Haden Too Embarrassed: Kiffin Gone

Yes, I am pleased.  Duh.

I knew this was coming, but I didn't know when.  I thought that a mid-season firing was possible but unlikely.  Honestly, I was surprised when I woke up Sunday morning with a 62 point hangover that first words on my iPad were "Kiffin fired."  If reports are accurate, he was fired in summary fashion- at the airport, pulled off the charter, and not sent back to campus with the team.  Like a mob style hit.  Ouch.  That's what you get for embarrassing the "family".  (The Trojan family)

Previous columns have addressed Kiffin's shortcomings as coach.  Summarized simply, he was a great recruiter but a terrible field marshall.  He constantly buried his face in his play charts instead of leading. And his play calls were generally bad.  Haden was impressed with Kiffin because he had a comprehensive plan for getting through the sanctions.  Which might have worked had been able to win after 2011.

But now is the time to look to the future.  In the short term, we have Ed Ogeron as interim head coach.  This is a perfect temporary replacement.  Ed is well respected by everyone on the sidelines and in the stands.  He bleeds cardinal and gold and has a heart as big as his belly.  The players love playing for him.  And he will actually allow his Offensive Coordinator to call the plays (shocking!).  He might even turn the team around a little.  Who knows.

But short of a miracle run which is not going to happen (no Marquise Lee), Ed will not be the coach next year.  He had his chance at Head Coach in Mississippi and it did not go well.  So Pat Haden has a few months to conduct a search and find a headliner replacement for Kiffin so they can announce it around New Years and get some press coverage during the big bowl games they wont be playing in.  :(

Who's next?

You all know my top choice and I'm not backing down: Steve Sarkesian of Washington.  Seattle locals tell me that he wont be interested in the job since he has something going in Seattle.  Maybe.

The most discussed name in the "legitimate" press (ESPN and Yahoo) is Jack Del Rio, USC grad and defensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos.  I think this one makes sense and has a good chance of happening.  The question mark is that Broncos are on an epic run right now and I am sure Del Rio will want to finish this current season and collect his AFC ring (and possibly a Super Bowl ring).

Online gambling site Bovada even is posting odds on the next USC hire.  Their favorite is Del Rio.  They also like Boise St's Chris Peterson (forget it) and Vanderbilt's James Franklin (maybe).  I keep hearing A&M's coach Kevin Sumlin mentioned, but I cant imagine why he would leave his situation: top program in the state of Texas (yes, Longhorns, I said it), SEC, big money, full stadium, etc.  One fantasy proposal that made me laugh and then made me actually think about is is John Gruden.  (HA!)

Its going to be an interesting few months of negotiations.  But its going to suck on the field.

Fight on,

Hans

Moon Tea

Long time readers of this column know that my favorite topics are a) college football traditions, b) bashing the BCS, and c) weather and the change of seasons.  Since I am writing this by the light of the harvest moon, the week’s episode is firmly focused on the latter. 

The Harvest Moon is the name for the full moon nearest the Autumn equinox (this year on September 22).  It is so named because traditionally it provided light for farmers to continue their harvest well into the night.  If it seems a little brighter or a little more prominent than most full moons, there is a reason for that.  At this time of the year in the northern hemisphere, the elliptical (the path the sun and moon seems to follow through the sky) has a very acute angle with the horizon.  Normally, there is a lag between sunset and the rise of a full moon when everything gets dark.  At the harvest moon, this lag happens to be at a minimum so the full lights the sky as soon as the sun sets.  Earthsky.org, one of my favorite websites, has a great article explaining this. 

As you gaze into the beautiful blue or orange moon rising in the east, it may seem bigger than normal.  Trust me- its not.  This is just an optical illusion; the moon always looks bigger near the horizon.  But the brightness thing is sort of real, all because of the angle of elliptical.  Do you know the special significance of the constellations that lie in the elliptical?  They’re called the zodiac!  Wicked cool, huh?

My daughter and I are fascinated with stuff like astronomy and phenology (the study of animal/plan adaptations to seasonal change, not to be confused with phrenology, the pseudoscience of making judgments about people by their skull shape).  This week, as an experiment, we decided to make moon tea.  What’s moon tea?  You’ve heard of sun tea; leaving out a jar of water with tea bags in the hot sun and waiting for it to cook into tea.  Well, moon tea is the same idea, but instead of the sun’s rays heating the water, you allow the magical silvery moonlight to infuse the tea with its mystical energy. 

Ok, now I’ve lost some of you.  Lets give it some context.

My daughter loves JK Rowling and JRR Tolkien almost as much as I do.  Her favorite films are by the famed Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, especially My Neighbor Totoro.  So when I told her we would try to use the power of the full moon to capture some magic in the water, she was bouncing off the walls with excitement. 

So we tried a little experiment.  We bought three clear jars and added water.  The first we labeled 0% and kept in a closet away from any light.  The second we labeled 50% and exposed to a half moon last week for a night.  And the third with “100%” sits outside in the glory of the Harvest moon.  Then we will conduct a taste test to see if the full moon’s team has absorbed more power than the others.  (spoiler alert: thanks to the placebo effect, it will).

I know what you’re thinking.  Hans, that’s not science.  This trial should be double blinded instead of labeled and it should be conducted in multiple sites to minimize measurement bias.  And you’re right.  Why do you think I am describing my material and methods to a friendly band of colleagues stretching from the Philippines to Sweden (yes, the Underdog Contest is international!).  You can repeat my experiment and confirm my findings.

And what are my findings?  That I have a happy little girl who still believes in magic. 

Back to the magic of the gridiron next week.

Fight on,

Hans

PS: The friendly people at Fresno State will be collecting donations at the Colorado-Boise State game this week.  Very cool.  Please give to the Red Cross to help.

Going Pro

I’m sorry I haven't written in a while but I've been very busy.  I look forward to getting back on track with the weekly blog; there is so much to say this season and we are only two weeks in. 

By far the most anticipated matchup of the year gets underway this weekend when the Texas A&M Aggies host National Champion Alabama Crimson Tide.  September 14th has been circled on the calendars for both of these teams since the Aggies upset the Tide in Tuscaloosa last year. There are so many storylines here: Alabama celebrity coach Nick Sabin complaining about up tempo offenses and lobbying for rules changes, the Game Day crew visiting College Station, and the Aggies being a factor in the SEC conference race in only in their second year.

But the one storyline we could never get away from all spring and summer long was the continuing saga of Johnny "Football" Manziel. (by the way, I dictated this essay into my iPhone and the obviously self-serving device autocorrects Johnny Football to Jony Ive!  If you understood that joke consider yourself a total Apple nerd!). From Johnny Football at the casino to Johnny Football tweeting to Johnny Football ditching the Manning family Academy

, we never heard the end of it.  And with torrid detail, the media kept yearning for more.  To these off-season hijinks I say good riddance and I am happy to get back to watching him play. 

But there is one Johnny Football story from the summer that is worthy of further discussion: the now infamous incident of signing memorabilia.  Manziel was punished and suspended for one half of the Rice game for not doing everything he could to prevent someone from profiting from his likeness.  NCAA athletes are not permitted to profit from their likeness this by selling T-shirts, signing footballs for money, trading signatures for tattoos, etc.  When the story broke about Manziel and other big-name college football athletes signing memorabilia for profit in Miami in January, Yahoo’s Dr. Saturday blog pointed out that the NCAA was selling jerseys of Manziel and other star players on their website.  The site allowed you to search for a jersey by the player’s last name.  Immediately after this was publicized the NCAA removed that search function and later removed the shirts for sale from the website. 

Until the NCAA was exposed for their blatant hypocrisy, it felt free to profit from the player’s likeness while restricting the players to do the same.  Which then begs the important question, who owns the player’s identity?  The universities who provide a free education?  The NCAA who attempt to regulate the administration of college sports?  The alumni boosters who pay for shiny new stadiums and state of the art workout facilities?

Uh, no.

The players who are 18 or older own their own likeness.  Period.  And right now, the class action lawsuit led by UCLA grad Ed O’bannon lawsuit seeks to hold the NCAA accountable to that standard.  Judging by the reaction of the NCAA, this case has real merit.  In the past few months, they closed their on-line store and ended their license agreement with EA Sport’s video game (as did the SEC).  At a recent conference I attended on Sports and Society, half of the presenters made some reference to the O’Bannon lawsuit and the changes it may bring to the game. 

So where do we go from here?

Until the O’Bannon suit runs its course, the NCAA is welcome to continue its charade of maintaining the spirit of amateurism.  And, perhaps in the spirit of fairness, there is some value in all students playing by same rules, from Johnny Manziel to the 3^rd rower on the women’s crew team.  My brother Kurt posted some very well-written articles supporting amateurism and make a cogent argument against paying college athletes.  I prefer to think of it this way: if you decide to pay your stars because they sell tickets and merchandise, how will you stop with the quarterback?  Then you will pay the offensive lineman who will never play a day in the pros.  And since Title IX clearly requires equal treatment, payments will be extended to an equivalent number of female athletes, etc. 

See how this gets messy?  A full ride scholarship at a major university is ample compensation for every athlete’s time, whether they are prepping for a career in the NFL, training for the 2016 Rio Olympics, or those who go pro in something other than sports.

But speaking of Olympics, there is another option- the so-called “Olympic Model”.  Don’t pay the athletes.  But allow them to use their own talents and ingenuity to sell themselves if they so desire.  We don’t restrict non-athletes from running a hot dog stand on campus, why should athletes be denied free enterprise?  If softball pitching superstar Jenny Finch can get some money for endorsing a softball glove, good for her.  And that third rower on the crew team might be a complete unknown to us but she’s a big celebrity in her hometown of Ottumwa, Iowa.  And if Johnny Manziel wants to take a little money for signing some footballs, so be it. 

Fight On,

Hans

PS.  I did not address the latest growing paid-athlete scandal in the SEC; I will watch that story as it unfolds and comment in the near future.  Also, yes, its true, Lane Kiffin sucks.