA, Darryl, you taught me that.
BTW…as a prof, do you get a special deal on tickets? Go to the games?
The Piper
re 40: “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Merv Griffin
You, Piper, are not that one-eyed man.
I have a full supply of not only wit, but modicum, as well.
@41…HopelesslyLugubrious…
“I have a full supply of not only wit, but modicum, as well.”
Oh? And we’ll be seeing this wit when?
And as to “modicum?” It’s always best to be able to define the words you use before embarrassing yourself with the use of them.
Main Entry: mo·di·cum
Pronunciation: \ˈmä-di-kəm also ˈmō-\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin, neuter of modicus moderate, from modus measure
Date: 15th century
: a small portion : a limited quantity
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/modicum
To paraphrase Churchill’s description of Stafford Crips, “You’re a modicum little man with much to be modicum about.
The Piper
Piper,
“Curious…has HL retained you as attorney/PR rep?”
No…I was responding to your comments, not HL’s. You see, Piper, sometimes you actually have useful insights. Unfortunately, you waste most of your commenting time being intellectually lazy. And you respond with pseudo-intellectual diarrhea of the keyboard. The combined effect is to undermine any positive contributions you might otherwise make. I was simply responding to a couple of instances of intellectual laziness in this thread.
“BTW…as a prof, do you get a special deal on tickets?”
I don’t know.
“Go to the games?”
Nope. Hell…I was at Penn State for nine years (as a graduate student and a postdoc) and only went to two football games, and only because an out-of-town guest wanted to attend. But, I frequently listened to or watched Penn State football via wireless technologies.
Little notice in the morning headlines is the fact that the stock market has been in a slow-motion crash ever since the first of the year, shedding another 246 points off the Dow today, on top of an unremitting string of steep losses over the last 1 1/2 weeks (except for a short-lived rally yesterday).
Wall Street thinks we’re already in a recession, and so do I.
We’re in a recession?
Change be a comin’…
Sorry wingnuts.
re 42: You are so fucking literal. You are unintentionally hilarious.
Have you ever seen ‘Never Give a Sucker an Even Break’ where Uncle Bill invites a friend to go to the diner and “gurgitate some breakfast”?
I am PLAYING with the word — and if you had a modicum of humour or insight — you’d have seen it.
Piper, I’ll sure go along with you regarding Barbara Hedges. In fact, there’s a rather disturbing parallel between her ministrations as “athletic director” (more like CEO of UW Footbal Inc.) and Carly Fiorina’s disastrous tenure at Hewlett-Packard.
As to SU…well, my recollection was that after the scandal in their basketball program (Once again, where there’s a lot of money flying around, corruption seems to follow) the Jesuits came to the conclusion that big-time varsity sports had become a “distraction” from the university’s mission of turning loose into society professionals that were not only well versed in the tools of their chosen trades but “educated” in the broader sense.
Getting back to the original issue of individuals inappropriately wielding their financial clout, I can recall at least one instance where a highly capable coach was fired from a local private high school when one of the players whined to her parents (who were big-time contributors) that “Coach makes us work too hard.”
At least in this case, the meddlers do seem to have a primary interest in seeing the Dawgs win more games.
I should also point out that i’ve been rather soured on football since back when I was a UW undergrad during Jim Owens’ declining years. That brand of football was a pretty good cure for insomnia.
OMG: Darryl has degrees from my sister’s alma mater. Wonders never cease!
@47…HardlyLucid…
Sorry…you fubared the use of a word, and now you’re trying to back peddle your way out of the linguistic pooh into which you’ve stepped.
Perhaps you should consider calling the clinic and having your meds adjusted?
The Piper
@49…AF…
I was in Bellingham during those days…I remember.
Jim Owens football = three-yards and a cloud of dust. But didn’t that always mean you only ever made nine-yards in three downs leaving you always having to punt on fourth and one?
There were junior high and high school teams in those days still using leather helmets and running an unbalanced line after a shift. I played on one! All that was missing was Walter Camp or Pop Warner.
BTW…anybody of the opinion that the BCS hasn’t been good for college football? It’s made the Rose Bowl the Also-Ran Bowl and not worth watching at all. What used to be the big deal about New Year’s is now the Tequila or whatever Bowl on January 7th. This year especially since Pac-10 fans were denied the chance to see Ohio State play in Pasadena against USC.
Lot of good it did the Buckeyes, and serves them right; Woody Hayes was never a personal friend of mine.
The Piper
@47…HerestoyouLurch…
While I’m at it, I don’t plan on giving you any even breaks. All I need do is wait for you to serve up more softballs for me to hit out of the park.
Since much of this thread is on football, I’ll bet you would have made an excellent tackling dummy.
The Piper
ArtFart: There is only one SU – The Big Orange! East Coast Upstate NY.
BTW Headless I know all of the IVY League Team Names. So what?
I know their mottos. So what?
Many were called the Colonial Colleges. So What?
Many of my relatives are IVY League grads so that helps.
IVY League institutions don’t hand out “athletic” scholarships so how would they be known as athletic powerhouses?
So Darryl and Headless Lucy since you are soooooo smart: Without looking, which IVY League institutions have had perfect athletic seasons to national championships?
Remember they did this without athletic scholarships.
52 I don’t know that Woody Hayes was ever a personal friend of anybody.
@55…AF…
I hear he and Satan are best buds!
The Piper
PuddyBud,
“So Darryl and Headless Lucy since you are soooooo smart: Without looking, which IVY League institutions have had perfect athletic seasons to national championships?”
I don’t know and I don’t give a shit. Knowing such a thing is not a function of being “soooooo smart.” It is about being a trivia collector.
Darryl: Trivia collector?
No, it just proves you are wrong. AGAIN!
Puddybud @ 58
“No, it just proves you are wrong. AGAIN!”
What proves that I am wrong?????? You’re not making any sense.
The reasons why UW football is in rebuilding mode are many and varied. And NONE of them have anything to do with Tyrone Wilingham. Let’s start at the top, shall we?
First, the boosters. Let me rephrase that. The IMPATIENT boosters. These captains of local industry want to win, and win yesterday. And when they play the Blame Game, people lose their jobs. They fail to understand that, like many other ‘traditional power’ schools (read: Nebraska, Notre Dame, Alabama, and newest victim Miami (FL)), that failing to keep up with the times can cause a program to slip quickly, and the rebuilding process requires time, and most importantly, patience. And the fist thing that suffers when a team slips is…….
Recruiting. Today’s kids aren’t looking for an education. They’re looking to get the playing time, to get noticed, to get to the NFL. And they will go where where they can get noticed first and fastest. And this leads to…..
Television. How many times was the UW on live television this year? Twice on ESPN, I know that for sure. One game less than the Nevada Wolf Pack. Unfortunately, the Huskies are saddled with arguably the worst television contract in D1A (Bowl Subdivision. Championship Subdivision. Phooey!), the unholy spawn of Fox Sports and…..
The Pacific Athletic Conference. Yes, the Pac-10 is part of the cabal that controls D1A sports. But the rumors are gathering that the Pac-10, along with the Big Ten, is partly to blame for the debacle that was the recent BCS failing. There are calls for the two conferences to expand to 12 teams, break into divisions and stage a championship game to crown ‘true’ champions for the BCS. Personally, I don’t really buy into that, but I think that the Pac-10 adding a combination of any two of the following schools in the near future is almost inevitable:
Boise State – Hawai’i – Nevada – UNLV – Fresno State
The ultimate problem is with the entrenched (dare I say…..conservative?) positions of the officials of the Pac-10 and its member schools, comfortable with their cushy spot in the elite cabal, unwilling to change and grow with the times. If it wasn’t for USC’s recent success, the Pac-10 would probably be in danger of getting kicked out of the BCS. Could you see it? Say, having to send the conference champion to New Orelans to play the winner of the Sun Belt in the New Orleans Bowl?
Yeah, I know that’s ridiculous, but the Pac-10 is on the verge of being marginalized, and who are are we blaming? A coach working with a half-empty cupboard, angry boosters (and I wouldn’t be surprised that a few of them aren’t happy with a black coach, either), a bad TV deal and expectations that exceed reality? Coach Willingham is not the problem. The Huskies have a great deal of promise, and need time to learn and grow. Getting rid of Willingham would only ensure that the Huskies will remain in rebuilding mode for the forseeable future.
And to be quite honest, this Cougar would have no problem with that.
@19 Piper
What shit. MIT, Harvard, and Yale ..none of thes recruit students to perform as atheletes, none have athletic houses, and none pretend to train meat for the gladiator arena.
OTOH, sports for STUDENTS at all of these is excellent … at the UW real student can’t play.
Personally, I enjoy the huskies. They are a service the uW provides to the community. Like a museum or the abroretum, just less intellectually importnat.
The sad thing is that the UW gets friggin little support for academic activities from the community that tail gates.
When did you last see the building or atatue honoring a UW Nobelist?
@40
Piper …
I GUARANTEE you that ANY effort to create a quasi professional program a la the UW would provoke a massive rebellion of students and alums at Harvard Yale or MIT.
ALL
We need a Piper filter.