Tuesday, December 31, 2013

NFL Black Monday: Head coaches canned

Saw one of the Hasselbeck boys on my ESPN sports TeeVee making a fairly simple point which had escaped me; our media devotes hours off air time and even ink and paper for dead tree media speculating on which coaches will get fired and then more time on post mortems on reigns of these tinpot dictators and even more time on coaching relationship carousels figuring out the name of the next coach to get hired to run these losing teams.

Not to put too fine a point on it but screw the coaches.  What about the players, people who get cut all the time without anyone caring or noticing except maybe their mommas.

What about the players?

The coaches in many cases have years and multi millions more of dollars left to get paid on their contracts; players get jack squat beyond their guaranteed signing bonuses except maybe injury settlements.

Greg Schiano, bully, Tampa Bay, still has 3 years at 3 million per on his contract.  Should we cry him a river 'cause he gets to bang brews on the beach for 3 yearsand not worry how to feed his family?

God damnit, I thought life had moved on, at least at professional level, from having asshole coaches who physically and verbally abused their employees.  Schiano brought that back.  How well did that style work this season for Tom Coughlin of the New York football Giants?  Not very well despite the fact he fines players if they don't make it 5 minutes early for meetings.

That style only works in colleger or high schools nowadays when coaches can control every facet of their players' lives, even up to and beyond the point of death.  Exagerration you think.  No, football players die all the time from trying to play a game they love.

Let us remember a name, Derek Sheely, killed by football and whose parents received an anonymous letter describing Derek's death: [The writer said he was a player on the team and described a horrible sequence of events that led to Derek's death, of Derek hurting his head at practice, bleeding from the forehead, and a coach berating him for wanting to sit out. One line in particular has been repeated often in media stories: "Stop your bitching and moaning and quit acting like a pussy and get back out there!" the email quoted the coach as saying.]





The Sheelys do, however, want to change the culture of ignorance and faux toughness that pervades football....

The Sheelys say they didn't want to sue, but they say they ran out of options in their quest to find out what happened to their son. They wanted — still want — the NCAA or Frostburg State to investigate the case. They can't believe a young man is dead and neither has done anything to find out what happened. They can't believe the NCAA investigates parties thrown by agents, but not the death of a player. They can't believe other coaches get fired for foul language, but Frostburg State coaches have faced no consequences after a player died in practice. (Rogish resigned at the end of this season....)
http://www.sbnation.com/longform/2013/12/17/5217634/sharing-derek-sheely-a-helmet-to-helmet-hit-took-the-life-of-a-22?utm_source=sbnation&utm_medium=nextclicks&utm_campaign=articlebottom











http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2013/12/30/5171100/greg-schiano-fired-tampa-bay-buccaneers

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