my thoughts...articulated by another.
From The News Tribune Tacoma, Washington.
A few thoughts put more eloquently (not to mention scathingly) than I could manage on my own.
“Changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event. It may be 9/11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to catastrophic events. Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, or whatever, and that was a catastrophic event.” - Nick Saban
Alabama football spokesman Jeff Purington, in a correspondence e-mailed to The Associated Press, attempted to parse coherence out of the preposterously inept metaphor.
“What coach Saban said did not correlate losing a football game with a tragedy, everyone needs to understand that,” Purington wrote. “The message was that true spirit and unity become evident in the most difficult of times. These were two tremendous examples that everybody can identify with.”
Leave it to a press relations guy, who’d be required to work two entire lifetimes to earn what Alabama is paying its coach in 2007, to translate Nick at Noon’s musings into a logical thought. And while the clarification would have been more genuine if Saban offered it himself, we should understand Saban and his braintrust are preparing for the Crimson Tide’s annual showdown Saturday against intrastate rival Auburn...
For those ancestors of Pearl Harbor victims, those who lost a loved one they never met, or those whose families are struggling to heal from the terrorist attacks launched 60 years later, a football coach’s bizarre drawing of a parallel between two catastrophic events and a nonconference defeat to Louisiana-Monroe inspires outrage...
Saban’s impromptu reflections on 20th century history - “Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, or whatever” - made that famously dazed Miss Teen USA contestant from South Carolina (“I personally believe that U.S. Americans …”) sound like Madeleine Albright at a symposium on nuclear disarmament...
There was no “whatever.” It was war, the consequences of which left the United States with the kind of open marketplace that enables college coaches to make $4 million a year, even as they make dim-witted associations between football games and the bloodiest conflict in the history of civilization...
And finally: The next time a U.S. president asks you to dinner, put the playbook in a desk drawer, run home and change clothes. Figure it out. When you sit down at the table with the president, ask him how his day has been. If the conversation produces nothing else, it will reveal where Alabama losing to Louisiana-Monroe on Nov. 17, 2007 ranks on the scale of catastrophic world events.
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well, there you have it. i've already heard the barrage of people trying to "justify" saban's comments. here's some advice, if you want to justify him to me, the only appropriate statement is "saban is an idiot." i'm really not looking for blood here, let the man keep his job. a paycut might be in order. at least he didn't call the people that dies in pearl harbor or 9-11 "nappy-headed hoes."
in the end, those loyal (if slightly mislead) fans of alabama football will stay true to their coach. i was never true to any coach of alabama football. i think bryant did a hell of a job and his legacy is deserved. other than that, alabama football could just as soon wither away for all i care.
A few thoughts put more eloquently (not to mention scathingly) than I could manage on my own.
“Changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event. It may be 9/11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to catastrophic events. Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, or whatever, and that was a catastrophic event.” - Nick Saban
Alabama football spokesman Jeff Purington, in a correspondence e-mailed to The Associated Press, attempted to parse coherence out of the preposterously inept metaphor.
“What coach Saban said did not correlate losing a football game with a tragedy, everyone needs to understand that,” Purington wrote. “The message was that true spirit and unity become evident in the most difficult of times. These were two tremendous examples that everybody can identify with.”
Leave it to a press relations guy, who’d be required to work two entire lifetimes to earn what Alabama is paying its coach in 2007, to translate Nick at Noon’s musings into a logical thought. And while the clarification would have been more genuine if Saban offered it himself, we should understand Saban and his braintrust are preparing for the Crimson Tide’s annual showdown Saturday against intrastate rival Auburn...
For those ancestors of Pearl Harbor victims, those who lost a loved one they never met, or those whose families are struggling to heal from the terrorist attacks launched 60 years later, a football coach’s bizarre drawing of a parallel between two catastrophic events and a nonconference defeat to Louisiana-Monroe inspires outrage...
Saban’s impromptu reflections on 20th century history - “Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, or whatever” - made that famously dazed Miss Teen USA contestant from South Carolina (“I personally believe that U.S. Americans …”) sound like Madeleine Albright at a symposium on nuclear disarmament...
There was no “whatever.” It was war, the consequences of which left the United States with the kind of open marketplace that enables college coaches to make $4 million a year, even as they make dim-witted associations between football games and the bloodiest conflict in the history of civilization...
And finally: The next time a U.S. president asks you to dinner, put the playbook in a desk drawer, run home and change clothes. Figure it out. When you sit down at the table with the president, ask him how his day has been. If the conversation produces nothing else, it will reveal where Alabama losing to Louisiana-Monroe on Nov. 17, 2007 ranks on the scale of catastrophic world events.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
well, there you have it. i've already heard the barrage of people trying to "justify" saban's comments. here's some advice, if you want to justify him to me, the only appropriate statement is "saban is an idiot." i'm really not looking for blood here, let the man keep his job. a paycut might be in order. at least he didn't call the people that dies in pearl harbor or 9-11 "nappy-headed hoes."
in the end, those loyal (if slightly mislead) fans of alabama football will stay true to their coach. i was never true to any coach of alabama football. i think bryant did a hell of a job and his legacy is deserved. other than that, alabama football could just as soon wither away for all i care.