Thursday, August 8, 2013

Sign Here

TigerBlog was at an intersection this morning when he noticed that the car in front of him had a rather odd bumper-sticker.

It read "Dog Grandma."

TB tried to figure out if that meant the driver was a grandmother who loves dogs in general? Or maybe a woman whose child had a dog that she loves? Or perhaps she loves her grandchild's dog?

Very confusing.

At that exact moment, the Imus In The Morning show on the radio went to the sports with Warner Wolf, who played a clip from the Texas A&M football coach, who basically said that if they wanted to ask him about football he would talk about that but he couldn't take about the Johnny Manziel autograph signing situation.

He came across as a bit terse. And someone who is a tad fed up with Manziel's off-field act.

This seems to be the new way of avoiding a subject, to say that it's something that can't be addressed.

Bill Belichek did it during the Aaron Hernandez training camp press conference. A-Rod did it the other day.

What they're really saying is "I don't want to talk about this." It's not like they're being asked to release the confidential memos the NCAA has sent regarding whatever evidence does or does not exist against Manziel. He's being asked to talk about Manziel.

Is there another question for him right now? Heisman Trophy quarterback hasn't been able to stay out of the spotlight since he won it. Most of it has been harmless 20-year-old stuff, but now he's done something to call his eligibility into question. Worse, if he plays and then is found to have been ineligible, that would be even more problematic.

Oh, and did you hear about what's going on at LSU?

The best running back on the team is named Jeremy Hill, who already was on probation for a statutory rape arrest in high school and who sucker punched a man outside a bar in the spring, leading to assault charges.

Hill plead guilty to a reduced charge Monday and was given no prison time. LSU coach Les Miles then let the team vote on whether or not Hill should be allowed to rejoin them.

Well what did he think they were going to do?

Of course they voted to let him back on.

The unpopular move would have been for the coach to say no, it doesn't matter how good he is, he's forfeited the privilege of playing here. But the coach knows he's his best running back, and hey, he needs to beat Alabama.

By putting it up to a vote, he basically was saying "hey, don't blame me for this." But he's the adult, or supposed to be.

Meanwhile, back at Manziel, the issue is whether or not he got paid for signing autographs. TB has no idea if he really did or not, and that's not the issue here.

If he got paid and there's proof of it, then he will no longer be Texas A&M's quarterback. Pretty simple.

It's not even a matter of whether or not he should be able to get paid for signing autographs, or that the organization that is policing him can profit from him through sales of a Texas A&M No. 2 jersey. Or that A&M can profit from him in dozens of ways without having to give him a cent.

Is there hypocrisy there? On its face, yes.

It doesn't matter, though. These are the NCAA's rules, and a college athlete has to know them and abide by them.

The NCAA rulebook is a long, complex book. There are so many rules in it that are contradictory to common sense, not to mention each other, not to mention their own spirit.

But they are the rules.

Universities, like Princeton and the rest of the Ivy League, spend a lot of time educating coaches and athletes on the rules. It's people's full-time jobs to do so.

And above all that, it's even more the responsibility of the athletes to make sure they understand the rules and abide by them.

Whether or not they make sense, they're the rules today.

Oh, and there's nothing in the rulebook about coaches who shouldn't hide behind their teams and let them vote to do things that seem to be wrong.

But that appears to happen too.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Speaking of car bumper stickers, last April 29, you wrote about a car that you saw which had 13 of those little family decals on the rear window, representing Mom, Dad, six kids, four dogs and one cat. Later, I posted a comment about a yellow Nissan Xterra I followed on which a space existed to the left of Mom, two kids and a dog, the space presumably where Dad had been before the divorce.

Today I was behind a car on which Dad's decal was still in place on the far left, but his head had been scratched off. I don't know what it is about this region of Southwestern Connecticut, but the ex-wives are apparently very bitter -- and not shy about letting you know it.