At what price personal conviction?

I don't even have to open this post by saying anything more than the following quote to set the stage:

"An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year -- an event designed to bring Americans together," -Jehmu Greene, president of the Women's Media Center.

Tim Tebow and his mother Pam are set to be featured in a 30 second spot during the Super Bowl in a few weeks. It is widely believed that the message of the commercial, paid for by the Christian group Focus on the Family, will be a strongly pro-life one. Tebow has long been a lightning rod for Christian values and beliefs in mainstream college sports, attracting both admiration and resentment for his strict adherence to his values and his eagerness to share with others his sincerity. He is also vociferously pro-life, as much due to his personal religious beliefs as his personal history. His mother Pam became very ill during a mission in the Philippines while she was pregnant with Tim, and doctors advised her to abort the pregnancy for safety reasons. She refused, gave birth to Tim, and the rest is more or less college football history. His "simple" message is he wouldn't be in the commercial if his mom had had an abortion.

Tebow has told Sports Illustrated's Peter King that he understands that many people disagree with him, or don't share his views. "If others don't have the same belief, it's OK. I understand. But I hope they respect that at least I have the courage to stand up for what I believe in.''

And certainly, from an intellectual, freedom of expression standpoint, many can. It is notable that Tebow is eager to be a part of this despite the fact it might cause NFL teams

to shy away from drafting him in fear of alienating fans, sponsors, and other financial resources.

What might be the biggest problem many people have with this collision of theology, politics, and divisive personal beliefs, though, is that it is simply not the right time and moment. Gregg Doyel, who write for CBSSports.com, might sum up how many sports fans feel about the Tebow ad:

"If you're a sports fan, and I am, that's the holiest day of the year," he wrote. "It's not a day to discuss abortion. For it, against it, I don't care what you are. On Super Sunday, I don't care what I am. Feb. 7 is simply not the day to have that discussion."

Tim Tebow hopes to be at the forefront of everyone's mind in the NFL, and presumably, he will continue to speak his mind and use his

notoriety as a platform. So is "Not at the dinner table" a company line that we should or will be

able to embrace?

Oh Captain, my captain, Part 3

The Mike Leach saga is now a sports law spectacle, and it has moved beyond the administrative coaching questions of how hard or how far you should push players, and how gently you should massage their egos, if not their bodies. Coaches at any level will tell you it's a fine line between optimizing a player's potential and abusing a player. This is more and more true the younger an athlete is. Indeed, it stands to reason that coaches could use more and more specialized training, or at a minimum, patience, the younger their athlete. Let's face it, when we get to the pros, the only real guideline is the bottom dollar. And if a coach either can't get along with start players who make more than him, or he can't win, he'll be out the door. No ifs, ands, buts, or complaints to university presidents.

Yesterday, the Court ruled that Leach and his attorneys were free to proceed with their wrongful termination suit against Texas Tech University; a public entity with 12 campuses throughout the state. For labor law nerds, this could prove to be a very interesting case. Leach is alleging seven counts of impropriety on the part of Texas Tech, including libel and slander. (Those might be IMMENSELY difficult to prove, in that the university disseminated information of Leach, a public figure, relating to the abuse of a big-named player from a big-named team, a public interest, and there at least APPEARS to be reason to believe these allegations were legitimate.) Leach also claims that he was frozen out of recent high-profile job openings due to these hellacious allegations, such as the earlier-mentioned USC spot. This could be tough to prove, due to the highly speculative nature of potential job possibilities that turn on much more than the chance at an interview. (Mike Leach has never been accused of possessing Pete Carroll's charisma.)

Texas Tech is arguing it should possess sovereign immunity, in that Leach is attempting to sue a government agency. Usually, this is not possible. If ANYTHING, Leach might have a compelling argument under Administrative Law, in that it looks as though he was denied due process. Tech's investigation was rather incomplete when it fired Leach, and by all accounts, it does not look as though he was given any sort of status report or due notice of a time by which his performance would have to meet certain benchmarks. I think it's highly likely Leach will recover a decent portion of money from Tech when all is said and done.

At the end of the day though, this still doesn't mean Adam James lied; and it still doesn't mean Texas Tech made the incorrect decision to remove a coach it felt was not honoring his commitment to player safety.

We need look only further to the southeast to see what actual, physical confrontation between coach and player can amount to. While Mangino may have taunted and harassed players, and Leach may have been stupidly careless and overly machismo in an era where we're petrified of concussions, former University of South Florida football coach Jim Leavitt just plain let his emotions boil over and lost it in a locker room at halftime of a game, grabbing sophomore Joel Miller by the throat and slapping him upside the face twice. Leavitt has denied these allegations and claims he grabbed Miller by the shoulder pads in an attempt to "lift his spirits," but athletic director Doug Woolard conducted an investigation, and concluded that Leavitt's story conflicted with several witness accounts of the incident. More to the point, Leavitt apparently attempted to get several coaches and players to LIE about what they saw.

This incident is indeed shocking in today's climate, not just because of the action of choking a player and hitting him in the face, but because of who the alleged perpetrator is. Jim Leavitt is the founding father of D. 1 South Florida Bulls football. He created the successfull recent history of this program, much like Mangino and Leach, and hoisted it up from out of nowhere to #2 at one point in the rankings in 2007. He's known as an enthusiastic guy, with tons of energy. His goofy hair is usually spiked up over his visor, he gets into it with his players, and he has recently been seen as a pillar of strength for the program. When two former USF players were lost at sea last February, one eventually being rescued miraculously, Leavitt faced the media and spoke of his prayers and love for his players and their families. Compare that to an overly intense coach hitting a kid in the face at halftime of the game against Louisville in November of this year. It's kinda tough to reconcile. Leavitt, it should be noted, is also filing suit and wants his job back.

Have times just changed? Are players too entitled? Revered dinosaurs like basketball legend Bob Knight have been shown the door in the past for, in part, alleged physical mistreatment of players. Woody Hayes embarrassingly ended his legendary stay at Ohio State after punching a player during a game. (Granted, it was an opposing player, but I mean...) ESPN analyst Trevor Mattich would like to blame lawyers for the current pandemic of coach dismissals and player complaints. He explained to ESPN that he feels lawyers are sitting by the phone waiting to tell a player he can sue the school for mistreatment at the hands of a coach, and therefore schools are under increased pressure to hold coaches to a zero-tolerance policy.

As a lawyer, and a former college football player, I personally think that's insane. But, I guess I can't say that Mattich is completely off-base. As much as I've hated my college coaches at different times, I never once had one lay a hand on me, or show disregard for my safety, or belittle me in any cruel and unusual fashion. (They just benched me days before my parents were to see me play for the first time and replaced me with a guy who couldn't play tackle and a guy who was a drug addict. Different screenplay.) So I don't know what that kind of administrative pressure or legal buzzardry might look or feel like. I do think Ohio State coach Jim Tressel has the right idea. He tells his players to always conduct themselves as if they're on camera, because you never know when someone might have their cell phone out and recording. Before you know it, you'll be a viral youtube sensation for being an idiot. He also recently suggested in an interview that maybe coaches should start abiding by the same rules. I mean, let's be honest fellas, some of you are making more per year than many NBA players. You think you just MIGHT be subject to scrutiny? (How's that spotlight feeling right now Lane Kiffin?)

Many chicken littles have been saying that the dawn of a new era is upon us, and that coaches can't behave the same anymore, and that players have too much control. Yet all we need to do is look at coaches like Chip Kelly, who salvaged LaGarette Blount after his embarrassing meltdown and helped bring a kid back to normality in the midst of tremendous public dismay (yours truly included), or Randy Edsall, at UConn, who brought a team together after Jasper Howard was murdered mid-season and led them to a winning season, to see that amazing minds and quality human beings still abound in the coaching ranks. Even malcontents like Nick Saban, who SKIRT the realms of decency, still draw that line between discipline and punishment. Players are in as desperate need for valuable guidance and leadership now as ever. Living links to the past like Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno are rapidly declining and fading away. This past, where head coaches played more of a role for players in day to day practices and meetings, is giving way to the big business that is college football today, when coaches must act as CEOs and delegate the actual mentoring of young men to assistants. In that environment, if it's accepted that coaches won't be as hands-on, then coaches LITERALLY should NOT be hands-on! It is not that the ideal coach we want is a thing of the past. It's that today's coach has to be even better, and savvier, than his predecessors. Pete Carroll had that down. Scores of others across the country are getting it done as well. It's not impossible, so there's little excuse.

Take it from Martin Blank, Grosse Point High's most successful professional killer. If the school president shows up at your door with a termination agreement, chances are you've done something to bring him there.

Oh Captain, my captain, Part 2

It has been reported and confirmed that Adam James suffered a concussion in December; a concussion diagnosed by team doctors. Furthermore, allegedly, James was held out of drills and was found wearing designer sunglasses on the sidelines at practice, complaining of an extreme sensitivity to sun light stemming directly from his concussion. What is pretty well accepted at this point is that James and Leach did not get along swimmingly. (At the very least, they certainly don't now.) Some have asserted that James is/was a prima donna who was unhappy with his rapidly diminishing role in the high-powered offense, and Leach supporters have further claimed that James' work ethic was mediocre at best. (What this has to do with a concussion I'm still trying to figure out, but it must make sense in Texas...)

What is still not 100% clear is what happened when Leach addressed James' discomfort. James alleges (and various reports have supported this) that Leach instructed trainers to force him to go stand by himself locked in an electrical closet. It has further been alleged that Leach did so accompanied with profanity and vulgarity directed at the player. James took video footage with his cell phone of his make-shift brig; and one can clearly see the young man is isolated in an equipment shed-type apparatus. Leach has countered that James put himself in the shed. Leach, through his attorney, has also stated that Craig James made repeated irate calls to the coaching staff, belittling them and proclaiming that his son was the best wide receiver in the program.

According to available information, the James family lodged this complaint with the Texas Tech president in Mid December. We are led to believe that the administration then brought the complaint to Leach's attention, and began a dialogue with him about how to address the situation and how to make sure that scenarios like the one described in James' complaint were not replicated. President Guy Bailey and Athletic Director Gerald Meyers produced a detailed and thorough agreement in writing outlining a code of conduct for Leach in how to treat injured players. Leach refused to sign. It is also understood that Leach was instructed to issue an apology to James. Leach, again, refused. Leach was placed on probation from his coaching duties on December 28, merely days before his team was to face Michigan State in the Alamo Bowl. This move effectively barred him from coaching in the game. He and his attorney, Ted Liggett, filed an injunction seeking a temporary restraining order against the university; one that would allow him to resume his coaching duties pending a finalized investigation. The morning of the hearing, Leach and Liggett were informed that Chancellor Kent Hance made the decision to fire Leach regardless of the result of the injunction, citing a player treatment clause in Leach's contract. This very contract, though, makes the timing of this decision dubious at best.

One can easily say that Mike Leach was being pig-headed and obstinate to not simply agree with the conduct terms presented before him. Certainly, a coach should send a player to receive medical evaluations of any injury and to make sure that player's health is not jeopardized. I mean, that seems like a straightforward, self-evident truth. So why not just sign the damn thing and be done with it? This is where principle and perception get right smack-dab in the way of seamless resolution. What message does it send of Mike Leach were to have signed the sheet, issued the apology, and attempted to continue with business as usual? This would seem to say to everyone else involved that he was admitting wrong-doing. Mike "The Pirate" Leach could not abide by that. Whether this is because of the specific player involved is at this point impossible to say. Only Leach knows that. But, it would stand to reason that he had no desire to give a player and his father, whom Leach reportedly viewed as massive pains in his backside, anything whatsoever to smile about.

Furthermore, if it were in fact necessary for Mike Leach to sign this code of conduct, that would give recruiters from other schools ample ammo when trying to throw dirt at Texas Tech. "Their coach is so crazy the school actually had to force him to sign a document declaring he would use common sense and take care of your son!" From a recruiting standpoint, therefore, it became crucial for Leach to try to minimize this as a case of a disgruntled player angry that he couldn't get more playing time on a team loaded with offensive talent.

Players have come out on both sides of the fence on this issue. Some have backed up Adam James' statements, some have vouched for Mike Leach as a coach and friend. Still others just want the entire soap opera to wrap up and melt away so that they may continue with football rather than day time TV. Leach has filed suit against the university for wrongful termination, denying vehemently James' allegations of wrong-doing, and also pointing to the school's financial incentive to fire him when they did.

Leach was more or less forced last year to sign a new contract with the school tying him up and keeping him from shopping for greener pastures in the wake of a fantastic season. Said contract specified that if Leach was still the head coach of Texas Tech by Dec. 31, 2009, he would be owed $800,000 guaranteed money, due immediately. Hance fired Leach right before this date came to fruition. Unattractive coincidence, or primary motive? Any time a school hamstrings any coach into signing a contract, it's bound to leave some chapped hides. When that coach is as bizarre and self-driven as Leach, it's toxic. Everything seems to indicate that the relationship between coach and administration was frayed anyway. It could very well be that the administration took what it saw as a legitimate complaint/concern for student safety as its golden ticket. Or, a cynic might say that the administration would have been just as happy to pay the James family to make these allegations.

In either event, Mike Leach WAS guilty of a few things. He certainly has shown an inability to gracefully pick his battles, and an unwillingness to play the political game. That's the one drawback of making it to the big stage, Coach. You gotta learn to dance.

Oh Captain, my captain, Part 1

Pete Carroll shook up the college football landscape with his decision recently to accept the vacated Seattle Seahawks coaching slot. Reactions have spanned a broad spectrum. Duck fans and Irish fans (ahem) are absolutely elated that a man whose dominance this past decade has seldom been replicated in the history of college football shall torment them no longer. UCLA fans are excited that their slick, morally flexible coach now has the com in recruiting Southern California football talent, since Carroll's strangle hold on west coast recruiting has vanished like a rack of ribs at an o-line training table. SC fans, meanwhile, are either grateful to Carroll for restoring their program to greatness, mourning the death of their comfortable perch atop the Pac 10, or plain irate that Carroll is jumping ship with the program on the verge of getting absolutely SPANKED by the NCAA for a laundry list of recruiting and illegal player benefits violations. They're all justified. Yet, Carroll leaves USC with a lengthy list of players who respected, appreciated, and loved his approach to them.

Though he leaves many of them in the lurch to pursue his own career advancement, the majority of players interviewed thus far don't seem to harbor any resentment toward Pete Carroll, or ill will in his future plans. Conversely, Brian Kelly left Cincinnati for Notre Dame to a melody of hurt feelings and punched locker room walls. It's an impossible dynamic, really. For coaches, this isn't just football. It's a vocation. They must make career decisions, move their families, pursue ambitions; all the while they have to sell recruits and players a dog and pony show about commitment, loyalty, and dedication. It stands to reason some kids feel slighted.

Yet, at the end of this college football season, an entirely different kind of betrayal has become the hot topic. Rather than coaches leaving being the problem, the continual tempestuous presence and behavior of a sequence of notable coaches refusing to walk away quietly has forced some programs to take drastic measures, and causes the football world to take stock of where it stands.

Chuck Mangino's body of work at Kansas University Football is as notable, and his impression on the school's recent football history as seismic, as the rotund man himself. His beady sunglasses set against his bulbous face have been as synonymous with KU football as that androgynous jaybird...thing. His tenure made KU relevant, to a degree, in the Big 12 chase, taking it to the Orange Bowl and consistently compiling winning seasons. Time was football season at KU was regarded as that stupid part of the school year before basketball season where nothing happened. Mangino pulled the program up by the bootstraps. That sort of salvage project must require intensity, toughness, a paucity of compromise, and one hell of an ego....especially if you make it work. And Mangino did. So, it probably shouldn't be TOO surprising that he got a little rough with some players and said and/or did things Bobby Bowden never really had to. Amid allegations that Mangino had become physically and mentally abusive toward his players, Kansas forced him to resign this season, curtailing his tenure with a substantial settlement.

Further south in the Big 12, a much more high-profile coach met a similar fate, festooned with the type of spectacle and hyperbole befitting a man of his, ummm, UNIQUE nature. Mike Leach has been dubbed by many in the college football world as "The Mad Scientist." He's churned out video game stats for qbs like Cliff Kingsbury and Graham Harrell with a wide-open passing attack and an unabashed dismissal of college football convention. He almost had no choice. Texas Tech was historically the kid at the end of the table who never got any meat in its chicken noodle soup. With Texas and Texas A&M being the big wigs in-state, and Oklahoma swooping in to pilfer high school talent, Tech had been an afterthought (along with Baylor) in the Lonestar State. Leach's high-powered offense was a field leveler of a sort. Combine with that Leach's willingness to provide sound bytes to the media, his confirmed bachelorhood, and his bizarre infatuation with pirates (seriously, look into it); and all of a sudden, kids started circling the double T as a possible destination.

Similar to Mangino, Leach's ego ballooned with his program's success, and it is only natural that a football god complex developed. While Alexander wept when he saw the breadth of his kingdom, Leach just got hungrier. And, if you believe his players, he got angry. Leach suspended senior guard Brandon Carter after a loss to Houston early in the season for an unspecified violation of team rules. Carter was a team captain. Leach banned the use of Twitter, wanting to keep a tight lid on in-house business. All these things seem like administrative decisions well within a coach's purview. That tight lid boiled over, however, in December, when redshirt sophomore receiver Adam James and his family, notably ESPN analyst and former college and pro player Craig James, filed a formal complaint with Texas Tech over James' apparent mistreatment at the hands of Leach.

Dedicated to the Memory of Kevin Smith's Lateral Mobility - PART !!!

We then began the mad dash to East Rutherford, NJ to catch the classic NFC East rivalry between the Giants and Eagles. Fun fact, this drive actually sends one through five states. Bonus points if you can name all five. Another fun fact: toll roads are the devil. The ride up to the game spanned approximately three and a half hours, during which time we discussed the free agent possibilities of Ryan’s little brother, Chris G. (#57, OLB, Philadelphia Eagles). We also revisited fun moments in history, like the time one of us got knocked out by his ex girlfriend in college (I won’t say WHO, but his little brother plays OLB for the Eagles); and the time Kurt nearly got arrested for hosing down a police officer while he was in a port-a-potty.

Good news: we had Ryan’s portable GPS system in Van #1. Bad News: we had Ryan, too. Once we were finally able to reconcile those two things, found our hotel near the stadium, and had our fill of the Giants Stadium parking geniuses talking to us like WE were the idiots for not knowing where to park in the middle of an NFL march of the lemmings, we bundled up and prepared ourselves for a cold, bitter night at an old, concrete New York landmark.

Our preparations included, aside from several layers of winter clothing and several applications of liquid insulation, each of us wearing a huge white t-shirt sporting one lime-green character, the whole of us spelling “G$C*NG!” I elected to sport the exclamation point, my logic being that it would be the most universally re-usable shirt out of the bunch. It’s amazing what sounds reasonable to us at times…Ryan also wore his brother’s jersey, which becomes relevant in a moment. We got dropped off on the highway at the entrance to the Meadowlands, with instructions to meet at that spot to get picked up by the hotel after the game. That ALSO becomes relevant later on.

GAME 2: PHILADELPHIA AT NY GIANTS, not that bad. Windy, slight chance of angry Philly ladies.

On our way to the gate, we walked past the new Giants Stadium, to be completed by next season. So far, it looks both opulent and unnecessary with glass encircling it and huge plasma screens surrounding the complex; certainly in stark contrast to the austere, weather-worn façade of Ye Olde Giants Stadium, where LT roamed the field, Mark Bavarro trucked linebackers, and Jimmy Hoffa rests in peace under the 20 yard line. We witnessed the second to last game ever there. Though we had seats in the nose bleeds, Giants Stadium was an amazing place to catch a football game. As one might expect, the fans were maniacally into it, and these two fan bases are informed, to say the least. The energy throughout the stadium was incredible, the house was packed, and the two teams traded heavyweight knockout punches all game long. Chris G. DID make a huge play, forcing a Brandon Jacobs fumble that was returned for a touchdown. Unfortunately, we weren’t there yet. BUT WE HAD THE SHIRTS! We also had $8.50 bottles of Budweiser that they stopped selling midway through the third quarter, but entrepreneurial vendors would still part way with one under the table for $20. Hey, if you can make it here, you’ll make it anywhere.

There are three rules of Ryan G.: 1. Don’t talk about Ryan G. 2. Don’t feed Ryan G. after midnight. 3. Don’t make fun of Ryan G.’s brother in the men’s room. Unfortunately for Ryan (and Taylor), some drunken Giants fan was not informed of rule #3. Toward the end of the 4^th quarter, while Ryan and Taylor were in line in the bathroom, a disgruntled Giants fan noticed the last name on Ryan’s Eagles jersey. After a few choice words about Chris G., said fan found himself thrown up against the wall at the hands of an agitated 6’3” Filipino…right in front of five New York State Troopers dressed to invade Poland. Soooooo, Despite Taylor’s best attempts to separate Ryan from the pride of the Big Apple, the cartoonish troopers kicked them both out of the Meadowlands. (Let’s see bucket list….get…kicked…out of the old Giants Stadium…..CHECK!)

After learning of that little pickle back at our law-abiding seats by means of a text from Ryan that just said “I’m an idiot,” the rest of us enjoyed the waning seconds of an Eagles triumph. I REALLY had to pee, so I went off on my own and told Owen I’d meet them all back at the highway entrance where we were dropped off. My phone was dead. You can guess where this is going. I thought I was lining myself up with the correct stadium gate when I left the stadium and began walking. Funny thing, Giants Stadium. It’s huge. And the parking lot is even bigger. Yes, it didn’t take long for me to realize I was lost. At night. In the Giants Stadium parking lot. Wearing Eagles paraphernalia. With no phone. A 2 mile jog and several confused stops later, I reconnected with Owen and Taylor, neither very impressed or happy. TO RECAP: Eagles 45, Giants 38; Troopers 1, Ryan G. 0; Fender: idiot.

We all finally got back to the hotel, unwound, and watched “Taken,” making me think of my girlfriend’s dad. After a $30 bottle of hotel-furnished Yellow Tail syrah and way too much food, we settled in and bid goodnight to one of the most bizarre and monumental sports weekends we’ve encountered to this point. On the horizon? Who’s to say? Maybe NCAA tournament tour, college bowl game tour….I don’t know if we’ll have enough time.

Whatever we end up doing, it will be well worth it. It will provide us a chance to catch up, trade embarrassing stories, reminisce over even more embarrassing stories, and remember the kind of connection that was forged in terrible-smelling locker rooms, smog-addled practice fields, and sparsely attended college football games. We Were Teammates. We were dumb kids who came from different states with different stories to the same carved out collegiate suburb in the Inland Empire. We ate the same Del Taco and In n Out, we made the same walks to AM PM late at night. Regardless of where we are now and what we do (see roster from #1), we are linked. If we didn’t hate each other after those four years, I don’t think it could ever happen. Cheers, guys.

(Author's note: Ryan butchered the soul of this piece by asking that his last name be removed for professional reasons. I have no room in my literary enterprise for any frivolities such as professional responsibility. Poor form, good sir.)