College Football’s “Skins Game”

BobLee
January16/ 2000

Seasonal absolutes are signposts along Life’s highway that remind us that we were in the very same place a year ago.  The info-babe doing the remote from the crowded airport on Wednesday before Thanksgiving …. “blaming the refs” in September ….  the politician promising “change” ….  And today’s topic – College Football’s “Skins Game” starring the phenom de 2008 Turner Gill. …..   Come along with BobLee to a place where even angels fear to tread …..

Sports rarest commodities …. Cubs’ pennants …. fans at a WNBA game …. black field goal kickers …. fat cheerleaders …. solvent newspapers ….  and the dearth of black head coaches in Big Time College Football (BTCF).  There are only five more “black” head coaches in Big Time College Football (BTCF) than there are Albanian dwarfs as head coaches in BTCF. 

70+% of BTCF players are “black”.  3.7% of BTCF head coaches are “black”.   97% of US Senators are ethically challenged.  59% of US Senators are Democrats.   All three 2008 Heisman finalists were “white”.  100% of them know their father AND their Heavenly Father.  YIKES!  YIKES!  and  YIKES!

Not hiring an accomplished football coach simply because of his skin color is as downright foolish as …… well as requiring “diversity training” for every incoming freshman on 16 campuses simply because four idjits with spray paint got frisky in a “free expression tunnel” (wink, wink, cough, cough).  Stoopid is as stoopid does.

   Some are actually saying Turner Gill can not get a big time job because he has “a white wife” !!!  That doesn’t make sense.  Every head coach in the SEC, ACC and Big 12 has a “white wife”.   Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden have had “white wives” for 40 years and no one complained.  Several prominent coaches have had more than one “white wives”.  A few have even had “a white coed” or two on the side.

The Dodgers’ Al Campanis once said “black baseball players do not have the equipment to be managers“.  Jimmy The Greek said some similar “uh oh”.  Both men are primarily remembered for those two rather obtuse opinions.  One should hope for a better legacy I think.  Modern day Al Campanis’ say black coaches make good recruiters and “Assistant Head Coaches”.  No one knows what “Assistant Head Coaches” do but you get five EEOC brownie points if yours is black.  As for recruiting its simply easier to send a brutha into the ‘hood to bag blue-chippers than trying to teach a 50 y/o white guy how to rap.

Turner Gill was a fine QB at Nebraska under Lawrence Phillips’ parole officer Tom Osborne.  He was an assistant at Nebraska and is now head coach at the Univ of Buffalo.   Admit it …. You never knew there was “a University of Buffalo”.  When Turner Gill moves on you will quickly forget there was “a University of Buffalo”.   Sorta like Gonzaga.  Have you ever met a Gonzaga alum or seen a picture of its campus?  Buffalo, Gonzaga, Faber and Whattsamatter U all exist in that vast wasteland known as fictional sports places.  Some say Bing Crosby was a Gonzagian ….. some say Kermit Zarley was a Martian.

Turner Gill “turned around” U of Buffalo’s football program in three years and this year won the MAC beating Ball State (another fictional school).  Turner has three more years of OJT head coach experience than did John Bunting and Chuck Amato combined and one more than Gene Chezik …. who just got hired at Auburn.

Gene Chezik (who also has “a white wife”!) was the Auburn Def Coord that Mack Brown hired away before he hired away Gene’s replacement Auburn Def Coord Will Muschamp who he just promoted to Head Coach Someday at Texas so Auburn would hire Chezik rather than Muschamp.  Mack trained Gene very well as Gene told his former AD at Iowa State that he definitely was NOT going to take the Auburn job 24 hours before he definitely TOOK the Auburn job thereby “lyin’ to dem boys” in Ames.

This is the same Auburn job that former Auburn coach Tommy Tubberville once said he intended to die in Oxford Mississippi rather than take.  I tell you this so you realize that BTCF is as ethical as Chicago politics.  The number of honest Chicago politicians is even lower than “black head coaches in BTCF” but no one in Chicago cares any more.

Why can’t Turner Gill get a BTCF coaching job if “having a white wife” has been ruled out.  That’s a casual assumption.  If Mary Easley can get a well-paying job at a BTCF school surely Turner Gill deserves one.  Turner has “unique skills” too.

There are more than a handful of black head coaches in the NFL (with / without “white wives”).  The “spousal ethnicity” issue is not a factor in the NFL much like “literacy” is not a factor in college recruiting.

In the NFL there are 30-some owners.  They are called “owners” because they “own” the teams.  They hire/fire everyone who they employ.  Most of the owners are men of situational integrity at best which is helpful if you have a monster ego and own a sports franchise.  Other than the several who employ dominatrix, they tend not to take orders very well.  Telling them to do something tends not to work very well.

Ask an NFL owner why he did not hire a black coach and you will get an answer from his appointed flunky.  It might not be an honest answer but that’s as far as you can go to get an answer.  Not so in BTCF.  Some black head coaches in the NFL have been quite successful.  Some have not been.  Winning seems the common denominator with longevity.

God invented college Athletics Directors for someone to blame when a team loses to a rival and/or to too many other teams.  God invented college administrators to introduce the flaming liberal anarchist who speaks at  commencement.  Neither person has the final say so when hiring a head football coach at a BIG TIME Football school.   Enter now the legendary Fat Cats …. Les Grande Booster ….  or, as they call him at Auburn – “the Bobby Lowder” guy.

   Bobby Lowder is Auburn’s Boss Hawg. Remember Roadhouse?  Think Ben Gazarra as Wessssley.   Bobby Lowder has held every influential position w/ Auburn.  He gets to make up his own title.  Auburn has an AD and a Poobah.  When Bobby says “JUMP” they both say “how high Mr Lowder?” on the way up.  Bobby Lowder owns a bunch of banks or transmissoion shops or Waffle Houses or something.  He is very rich and very powerful (and quite boorish) around Auburn.  His daddy was very rich too which explains a whole lot.

Every BTCF school has its Bobby Lowders EXCEPT “your school” of course.  “Your school” has its share too but you prefer to fantasize otherwise.  Your school having marginal characters with undue influence is like your daughter having sex.  Lets just not go there.   In BTCF it’s the Bobby Lowders who say yea/nay on coaching hires but hopefully with discretion.  If Bobby doesn’t wan’t “that colored fellow (with the white wife)” then “that colored fellow” ain’t gonna be hired.  Bobby has bought and paid for his “say so” right.

Even within UNC sinister figures lurk. Case in point the aforementioned Mary Easley Mess.  Mrs Governor got a $170,000 made up job at NCSU because Guv hubby told the UNC Prez to make it happen.  “Thank you sir, may I have another, sir?” .  Hire my wife” is no different than a Bobby Lowder saying “don’t hire the black guy“.  

Fans want stadiums filled with bling bling so they can have gloat privileges over their neighbor in the cul-de-sac.  The bulk of those fancy facility upgrades and scholarship endowments come from 2-5% of the alumni/fan base.  Check an AD’s memory dial.  There be the deep-pocket dozen “power brokers” – Les Grande Boosters.   If the Grande Boosters ain’t happy the fiscal faucet gets turned off really quick.

Out of 120 BTCF schools, 60 go “bowling” every year.  The other 60 all consider themselves “sleeping giants” who are just “the right coach hire” away from The Road To Boise.  If a coach “goes bowling” often enough neither his color nor his wife’s will matter much.  Coaches who don’t “go bowling” very often tend to get fired, regardless of skin color.

Could Turner Gill be successful at Auburn?  Probably, if all he has to do is out-recruit Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, Mark Richt, Houston Nutt and Les Miles ….   But Turner would have to keep Bobby Lowder happy.  Would Bobby take Turner to Augusta for a round of golf?  Would Bobby invite Mr/Mrs Gill to his home?  Would they go out on Bobby’s boat in the Gulf?  Would Bobby send Turner a box of “Cubans” after a big win?  Could Bobby and Turner eat watermelon together without one/both feeling self-conscious?

The Bobby Lowders love seeing the Bo Jacksons run and the Charles Barkleys jump.  But having them over for dinner …. nahhhh.  So why can’t the NCAA DEMAND that schools simply piss off their Bobby Lowders.  Because then how will the schools pay their bills?   $$$$ buys influence as well as pays faculty and builds classrooms.

Are “Bobby Lowders” just a Southern thing”?   How many black head coaches in the Big Ten or The Pac 10 ?  In all of recorded history, the SEC has had one.  Jim Delany’s The Big Ten two.  The Pac 10 has had four, if you count Ty Willingham twice.  Dennis Green was one of each (Northwestern & Stanford)..

The number of black head coaches will increase when the number of black Fat Cats increase.   ACORN can’t create fake boosters.  Go into the VIP Suite area of your stadium.  Count the Big Black Boosters.  That % is as low or lower than the # of black head coaches.  Do the math.

In The College Football $kins Game it’s as much or more about the color of money as it is the color of the coaches skin.

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Of the five “BTCF” schools in North Carolina which TWO have never hired a black head coach in either football or basketball.  CLUE:  The two institutions that most delight in touting their “diverse” holier-than-thouness.  …… Something to think about.   

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Darn that Dickie Baddour.  His Women’s Soccer team finished 1st in the country but the best his Men’s team could do was 2nd.  Darn that Dickie.
On Tuesday, Dickie announced the much ballyhooed Blinging of Kenan will be delayed until (1) the economy improves …. or (2) Butch figures out how to beat TO’B.  Whichever comes first.   The suites will be delayed for “a while” and the East End stuff for “a longer while”.  This is BIG NEWS because now our Thursday Lunch Bunch gets to keep meeting in The Alamo.

On a related issue …. it has been confirmed that Jimma Sexton has not and hopefully will not be putting the squeeze on UNC for more Butch Bucks this year.   Thank you Jimma.   By going to a bowl game Butch and each staff member do get a 13th month salary bonus however.

 BobLee’s new book Seersucker Suits Me is the ultimate “stocking stuffer”.  See the bookstore link over there on the right.  $10 plus shipping ….. it’s NON-PARTISAN (really, it is!) and a GREAT Christmas Day Read.

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