Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

Players, Not Officials, Should Determine Outcomes.

A while back, I coined the acronym SPTR to save us all some typing strokes during the game day threads. The need for an acronym was a statement about the poor quality of the Pac Ten Ref's and a testament to the fact that they were making so many bad calls that we needed a shorthand rule to comment. (Last night, I heard commentators say it was a Pac 10 ref who made the call and that the Pac 10 official in charge of ref's said it was the correct call. Even if it was not a Pac 10 call, I still think it important to make a statement about the rules in sport and those who enforce them.)

Yesterday, was but another egregious example of  ineptitude.

The call in the UW may have changed the game. I say "may" because we will never know. But, we do know that it changed the emotional energy of the moment and made the kick more difficult. And, it cast a shadow over an incredible day by an incredible player. What should have been a day of good memories will not be. All because a Pac 10 official did not have the judgment to properly apply a rule in the context of the game.

The call was simply bad. But, the Pac 10 explanation, after the game, was worse.

"We were simply following the rules".

And, therein lies the problem. It is not simple to follow rules. Rules are applied. They are not "followed". Rules have no meaning until an official uses JUDGMENT -- looks at the PURPOSE of the rule and the CONTEXT  or situation, and determines how to apply it to bring about a fair and just result.

Yesterday's call, and the post game excuses show a total misunderstanding of the role of rules in sport and life, and indicate that those we have chosen to apply them in the Pac 10 lack the basic judgment to do so.

I am not a fan of the "excessive celebration" rules. How can you not celebrate a great moment like  yesterday's? These are college kids. Part of what we learn in college is to celebrate life -- be it in learning, art, music, literature, sport and .....

But, the excessive celebration rule is on the books. And, if it is on the books, it should be applied. But, the rule must be applied in a way that furthers its purpose.

So, let's look at the rule. I think we will all agree that the purpose is not to take the joy out of achievement. The rule does not prohibit ALL celebrations. Just those that are excessive.

And, excessive has no inherent, empirical standard.

To apply this rule, one must have judgment. And, to apply that judgment one must understand the PURPOSE of the rule.

There appear to be two purposes for the rule. The first is to eliminate "taunting" -- the practice of trying to humiliate one's opponent. I think this is a valid reason for the rule.

The second seems to be to make sure that games are not needlessly delayed and momentum is not shifted by a long celebration.

Neither of these purposes for the  rule were furthered by  yesterday's ruling. Said another way, in the context of Locker's celebration, the rule was not applied correctly.

Throwing the flag showed terrible judgment.

He did not taunt anyone. In fact, he flipped the ball into the air so he could use both arms to hug his mates. There wasn't a BYU player in the area. This was not an "in your face" throwing of a ball at an opponent.

And, it did not delay the game. 

The "delay issue" is where the Pac 10 justification gets truly ridiculous. By focusing on how "high" the ball was thrown into the air, and talking about delay, they make fools of themselves. How much longer is a game delayed because a ball is thrown maybe 10 feet into the air instead of 2? If the ball had been placed down in the corner of the end zone with the tip pointing north, the celebration would have lasted just as long.

In their justifications for the call, yesterday, the Pac 10 said that Locker threw the ball "too high" into the air -- whatever that means. 

In doing so, they did not explain what "too high" was. Because they can't. In the context of this rule, too high is not an empirical distance -- something that can be measured. We don't have a set of chains for "too high", and if we did, the spot would be impossible.

In the context of the moment, "too high" meant (1) did the flip of the ball taunt or humiliate and opponent? or (2) did it delay the game.

Anyone with an ounce of judgment would have answered "No" to both questions and would have left his hanky in his pocket.

Why this long rant about a call that affected a team that I do not care about? 

I care about fairness. One week it will be UW, another it will be us.

We watch sports to see the athletes and teams. Not the officials. They are there to even the playing field, not tilt it. It is about the game, not the ref's.

And, from their perspective, it is about understanding the rules, knowing their purposes, and using sound judgment to apply them properly in the given context.

If they do not have the judgment to do so, they should not be on the field.

Rant over.

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

What's the difference between where we were a year ago and where we are, today? 

After reading the reports of the scrimmage, which were not glowing, I find that I am still excited about the start of FB season. Yes, we have obvious problems, but still ... I can't shake the feeling that we will be better than expected, that even though we will be a "work in progress" we will "turn the corner".

For the last several years, those phrases were hollow. I hated hearing them. This year, I actually believe them -- although I'm glad I'm not hearing them from the coaches.

And, that's the difference. I have confidence in our coaches and players. We will play harder, play smarter, and play to win. And, win or lose, I look forward to that

What a difference from last year.

Last year we were predicted to be great. This year we are predicted to be mediocre at best. 

Yes, last year the pundits were predicting great things like going into the sc game undefeated. This year they are predicting some pretty bad things. 

Yet, how many of us were more optimistic about last year than we are about this year? Not me. No matter how many returning starters we had, we all knew our coaches would screw it up. And, they did.

This year, we're being told that we have little talent, a very thin O line, no QB's of distinction, and have had too many serious injuries for a thin team to overcome.

Yet, I do not despair. This coaching staff will get more out of less. (Last year's got less out of more.)

Bottom Line: For the first time in several years, I'm looking forward to the season. I'm looking forward to watching games with enthusiasm not fear or dread. I'm looking forward to the Sunday news and to the commentary here.

Bring it on. I can't wait.

sjh

PS. A couple of other things I think are different:

First, I think the press is being far more honest and critical about what it is seeing on our practice fields and scrimmages. I think CTS had a Teflon shield. Certain commentators (I can't bring myself to call them reporters) treated him like the King with no clothes. They didn't do CTS any favors. Those who believed the reports expected much more from CTS than we knew he could deliver.

Second, the sound bites coming from the players make clear that they understand that the new staff has high expectations for them and that they want to meet them. Last year, players said so many trite things you just couldn't take them seriously.

Third, these coaches are far more articulate and honest. They speak in complete sentences -- they don't hide behind weird sound bites. They admit problems and when they tell us they will solve them, I believe it.

Finally, I like the way these coaches approach the players. They seem direct and honest. I can't see them throwing their players under the bus. And, I think these players understand that their coaches are stand up guys. I think the players respect the coaches and will want to do their best for them.

It's going to be a good year.

A Refreshing Alternative to the "It's all about me" athletes.

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Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

Tying Together Themes in Many Other Posts.

Rather than leave comments in several threads, I thought I’d write a specific post dedicated to a concern we all have – that we will lose CBH to another job, most likely to the NBA.

I do not think this fear is unfounded.

If I were a GM looking for a new head coach, CBH would certainly be on my short list. 

Why? It’s obvious to us. He is a winner. He is a turn around expert. He is a great teacher.

Our 3 straight Final Fours and the incredible success of CBH’s players in the NBA and the recent draft are only making the light on him shine brighter.

The game of basketball, both college and professional, is being transformed to one in which DEFENSE is the foundation upon which success is built. No one coaches defense better than CBH.

It’s not that CBH puts the “x’s” and “o’s” in the right place. Others can do that. What I find so impressive is that he gets his players to buy into a selfless style of team play that starts with shut down D. He gets them to take pride in their D.

He will certainly get offers. So, the key is to figure out what we need to do to make sure he turns them down.

Many think we have a strong position with CBH because this is his “dream job”. 

But, having spent a good part of my life as an academic, I can tell you categorically that the university culture has a way of turning “dream jobs” into nightmares. 

We must make sure that does not happen with CBH.

Nothing does more to sour a dream than to feel that you are being taken for granted. I cannot tell you how many great professors leave for other pastures because they do not feel appreciated by the bureaucracy that runs he university. It often happens that the most “loyal” entrenched faculty receive the least positive reinforcement. Attention is often paid to the less loyal, the professors with the roving eyes who are constantly soliciting other jobs and threatening to leave; this is a well known academic dance – “Give me what I want because if you don’t I’ll go to “X” because they will give it to me.” Or, attention is paid to the “next new hire”. 

The most loyal, those who do not threaten to leave, those who are looked upon as “secure”, often get so fed up they just bolt. And, then the administrations lament – “I’m so surprised, he always said this was his ‘dream’ job.”

On a university campus, the problem is one of finite resources. There simply is not enough money to give everyone what they think they need or what they want.

Often, in academic departments, the fights are over stupid things – like parking and office space. I call it the politics of scarcity. There is so little real stuff to fight over that, in order to stroke ego, faculty fight over stupid things. Professors are not Zen masters.

Finally, many who get fed up with the academic world and “bolt” go to the private sector. I did it and have never been sorry. I’ve been able to do more and better work with much better support and less interference. 

What does this have to do with CBH? 

He works in an academic environment – one whose culture applies to athletics as well as academics. 

For a coach, the NBA is the private sector – an environment with better resources and greater freedom.

My greatest fear is that CBH, in the next few years, will feel taken for granted, not feel supported or tire of being ground down by the academic atmosphere.

We have to be vigilant – to make sure that he is not taken for granted, to make sure that the new hires don’t get a priority on what they need or want.

We need to make sure that he is always the best paid coach in the conference and one of the highest paid coaches in the nation. We’ve had no indication that CBH is a mercenary. But, money is important both for what it buys and for what is symbolizes. It is one way to tell CBH how important he is.

And, there are the intangibles. The things that send a clear message. 

Perhaps the most important “intangible” is the renovation of Pauley. There have been extremely strong posts on BN dealing with this topic. I’ll not repeat them. Symbolically, this project makes a statement to our tradition, Coach, and our future, CBH. Bogging it down in an academic bureaucracy causes the type of frustration that drives faculty to greener pastures. 

Taking care of his assistants, giving him whatever help he needs in recruiting, putting him in a place to showcase his teams, the university and himself – those are the things we need to do to make CBH feel the love and support the UCLA community has for him. 

If we want him to stay for life, we have to make sure his job is so great that he wants to stay for life.

sjh

PS. It is very possible that CBH doesn’t care about any of this. If that’s so, please allow me to channel Emily Litella – “Never mind.”

Bumped. We just inserted a little expert testimony on LMR's behalf. GO BRUINS. -N

I think many of us who watched the Celtics play Ben Ball, and the Lakers play soft ball knew exactly what the Lakers were missing -- Lorenzo Mata Real.

Today, it seems that Phil Jackson sees the need and hopefully he will see the player who can fill it. 

The only missing part that I've always consistently said is we need a head banger, we need a tough guy on this team.

LMR is that, and much more. LMR is a total team player. LMR always plays hard. LMR doesn't step away and reach in, he takes charges.  He is the antithesis of the soft "Hollywood" player:

I'm really surprised that everyone seems him going to foreign soil to play. Surely, there are teams that value what he brings -- and one of them should be the Lakers. 

I know he won't be drafted, but if I were the Lakers, I'd call him in for a walk on try out, or whatever they call it.

From this morning's Houston Chronicle:

Former Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson spent eight hours in a closed-door hearing before an NCAA panel in Seattle that will determine whether he violated NCAA recruiting rules.

As you may recall, Sampson was fired by Indiana, on the spot, because he made around 100 recruiting phone calls that allegedly violate NCAA rules, and was not forthright about having done so. 

Let's see -- phone calls v. Mayo. Phone calls v. Bushgate. Yeah, it makes sense, an 8 hour closed-door-hearing for Sampson and Indiana and, as they say about sc during the BB half-time hoop contest, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

My sense is that both Sampson and Indiana cooperated with the NCAA. It's clear that Garrett, Timmeh, Peetey and sc will not.

This is not earth shaking. It just reinforced my feeling that the NCAA is not a legitimate force for good in the college sports world.

sjh

I know this is not worthy of a "fanpost". I wanted to put it up as a "fanshot" but could not figure out how to place the quote and still have a bit of room for commentary. If someone could help me out with this you'll be spared this type of post.

Kelley Inouye Perez Brings Back Bad Memories

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Warning: This is a Rant, a personal Editorial, devoid of fact and full of emotion. You may not want to read it.

For the last week, I've tried to figure out what upset me so much about the OJ2 scandal. I was deeply disappointed because, against all odds, toward the end of the year I started liking OJ2.

What follows is what I came up with -- my reasons for being upset.

Continue reading this post »

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

From the same Duarte article I blogged on below :

Q: Have you been frustrated by the tone of coverage in the O.J. Mayo case? (Mayo, who is entering the NBA after one season at USC, is said to have received cash and other impro-
per gifts from a promoter with whom he has since signed.)

A: I understand the provocative nature of those kinds of cases and the interest of the public in it. I think the part I don't like and find frustrating is that the next step to generalizing is, "Oh, that shows there's something wrong with men's basketball."

So let's see if I get this one right -- the problem is the "provocative nature" of those cases and the public's interest in them? Not the underlying facts and the fact that sc continues to cheat and the NCAA is making a mockery of its status and rules by not enforcing them.

When asked by another Chronicle columnist, Jerome Solomon, why the NCAA, which has an enforcement division staffed to people who have been prosecutors, doesn't go after more of these violators, Brand said something like "People go to prison for robbing banks, yet people keep robbing banks."

So, might as well look away?

I don't think so. The values that underly our criminal justice system also underly the prosecution of NCAA violations. Why do we enforce laws like those that protect banks -- even though people still rob banks?

The underlying policy values are simple:

1. Deterrence: We believe that if people know they run the risk of being punished, they will refrain from doing bad things. There is a corollary to this: Bad people, if they think they can get away, unpunished, will commit bad acts.
2. Retribution: Retribution is an odd value -- some see it as making people feel better to see wrong doers suffer and others see it as essential to allowing the convict to "pay" the price of his bad acts to reinforce the fact that he did wrong.
3. Isolation: When people do bad enough things, they are taken out of society -- both to protect us from them and to make a clear statement that their behavior does not fit our norms. 
4. Rehabilitation: In the criminal justice system, there is more punishment than rehabilitation. In an ideal system, a person would come out of prison a better person rather than a better convict.
5. Making Our Standards Clear: Enforcement is critical to letting society know that these are our rules and that we take them seriously. Winking and nodding diminishes respect for authority.

All of these values apply to what is going on at sc. I've never heard a criminal prosecutor say "I won't prosecute bank robberies because people will continue to rob banks."

Yet, Miles Brand continues to look the other way on Bushgate and OJII (not to mention the criminal docket amassed by sc in the past few years.)

Sorry, Miles, you cannot justify not going after sc on the grounds that "schools will continue to cheat". By not prosecuting, you are undercutting the policy values that we, as a society, have adopted in support of prosecutions of all kind.

Finally, maybe I'm taking this all too seriously. But, I can't stand when people make statements that rationalize the failure to act using arguments like "it won't do any good" or "everyone is doing bad things, anyway".

By not acting, the NCAA is punishing the programs who take the 350 page manual seriously.

I, for one, have no respect for the NCAA. I'd not shed a tear if someone figured a way to take the honest schools and form another organization. In my mind, I believe the good schools far outweigh the bad and that a competitive group would render the NCAA meaningless.
sjh

PS. I think I've got it. Decided to do 2 long FanPosts to see if I could handle the new formatting. I'm most of the way there.

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

NCAA President Miles Brand is in Houston and was interviewed by Houston Chronicle Reporter Joseph Duarte. Click here  for the entire interview.

Q: What do you think about the one-and-done rule that allows athletes to play a year of college basketball before leaving for the NBA?

A: We need to keep in my mind that the NCAA itself has nothing to do with the basketball one-and-done rule. That's all negotiated between the NBA and the players' association. Some may argue there's something wrong with the one-and-done rule, namely just having to be in school one year. I see it in a very different way. If you look at the whole situation, it's actually a help to education. Young men now have to prepare themselves in high school in order to go to college and be eligible to play in college in order to move on to the NBA if they think they are good enough. They are getting a better education in high school. They are more prepared to enter college and become eligible in college. Even for those (13 one-and-done student-athletes who have declared for next month's NBA draft), they've still been exposed in the classroom to higher education, and many of them will come back to complete their degree.

Sorry, I don't buy it. The NCAA a victim of the NBA? I don't think so. I think the NCAA is complicit with the NBA in allowing a system that is neither good for student athletes nor academic sports programs.

One premise is that high school players take their high school studies more seriously because they know they will have to get into a college to play the year before they turn pro. That would be true if all universities had "real" academic standards; but, we know most of them don't. 

And, then there's the one year of exposure beats no exposure rationale -- quickly followed by the "many" of them come back to graduate.

I want to see the empirical evidence of the class load, degree of difficulty, attendance and grades of the 13 one-and-dones from this year. I'll bet many larded up on Senora Rosa type classes, barely attended, and did not earn sufficiently legitimate grades to justify Mile's statement that they benefited from the educational experience.

And, under that rationale, two years would be even better for them -- and keep the system honest because they would not be able to play the second year if they did not pass their coursework.

Finally, I want to know how many one-and-dones have come back to complete their degrees.

The NCAA should have the empirical data to answer these questions. if Miles wants to make his case -- he should give us more than opinions. He should give us facts.

Yes, I know that my criticism will fall on hostile ears -- after all, we benefited from a magnificent one-and-done who by all reports proved himself in the classroom and community as well as on the hardwoods. But, Kevin Love was not typical. I believe him when he says he will be back to graduate. But, I wouldn't believe OJ2 if he swore his intention to return any more than I believed that OJ1 would not stop looking until he found the killers.

I think the NBA should either let kids in, right away, or create a one year farm league for them. Pay them and let them play. That's the sc model. And, I believe the NCAA should have enough clout to force a 2 year rule. 

The NCAA wants to argue that it cannot control a student who enrolls, plays a year and then leaves. A 2 year rule would be easily subverted.

That's a bit disingenuous. Coaches who want to know whether a player will be a one-and-done know what questions to ask. And, they also know how to follow their kids in class to make sure they are taking a real load and attending. At this time, other than "honor" there is not much of a reason for a team to try to avoid one-and-dones.

Another approach would be to allow a team one one-and-done a every 3 years -- with a sanction if the school deliberately or inadvertently has more.

Bottom Line: The NCAA is not a victim. It is a perpetrator.

Disclaimer: I know there are many thoughtful people here who favor the one-and-done rule, who see college sports as "professional education" and who believe it is OK to take a university's resources -- a spot in the freshman class -- for one who simply wants to avoid the black hole of inactivity between high school and the NBA.

I respectfully disagree with your arguments as I'm sure you do mine. I've never viewed the mission of a great university to be turning out professional athletes. But, then again, I'm an Academic Geezer.