How the Ball State AD Stole Christmas

Merely weeks ago, college football fans—myself included—were up in arms that the athletic director at undefeated MAC power Ball State was refusing to allow his team meet Boise State, also undefeated, in a bowl game citing “prior responsibilities to bowl partners” of the conference. This just became one in a long line of college football postseason (or lack thereof) travesties. The two best teams not to make a BCS bowl to play in a normally meaningless bowl game? This would have made too much sense.

And the college football fans of America were furious. Clearly the business interests of the Ball State athletic department became more important than giving the fans the best game possible.
Fast forward a few weeks. Ball State, amidst all the discussion of missing out on a chance for a mini national championship, didn’t show up to the MAC Championship game and got blown out by Buffalo(?). Turner Gill cried and briefly epitomized the black man’s plight in the South while remarkably being denied the Auburn job in favor of 5-13 Gene Chiznik.

The San Diego County Credit Union Loaded Potato Soup and Crackers Poinsettia Bowl went on smoothly. The game managed to draw TCU, which was probably the second-best team not in a BCS bowl. And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say that TCU’s small heart grew three sizes that day. And then the true meaning of Christmas came through, and TCU found the strength of ten TCUs plus two.

Or was it that Boise State was still feeling the snub and realized that, no matter how much those annoying ESPN commercials tried to convince them otherwise, the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl is NOT the game they have looked forward to and played for all year?
The actual truth may be somewhere in between. Either way the fans got to see a good game as TCU squeaked out a 17-16 victory, but it wasn’t the game we wanted. The athletic departments that run the NCAA bought themselves one more year of justifying the bowl system while we can do nothing but wait until March to watch an actually fulfilling postseason.

I agree with Rob.

Here are two undisputable facts: (1) the Detroit Lions, coached by Rod Marinelli are 0-15 and are historically awful, even for a franchise that is historically bad and (2) Rob Parker is a columnist for the Detroit News.
My feeling has always been that if you can’t laugh at yourself then you have no business complaining about anything. The worst thing someone can do in this world is take themselves too seriously.
Now, I do not know Rob Parker. I have no idea what kind of person he is. I also do not know anyone can speak on his behalf. He could be a huge jerk that kicks kittens or he could be the guy shoveling out soup at the neighborhood homeless kitchen.
What I do know is that Terry Bradshaw thinks Parker is “an idiot” (which is funny because Bradshaw may or not be one himself, but he certainly plays one on television) and that Michael Strahan wants him fired.
(On a side note, normally I would get terrifically angry when a multi-millionaire who works a few days a week calls for the firing of someone who makes significantly less than him/her merely on principle, but I have no idea how much Parker makes and since he is on ESPN occasionally, I’ll assume he isn’t pulling some shabby paycheck.)
What did Parker do to incite so much anger among the football minds? Well, during a press conference with Marinelli, Parker asked:

"On a light note, seriously, do you wish your daughter had married a better
defensive coordinator?”

Oh yeah, Marinelli’s son-in-law is the defensive coordinator. Hmmm….
It isn’t only the Sunday morning talking heads that have taken issue with Rob Parker. Chris Chase, a Yahoo! Sports writer has a condescending article up airing out his grievances with Parker. This article has 931 comments as of right now, and after reading about 30 of them, I think it is safe to assume that over 90% of them are all helping Chase hold Parker under the bus.
I can sort of understand why Bradshaw and Strahan, former players, can take issue with some joke a journalist cracked at the expense of the coach…but as for Chase…it just doesn’t make sense.
It seems to me Parker was making a light-hearted joke in the midst of an 0-15 going on 0-16 season. I’m sorry Marinelli can’t get his shit together, but he did appoint his son-in-law second in command and his team is crapawful. Marinelli gets paid a lot of money to excel at nothing. I think a joke at his expense is occasionally in order.
Journalists these days seem to think the only way to save the profession is by weeding out the bad ones and distancing themselves as far from them as possible. As soon as public opinion of Parker was swayed by Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dumber on FOX, then people, like Chase, started lining up to show their disapproval.
I mean…what else is Parker supposed to ask? Coach, do you think Daunte Culpepper is the long-term answer at QB? How nice is it to have Calvin Johnson scoring meaningless touchdowns? Is this a 2-14, 3-13 team with Charles Rogers still in the lineup? How do you feel about the Iverson acquisition?

A few interesting unrelated reads...

Stop blaming bad journalism for the downfall of the industry...wait...what?


And here is a little romantic social commentary.
I'd like to point out one of the comments at the bottom of the page:

"I had a boyfriend unexpectedly fly across the country to be with me on
V-day, without telling me. He planned the whole thing in romantic-movie style.
I dumped him a month later."

I am neither in the mood nor do I find it appropriate to point out all the angrily glaring issues that any slightly moral person would have with this little anecdote (especially as it coincides with the article). The anger should not be directed so much at the commenter, but that this behavior isn't totally surprising. Men will continue to go at great lengths to satisfy every romantic sense they think a woman will have, only to have those efforts thrown in their face and laughed out the door (not all the time, but often enough for it to be discouraging). Obviously there are extenuating circumstances that remain to be scene with this story, but it is more the principle of it all.

At any rate, I will stop arguing against "them" and "society" for making us all horrible people. Sports are the only chance we've got to maintain any sort of optimism in the world.