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It's a poor caliber of human being who breaks up over the phone. If you've spent months with someone, investing time into learning about them, sharing their hopes, valuing their strengths, and looking forward to the future with them, then the least you can do is break up in person.
Bobby Petrino is a poor-caliber human being. On Monday night, the Falcons took a beating at the hands of the division rival New Orleans Saints. It was not a small beating, but neither was it the first such the poor Atlanta franchise has encountered since Petrino's first of five contract-stipulated seasons started 14 weeks ago. But despite the Falcons' dismal 3-10 record, when the owner of the team, Arthur Blank, was interviewed in the press box, he was effusive in his praise of Bobby P. and claimed that there's no one he'd rather have at head coach during this time of turmoil for the franchise.
Less than 24 hours later, good ole Bobby would make the eccentric Falcons owner eat his words. At 5:45 PM EST, the Falcons head office received a phone call from Petrino in which he informed them of his resignation, as well as his intentions to go and coach in the SEC of the college ranks, specifically at Arkansas.
Now, Bobby P isn't the first NFL head coach to pull these kind of shenanigans. Last season, then Miami Dolphins head coach Nick Saban stated in a press conference explicitly that he was not entertaining offers from schools at the college level, namely Alabama, which competes in--you guessed it--the SEC. But just two weeks after this pronouncement, Saban announced at another press conference that he would resign to coach at Alabama, and the Dolphins found themselves without a coach.
Even so, Nick Saban managed to leave his brief NFL stint to return to the college ranks with a certain amount of dignity that Bobby Petrino apparently left behind with his hasty departure from the ATL. While Saban did renege on his promise to stay in Miami, his first press conference was given after his team's season was done--during the bye week between the championship games and Super Bowl. This ensured that any turmoil created by rumours of his leaving could be handled in the offseason. Further, his second press conference came at the end of the week after the Super Bowl. Now, the Monday after the Super Bowl is called Black Monday for a reason. This is the day that all of the coach firings the proceed from the season occur. That Saban waited essentially for the week of black Monday before leaving ensured that the Dolphins could still be active players in the hunt for a head coach and still had a full offseason to adjust, and he did not disrupt the team in the middle of the season.
As for Bobby P, well, he didn't even have the good faith to talk to the Falcons organization face to face. He phoned in his resignation at 5:45 PM Tuesday--a resignation effective immediately, and immediately before weekly practices for week 15 of the 17 week regular season starts. His resignation, tendered at 5:45 PM, gives the Falcons organization all of 14 hours and 15 minutes to name an interim head coach who can be there when practice opens at 8 AM. I was willing to give the guy a chance. During the season, veterans came out and said, "he's trying to replace us," and I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Then other players came out and said, "he doesn't communicate with us," and I said, "he'll learn the pros are different from college soon enough." But apparently I was wrong. Apparently this guy is just an asshole who won't communicate with anyone because his mightier-than-thou attitude earned him praise in the college ranks. Well, after a 3-10 partial season, this is one Falcons fan who is happy it didn't work in the NFL. Good riddance. I'm suprised you didn't pack up during the night and skip town without telling a soul. Prick. Tags: bobby petrino, falcons, football
Current Location: my stewing pot of seething anger
Current Mood:  Pissed the fuck off
Current Music: Rage! Rage!
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So here’s the story. A customer of mine needed some sweaters. I work in the sweater industry. So does my girlfriend. This gentleman had been doing his sweater business with me for about 4 months consistently. At one time about a month ago, he was looking for a sweater to hold him against the cold. I had some plain old cotton-poly blends that had just come in, but I knew Barb had some primo Cashmere. So, liking to help my customers, I referred this gentleman (we’ll call him Dylan) to my girlfriend because I know he appreciates the finer things in life. Thereafter, I promptly lost his business. To my girlfriend. That’s kind of weak. But it’s still understandable because she did continue to have better quality fabric than I did for a while. What Dylan wasn’t counting on (I don’t know why) was me spending a significant amount of time with my girlfriend. Perhaps this is why he didn’t think I’d think it slightly suspicious when he’d call her and ask if I was there. But you never know, maybe he was just asking about me because he liked me as a person. That was probably it, right. And I’m happy to help Barb move her product as well. So everything’s honky dory. Or it should be. Except that I’m a paranoid individual. Exceedingly so when my girlfriend is so f-in’ perfect. So over this course of time, I’ve been sitting here trying against my own volition to convince myself that this jackass isn’t trying to steal my girlfriend and just wants another weed hookup. I kept reciting the evidence to myself. Eventually I recited it to Barb, as well. We both thought I was half crazy. And with good reason. I am half crazy. Until this afternoon. This afternoon, I missed a business call from Dylan because I was in a crowded bar watching a football game. As I expected, he went to Barb when I didn’t answer. What I didn’t expect, apparently he finished the business exchange with something like, “thanks, the sweater’s great, do you want to go out to the movies tonight?” I mean, what kind of sonofabitch do you have to be? This is like the first time that Dylan has bought from Barb without me sitting there next to her, being touchy-feely bordering on uncomfortable for everyone else there. What does he think is going to happen? That she’ll say yes? Well, I suppose his alternative expectation would be that she’d say no….and then not tell me. Or permaybehaps, I’m thinking, he’s just a malicious asshole. Possibly I could maintain my small retail business without his patronage.Current Location: At Barbs
Current Mood: f-in pissed
Current Music: My seething rage.
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I thought, given the contents of Barb's recent post, that I ought to make clear a few points with regards to my arguments in defense of sports. The value of sports, in my view, is twofold and self-evident. On a pure level, sports provides a forum for we humans to show what we can do. I know Barb has already scoffed at my views in this regard, but what that stoner is criticizing is not the point but the schemata for understanding it. But we'll get there presently. The rational argument for the value of sports here is tied up with the inherent value of entertainment and leisure in human society. As human society has progressed, we have developed an increased capacity for leisure.
From the ancients on forward, each new wave of technology, each new world power burgeoning with mass production and efficiency has brought new capacities to its populace for leisure time in its every day life. The value of this leisure time is evident. Take, for example the contrasting cultures of ancient Athens and ancient Sparta: the lives of Spartans were constantly filled with the military training and discipline that was necessary for the warrior culture. Lives were regimented and leisure time was not used like it was in Athens. Athens, by contrast, was both relatively opulent and efficiently self-governed (by efficiently, here, I mean that they were small enough to be of ideal size for the type of self-governing democracy that was considered ideal when Thomas Jefferson wrote about democracy). As a result, the citizenry had ample leisure time. Even the stonemasons--like Socrates--had enough free time to ponder the difficulties of life. The difference in results is sufficient to make my point: Athens gave us Socrates, Plato, the first Academy, Aristotle, the very foundations of western thought and literature; Sparta gave us the movie 300!.
Now, most of you are saying, "Wait a minute! Wouldn't it make more sense to ascribe the athletic virtues to Sparta, leaving Sports in a similar place?" [I happen to know those are the exacts words that just went coursing through your head]. This is a fair argument. Certainly, upon first viewing, 300! would certainly seem to showcase a certain physical prowess as characteristic of the denizens of that society. So if I'm to make an argument that the character of Sparta that I've just described don't similarly apply to the realm of sports, there must be some important difference between the Spartan culture of physicality and that of the sporting arena.
Ostensibly, this difference also puts sport culture in a similar position as the development of schemata of knowledge out of leisure-ridden Athens. So what is this important difference? Well, to be honest, I tipped my hand when I mentioned the schemata of knowledge that were developed in Athens. The defining aspect of the contribution of leisure activities is not determined by ascertaining what is physical and what is mental. This distinction between human activities is utterly artificial, and doesn't meet even the prima facie burdens the dichotomy it attempts to create. The terms mental and physical are not mutually exclusive. Instead, it is my proposition that it is the term mental, and solely mental that offers any guarantee of value. So its clear now that I think the athleticism of sports is different from that of Sparta in that it offers something to our collective understanding that was not there before. So what does sport offer our understanding that war does not? It is my claim that sports in general offer a schema of understanding for human athleticism that is not found anywhere else in human understanding.
In Spartan society, it was easy enough to keep track of a soldier's efficiency: if he killed some, he was good, if he killed many, he was better, if he was dead, he was bad. This set of "statistical" evaluation of soldiers was tied directly to their production on the battlefield. Soldiers were evaluated in the same way a manager now evaluates employees. By contrast, sports provides a schema for understanding athletic feats both for their own "sweetness factor" and as they interact with the larger goals of a team. The athleticism required for Osi Umenyora (sorry if I misspell, Osi) to tie an NFL record with 6 sacks could not be so easily understood and categorized without football as a context. But with said context, we understand that on six different plays, my boy Osi came out of a 3 point stance at the end of the line, got his weight underneath eagles left tackle winston justice, put one move or another on him, got past the 320 pounder and got to the quarterback before he could take 3, 5, or 7 steps and release the ball. Further, we understand the importance of sack through this same schema.
Now, here's what Barb is going to say: "Who gives a flying fuck?" And that, too, is a fair criticism. There is no unique reason to give any kind of fuck, much less a flying one. But that criticism is non-specific. There is similarly no reason to give any kind of fuck about literature throughout history. It offers nothing but stories. There is no reason to learn philosophy--indeed, most people don't--it only offers explanations and theories that don't have any major effect on how anyone lives his/her everyday life. And history? What is the true use of knowing the past? The point here is that there is no reason to give a flying fuck about anything. I'm not trying to make the nihilist's point here, only saying that there are only more or less accepted things to give a fuck about, but the fact that sports doesn't demand the kind of automatic respect that the academic disciplines do doesn't mean it automatically deserves to be written off.
To read Book VII of Plato's Republic one would be completely thrown by talk of the cave and things in themselves. Without the context of philosophy as a general project and the first six books of Republic in particular, it makes no sense. The contribution of societies at Athens was to give us a system of schemata for understanding multiple forms of knowledge that had been heretofore unknowable. The appreciation of human athleticism that is allowed by the schema of sports is of similar kind.
But after all of that argument, the reasons to like football are simple. We need something to do with our leisure time. Taking time to understand human athleticism combined with strategy is no less useless than anything else one can do with leisure time. But beyond that, the pure appreciation from football comes from the experiences. The emotion it generates. When you see someone like Brett Farve come back after 2 bad seasons, with all of his critics ushering him into retirement and play lights out this season has been phenomenal. Even what I call "the sweetness factor." when you have to sit up and say, "How the hell did she pull that off?" The comebacks, like in the 1991 AFC divisional playoff, when the Buffalo Bills came back from a 38-3 halftime deficit to win and advance to the chamionship game with a 41-38 overtime victory. And finally, (this one's for the nerds) the strategy; the scheming. when you understand each player's position and role, the guessing the puzzles, the coaching quandary, ther personnel decisions. Agonizing over every second of the game. There is an almost post-coital satisfaction to a good game--especially if your team wins. The passion given to us by sports feels like somthing that everyone should have. I can provide no rational argument for that. I just know I lived for 12 years as a football fan, took 6 years off and those six years are my regret, not the 12. I've been an avid fan again for the last 4 seasons.Tags: football
Current Location: My couch
Current Mood: dorky
Current Music: Football!!
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