One last rant. in contrast to our modern day wokesters, despots like Lenin and Stalin had a better appreciation of not disturbing tributes to transformational historical figures even though their beliefs totally differed from the values held by the persons being honored. The USSR left undisturbed the famous and grand statue of Peter the Great in St. Petersburg that was commissioned by Catherine the Great even though both were considered Czarist, reactionary class enemies in Marxist theology since Peter and Catherine were responsible for transforming Russia from a barbaric stagnant nation to a powerful modern country.
My comments were not meant to “laud” Lenin or Stalin. The origins of the modern day cancel culture can be traced back to the Bolsheviks ( and even back to the French Revolution) who, in their effort to totally transform Russian and Soviet society, erased from public record anything associated with Czarist Russia. Churches were closed, property and money confiscated, cities and streets renamed, opponents were either killed, jailed, or exiled, books were banned, and all aspects of media, civic, and educational life were designed to promote the ideals and values of the new state and condemn anything that countered their vision of a revolutionary new world. What I was trying to point out in my last post is the irony that despotic leaders of the original cancel culture that caused so much misery, had more respect for at least some aspects of past history than the adherents of today’s cancel culture.
Certainly coaches in the South before the late 60's had racist recruiting tactics. Texas was all-white till after the 1969 National Championship team ..the last all white National Champion. Was Daryl Royal a racist? Or was he just aware that if he recruited black players that powerful alumni would be upset with him. I believe Bear Bryant deferred recruiting black players till after USC came to Alabama and put a beat down on the Tide with black players. Was the Bear a racist or like Royal just aware of what was going to be accepted by fans and powerful alumni. Should they take Royal's name off the stadium?
Back to present day College Football problems. Interesting article on ESPN on tampering. With the portal and all, teams are contacting players before they enter the portal. One coach says that if you wait till they are in the portal you're late to the party. ________________________________________________________________ Tampering officially arrived in college football this offseason, leaving coaches to both lament the current state of the game -- and try to keep up. They know if they wait for a quality player to enter the transfer portal to begin recruiting him, they're too late. So they've been reaching out to third parties and using players as go-betweens. It's a violation of NCAA rules, of course, but enforcement is nearly impossible. An SEC head coach said that not only is tampering happening, "it happens most of the time." Welcome to college football's new 'wild, wild West': The era of tampering
Wow, learned a lot going through the last few days here. A lot of you are much more knowledgable than I am. As to the cancel culture people I feel the same as most of you. Also I have always wondered why we should not celebrate our progress and keep moving forward instead of trying to cancel the past. When I attended Florida we had no black students let alone athletes. Now Gators fill the stadium on Sat and the O Dome during basketball and cheer wildly for our teams who are now dominantly black.
I guess by now everybody has read about the kid from the Houston area, committed to Texas who is going to forego his Sr. year of HS football so as to reduce the wear and tear on his body. He's one of the top 5 RB in the Country. At the moment it's an isolated case and he says he's going to focus on academics and working with his trainer to get himself ready to play at Texas. Using his logic if he has a great year or two I would imagine he'll forego his Jr year at Texas so that he can focus on his academics and prepare himself for the NFL. I hope it is a trend that doesn't catch on, not to mention that young players get better by playing not by working out with their trainer. He'll be football rusty when he shows up at Texas. I wonder how that will impact his playing time and stats his true freshman year?
What are today's "standards"? Total capitulation has to be near the top of the list. Scapegoating is very popular. Total lack of responsibility for one's actions has gained great acceptance. Quitting in the face of adversity has become fashionable ( see portal ). College football is teetering on the edge of self destruction. This portal has become a total farce.
Irish are the latest team to announce they will be a full go at Notre Dame Stadium this coming fall...tailgating, full stadium, everything back to normal. NOTRE DAME, Ind. — The University of Notre Dame, in consultation with the St. Joseph County Health Department, will make all 77,622 seats of Notre Dame Stadium available for purchase as it begins its football ticket sales process for the 2021 season. Notre Dame Outlines Football Game Day Planning for 2021 Season
This quote might come back to bite him.... HOUSTON — During the question-and-answer portion of Steve Sarkisian’s appearance Wednesday at the Houston Touchdown Club, a gentleman sitting at one of the rear tables shouted, “Do Alabama football players ever go to class?” to the new Texas coach and former Crimson Tide offensive coordinator. Sarkisian, in a dark blue coat, white dress shirt and burnt orange tie, paused to allow the initial chuckles from the roughly 250-member crowd to die down before dropping his best one-liner of the day. “Well, yeah, all they have in Tuscaloosa is football and class,” Sarkisian quipped. “There ain’t **** else to do.”
Sure it is kp... as they step over the homeless who are stacked up everywhere. Just like it was at USC eh Sark??
No doubt, but in today's media frenzy world he has to know that whatever he says is going to get a lot of play. It was an poor attempt at humor IMHO. Kind of like when Jimbo said he was going to beat Saban's ass recently, now that might actually come back to haunt him sooner rather than later.