RIP Chuck Bednarik

RIP Chuck Bednarik: The Greatest Eagle Ever

Related:

Forgotten Men II

Now I hope the the Jets go 0 and 16

Rex Ryan takes shot at Tim Tebow with false Eric Decker stat

As for Rex’s phony stat — that seems like it was more about taking a shot at Tebow than it was pumping up Decker. That just goes to show you how much Ryan enjoyed his time with the Florida Gators legend.

This is simply outstanding

ESPN and the Politicization of Sports

ESPN deals with disputes as though they aren’t. Tautologically, a controversy doesn’t elicit unanimity. As the votes among the democratically-elected legislature in Arizona indicates, a view beyond the narrow one aired by Wilbon and Kornheiser exists. But it doesn’t exist on ESPN.

It may be the wrong view, but the network doesn’t help viewers to see this by exposing them to a caricatured version of it. Given that the four-letter sports behemoth, and its ombudsman, seem committed to covering sport more aggressively when it intersects with politics and culture, shouldn’t it make more of an effort to acknowledge that it reaches an audience far more diverse in outlook than those watching from a cable-television campus in Connecticut? Dispensing with the political litmus test for the non-jock talkers would be an encouraging start.

It is always worth remembering that Orwell based his Ministry of Truth on the people he met in the BBC.

The ESPN ombudsman is Robert Lipsyte. I think that the New York Times passed a key waypoint on its decline when it rehired Lipsyte as a sports columnist. A sports writer who hates sports is a pretty good indicator that the paper wanted to preach instead of report.

Related:

Why did Robert Lipsyte become a sportwriter?

Duke lacrosse: Auto de fe

Jefferson Street Joe: The creation of a modern myth

America’s Game

Regimentation and adaptability

Insight from Gen. Stanley McChrystal:

When I got to the Ranger Regiment as a young captain, I was retaught all of the fundamentals of being a soldier: how to hold my weapon, how to pack my ruck, how to tie my shoes. The focus on fundamentalsdoing simple things the right waywas all consuming. But there was a reason for it that went beyond just discipline. A Ranger in combat knows exactly where the medical kit is in his ruck. And he knows where it is in his buddy’s ruck, too. The fundamentals were always in place. Predictability drives adaptability.

I find this interesting on many levels. First, we are prone to think that regimentation leads to sluggishness and pig-headness. Yet here is an accomplished strategist and leader telling us that the opposite is true.

The key thing, it seems, is that the right fundamentals must be identified. After decades of combat, the Rangers know what matters. I wonder if most civilian organizations can say the same thing?
As the combat trainers say, when it hits the fan, you don’t rise to the occasion, you default to your training. On a more trivial note, many coaches could benefit from the Ranger way of doing things. I once heard one of Lombardi old players (I think Jerry Kramer) decrying way the things are now done in the NFL. Players, he said, “were over-coached and under-practiced.” He was not calling for a return to four-a-day practices. His point was that coaches were constantly expecting players to master new plays instead of  having them thoroughly master the fundamentals of their position. (Fundamentals, there is that word again.)

Nearly every NFL game I watch I see a handful of beautifully designed plays (over-coached) which fail because one or more players messes up his assignment (under-practiced).

OTOH, that does give the coach an out. He might not win, but everyone knows who blew his assignment, dropped the ball, or drew the penalty.

Some of the really great coach--Lombardi, Shula, Woodenwere fundamental fanatics. Funny that so few other coaches emulate these winners.

Something I read once from a Spec Ops guy: “Amateurs practice until they get it right; professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong."

John Ziegler still makes sense

Surprisingly, this time he gets a fair hearing

See interview here.

Q: Just recently one of the attorneys on the case in the attorney general’s office asked that, and he said, “Based on the evidence, they said, ‘Did Joe Paterno cover this up?’” and he said, “Absolutely not, and I’m basing that off of the evidence.”

A:Right. Frank Fina, the lead prosecutor in the Sandusky case, said to CBS that Joe Paterno was not involved in a cover up. And I believe he said that because of the very interview that I had with his office that I released in my book where Joe Paterno makes it clear that he was not involved in any sort of cover up. He was not even in the loop of the final decision as to what to do with Sandusky. But what really gets me about this Paterno thing is had no motive to engage in a cover up. In fact he would have been a hero had he been the person who put Jerry Sandusky behind bars. And, by the way, sometimes we miss the most obvious truths in a story this complex: without Joe Paterno’s testimony, not only did Curly and Shultz not get indicted, but I believe that not even Jerry Sandusky gets indicted because no one would be backing up Mike McQueary’s testimony, they would be going up against Jerry Sandusky without any witnesses. So Joe Paterno is a large part of the reason that Jerry Sandusky is in jail today. That’s No. 1. The first article about Joe Paterno by Sara Ganim, who won a Pulitzer Prize, which she didn’t deserve in this case, November 5, 2011, has a headline, “Joe Paterno Praised for His Reaction to Child Sex Abuse Suspicions.” The reality is that Joe Paterno did exactly what he was supposed to do.

Fighting the narrative

Most of the MSM has been happy to let Chris Kluwe play the victim card even to the point of amplifying his harsh accusations against his former coaches (AKA the guys who cut him).

A couple of brave souls have the temerity to look at the facts instead of relying on self-serving agit-prop:

A Rebel Without a Kluwe

Crybaby Kluwe: Gay-Marriage Stance Cost Me My Job

Bottom line: Kluwe was old, expensive, and mediocre. Hundreds of NFL players fit that category each year and get their walking papers.

Deadspin and its media echoes decided to ignore Occam's Razor so they can use Kluwe to fight "homophobia" in the NFL.

L. C. Greenwood, R.I.P

Gone, but not forgotten

L.C. Greenwood

I still think Greenwood belongs in the Hall of Fame for all the reasons noted here:

Why the Hall of Fame is becoming a joke

Hall of Fame

Pro Football Hall of Fame

The "official" NFL record for career sacks in the Super Bowl is 4.5 (held by Charles Haley* in five Games.) The single game record is 3.0 set by Reggie White against Drew Bledsoe and new England in SB XXXI.

Greenwood sacked Roger Staubach four times in SB X and once in SB XIII. But he is not in the record book because sacks were not an official record in the seventies.

*Haley also belongs in the HoF. Hey, five rings should be trumps.

Like I said

Skip Bayless thinks you need to hear his opinion on everything. But he is not interested in what you think.

Skip Bayless, ESPN2 “First Take” co-host, may be the most hated man in sports

Bayless is stoic as he watches football and waits for Tebow to come in off the bench. He occasionally checks e-mail, but on this night he shuns Twitter. He has more than 1.1 million followers but mostly avoids reading the feedback there. On Twitter, the nice ones ask him to kill himself; the nasty ones say they’ll help him do it.

“It’s like the Wild West,” he says. “Every other response is a death threat.”

Related:

Why do journalists love twitter and hate blogging?

Twitter seems more useful as a way for insiders like Kurtz to extent their brand and magnify their voice.

The agony of the push media guild

That’s what the internet has done to the people who make their living in the old media. Once they lived in a quiet world where they talked and every one else listened. Their work was rarely criticized. Sometimes they heard but they did sometimes hear whispered praise or demurrals from other guild members but it was all very civilized.

Now, unfortunately, the great unwashed have a voice and the push media do not like what they hear.

He joked his way to an important truth

I think most big-time media personalities labor under the same delusion. They think they are smart, funny, and wildly popular. The horrible thing about the new media is that they (sometimes) find out that it just ain't so.

Peter King gets a clue

I think America is getting tired of Ray Lewis.

Smart analysis you won't hear on ESPN

Tim Tebow Could Have Saved 5 GMs, 7 Coaches And 9 Teams

Seven coaches and five general managers were fired on Black Monday, the day after the 2012 regular season came to an end.

A total of nine teams canned one, the other, or both.

Tim Tebow could have saved any one of these jobs – if only these coaches and GMs had the nuggets to stand up to tired old conventional wisdom and had the common statistical sense to acquire and put on the field the most misunderstood quarterback in the game today.

So true

The day that baseball died: Happiness was Roberto Clemente, and then he was gone

If you were a kid growing up in Pittsburgh 40 years ago, you probably feel a little different when New Year's Eve rolls around from the rest of the revelers out there. It was on Dec. 31, 1972, that Pirates Hall of Fame right fielder Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash while delivering relief supplies to earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua.

Sunday, December twenty-third, a date that lives forever in Steelernation's memory

Steelers' Immaculate Reception: 40 years later, it thrills us still

The 'Immaculate Reception' turns 40

John Ziegler: Defender of Lost Causes

The man who defended Sarah Palin in Media Malpractice is dismantling the media narrative about Joe Paterno.

The Framing of Joe Paterno

UPDATE (12/22/12) : He has an op-ed from today's Harrisburg paper:

NCAA president Mark Emmert completely misses the mark on Penn State

Paterno

Here is an hour-long interview with the author of the new biographer of Joe Paterno

WITF "Smart Talk"

The author does yeoman's work trying to clear up some of the major factual errors that lie at the heart of the prevailing narrative.

Joe Paterno and the Freeh Report

The media narrative is running far in front of the known facts. Powerline has several excellent posts:

The case against Joe Paterno: Weak to non-existent on the current record

I am aware that a consensus exists that former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno acted improperly in connection with Penn State’s response to allegations of child molestation committed by one-time assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. This consensus led to the removal of a statue of Paterno, whose contributions to Penn State as a coach and financial contributor were enormous.

The consensus emerged from the report of Louis Freeh regarding Penn State’s actions related to the sexual abuse committed by Sandusky. But a friend of mine — a top-notch lawyer and former federal prosecutor — has carefully reviewed the Freeh Report. He concludes that the Report does not establish wrongdoing by Joe Paterno. Having now looked at the Freeh Report, I agree.

The case against Joe Paterno, Part Two

Unfortunately, I suspect that the journalists and talking heads who reported that Freeh’s report contains new, damaging evidence regarding Paterno read only the first part of the report. Once one reads the actual evidence, I think it becomes clear that the case against Paterno remains (for now) what it was before Freeh started investigating — that he should have done more, not that he concealed misconduct out of a bad motive. The more damning case that Freeh wants to make is based on speculation, not evidence.

The Freeh report challenged

Twenty-nine former chairs of the Penn State faculty Senate have blasted Louis Freeh and the NCAA in connection with their actions in response to the Jerry Sandusky child sex scandal. As to Freeh’s report, they state: “On a foundation of scant evidence, the report adds layers of conjecture and supposition to create a portrait of fault, complicity, and malfeasance that could well be at odds with the truth.”

Quarterback Ratings

It is always dangerous to compare players using the popular statistics compiled by the NFL. Cold Hard Football Facts shows why with this look at quarterback ratings and strength of schedule.

I wish there was a way we could make the football "analysts" read CHFF each week before they were allowed on the air.

Baseball is fun again in Pittsburgh

Shiver Me Timbers: The Bucs Are in First Place!

Jason Whitlock tells it like it is

Like James Harrison, Whitlock understands that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is an opportunistic fraud.

Harrison voices frustrations of many

RTWT

When baseball was America's game

Baseball: The game that helped America become America

Jason Whitlock doesn't care who he ticks off

This question is right on point:

Let me get this right. When black men call each other “Uncle Toms” and “bitches” for no good reason and the financial benefit of ESPN, it’s admirable candor? When Don Imus calls black women “nappy-headed hos” for no good reason and the financial benefit of a radio station, it’s a crime against humanity and a fireable offense?