Thursday, September 17, 2020

Gannett Shows What It Thinks of You

USA Today says SEC playing football worse than Sandusky & Nassar

The Big 10 decided to play football after all.  Such a reasonable decision was greeted with a gnashing of teeth over at USA Today i.e. Gannett.  USA Today's Christine Brennan wailed:


For decades, the Big Ten has thought of itself as a different kind of sports conference, one that proudly touts the academic achievements and Great Lakes values of its like-minded, highly-regarded, internationally-ranked research institutions. The Big Ten wasn’t the SEC; it wasn’t the Big 12. It was better than that, and it was happy to tell you all about it.

As proof, one only had to look at the conference’s prudent August decision to shut down fall sports in the midst of the global pandemic. It was only natural that the Big Ten would follow the Ivy League, and that the Pac-12 would follow the Big Ten. It was a tough decision, heartbreaking and costly, but it was the right one.

That’s the Big Ten for you, concerned about science, medicine and safety. Let the football factories of the SEC, Big 12 and ACC (Clemson’s playground) continue playing; the Big Ten was doing the right thing looking out for its student-athletes, treating them almost no differently than the student body at large, and that was all that mattered. 

Duke? North Carolina? Virginia? Notre Dame? Texas A&M? Texas?  Tulane?   All of those schools are mere football factories?

Then came Wednesday, the darkest day in Big Ten sports history, the day the vaunted conference caved. It choked. It got scared. It became the SEC.

 Just as the Big Ten was looking smarter by the day as COVID-19 outbreaks popped up at Michigan State, Wisconsin and Maryland while other conferences playing football announced COVID-related postponements and soaring cases, the league’s presidents reversed themselves and decided to steer their schools and their football programs right into the teeth of what are predicted to be some of the worst days of the pandemic in October and November.

Worse than the child molestors who were protected for years at Big 10 schools? As for the pandemic predictions, um, how many of them have been accurate?

And how are they doing it? With a mountain of daily antigen tests, special delivery for Big Ten football teams only. Rapid tests for football players, but apparently not for the elderly in Ann Arbor or Columbus or Evanston, or for school children and teachers in Bloomington or New Brunswick or Minneapolis, or for students paying for their education amid the outbreaks in East Lansing or Madison or College Park.
So how will this work? Smooth as silk, I’m sure. Let’s look at Michigan State. The other day, all MSU students were asked to self-quarantine – and 30 large houses, including 23 fraternities and sororities, were ordered into mandatory quarantine – after the school announced 342 new coronavirus cases.
“This is an urgent situation,” Ingham County Health Officer Linda S. Vail said. “The exponential growth of COVID-19 cases must stop.”
 Yeah, yeah, Christi. How many of them have actually wound up on the hospital or in an ICU bed?

So hey, Michigan State, let’s start football! What could go wrong? Here was LSU head coach Ed Orgeron’s COVID strategy Tuesday: “Not all of our players but most of our players have caught it. I think that hopefully they won’t catch it again, and hopefully they’re not out for games.”
This is the Nebraska-ization of the Big Ten. Who would have thought that when Nebraska and Ohio State and a few of the league’s other squeakiest wheels started whining about missing out on football, the Big Ten presidents would buckle rather than stand up to them?

Or, we could call it the Trumpeting of the Big Ten. It was just two weeks ago that Trump, desperate to win votes in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, told the conference to play football. Originally, the league stood its ground. Rutgers president Jonathan Holloway aptly called it “cheap politics.” But wouldn’t you know, the university presidents ended up following right along, giving Trump exactly what he wanted.
I never would have expected the Big Ten presidents to be so shaky, so fearful, so afraid of their own shadow. I grew up in Big Ten country, in the suburbs of Toledo, Ohio, in a family that spent fall Saturdays at Michigan games. I went to Northwestern University, where I received undergraduate and master’s degrees. I’m still very involved at NU to this day; in addition to being a professor of practice at the Medill School of Journalism, I’m a member of Northwestern’s 64-person board of trustees. I had no role in any votes or decisions NU made about playing sports in the pandemic.

Actually, Christi, you sound as if you are the one who is afraid of her own shadow.  As for LSU, um, you are simply too stupid to grasp what he said really means.  If most of his players got the bug and avoided getting really sick, how is that a bad thing? What does that say about the virus and young people? 

While much of the blame for the awful about-face goes to the university presidents who chose money and football over sanity and caution, new Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren also contributed greatly to this public relations nightmare. This is a man who clearly is in way over his head. The poor guy was outmaneuvered by a few loud-mouth football coaches, for heaven’s sake. No matter how he explains it, it’s clear that he and the league flip-flopped so Ohio State can try to win a national title and the league can still make lots of money off the backs of 18-to-22-year-olds in the middle of a pandemic.

As we move into October and November, into what the experts say will be our worst days as COVID combines with the flu, the stops and starts of the conferences that are trying to play now tell us there are likely to be postponements and perhaps cancellations of Big Ten games.

Maybe some teams will get through a full season. Perhaps others will have to stop after a game or two, or miss games in the middle. Hopefully no one will get sick or spread COVID to others. We’ll see. This is the potential chaos the Big Ten chose when it decided to sell its soul for a few football games.
Again, how often have these "experts" been wrong or been forced to change their stories? If we have to postpone or cancel a few games, guess what? We will be ok.  It will not be the end of the world.  We will move on from it.

Is there some reason she is singling out the SEC when most of the other conference made the same decision as well?

Go ahead, Ms. Irby-Jones, publish that column. Run it under the Clarion-Ledger masthead, I dare ya. 

Meanwhile, Baton Rouge sports radio show host Matt Mascogna shredded Christi yesterday.  Listen for yourself as she burns (rhetorically) at the stake.  Enjoy.







19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad you posted this piece and I had already seen it online.

A week or two back the same columnist wrote that history will report that the NBA players (who boycotted one game, God knows why) were..."heroes."

I would not call her thinking mentally deranged because I actually think she believes what she wrote. But I would call her a shill and a hacker.

When you are writing a sports column and you know that (or hope that) young athletes will read it and you actually say that spoiled, egotistical, brats who are privileged (earning millions of dollars) who risk zero by boycotting a basketball game are "heroes," you have lost your cool.

That is drivel and does not deserve to be in anyone's paper.

Anonymous said...

I don't think its possible that she is as much of a bitch as she comes across. I think its a ruse. She is an entertainer, just trying to get a rise out of people.

I mean seriously, what other USA Today writer does anybody ever talk about? She is all they have. And nobody actually reads the thing for sports news. What would wrestling be without the villain?

Anonymous said...

Thanks KF. Truly epic. I got a Buckeye buddy who is ROFLHAO with how true this is.

Anonymous said...

When did Tulane rejoin the SEC?

Anonymous said...

The real story should be how science has went from knowing nothing at all about this virus, to a remarkable vaccine timeline. All football conferences have universities with medical schools. I’m sure the Big 10 consulted theirs on postponement and resumption. Those states have a higher elderly population and a lot of cities with massive outbreaks. Understandable they proceeded with more caution.

And let’s face it-the only Big10 school capable of winning it right now is Ohio State. How long can they keep it willing without Urban Meyer?

Anonymous said...

So many snarling rabid people, on the verge of becoming zombies, against anything good in this country. What's the deal?

Anonymous said...

6:02 AM
You give people a lot of credit.

Anonymous said...

There is a zero percent chance that the Big Ten plays meaningful football in November. No one seems to have read what they've actually agreed to. They've set the bar so high that it will be impossible for them to play. If any player tests positive, they're out for 21 days. If any team has more than 5% (which is usually 5 or 6 players), they are shut down for a week until they get back under. If you look around to programs that have been playing and dealing with it, all of the teams have had infection rates in the 30% range (AL, LSU, LA Tech, etc.) A few teams might get a game or two in, but this is all about the Big Ten making players not jump ship while at the same time assuring that they won't play.

Anonymous said...

Cristinne Brennan is far far worse than even that column suggest. She is a radical man hater of the worst order. She wrote many years for the Washington Post and is worse than a bitch.

Anonymous said...

Within 24 hours of the Big Ten announcement, the UNC vs Charlotte game that was to be played tomorrow, was cancelled due to Covid 19 positive tests on the Charlotte team.

This is after two other ACC games had to be postponed because of Covid related problems at VA Tech and NC State.

There is evidently not a consistent plan to deal with the virus as some teams have helmet shields for their players and some do not. The addition of this protective measure appears unrelated to the university's financial means. And, lineman seem to be more at risk which suggest " distance" and/or "weight" as factors that CDC has mentioned...repeatedly.

A fan can only hope that none of these young men who get CV-19 (and the few who have realistic dreams of the NFL) don't have those dreams dashed because of permanent damage from the virus or die, like Jarmain Stephens, did of virus complications. If African Americans and those overweight are at higher risk, football players become a high risk group.

While I could critique the flamboyant writing style of this reporter, I do think the question it raises about our priorities is worth consideration. I don't see it as an indication of what Gannett or the reporter thinks of me so much as a challenge to think beyond our entertainment needs and money.

I would have liked the NCAA to have taken a better leadership role in protecting college athletes and not left so much to the conferences.



Anonymous said...

It's hilarious that snowflakes get so rustled by opinion pieces these days. If you don't agree, throw a hissy fit. Go back to your safe place KF.

Anonymous said...

Christine Brennan has never let facts get in the way of the narratives she creates.

If the NY Times has gotten anything right in the last four years, it is when Camille Paglia stated that "journalism is dead."

Anonymous said...

Does it really even matter?!?! It's fucking college football, which the last time I checked has no bearing on whether the world goes around.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad the Big 10 is playing. A national championship game without them just would not be credible. The Big 10 has been in every single title game since the BCS started except in 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2002, 2001, 2000, and 1999.

Anonymous said...

Click = $
Click Click = $$$
Click Click Click = $$$$$$$

This is the advertising world we live in today. FaceBook-Twitter-YouTube-WebSites-etc. Wherever there are eyes to see "Click Bait" will be there. In the beginning it was creative but today they serve so many masters not to mention the writers/journalist don't want power brokers mad at them.

Remember how important it has been over the last 9 months to have celebrities, journalist, TV taking heads, politicians, the news media, sports figures & players, the elitist of the world helping us get thru all this. Don't forget they were all getting paid while most of were not but they sure had all the answers, just like the woman.

Anonymous said...

8:57 AM
Go back to twitter.

Anonymous said...

All I want is for the Governors of these States to start giving us the Age group and Medical information that they receive. Isn’t it important to make the most informative decision. Young People are going to get the Covid no matter what. So let’s discuss the proactive policies that will be in place after. This fear mongering has to stop. 99 % will recover. This Covid has knocked the hell out of the older population. And the dumb decision’s of these Governors to bring Covid positive elderly back into the nursing homes. Horrible !

Anonymous said...

Hey 8:01am....quit spreading lies. Jarmain Stephens didn't die of covid. Liar.

Anonymous said...

6:38 pm Do the actual math on the national rates. You can do ours and other nations too if you like to get a percentage that is close to reality.

MS's death rate is 3% ( not accounting for repeat testing).

The National death rate is also 3%

More disturbing the recovery rate nationally is only 54%. Think on this last one a while.



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