I Spoke Too Soon...

Silly me, giving Oregon props for some of the things they were doing.

I should have realized that I was just jinxing it...

So, I take some responsibility for: Your 2009 Oregon Ducks Uniforms:


Those things on the shoulders? Yup. They're wings.

Here are the helmets:


I'll be honest- other than the yellow "O", those are pretty cool.

I just don't want to ever hear any comments about sparkles and stickers from anyone...

Viva La Revolucion

Just a bit off topic...

Big doin's in Iran these days. Nice to see, though, that some people have found a powerful inspiration:

HT Eleven Warriors

Yeah, that's much better than the 'gatherings' that most Ohio State fans take part in.

You're durn tootin'...

Great article (HT Michael) in the Colorado Buff Zone regarding the NCAA's need for some "Frontier Justice".

It's high time the NCAA started exercising a little of that frontier justice by dealing out some punishment that matters. Then maybe -- just maybe -- schools that benefit from blatant cheating and then claim ignorance when the NCAA comes calling would begin to keep a clean house.

You've heard the refrain. It rings from Tallahassee to Memphis to Los Angeles and points in between.

"Not our fault," they whine. "You can't punish us for something we didn't know about."

Baloney. Punishing schools where cheating has become part of the culture is the only way to drive the point home.

More-

What each of these schools (F$U, U$C, Memphis) is saying is that none of these issues are their fault. And every one of them is lying.

What the schools are really saying is that they've built a culture of winning at all costs -- and cheating is simply one of those costs. A wink and a nod and get it done is the unstated rule of thumb.

Not that coaches are innocent. All too often, coaching staffs perform a risk-benefit analysis, decide which rules can be stretched -- or broken -- and make decisions accordingly.

And this sounds familiar-

I had to laugh recently when chief NCAA blowhard Myles Brand bloviated over APR punishment. Two schools -- Centenary and Tennessee-Chattanooga -- received the harshest penalties.

"It shows the depth and severity of the penalties," Brand boasted. "... we withhold them from postseason play, that's a big deal."

Yep, Myles beat up on a couple of lower-tier schools, then held it up as a shining example of how the NCAA punishes miscreants.

Trouble is, Brand's merry band of gutless wonders won't do the same to the big dogs. They'll take a few scholarships away from Florida State. They'll end up doing the same to USC -- if that much, and something similar at Memphis.

At least someone else is talking about it...

UPDATE- Looks like the NCAA will be taking action against one of the "big boys" after all:

ESPN- Alabama Crimson Tide to Vacate Football Wins

Although, dropping wins from years ago off the "all time record" isn't really a sanction. It certainly doesn't do anything to impact the coaches or the current leaders of the athletic program.

Only two people really care about "all time wins"...

Plop

Well, one shoe has fallen in LA:

EPSN: USC Coach Tim Floyd Resigns

While this may look like the beginning of bigger doin's, I think that it will allow the Trojans to point to a "rogue" coach and an isolated incident.

And football? Nothing will happen.

Well, sure...

It's about time that he came to his senses...

(yup, that's Texas Coach Mack Brown putting the "H" in OHIO)

FERPA and You

For those of you who don't work in Higher Education, you've probably never even heard of FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. But, if you're a sports fan, you have been impacted by it's reach, at least according to the Columbus Dispatch.

The law, intended to keep student's personal matters private, limits the circumstances under which an institution can release information about that student. It also places parameters on who this information can be released to.

So where do you come in? There's concern that this is being used by Athletic Departments to thwart investigations into their practices and into the choices/actions of the student athletes at major programs.

The whole article is worth a read- to ensure that I"m not being to homerific, here's the link to two sub-articles about tOSU: Violations and Processes. Seems like they do a better job than most at self reporting the things that do happen, even if they tend to side with the student privacy end of the spectrum.

As a side note- Ohio State has the largest athletic department in the country, offering twice as many sports as most other institutes. With the labyrinthine and ridiculous amount of NCAA guidelines, violations are going to happen. The issues are: 1) repeated mistakes and 2) failure to respond.

Along those lines, there were a great series of articles in the LA Times regarding the U$C/Bu$h situation that we've covered before. Give it a read: USC Stays Silent and The Silence is Deafening

Again, when issues come up do you respond proactively or close ranks and play defense? Seems that the Trojans have chosen the latter...