Huskies are like jilted lovers, they need to let go and move on

by bruinmike88 on Jan 28, 2008 5:07 PM PST Comment 11 comments

The Seattle Times still can't let go of Rick Neuheisel. They're writing a series of articles about the legal problems that plagued the 2000 Rose Bowl winning 11-1 UW team. In doing so, they do their best to put a vicious spin on UCLA's hiring of Coach Neuheisel. They write:

When Turner resigned in December, he lamented how the average fan cares only about wins and losses. "Have I been naive all this period of time? Have I spent all my time working on the student-athlete experience and trying to create better lives for people and our proper place in education, when all I should have been worried about was how many games we won?"

Less than three weeks later, UCLA hired Neuheisel to be its head coach. UCLA's athletic director, Dan Guerrero, said the school was concerned about Neuheisel's history of NCAA violations but figured that was in his past. More relevant was Neuheisel's 66-30 record.

"In the end," Guerrero said, "it was all about 66 collegiate wins."

That first quote is almost Streeter-esque, the kind of thing the Dorrellistas lived for. But that's neither here nor there. The point is, this investigation is rather comprehensive and does show that the program was out of control, but what freaking purpose does it serve to do this eight years after the fact? Seems like the Puppy media is scared that their boy Ty is going to be run out of town by nostalgic fans and are trying to support their boy. For his part, Rick has said this is his dream job and he wouldn't do anything to tarnish UCLA and I believe him. This is just utterly pointless nonsense.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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RN and UCLA HC job

I want RN to win and win big. In order to do that, he will need to be aggressive and I will gladly accept his efforts to further the stature of the UCLA football program for the long term.
I believe the institutional controls at UCLA are probably pretty good, but if push comes to shove, as long as his athletes are making progress in the classrooms, and making progress toward graduation, and he wins, that is the bottom line. DG believes he can do it at UCLA, and I believe he can too.
Bill

BillSouthBay

by Mensgym on Jan 28, 2008 5:28 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

I disagree

While I'm definitely no Dorrellista and my UCLA football passion bucket is currently full with the giddy thought of CRN leading us to the promise land, I do think the story does indeed have relevance even in today.

Assuming the story as told by the reporter is true (in which I'm leaning toward believing), what happened is an absolute disgrace to Stevens, UW, CRN, and the prosecutor office. There should be NO place for that in UCLA!! Stevens is still having a lucrative NFL career while the poor freshmen girl never received her fair share of justice.

These are the things we are so despised of the Trojans and I hope CRN is indeed a changed man and DG/AD/CRN will take every measure to prevent any sort of embarassment of this kind to our beloved school.

If someone is guilty of a crime (or even has a history of getting in trouble... where there is smoke, there is fire) I don't mind suspending a star player even if it means losing an extra game or so. That is what makes us different from those crooked trojans. We can win with the utmost integrity. If Howland can do it, we need to expect the same from CRN.

Go Bruins!!!

by HK Bruin on Jan 28, 2008 6:39 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Been waiting for this story to get mentioned here

Attacking the motives of the reporter is a pretty shabby thing to do. So far, it's been a good example of how a program can spin out of control, and should hopefully remind college administrators and law enforcement about how NOT to handle college athletes.

Having read the first two chapters, while it's obvious that CRN and his staff (including Dorrell!) recruited some bad apples and didn't do a great job of watching over them, so far there hasn't been anything particularly damning of CRN himself. Mostly, it makes the local police and prosecutor's office look like they were the ones who didn't do their jobs properly, and were interested in sweeping everything under the rug.

"We play some ball on the West Coast."

by haoledave on Jan 28, 2008 7:27 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

What?

"Attacking the motives of the reporter is a pretty shabby thing to do"

Are you sure? So, I'm supposed to take everything in print or media as just reporting the "truth". Come on now....We all know that there is always a motive behind these types of articles. For the record, it isn't shabby, it's having an independant mind and not taking things for face value.

by BlueReign on Jan 28, 2008 10:27 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Hmm

I'd look into those stories carefully and analyze some of those players were recruited by CRN, how many were left by Lambwright, and what was the character of UDub program before CRN got there. In any event, those events took place almost a decade ago. And CRN is under our watch now.

by Nestor on Jan 29, 2008 4:37 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

They were Lambright recruits

I already read the series. They don't focus mostly on Neuheisel but on the players themselves.

What they did was horrible and descipable. Indefensible.

But they were there before Neuheisel was. Neuheisel deserves some blame for not doing more to keep the three players they've written about in check -- but not all of the blame.

by gilbert on Jan 29, 2008 11:20 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Yes,

RN should have done more. He should have been better than than that, or else he should have stepped away.

If you look for someone in authority who was more blameworthy than Neuheisel, look to his boss, Ms. Hedges. All that happened before RN and after RN under her "watch" is hers.

She was our Dan Guerrero. If DG permitted the kind of rampant law-breaking, of both legal laws and societal "laws," that is described in these articles, I don't think there would be a single member of this Bruins community who wouldn't be all over his ass. Not a conscientious one, anyway.

by Bruinut on Jan 29, 2008 6:32 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

The motives of the reporter

Haole, I think the motives of the reporter are critically important. When you read a story about a political creature, do you think that the person reporting the story is totally objective?

Or closer to home, if you don't examine the motives of the reporter and if you can't attack them when necessary, it means that stuff like the Streeter articles and blogs (which called UCLA a racist institution) are left unchallenged. And stuff like that needs to be challenged.

I want to see the cesspool over at Figueroa cleaned up. Do I have a motive? Sure - it's simple justice. Am I objective? Absolutely. But some of the rich kids over at justsc would probably disagree (if they could find someone to explain what the big words mean).

One clarification, too. Pointing out the motives of the reporter might be perceived as an "attack." If your motive is the same as that of the reporter, then you would perceive that sort of explanation as an attack. But in either event, questioning the bias of the the reporter should result in more truly objective stories, but it won't happen. Nothing will change certain institutional biases, in my opinion. So we're left with outsiders to make sure that the motives and biases are explained.

by Fox 71 on Jan 29, 2008 5:05 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Reporting and news pegs

The term of art in journalism for why a series of stories like the Seattle Times' runs is news "peg" - as in, what is this 8-year-old story hanging on? What makes an old story relevant for readers today? Personally, I really don't know (not having read it) but I doubt if it was solely the reporter's bias that this story is hanging on, since he had to convince his editors that the story's timing made news. Still, the timing seems curious.

by davidbrad65 on Jan 29, 2008 9:19 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

I wouldn't use editors as paragons of wisdom

Some imbecile gave Streeter the green light rather than the blue pencil on his alleged article about racism being why CTS was under scrutiny. That was a stupid decision. I don't think the "peg" up in UW country is anything but sour grapes and a move forward on the agenda re public money for renovating Husky Stadium.

by Fox 71 on Jan 29, 2008 10:26 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I agree - newspaper editors are dumb

I never meant to imply that editors somehow possessed wisdom. Far from it. Having worked for newspapers for more than 10 years (but no longer) I know for a fact the editors are (in general) clueless PC-driven sycophants. My intent was to defend the honor of my fellow lowly scribes, who have to work for these imbeciles.

by davidbrad65 on Jan 30, 2008 5:31 PM PST reply actions 0 recs