Child abuse, firings, and riots at Penn State

November 11, 2011 By 60 Comments

In the aftermath of the child sexual abuse perpetrated by football coach Jerry Sandusky, Penn State fired both legendary head coach Joe Paterno AND the college president Graham Spanier.  Whereupon students went on a riot:

Happy Valley was in bedlam early today as angry, chanting students ran amok in a bizarre climax to an unforgettable day that ended with the unthinkable: the firing of football legend Joe Paterno.

Chanting “Joe Pa-ter-no!” and “One More Game!” students raced to the stately Old Main administration building to express their anger that the winningest coach in major-college football history was out – fallout from the child-sex scandal involving his former top assistant, Jerry Sandusky.

More than 1,000 students rioted and rallied at Old Main and on frat-house-lined Beaver Avenue. Riot cops, fire trucks and ambulances were on hand after midnight, amid reports that tear gas was being used to disperse the crowd.

Demonstrators overturned a TV news van, toppled street lights, shook stop signs and threw toilet paper. From rooftops and in the streets, they yelled “F— Sandusky!” and “We Want JoePa!”

The campus chaos began shortly after 10 p.m. with the announcement by the board of trustees that Paterno, 84, who had said earlier in the day that he would retire at the end of the season, was instead fired over the phone and denied a chance to end his career on the playing field.

The trustees also accepted a letter of resignation from longtime president Graham Spanier, who was making $800,000 a year at the end of a 16-year run in which he’d raised the academic profile of the state’s largest academic institution.

As for reports of campus unrest at Paterno’s ouster, John Surma, vice chairman of the board of trustees, said he hoped everyone would realize that the board’s action was for the best: “Because of the difficulties that engulfed our university – and they are grave – it was necessary to make a change in leadership.”

It was the shock-and-awe conclusion to a day of bombshells that made Penn State’s hometown feel less like a bucolic mountainside oasis of pigskin-flavored academia and more like a foreign capital in the throes of revolution.

via Bedlam erupts on Penn State campus | Philadelphia Daily News | 11/10/2011.

From this news report, it appears that some of the students were rioting in support of Paterno, while others may have been rioting over the sexual abuse.  So people with opposite causes were rioting together.  How monstrous this all is.

Filed Under: Football, Law, sex Tagged With: , , 60 Comments

More and longer field goals

November 4, 2011 By 6 Comments

Football has a new wrinkle, thanks in part to the phenomenon of youth soccer programs:

NFL place kickers are connecting on their field goal attempts at a higher rate than ever, threatening to make even long-distance kicks nearly as automatic as extra points. . . .

NFL kickers have been successful on 86.5 percent of their field goal tries this season. That is the highest percentage at this point in a season since at least the 1987 season. NFL officials say it would be the best percentage in history over a full season with at least 100 field goal attempts if kickers are able to maintain that pace. . . .

Through seven weeks last season, NFL kickers had connected on 81.9 percent of their field goal attempts. They hit 84.4 percent of their tries through seven weeks of the 2008 season, when they finished the year at what league is thought to be the record full-season percentage of 84.5 percent. Data on the number of field goal attempts and success rates wasn’t always kept reliably throughout league history, but it is generally accepted that field goal accuracy has improved greatly in recent years. . .

“The biggest difference is the kicks from beyond 40 yards,” said Atlanta Falcons President Rich McKay, chairman of the NFL’s competition committee. “That’s where the improvement really is. That was the impetus behind us wanting to change the overtime format for the postseason [eliminating the possibility of a team winning with a field goal on the opening possession of overtime] because the accuracy has become so good.”

Kickers even have been accurate on field goal attempts of 50 yards or longer, making 70.7 percent of them this season. Scobee is 5 for 5 on such kicks and Oakland’s Sebastian Janikowski is 5 for 6.

Several people said kickers’ skill has been improving for decades, citing everything from the quality of the young athletes who take up kicking to the sophistication of the instruction they receive.

“You’ve got guys that are starting at a younger age, taking it way more seriously, training seriously,” Akers said. “You have kicking camps. Guys are specialized, and even specialized in the way they train.”

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Gary Zauner, an NFL special teams coordinator for 13 seasons with three teams, now works with individual kickers and runs development camps and combines for kickers.

“The kids who are the better soccer players, they’re coming to football to kick,” Zauner said. “In high school, they’re getting instruction. They get to college and they get instruction. In the old days, nobody was really working with guys at a higher level. When you get better instruction earlier, it pays dividends down the line.”

Zauner said the large number of kids playing soccer in the U.S. has made the quality of kicking in football better.

via NFL kickers making field goals at record pace – The Washington Post.

Filed Under: Football, Sports Tagged With: 6 Comments

Weekend sports

October 10, 2011 By 14 Comments

Watching baseballl playoff games is intense, especially if you have a horse in the race. I was following every pitch and, due to time zones and having to record games, staying up until 1:00 a.m. But what games they were! The Milwaukee Brewers, whose games I used to attend faithfully when we lived in Wisconsin, beat the Arizona Diamondbacks to get into the championship series and then beat the St. Louis Cardinals–who themselves heroically defeated the Philadelphia Phillies, ostensibly the best team in baseball.

And the Sooners, from one of my alma maters, just demolished our arch-rivals the Texas Longhorns, beating up on the #11 team in the country as easily as they beat Ball State the previous week.

The Sooners were rated #1 in the AP pre-season poll, as they still are in the Coaches’ poll. But now they have slipped to #3, getting based by LSU (#1) and Alabama (#2). Why? Oklahoma defeated two nationally-ranked teams. What did LSU and Alabama do that is more impressive than what Oklahoma has done?

Filed Under: baseball, Football, Sports Tagged With: , 14 Comments

Wisconsin’s big weekend

October 3, 2011 By 16 Comments

This was being called the biggest sports weekend in the history of Wisconsin, my former state.  And in each contest, Wisconsin was victorious.  The Milwaukee Brewers won two playoff games over the Arizona Diamondbacks.  The Wisconsin Badgers welcomed Nebraska to the Big Ten by demolishing the nationally-ranked Cornhuskers.   The Packers pounded the Denver Broncos.  And the Milwaukee Marathon was won by a guy from Marquette.

For a brief, shining moment, Wisconsin teachers and Congressmen, tea partiers and Occupy Wall Streeters will be united in a feeling of common sports euphoria.

Filed Under: baseball, Football, Sports Tagged With: , , 16 Comments

College football reshuffling

September 19, 2011 By 16 Comments

Well, my team, the Oklahoma Sooners, ranked #1, beat the highest rated team on their schedule, #5 Florida State, making me think they are for real.  OU has had a habit of losing games like this–early in the season, on the road, pre-mature hype–but this time, though it was a very hard-fought and exciting game, there was no choking, no appearance of disorganized panic when things got hard, just relentless football that ground out a 10 point victory.

But now I’ve heard that OU is seriously considering leaving what’s left of the Big 12 conference–along with Oklahoma State and maybe Texas, and I don’t know who all–for the Pac 12.   Oklahoma is nowhere near the Pacific ocean!  We are two time-zones away from the West Coast! A 7:00 p.m. road came will start at 9:00 p.m. in Oklahoma 5:00 p.m. in California!

I am opposed to doing violence to regional identity, language, and mathematics.   This is not the only conference shuffling in the works.  Texas Christian University, in roughly the same longitude as Oklahoma, is joining the Big East!  I don’t know the reasons for these shifts–I suppose the other conference members aren’t bringing in as much money for the pot as the members of these other conferences do–but I hate the loss of primordial rivalries (such as OU and Nebraska, which has already absconded to the Big Ten, now consisting of 12 members, with the Big 12 consisting of 10 members; the conferences should at least exchange names, until next year when the Big 12 may shrink to the Little 7).

I do see one potentially silver lining.  There are currently six Division-1 conferences in the BCS system.  The Big East is also bleeding members, with Syracuse and Pittsburgh considering joining the Atlantic Coast Conference.  If the Big 12 dissolves and the Pac 12 growing to unmanageable proportions, maybe it could split into two.   We could have four major conferences:  Perhaps a northeast, a southeast, a northwest, and a southwest, or if football wants to eliminate regions in favor of these artificial alliances, so be it.  But then with only four conferences, the winners could play each other.

Maybe all of this conference re-shuffling is the free market making possible a true national championship.

Filed Under: Economics, Education, Football Tagged With: , , 16 Comments

Walk on

September 5, 2011 By 2 Comments

Here is a feel-good sports story:

Dominique Whaley’s photo is nowhere to be found in Oklahoma’s media guide. Before enrolling at OU, Whaley was an NAIA benchwarmer.

Some replacement for DeMarco Murray. Some replacement indeed.

Rising out of complete obscurity, Whaley rushed right into OU history Saturday night as the top-ranked Sooners crushed Tulsa 47-14 to open the season. Consider what Whaley accomplished against the Golden Hurricane:

• The most rushing touchdowns by an OU walk-on in a single game.

• The first 100-yard game by an OU walk-on in 36 years.

• Became the second Sooner to run for four touchdowns in his debut, with Murray being the other.

Whaley ran for 131 yards and four touchdowns on a game-high 18 carries, the final score coming on a gorgeous 32-yard scamper through Tulsa’s defense. . . .

At Lawton MacArthur High School, Whaley was beaten out by OU safety Javon Harris for the starting job at running back. Eventually, he was moved out of position to slot receiver.

Only two schools recruited him out of high school, including NAIA Langston College. Whaley didn’t start there, either.

“Maybe he should have,” said Stoops, who handed Whaley the first game ball Saturday.

But even after leaving Langston, Whaley never lost faith in his ability. Somehow, he never doubted he could start for a school like Oklahoma, where four- and five-star running backs are the norm.

Instead Whaley wrote down goals and stuck to achieving them, no matter how far-fetched they seemed.

“I didn’t come here just to make the team,” he said. “I didn’t come here just to play special teams. I came here to start. That was my goal.

“My next goal is to be the best in the country. You have to continue to make goals.”

Stoops first noticed Whaley a couple of years ago. As a scout-team back, he gashed OU’s first-team defense during a scrimmage. Whaley got so winded from the long runs that trainers had to carry him off the practice field and administer IV fluids, Stoops said.

Whaley tore OU’s defense up again this past spring game. . . .

Asked to grade his performance, Whaley gave himself a “C,” maybe worse. A what?

“I had a busted blocking assignment that could’ve killed our quarterback,” he said. “I’m still thinking about it.”

Please forgive him. After all, he’s only a walk-on. Who just might be OU’s unlikely answer at running back.

via SoonerNation: Whaley has breakout night in Sooners’ win – ESPN.

Filed Under: Football Tagged With: , 2 Comments

We’re #1

August 22, 2011 By 12 Comments

My alma mater, the University of Oklahoma, is rated #1 in all four of the major preseason polls for NCAA football.  I’m realizing that I’d better brag now, before the games actually start, since, if history is a guide, the Sooners’ pre-eminence is likely to fade once they actually start to play some games.  Still, I am proud.   The four polls also agree in ranking Alabama #2.  After that, opinions differ.

Check out the polls:  2011 NCAA College Football Polls and Rankings for Week 1 – ESPN.  Where do you think the prognosticators get it right and where do they get it wrong?  And before the games actually begin is the right time for predictions:  Who do you think will end the season as th #1 team?

Filed Under: Football, Sports Tagged With: , , 12 Comments

NFL labor dispute

March 14, 2011 By 22 Comments

One effect of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s successful effort to limit collective bargaining by the state employee’s union is that labor unions are once again in the national spotlight.  Unions consider this to be a good thing, after years of neglect, since much of the public seems to be taking their side.  And now a labor issue of even greater concern to the general public has emerged:  The National Football League is headed for a work stoppage.  After negotiations over a new contract fell apart, the players decertified their union, a tactic that allowed for court action, and the players essentially locked out the players.  Next year’s season is in jeopardy.  See  NFL talks collapse, shutdown of pro football expected – The Washington Post.

Unions for sweatshops, casualties of the industrial revolution paid subsistence wages, and other cases of the exploited proletariat are one thing.  It’s harder to be sympathetic to white collar unions and–what do we call them?–spandex collar unions, especially professional sports laborers who make untold millions and are in a dispute about how to share in additional billions.

Still, some may argue that the principles are the same?  Going from a 16-game season to an 18-game season would surely mean a greater chance for career-ending injuries.  Can’t millionaire athletes be exploited too?  Or is there a difference of kind as well as magnitude here?

And what would be the real effects of a work stoppage?  When the garbage collectors’ union goes on strike, the trash does not get picked up.  But who is hurt if professional athletes don’t go to work, other than themselves and the owners?  I have heard it said that “this only hurts the fans,” but I would contend that fans are not hurt at all, not really.  Missing a few hours of entertainment on Sunday afternoon will not hurt anyone.  Fans can always read a book, play video games, spend time with the family, or take a nap.

What do you think about all of this?

Filed Under: Economics, Football, Sports Tagged With: , 22 Comments

SuperBowl had most TV viewers in history

February 9, 2011 By 20 Comments

There was a time when there were only four networks and the whole country came together to watch programs, like the last episode of MASH, in a vast communal experience.  Now with cable, satellite, and scores of narrowcasting networks, that time is over.  Except that the nation DID come together to watch the Super Bowl.  These two small market teams attracted the most viewers ever to a TV show:

History was made last night on FOX when Super Bowl XLV became the most-watched U.S. television program ever, and FOX became the first network ever to exceed 100 million viewers (100.9 million) for a night in prime time, according to fast-national ratings released today by Nielsen Media Research. The game, the outcome of which was in doubt until the final seconds, saw the Green Bay Packers defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25 to capture the franchise’s fourth Super Bowl Championship.

FOX Sports’ broadcast of Super Bowl XLV averaged 111 million viewers and is the most-watched television program in U.S. history, obliterating the prior record of 106.5 set last year during Super Bowl XLIV by 4.5 million viewers and the 106.0 million for the series finale of M*A*S*H, which held the viewership record from 1983 to 2010.

via Super Bowl XLV Breaks Viewing Record, Averages 111 Million Viewers.

Why do you think the game scored such huge numbers?

Filed Under: Football, television Tagged With: 20 Comments

Green Bay’s strange way of celebrating

February 8, 2011 By 52 Comments

By all accounts, the citizens of Green Bay, Wisconsin, celebrated the Packers’ Super Bowl victory by flooding out of their houses to embrace each other in jubilation.  Also by honking their horns.  And by flocking to Lambeau Field with snow shovels to dig out the stadium in preparation for a big welcome home to the team.

But the fans didn’t overturn cars, set fires, fight each other, or smash store windows.  What’s with that?  Don’t they know how cities are supposed to celebrate?

Filed Under: Football Tagged With: , , 52 Comments