by Kent Sterling
“Dear Lord, Please get me another gig before the hammer falls like a feather on the Oregon Football program.” Prayer answered.
It would be great if people who cheat weren’t rewarded. Bankers ruin the economy, and go sailing on their 60-foot Fountaine-Pajot Eleuthera clippers. CEOs burn companies to the ground, and receive an obscene bonus that could feed 1,000 families for a decade. And college football coaches cheat to recruit talent, and run to the NFL for big bucks before the NCAA can penalize them.
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Such is the case for former Oregon Ducks coach Chip Kelly, who can’t coach a college team for the next 18 months, which will make life difficult for him as the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles in no way at all.
That didn’t keep Kelly from giggling as he issued a statement of apology:
“Now that the NCAA has concluded their investigation and penalized the University of Oregon and its football program, I want to apologize to the University of Oregon, all of its current and former players and their fans. I accept my share of responsibility for the actions that led to the penalties. As I have I stated before, the NCAA investigation and subsequent ruling had no impact on my decision to leave Oregon for Philadelphia.”
The fact that Kelly would lose your job at Oregon had nothing to do with his decision to leave? The very least this boob might have done is throw at least one truth in his apology. He could have earned points by saying, “What a joke! Yeah I cheated, and why wouldn’t I? It worked out great for me!”
Kelly is contrite in the same way Clinton regretted sticking cigars into an intern. To blatantly cheat, get caught, and than receive a pat on the back is an insult to collegiate athletics, and all that is supposed to be good and just in this world.
Don’t waste your time looking too hard for justice in this world, because unless you are at the bottom of the economic food chain, it doesn’t exist.
America has decided that it should steal the attitude of celebrated whack job, the late owner of the Oakland Raiders, Al Davis, and “Just win, baby!” Oregon won as a result of a culture where cheating was the norm. Kelly was offered the chance to coach the Eagles because he won through cheating, and by the time the embattled and ineffective disciplinary arm of the NCAA concluded its two-year investigation, Kelly was no longer available to take his medicine.
We’ve entered a realm in college athletics where it no longer makes any sense not to cheat. Coaches used to laugh, “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t trying!” It’s not funny anymore.
The NCAA has done such a pathetic job of enforcing its idiotic rule book that it has created a culture where cheating is not only accepted, it’s rewarded. The punishment the NCAA gift-wrapped for Oregon was so soft that programs no longer need to fear being caught, as if they ever did.
It’s a tragedy that student-athletes are used to make millions for others while they go unpaid, but then to heap on to the pile the moral debauchery they are exposed to as part of their education adds insult to that injury.
Doing the right thing used to be a priority in our society, and it still can be, but all disincentive for doing the wrong thing has been removed from collegiate athletics.
I’m sure as Kelly heard the penalty for his former employer and learned of the 18-month show-cause order that would keep him from coaching in college football if he didn’t already have a better job, there was a brief moment where he reflected on his actions. Then, he probably laughed while penning his statement.
What a shame. Yesterday, was the day the NCAA finally threw in the towel.
I think you should rethink your stance on Al Davis! You may not like him or the Raiders, but by no means was the man a “whack job”. You use a story totally unrelated to Al Davis, to insult the man, who’s the “whack job” again? The true “whack jobs” are bloggers like yourself who think they will somehow be respected as journalists if they throw around loose insults at people they don’t even know personally. I’m no journalist nor am I blogger who tries to act like one, I am just a man who knows plankton when he see’s it!
Where would we be without plankton? You’re right, I should have been more specific – Al Davis was a paranoid who evolved from an effective creator of an NFL franchise into a litigious and arrogant man who became an erratic mess as he poorly evaluated players and built a team that had no chance to compete in the NFL. He treated his coaches like interchangeable parts, and went from being feared inside the NFL to being mocked.
Hope that brings some clarity.
You still haven’t explained how Al Davis relates to Chip Kelley’s or others’ cheating, other than to make the loosest of connections between Al’s personal motto, “Just Win, Baby!” and cheaters doing anything to win. Is that it? That’s your connection? There are a million and one quotes about winning, but you chose Al’s. You call him a “whack job”, then in your comments specify that you meant he was “paranoid”, “litigious”, and “arrogant”, but nothing about cheating. It seems as though you have lined up with all the rest of the haters who continue to take shots at Al even in his death. I wonder if others will misrepresent you when you are dead. Or will anyone even notice?
Raiders fans sure are thin-skinned. “Just win, baby!” implies a devotion to winning above all other concerns, which is entirely appropriate for professionals, but not for collegiate programs. It is in that limited context that the phrase is relevant. The difference between what Davis said and the other phrase is that Lombardi regretted ever saying it, and changed the quote to “Winning isn’t everything, the will to win is the only thing.”
I like the “Just win, baby” phrase for an NFL team.
Bang.
The better question is, where would we be without blogging plankton!
Al Davis is the only person in NFL history to be an assistant coach, a head coach, a commissioner, an owner and he is also in the NFL Hall of Fame! He has introduced more people into the hall of fame and nobody has drafted as many eventual hall of famer’s than Al Davis has. His teams have won 3 super bowls, 1 world championship, 5 AFC championships, 15 division chamionships and despite the last decade, the raiders still own one of the better overall winning percentages among ALL pro sports teams. Let’s not forget that Al Davis hired the FIRST African American head coach, he hired the FIRST Latino head coach and he also made Amy Trask the first female CEO in the NFL! And if you want to look past all those accolades and contributions he has made, maybe you can take solace in knowing that the NFL, YOU and many others love so much, would NOT exist as it does today if Al Davis did not take legal action against the NFL when he was the commissioner of the AFL. Whether you like it or not, Al Davis is one of, if not the most important person to have ever been apart of the NFL. Maybe instead of trying to put down the man who worked so hard to bring equality the NFL, maybe you should actually take your foot out of your mouth, stop posting on your absolutely ridiculous “blog” and do a little research on one of the most important men the NFL will ever see! Hope that brings some real clarity. 😉
Plankton will be plankton like always, but THE nation will always have your back! RIP Al!
@Isaac: Preach on, brother. I am so sick and tired of everyone bashing Al. What’s even more infuriating is that this blogger even mentions Al in this article. What does Al Davis have to do with NCAA violations and allegations of cheating? Because Al said “Just win, Baby!”? Vince Lombardi said, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” I would think a reference to Bill Belichick or Josh McDaniels/Steve Scarnecchia would more accurate.
I said he was an effective creator of an NFL franchise, who then went ’round the bend. That’s it in a nutshell. If I ever write a post that uses more than one adjective to describe Davis, I will mention all that.
@kentsterling: Why did you even mention Al in your trite piece? Are you implying Al was a cheater? Or that his motto, “Just win, Baby!” is somehow reminiscent of cheating? Why not cite Vince Lombardi with, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” That’s every bit as bold a statement about winning as Al’s motto. And if you felt compelled to mention / imply cheating among NFL staff, why wouldn’t you use Bill Bilichick, Josh McDaniels, or Steve Scarnecchia as an example? People who actually cheated. It really seems like you just wanted to take a shot at Al Davis, a man who did more for professional sports in one year, maybe even in one day, then you will ever do in your life.