December 16, 2014

Another Pierce gem, even if I didn't get all the metaphors. Ha'penny place?

Early in his college career, Winston was touted on Jacksonville sports radio for how composed, mature and well-spoken he was despite his youth. I didn't follow him closely at the time, so I made a mental note to look for opportunities to see this. It was days before the rape allegation.

If the Jaguars had not taken Blake Bortles with the third overall pick this year, they'd surely be looking at Winston next time around.

posted by rcade at 10:18 AM on December 16, 2014

Damn. I thought I was getting better at Irish metaphors through research at Irish pubs. I thought I had turned a corner when I figured out "sláinte."

posted by rcade at 01:09 PM on December 16, 2014

I have long looked at those universities who seem to place athletic success above all other things at the school with a highly negative bias. As time passed and I came to meet people who had actually gone to these places, I found that some of them really did provide a quality education. Auburn and Virginia Tech have programs in aerospace engineering that are among the best in the country. I've worked with graduates of those schools who impressed me greatly with their knowledge and ability. My son is a Penn State grad. Before you start up about Sandusky and the rest, I get it. What the administration did to try to protect the school was bad, but also understand that there was more to this than just a football program. Before he made his choice, we looked deeply into academics and programs. (He also looked deeply into the selection of bars, but that's another story.) Once you look at academic programs among the Big Ten schools, you will find that all of them are excellent. The athletes who attend are encouraged to do well in their studies. I am not familiar with the schools of the southwest and far west, but admittedly some seem to place the team ahead of the school.

Now I look at Florida State. If I had a college-age kid, I would be ashamed to send him there. There seems to be no pretense on the part of the school to be anything except a football team, and to make it a winning team, anything is acceptable. I will not proclaim Jameis Winston guilty of anything until a jury convicts him, but I will condemn the State of Florida and the university for being less than meticulous in its initial investigation of the rape claims. I find the Florida State situation frighteningly similar to that at the University of Miami a few years ago. While the majority of Miami football alumni have gone on to good careers in football and outside the game and have become leaders in their community, there is one glaring example now spending his time in a Massachusetts jail awaiting a murder trial. One aside here, I do not include the University of Florida in my condemnation of Florida schools. My brother-in-law (wife's sister's husband) is a Gator through and through. He has done pretty well for himself, is a joy to know, and is a fine person. I would prefer to think he's typical of Florida grads.

The question is why things like the Winston situation happen. When a kid shows a high level of skill in a sport, he seems to become "the golden child". That is, because he is so good at what he does, he is in a privileged place among his peers. (Another aside, when I was in high school, our assistant principal had 2 favorites who could get away with anything. Athletes and good math students were on a pedestal. I was not an athlete, but I still got away with mayhem.) If you take a kid without a solid background in responsible behavior and put him in the sort of situation that a heavily recruited high school athlete encounters, you are likely to have created a ticking time bomb. These kids understand they are being judged by a different standard, and some of them are willing to push it too far. Do I have any suggestion about how to fix this? Without a total overhaul of contemporary American society, I do not. It is a sad situation. Sports fans who are as deep into sports as we SpoFites can only stand and ineffecively cluck our tongues.

posted by Howard_T at 04:45 PM on December 16, 2014

There seems to be no pretense on the part of the school to be anything except a football team, and to make it a winning team, anything is acceptable.

This is an absurd characterization of the entire university. Yes, the football program and athletics have major problems, but that has no bearing on the academics. FSU has many good programs, there's fierce competition to get in and the SAT and GPA requirements are among the highest of this state's schools.

If you're going to condemn Florida schools for laxity in how athletic crimes are punished, you'd have to include UF too. They've had some doozies, particularly under Urban Meyer when the team was winning championships. Aaron Hernandez was one of them -- he didn't go to Miami.

My favorite UF criminals were the hoops players who broke into a car here in St. Augustine and upon being arrested talked for a half hour about what lie they were going to tell. They didn't know cop cars have cameras.

posted by rcade at 09:26 PM on December 16, 2014