Read this column the morning after UC-NKU basketball game. Thinking about the wrongs done one ex-UC/ex-NKU head men's basketball coach, maybe there really is some great force for justice that transcends human activities.
Doc, you seem to typically avoid advocating knee-jerk, simpleminded solutions to problems. I'm genuinely curious that you think we should do about "this war"?
I disagree with the analogy between Saturday and Cowher. In every booth there's a play-by-play announcer and a color commentator. They're two different jobs. The best training for a color commentator is a coaching career or first hand experience as a player, not a career in radio or TV. In most cases, opinions about teams and players are best delivered by familiar faces with experience in the game. Of course it helps to have a personality and I think these guys do remarkably well on TV with little TV experience. That being said, former players tend to make the best coaches but you could argue that Saturday has little experience in running an organization. But he did an adequate job of it on Sunday.
Dan Hoard is the best play by play guy around and has been on the Cincinnati scene for years. He earned his stripes. I wish he had been chosen to replace Marty.
Props to Brandy and Smoke on a Distant Fire as one hit Wonders and honorable mention for Into the Night by Benny Mardones, strictly on the strength of the melody and the vocals, not the subject matter.
Doc, I hope I say this right. To a certain degree I think writers today are mostly selling themselves out. They're trapped in a broken system and have few good exit options, especially when the subject is sports.
The world of pro sports has become the world of me first. Maybe it's always been this way, but it seems much more rampant. It's disillusioning to us long-time fans, which I know you're aware of, as you have been a long-time fan of various teams yourself.
Social media has turned writers into sound-bite experts, commentating on thing s like ESPN's various talk shows, selling themselves out for 30 shekels. It's part of the disease that's spread throughout pro sports. Pro sports are terminally ill, infected by cancerous amounts of narcissism and greed that have destroyed the commonalities fans once had with players. Fringe players make more money than successful men who have spent their lives building businesses from the ground up and worked hard for 40 years to establish that success. Top players are retiring as uber rich men of power and little substance. Owner are the super super rich, operating palatial playgrounds for their casual rich and uberwealthy players. It's so out of balance. A franchise is a playtoy to most owners, who fight to blow their chump change on both stars and marginal free agents who have never worked a hard job in their life.
Much of the decay of pro sports spreads to everyone who follows them. I try to stay clean by overlooking the greedy side and focusing on the action only, but they draw me in, too. It's a mini blueprint for America, which has turned into a materialistic, greedy mess, and it appears to be collapsing under its own weight. We glamorize and emphasize so many unhealthy and wrong values culturally. I think all the racial division and arguing and shootings portend an innate understanding that we are failing as a nation and we're too selfish to fix it. We still worship the false American dream that More is always Better. " If I want it, I should just take it." Yeah, it sounds Doom and Gloom, but hard facts say it's reality. If we don't fix it, we perish as a nation. What a sad case of Wasted Opportunity that will be for the potential we once had.
So glad to have found out about The Morning Line! I was happy and sad to know Paul was retiring from The Cincinnati Enquirer. His writing is honest and a pleasure to read whether the topic is sports, his family or his thoughts on what's happening in our world.
I didn't see Cowher's rant, so I don't know his entire take. Agreed, his hypocrisy is astounding, but I don't disagree with the message, at least when viewing through the lens of minority hires. One of the NFL's main excuses for the low number of minority HC hires is there aren't enough candidates in the pipeline, yet there seems to be no issues with hiring a white guy with no pipeline experience. Go figure.
As for mass shootings, I saw Mellancamp do an interview somewhat recently (I think it may have been after the TX shooting, but there's so many these days I'm not really sure; how sad is that?). His stance was that change will only happen if the media starts showing graphic images of the carnage. Not something I'd want to see, and I'm sure not something the families would want to go through, but he might not be wrong.
The juicy narrative would have been race, which you pointed out, but guess what: 1) the Rooney Rule does not apply to interim, 2) Tony Dungy and Jim Caldwell. Whoops, can’t call Irsay racist now, so let’s make the assistant coaches the victim. Standard playbook.
Cowher's reaction was over the top. How about the rampant nepotism in the NFL's coaching ranks? This from the NFL's 2020 diversity and inclusion report: "Recent research conducted by the NFL determined that nine of the 32 current head coaches are either the son or father of a current or former NFL coach (including coordinators and position coaches). The same NFL research report also found that 63 total NFL coaches (including coordinators and position coaches) are biologically related or related through marriage." Zac Taylor of course is the son-in-law of Mike Sherman, a former NFL head coach. I'll take Cowher seriously on this topic when he rants about the "family trees" sprouting on the sidelines, while thousands of very sharp coaches not lucky enough to be kin to a NFL coach go unnoticed.
It's Irsay's team, he can hire whoever he wants for these last 8 games. I'm no Irsay fan at all, but I have zero problem with it. The Colts looked like a competent team Sunday and won, so good on Saturday. The self-righteousness of Cowher and others is tough to stomach. One can disagree with the hire without acting as if Irsay had no right to make the hire. Did Steve Kerr "pay his dues"? He seemed to do ok with the coaching thing. I'm sure there are numerous other examples.
There's this odd, collective-approval type mentality that exists with a lot of higher level jobs in this country - from coaching (all levels), to politics/political appointees, to Union shops, to Corporate America, and so on. We feel as if we should have a general say, albeit oftentimes a passive one, in who is selected for these positions. Bob's been an offensive coordinator for X years and deserves a HC job, or it's So & So's turn to run for Y position, or John "paid his dues" and deserves a shot at manager, or Jane's been with the company for Y years and deserves a promotion, and so on. The world just doesn't always work that way, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
Case in point: Bob Dole, John McCain and Joe Biden won their party's nomination because they rose through the ranks and paid their dues, as you described. Not because they were the best candidates.
Fentanyl is not legal. The families of its victims are spared the spectacle of half of the US Congress rationalizing the damage it does, in service of their sorry political ambitions. There is no NFA. And - as brutal as this truth may be - its victims are not selected at random.
Yes. Fentanyl is not legal agreed. But, how is the majority of it being smuggled into the country? Here’s a hint. Through the open southern border not being enforced and illegals pouring thru on a daily basis.
Spare me the outrage of half of Congress not caring. The same can be said about the other half of Congress when a us citizen is murdered by an illegal (Kate Steinly). Concerning your dig at the NRA…if you don’t like guns then I’d suggest you work on getting a Convention of States formed and get an amendment passed to revoke the 2nd amendment. Good luck with that.
Do you live along the border? If not...you don't even know if what you're spewing is even true. I get so tired of the hive mind mentality of people who align right. Do you ever question the motivation of those that serve this stuff up to you? Do you know how many people are migrating here daily? Do you know if they're doing so illegally or if they're asylum seekers? Where are your numbers?
And Pat is right...the difference between the fentanyl crisis vs our increasing homicide rate is that the people using fentanyl at one point made a choice to go down that road. Nobody chooses to be murdered.
I'm sure that the thousands of families who lost loved ones are comforted by the fact that the people who shot them were legal citizens. Thanks for pointing it out.
Politicizing murders to advance an political agenda is a narrow and slippery slope that happens on both sides of the aisle. The real issue is that the US is a huge, vastly varied land mass, with many different ecosystems and populations. Some parts of the US have needs that differ from other parts when it comes to gun control laws. We are too big as a country to have one-size-fits-all gun laws.
I don't happen to agree with Cowher in this case. But 'm not bothered by it, because his indignation seemed genuine - even if misplaced. And it's not like he's some Skip Bayless imitator, seeking outrage for its own sake. I like guys who lose their marbles a bit on occasion. So long as it's not contrived.
Not much to say about Saturday being named HC for Indy. After all, what do I know. Will wait to see. Now, on the other hand, thank you Doc. (For what Chuck?) For saying it, oops, I mean writing it for all to read, Cowher, along with others have ascended to the heights of broadcasting positions without so much as a moment of classroom study and preparation (read as: paying dues) I studied it, graduated and worked at it, not unlike Dan Hoard, but a whole bunch of "jocks" got positions in the sports broadcast world I would have died for. Life goes on. I write... Again, thanks for saying it out loud Doc.
I thought Cowher came across as a smug, self righteous d”&k. The NFL coaching tree is a carrousel that once you are on, you never get off. If he’s that concerned he should buy a NFL team. Or better yet, throw your hat into the ring and start coaching again. Doc, your TV gig analogy is spot on. And Dan Hoard is the best.
Good tune today, in fact really good tune.
Read this column the morning after UC-NKU basketball game. Thinking about the wrongs done one ex-UC/ex-NKU head men's basketball coach, maybe there really is some great force for justice that transcends human activities.
Bob Sawrey
Doc, you seem to typically avoid advocating knee-jerk, simpleminded solutions to problems. I'm genuinely curious that you think we should do about "this war"?
Cowher was a good coach, but he is offbase here. Maybe
he thought he should have been offered the job.
In my opinion Cower comes across as a bully. Would he have been given the forum he now had he been only a boisterous mediocre coach. I doubt it!
Stick to what you know best. Whatever that is.
I disagree with the analogy between Saturday and Cowher. In every booth there's a play-by-play announcer and a color commentator. They're two different jobs. The best training for a color commentator is a coaching career or first hand experience as a player, not a career in radio or TV. In most cases, opinions about teams and players are best delivered by familiar faces with experience in the game. Of course it helps to have a personality and I think these guys do remarkably well on TV with little TV experience. That being said, former players tend to make the best coaches but you could argue that Saturday has little experience in running an organization. But he did an adequate job of it on Sunday.
Dan Hoard is the best play by play guy around and has been on the Cincinnati scene for years. He earned his stripes. I wish he had been chosen to replace Marty.
Props to Brandy and Smoke on a Distant Fire as one hit Wonders and honorable mention for Into the Night by Benny Mardones, strictly on the strength of the melody and the vocals, not the subject matter.
Doc, I hope I say this right. To a certain degree I think writers today are mostly selling themselves out. They're trapped in a broken system and have few good exit options, especially when the subject is sports.
The world of pro sports has become the world of me first. Maybe it's always been this way, but it seems much more rampant. It's disillusioning to us long-time fans, which I know you're aware of, as you have been a long-time fan of various teams yourself.
Social media has turned writers into sound-bite experts, commentating on thing s like ESPN's various talk shows, selling themselves out for 30 shekels. It's part of the disease that's spread throughout pro sports. Pro sports are terminally ill, infected by cancerous amounts of narcissism and greed that have destroyed the commonalities fans once had with players. Fringe players make more money than successful men who have spent their lives building businesses from the ground up and worked hard for 40 years to establish that success. Top players are retiring as uber rich men of power and little substance. Owner are the super super rich, operating palatial playgrounds for their casual rich and uberwealthy players. It's so out of balance. A franchise is a playtoy to most owners, who fight to blow their chump change on both stars and marginal free agents who have never worked a hard job in their life.
Much of the decay of pro sports spreads to everyone who follows them. I try to stay clean by overlooking the greedy side and focusing on the action only, but they draw me in, too. It's a mini blueprint for America, which has turned into a materialistic, greedy mess, and it appears to be collapsing under its own weight. We glamorize and emphasize so many unhealthy and wrong values culturally. I think all the racial division and arguing and shootings portend an innate understanding that we are failing as a nation and we're too selfish to fix it. We still worship the false American dream that More is always Better. " If I want it, I should just take it." Yeah, it sounds Doom and Gloom, but hard facts say it's reality. If we don't fix it, we perish as a nation. What a sad case of Wasted Opportunity that will be for the potential we once had.
So glad to have found out about The Morning Line! I was happy and sad to know Paul was retiring from The Cincinnati Enquirer. His writing is honest and a pleasure to read whether the topic is sports, his family or his thoughts on what's happening in our world.
Thank you!
I didn't see Cowher's rant, so I don't know his entire take. Agreed, his hypocrisy is astounding, but I don't disagree with the message, at least when viewing through the lens of minority hires. One of the NFL's main excuses for the low number of minority HC hires is there aren't enough candidates in the pipeline, yet there seems to be no issues with hiring a white guy with no pipeline experience. Go figure.
As for mass shootings, I saw Mellancamp do an interview somewhat recently (I think it may have been after the TX shooting, but there's so many these days I'm not really sure; how sad is that?). His stance was that change will only happen if the media starts showing graphic images of the carnage. Not something I'd want to see, and I'm sure not something the families would want to go through, but he might not be wrong.
The juicy narrative would have been race, which you pointed out, but guess what: 1) the Rooney Rule does not apply to interim, 2) Tony Dungy and Jim Caldwell. Whoops, can’t call Irsay racist now, so let’s make the assistant coaches the victim. Standard playbook.
Cowher's reaction was over the top. How about the rampant nepotism in the NFL's coaching ranks? This from the NFL's 2020 diversity and inclusion report: "Recent research conducted by the NFL determined that nine of the 32 current head coaches are either the son or father of a current or former NFL coach (including coordinators and position coaches). The same NFL research report also found that 63 total NFL coaches (including coordinators and position coaches) are biologically related or related through marriage." Zac Taylor of course is the son-in-law of Mike Sherman, a former NFL head coach. I'll take Cowher seriously on this topic when he rants about the "family trees" sprouting on the sidelines, while thousands of very sharp coaches not lucky enough to be kin to a NFL coach go unnoticed.
100% facts.
It's Irsay's team, he can hire whoever he wants for these last 8 games. I'm no Irsay fan at all, but I have zero problem with it. The Colts looked like a competent team Sunday and won, so good on Saturday. The self-righteousness of Cowher and others is tough to stomach. One can disagree with the hire without acting as if Irsay had no right to make the hire. Did Steve Kerr "pay his dues"? He seemed to do ok with the coaching thing. I'm sure there are numerous other examples.
There's this odd, collective-approval type mentality that exists with a lot of higher level jobs in this country - from coaching (all levels), to politics/political appointees, to Union shops, to Corporate America, and so on. We feel as if we should have a general say, albeit oftentimes a passive one, in who is selected for these positions. Bob's been an offensive coordinator for X years and deserves a HC job, or it's So & So's turn to run for Y position, or John "paid his dues" and deserves a shot at manager, or Jane's been with the company for Y years and deserves a promotion, and so on. The world just doesn't always work that way, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
Case in point: Bob Dole, John McCain and Joe Biden won their party's nomination because they rose through the ranks and paid their dues, as you described. Not because they were the best candidates.
Wake me when The Morning Liberal cares about overdose deaths in this country due to fentanyl the way he does about lunatics with firearms.
50000 people die from fentanyl every year, so we shouldn’t care about the 35000 who die from gunshots. Solid thinking, Josh.
I didn’t say we shouldn’t care, more that one of them seems to be just an afterthought for you.
In 2020 WV, KY and OH were the top 3 states (by % of population) in # of overdose deaths in the U.S. (75% of which were opioid/fentanyl) per the CDC.
Right in your backyard.
How many columns or TMLs have you written over the last 5 years that even mention the word fentanyl?
Fentanyl is not legal. The families of its victims are spared the spectacle of half of the US Congress rationalizing the damage it does, in service of their sorry political ambitions. There is no NFA. And - as brutal as this truth may be - its victims are not selected at random.
Yes. Fentanyl is not legal agreed. But, how is the majority of it being smuggled into the country? Here’s a hint. Through the open southern border not being enforced and illegals pouring thru on a daily basis.
Spare me the outrage of half of Congress not caring. The same can be said about the other half of Congress when a us citizen is murdered by an illegal (Kate Steinly). Concerning your dig at the NRA…if you don’t like guns then I’d suggest you work on getting a Convention of States formed and get an amendment passed to revoke the 2nd amendment. Good luck with that.
Do you live along the border? If not...you don't even know if what you're spewing is even true. I get so tired of the hive mind mentality of people who align right. Do you ever question the motivation of those that serve this stuff up to you? Do you know how many people are migrating here daily? Do you know if they're doing so illegally or if they're asylum seekers? Where are your numbers?
And Pat is right...the difference between the fentanyl crisis vs our increasing homicide rate is that the people using fentanyl at one point made a choice to go down that road. Nobody chooses to be murdered.
I'm sure that the thousands of families who lost loved ones are comforted by the fact that the people who shot them were legal citizens. Thanks for pointing it out.
Nice deflection ignoring the whole border issue
I’m sure the father of Kate Steinly is comforted by the fact that the illegal who murdered his daughter is already out of jail.
Politicizing murders to advance an political agenda is a narrow and slippery slope that happens on both sides of the aisle. The real issue is that the US is a huge, vastly varied land mass, with many different ecosystems and populations. Some parts of the US have needs that differ from other parts when it comes to gun control laws. We are too big as a country to have one-size-fits-all gun laws.
I’m wondering if the Didion quote was directed at the writer’s subjects or the writer’s readers.
I don't happen to agree with Cowher in this case. But 'm not bothered by it, because his indignation seemed genuine - even if misplaced. And it's not like he's some Skip Bayless imitator, seeking outrage for its own sake. I like guys who lose their marbles a bit on occasion. So long as it's not contrived.
"We lost it the day Sandy Hook happened and our elected officials did nothing, because their constituents didn’t force the issue."
Their constituents are their donors.
Not much to say about Saturday being named HC for Indy. After all, what do I know. Will wait to see. Now, on the other hand, thank you Doc. (For what Chuck?) For saying it, oops, I mean writing it for all to read, Cowher, along with others have ascended to the heights of broadcasting positions without so much as a moment of classroom study and preparation (read as: paying dues) I studied it, graduated and worked at it, not unlike Dan Hoard, but a whole bunch of "jocks" got positions in the sports broadcast world I would have died for. Life goes on. I write... Again, thanks for saying it out loud Doc.
Favorite one hit wonder..Looking Glass “Brandy”
I thought Cowher came across as a smug, self righteous d”&k. The NFL coaching tree is a carrousel that once you are on, you never get off. If he’s that concerned he should buy a NFL team. Or better yet, throw your hat into the ring and start coaching again. Doc, your TV gig analogy is spot on. And Dan Hoard is the best.