Jackson Jambalaya

Grambling decided not to show up tomorrow. Now before you start blaming the players, just think of the movie Major League.  Apparently the players were forced to ride the bus for 20 hours, weren't fed all their meals while the admins flew back and forth to the games, and were generally screwed over repeatedly by the administration:

The source said players aren’t happy with the way they are treated, and frustrations boiled over Tuesday during a meeting with president Frank Pogue, athletic director Aaron James, interim coach George Ragsdale and student government president Jordan Harvey held in the stadium support facility building outside of Eddie G. Robinson Stadium.

The meeting occurred to address the reasons for bus travel to games in Kansas City and Indianapolis and the firing of head coach Doug Williams in mid-September.

But players walked out as the meeting became increasingly negative, according to the source, and the entire team left....

The source said the teams’ frustrations have been boiling over a period time. Those frustrations include what’s considered as general disrespect from administration, not receiving all meals on road trips, taking a bus to distant locations like Kansas City and Indianapolis and the poor state of facilities like the weight room...

The Tigers have lost 13 consecutive SWAC games and 17 overall to NCAA opponents." Rest of article

Meanwhile on Tigerdroppings, here are some more interesting comments:

"Grambling's men's basketball team went 0-28 last season"

".Yeah the players aren't necessarily right for doing this but the 1-45 record between football and basketball since last fall tells you the problems go a lot deeper."

"Yeah the AD is screwing everything up over there. A couple of practices into the season he fired 2 position coaches because they were over budget. Just told the 2 coaches newest to the staff to hit the road. Doug Williams had to fight to get them back before the season started. The AD is a huge fuck up and completely screwed the athletic budget up."

"Damn near lost accreditation a number of years ago because they couldn't even complete an audit. So fucked up, the auditors couldn't even make a guess at how fucked up they were."

"3rd head coach in 5 games. Complete dysfunction"

"The current AD(James) was hired in August, to replace the AD(Caldwell) that was hired in 2012. Caldwell was hired to replace James who was appointed interim AD in June of 2011, when the previous AD resigned.

So from June of 2011 to August of 2013, 26 months they had 4 Athletic Directors (one guy serving in that role twice)"

"work with someone with a player on the team. said the president is petty, and everyoe thinks he is stealing the money they get from the classics they play in. first time he talked to the team after firing Williams was the meeting on tuesday. the bus ride they took recently was 20 hours"

"From what I've read, its basically what Rachael Phelps did to the Indians in Major League, but IRL."

"corrupt admin pockets the cash while players dont get meals they are entitled. ditto for the difference between a flight and a 20 hour bus ride."

"The SI article talks about new weight room flooring that Doug Williams was able to purchase with private alumni donations. The school admin wouldn't allow it to get installed because it didn't go through their booster club or whatever.

I imagine that means they didn't get to wet their beak so they got pissed."

"Just read the short snip on cbs sports, so the President fired the coach one week, an assistant a few weeks later, and the "new" interim HC this week.

That President is a fool."

Then there is this story in Sports Illustrated.  Its worth reading.

Kingfish note:  Read the SI story. I don't blame the players one damn bit.