Some Final Thoughts on Joe Pa

I'm not surprised that Joe Paterno passed away. In fact, believe it or not, I actually predicted that he would die within a couple months of when the Sandusky scandal first broke. I wasn’t wishing ill or pain on the old coach; far from it. I was feeling a lot of compassion and anticipatory dread for him, knowing what Paterno was about to face. I believed 11 weeks ago and I still believe now that dying may well be a far better option. I dare say that it may even be the case that his bereaved family will come to see Joe’s premature and apparently untimely death as a blessing once the Sandusky case gets revved up, takes center stage, and becomes the lead story on all networks – ESPN included – for literally months on end.

So I do believe that it is a good thing that Joe Paterno died. But it is also a profoundly sad and tragic thing that, as his former quarterback Todd Blackledge put it, he died of a broken heart.

Let me be clear; I don’t accept or condone Joe Paterno’s failure to act and follow up appropriately in the face of the allegations about his long-time, highly regarded assistant coach. He screwed up, and I think it’s entirely possible that the gradual coming to terms with his inaction is, at least in part, what killed him. But let me be equally clear in saying that I don’t believe his tragic mistake or failure to act more thoroughly and definitively should be allowed to cancel out his legacy of 46 incredible years at the helm of Penn State’s football program.

The way this Joe Pa “debate” has been framed since the Sandusky news broke, like so many debates in our American, Cross-Fire culture, has been all or nothing, either or. Is Paterno a hero or a villain; is he a perpetrator or a victim? Why must we Americans be so black and white in how we respond to tragic flaws in our citizens, especially those who happen to be famous.Why can't we see ourselves and each other in various shades of gray?

I remember when John Belushi died in March of 1982. He was my all-time favorite comedian and SNL cast member. As the details of his grizzly and drug induced demise started to come to light, it seemed that the media and the vast majority in America somehow felt he should be discredited as a comedian. It was as if the fact that he had this horrible addiction was supposed to somehow devalue or diminish his comedic contribution to society. I didn’t understand that perspective then, nor do I understand it now in regard to Joe Pa.

Again, I get that he screwed up. I get that a lot of innocent children suffered horrible sexual abuse, at least in part because of Paterno’s inaction and failure to follow up adequately with both university and law enforcement officials. (And again, I believe that Joe Pa “got” this too and that that realization killed him!) But he was still a great football coach. He still made tons of unbelievable and lasting contributions to Penn State football, Penn State University, State College PA, and the list goes on. Acknowledging the gravity of his error should not diminish the magnitude of his contribution. The two can and should co-exist. In fact, they must co-exist.

I don’t know why we Americans are so bloodthirsty and vulture like when one of our own screws up. Where is our compassion? Where is our willingness to look honestly at ourselves and our own sins and shortcomings? Those of us who have screwed up and screwed up badly in our lives, in our jobs, in our relationships and families know that our screw up is not what defines us. It may be a part of who we are, a part of what we’ve done, a chapter in our story. But it is not the whole picture.

My hope and prayer for Coach Paterno and his family is that the country he lives in, the media, the sports community, and the Penn State community will be able to hold in our hands and in our hearts both his coaching greatness and his failure to follow up in this one critical instance, to hold them both, at once...together...simultaneously. So that in the end we can say of Joe Pa what young Prince Hamlet  said of his father shortly after he died, “He was a man, take him for all in all; I shall not look upon his like again.”

Where Have All the Gonads Gone?

As I look back at the 2011 NFL season, the question I have to ask is "Where have all the gonads gone?" I'm thinking of those in the ranks of coaches and owners. As the behavior, both on and off the field, of multi-millionaire players continues to make adolescents look mature by comparison, not a single professional coach nor owner stood up to the bush league behavior of their employees.

Witness Deshaun Jackson's unfathomable taunting episode that nullified a 50 yard play that Vince Young and the offensive line engineered from their own one yard line against the now Super Bowl contending Giants. It was in week 11 and the Eagles desperately needed something to turn their season around. It was at a point in the game when the Eagles desperately needed something to get them in the contest. Jackson caught the 50 yard pass near the Giants sideline, stepped out of bounds, flipped the ball to a Giants' coach and began to taunt the entire blue-clad brigade. The only other color visible, besides Jackson's green and white Eagles jersey, was a yellow hanky that an official threw, landing the Eagles back on their own 1 yard line.

So what did highly respected veteran coach Andy Reid do about this? Absolutely nothing. He didn't pull Jackson off the field; he didn't confront Jackson when the team eventually punted and Jackson came over to the sideline; Reid apparently didn't even call Jackson into his office after the game. And team owner Jeffrey Lurie acted with equal nutlessness.

Then there was Ndomakong Suh's stomp the yard moment against the Packers on Thanksgiving Day. After a play ended, Suh stood up and intentionally stomped on the arm of Packer offensive lineman Evan Dietrich-Smith. It was caught on tape, flagged by the official, and resulted in Suh's immediate ejection. But like Deshaun Jackson, when Suh returned to his own sideline, he was not reprimanded by his coach Jim Schwartz. When he returned to his locker room he was never confronted by his coach nor Lions' owner William Clay Ford. In the days following Suh's inexcusable behavior, the only official words we heard were that the Lions were "waiting to hear from the league" as to whether and how Suh would be punished.

Waiting to hear from the league? But whom, exactly, does Suh represent? Whose uniform does he wear? For whom does Jackson work? Who signs his paychecks? Why would any self-respecting coach or owner of such a player, a player who is responsible for his actions, wait for some other body to enact punishment? Suh represents the Detroit Lions. He wears the Lions uniform. His behavior is a direct reflection upon his coach, his owner, and every other person who wears those colors. Suh's actions were and still are an absolute disgrace. And yet Jim Schwartz did nothing. William Clay Ford did nothing.

I know Suh is a great player. I know that having him miss games might well cost the Lions some wins. (In fact it did.) But what message is being sent to other Lion players by the coach's and owner's conplete abdication of their adult responsibilities? What message could have been sent had Schwartz chewed Suh's shorts off and sent him to the locker room and then suspended Suh, himself, pre-emptively, without any regard for what the League might do subsequntly? What if William Clay Ford had come into the locker room the second that game ended and addressed HIS team saying, "What Suh did is a disgrace to me and my organization, and here is what I am going to do right now to Suh and what I promise to do to any of you if you ever pull this kind of amateurish garbage while wearing my colors. I am suspending him for 4 games. I don't care what the league wants to do on top of that. The Detroit Lions are my organization and I won't have this crap around here." Do you think that might have taught these immature, millionaire primadonnas a lesson?

I believe that I have some license to speak to this issue, for I coached at the high school level for 15 years. Early in my career, I took my high school tennis team to the state championship in Ohio in the early 1990's. The way it worked then, the Ohio High School Athletic Association had two ways to win a state championship. An individual singles player or doubles team could qualify to go to state and compete for an individual title, and entire teams could qualify to go to Columbus and compete for the team state title. In our case, we sent 4 or 5 players down as individuals each year and our team qualified to play for the team title as well. The individual titles were determined Thursday and Friday, while the team title would be decided Saturday. During the individual competition in Columbus, our top singles player lost a match and behaved badly. He got on the line judge during the match and actually went after her verbally upon the match's completion. After getting him under control, my assistant coach and I immediately decided that we would suspend him and not allow him to take the court the following day with our team as we vied for the state team title. We went and informed the OHSAA officials of this decision before they had even had a chance to meet to discuss and act upon our player's behavior. We told the player in question and then our team of OUR decision and the rationale behind it. We had emphasized sportsmanship all season long and we weren't about to compromise our standards now. The players understood and agreed to move forward without our #1 singles player. That meant that our number 2 player had to play the other team's number 1 and so on down the line.

I have never looked back on that decision with anything other than pride and a sense that it was the only appropriate action to take. Our players represent us as coaches and they represent our school as well. And yes, some things ARE more important than winning, and if ethical, sportsmanlike behavior isn't one of those things, I have no idea what is.

So my question for Andy Reid, Jeffrey Lurie, Jim Schwartz, William Clay Ford and the dozens of other "professional" NFL coaches and owners who failed to stand up to bush league behavior and conduct unbecoming to their teams is this: Where have all your gonads gone?

Tom Terrific....or Tom Completely Overrated? Some thoughts on Brady

Tom Terrific...A Shoe-in Hall of Famer from the moment he retires...The Standard Bearer....The Best Ever....These are just a few of the over-the-top accolades the sports intelligencia have showered upon the quarterback for the New England Patriots in non-stop fashion over the last six years.

Make no mistake: the guy is good. His win-loss record, his play-off numbers, and his Super Bowl rings are awfully hard to argue with. But the best ever? Not so fast. Yes, he has thrived within the Belichek system, the premier offensive system of the last decade, much like Number 16 of the 49'ers thrived under Bill Walsh's system a few decades ago. Both Brady and Montana are, to a great extent, beneficiaries of  systems that played to their strengths. They were asked to execute very structured, short-passing offenses during an era when the defenses they faced were light years away from knowing how to counter them. They both deserve credit for executing these coach driven systems extremely well. But to put such "system quarterbacks" in the hall of fame or in the greatest ever category seems unfair and ill-advised to me.

Take a look at what happened in both New England and San Francisco when these marquis quarterbacks went down to injury or, in Montana's case, retirement. The teams didn't miss a beat! Steve Young jumped right in and won Super Bowls too. Matt Cassel led the Pats to an 11-5 record, the first and only 11-5 team not to make the playoffs. The system was what worked. The quarterback merely managed it. And thus, when Brady recovered and media darling Matt Cassel was dealt to Kansas City to be the starter for a paltry 64 million dollars, and while Cassel had one decent year playing in the worst division in football, it wasn't very long before he was recognized as the bottom of the barrel signal caller he truly is. If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Montana's fate with Kansas City toward the end of his career was strikingly similar. Why doesn't anyone ever ask how Terrific Tom would be as the Browns's quarterback or taking snaps for the Raiders?

Tom Brady began running the Belichek offense when it was fairly balanced between the run and the 3- 5 step drop pass attack. After his knee injury a few seasons ago, the system was amended to 1 and 2 step drops. And how often in any game do we see Brady throw to anyone other than his primary receiver? When the system is working and Brady goes off for 350 to 400 yards, he is throwing the ball in less than 1.5 seconds to Welker on a slant or Branch on a hitch, both of whom are less than 5-7 yards down field. Yes, Brady does this terrifically, maybe even better than anyone. But does doing that and the numbers and QBR that come with it make him a hall of fame candidate? The greatest ever? I think not.

True greatness for me has always been measured by how one performs when things don't work according to plan. What does the QB do when the primary receiver is covered? How quickly does he get to his secondary and tertiary reads? How well can he improvise, scramble, make something out of nothing? Tom Brady has the mobility of Bernie Kosar and the improvisational wizardry of Joe Kapp. When the Jets, Steelers, Ravens, or Bills have the game plan to counter Belichek's, Brady becomes a very average Tom. He gets flustered; he throws multiple picks; and he rarely can even find, much less complete a pass to a secondary receiver. From there you'll find him pouting on the sidelines or even going off on his offensive coordinator. Greatest ever? C'mon man!

Again, Brady deserves the credit he gets for doing what he does very well. But he is the consummate system quarterback. If you want to talk about greatness, give me John Elway, Brett Farve, Drew Brees, or Aaron Rogers, guys who were/are constantly finding their primary receivers locked up, their secondary receivers knocked down, and are still able to make something happen with their arms and, at times, with their legs.

Why is it that with quarterbacks we seem to want to judge their greatness by how many rings they acquire, while with players at other positions we're much more apt to take into account what they do at their position? When people talk about the greatest running backs of all time, they talk about Barry Sanders and Earl Campbell, guys who never saw a Super Bowl except on TV and who spent their entire careers sounding like Jim Mora: "Playoffs? You talkin' about the playoffs? Don't talk to me about playoffs." Sanders and Campbell played on crappy teams who never won anything. They had horrible offensive lines who couldn't block a cheerleader. But they both managed to gain yard after yard on chronically busted plays. Their greatness was in evidence especially when things didn't go the way they were supposed to. When the going got tough, they became more amazing, not less so. That is always what true greatness does.

Give Brady his due. He's a winner on a winning team with the most winning system and the winningest coach of the last decade. He's got three rings already and may get another one soon - unless of course he gets Tebowed. He racks up the yardage and cranks out the touchdowns at a feverish pace. But when the going gets tough and the system fails, he's not only average; he's well below average. When the guy he's planning to throw to is covered, he's no Drew Brees, no Aaron Rogers, no Eli Manning, no Peyton Manning, no Matthew Stafford, no Alex Smith, no Cam Newton, no  Matt Hasselback, no Sam Bradford, no Joe Flacco, no Matt Ryan, and certainly no greatest ever.

Tebow Time and Time and Time Again

Tim Tebow...Have you heard of this guy? I can't help but notice that he has been in the news just a bit lately...Ok, make that all over the news - ad nauseum! There is so much to say about this guy, but not a lot that hasn't already been said and said and said a bazillion times. So allow me to focus on just two aspects of Tebow Mania that I think have been undertreated, one thing I love about Tebow, and one thing I hate about him.

First, the thing I love about Tebow and what he has done is the very same thing I loved about last year's NCAA Basketball Tournament. Remember when Virginia Commonwealth got an invitation to the Big Dance? On that memorable Selection Sunday, Seth Davis, Dicky V, Jay Bilas, and all the other supposed experts went ape-shit with the injustice of VCU getting a tournament bid. Oh, and by the way, then VCU made it to the Final Four after 61 other "more deserving" teams had long since been sent packing. Watching all those great basketball minds have to feast on crow for the rest of the tournament was truly Must See TV! They just couldn't imagine, much less admit, that they had been so horrifically wrong in their analysis of the tournament. Most of them weren't even man enough to admit just how woeful their judgment had been, though Dicky V - ever the good sport - visited the VCU campus and let the students and players exact their pound of flesh from him.

To me, Tebow has created a very similar scenario. Dozens and dozens of the "best" NFL analysts have been wrong again and again about Tebow, his capabilities, and how far the Broncos will be able to go with Timmy at the helm. Yet they keep appearing on their shows equivocating about Tebow, saying everything they possibly can except the one thing they should be saying: "I guess I was wrong. I guess Tim Tebow really can play this game and this position."

Who knows how long the Tebow train will roll in 2011-12 or whether he'll be an NFL quarterback into the future. I certainly don't. But I sure have enjoyed watching him confound and exasperate the so-called experts.

And now for the the thing about Tebow that drives me nuts. I am an ordained Christian minister. I have been studying the New Testament scriptures for over 35 years, and if there is one thing I know frontwards and backwards it is Jesus' explicit instructions on how and where to pray. In his most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says the following:"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go to your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." (Matthew 6:5-6)

Tebow ought to know better. We all ought to know better. Such blatant displays of piety in the endzone, the sideline, and the 50 yard line are not expressions of genuine faith; they do not call attention to the One who sees in secret. The only person they call attention to is the person "Tebowing" in plain view. Such acts, even if undertaken on bended knee, scream "Look at me! I'm a believer! I'm humble and pious! I'm one of the good guys!"

I am troubled by the increasing number of falsely pious wannabe's that are now bowing, pointing skyward, and thanking their "Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ" at every turn. Too many people are being led by Tebow to believe that these are the appropriate actions of a genuine follower of Christ, when, in fact, they are in blatant violation of both Jesus' explicit teaching and his lived example.

I don't question Tebow's heart, his character, his Christian commitment, nor even his motivation. What I question is how and why he would ignore such a central tenet of his Lord and Savior's yoke.

We live in an age of complete arrogance, a time when genuine humility is rarer than one of Rex Ryan's steaks. We don't need more athletes calling attention to themselves, even if it is while they are in a prayerful pose. The Tim Tebow's of the world need to trust that their earnest on-field efforts, their good sportsmanship, their treatment of teammates, opponents, officials, and the media is a sufficient public witness of their deep faith. After all, they serve One who sees in secret and prefers to reward in secret.