
SL Xpress
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I couldn't disagree more. Being a drunk at work around young people doesn't get the same kind of exoneration you're implying. Someone who is a functional alcoholic but keeps their shit together on the job gets a lot of forgiveness. Sarkisian isn't back at a head job just because he won at a high level. Sarkisian is back at a head job because he transformed who he is in terms of how he deals with his addiction to alcohol. If tomorrow he showed up drunk at a practice it's my opinion he'd be fired for cause shortly thereafter. Maybe not. He'd probably need to show a pattern of behavior, rather than just a one time thing. But maybe. It is morally abhorrent to come to work supervising 18 to 22 year olds completely drunk, especially when no one is really all that surprised about it. It's simply crossing another line in already exhibited behavior. You are extremely naive IMO about how much being abusive to the people around us is rewarded in our society. You saying it's incongruent with virtually any and all positions of leadership is almost unfathomably laughable. I'm not even sure what planet you live on. Did you play on any championship level sports teams? At any level? Do you have any idea how many of them are led by abusive people? How many ultra successful organizations are led by abusive people? It's a ton. I'm not saying it's what we should aspire to as a species, but it's reality. The reason why it's rewarded is because it works. People who are abusive often compel a higher level of productivity versus people who aren't. And at the end of the day winning - in whatever form that takes - is a fundamental aspect of our survival in all sorts of ways. I'm going to try to avoid going cloak room here, but I'll imply that you can look at the leadership at all levels of our society and see how much being abusive is rewarded.
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And it's not just their success on the court. He's doing to their fan base exactly what he did at Tech and Texas. It's what he does. That's going to be extremely appealing at all kinds of places. This idea he's going to be untouchable because of dropped domestic abuse charges from years ago is extremely myopic, IMO.
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Well, it's an alleged domestic abuser whose victim dropped the charges and later got back together with him (which is such a horrible miscalculation of judgement on all sides). No one questions what happened at Baylor. There are questions over how directly involved Art Briles was, but as the head coach, few people are questioning his responsibility regardless (personally, I believe he was balls deep in the cover ups and creation of the overall culture in order to win). I've found my piece of shit metric has lowered over the years. I was all in on Saban being Mack Brown's replacement even though I knew Saban was a cheating son of a bitch who was IMO morally reprehensible in terms of how he approached recruiting. I still find non committable offers to be something of an abortion. But I really really wanted to win and he was the surest thing ever. But I had HUGE problems when Tom Herman even brought in someone from Briles's staff to be a behind the scenes support person. The situation at Baylor was beyond the pale. I'm glad Beard was fired. I feel betrayed as a fan by his personal decision making that led to him being arrested in the first place. I want to also point out that if anyone judged my personal decision making the way I'm judging Beard I would fall far short of any kind of ideal as well. I don't think it's going to be the albatross around his neck for the rest of his career some of the rest of you seem to, IF he wins at the level he's capable of.
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I don't see UNC being an option. They can't seem to get over having a UNC tie in. And they're just as snooty as Texas is about certain optics. But if he wins at Ole Miss the way he's capable of, someone is going to come calling. I hope it all goes south, either at Ole Miss or his next destination, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen. My preference is that he takes Gillispie's job at Tarleton State.
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Calipari was underperforming at Kentucky. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. I would have been extremely upset as a Kentucky fan at what the team had been doing under him over the last few years. I think it's fair to say it will be an extreme challenge to have a long career as the men's basketball coach at Kentucky. Ask David Pierce about the standards of being the head coach for UT baseball, and I was all in favor of him being replaced. You have to win at the highest levels at Kentucky, and then do it again year after year. But if you make the Sweet 16 they're not going to fire you, even at Kentucky. Calipari's early exits made him want to get out of there. I hope he falls on his face at Arkansas, too. This year's run is creating severe issues for me. It's Calipari, AND it's Arkansas. Having them in the Sweet 16 completely sucks.
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It's an example. They have their guy until he's not any more. Calipari was their guy until he wasn't. It doesn't have to be Kentucky. Just somewhere a little more high profile than Oxford. But Kentucky chases off coaches who win national championships, so nothing you say will make me believe Mark Pope is guaranteed to retire there.
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We'll see what happens. Those are a lot of declaratives for a future I find more uncertain than you. I hope you're right, but the future has yet to be written. Winning sure makes people overlook a lot of things. Hasn't worked for Art Briles, and Bobby Petrino is still trying to get back to a top job, but Beard already has Ole Miss doing things they've never done before. He has the whole Rebel fan base galvanized around basketball in a way they never have been before. Because that's what he does. And basketball is different than football, with different dynamics. It's more transactional than it ever has been, but it's always been transactional in a way that football wasn't. You're also not looking at a massive 100 person roster, so while the individual players can make more, the overall payroll simply isn't the same. It's my opinion Kentucky is going to be able to compete in basketball in ways they're never going to be able to in football. More NIL dollars helps, but you don't have to be Oregon/Ohio State/Texas to fill your roster with top athletes the way you do in football. I'll also say that it's even more important to be skilled in roster construction in basketball than in football, just because of the amount of players involved (it's also important in football, though). Knowing who can be the right kind of role player on a 7 or 8 man rotation is way more important than in football. Having a vision for what kind of team you're going to build, and then finding the right pieces for that vision, is more important in many cases than being able to field the very best talent. Especially when the best talent leaves after a year. The 3 pointer is also an equalizer in basketball that doesn't have an equivalent in other sports. The bottom line is I hope Beard implodes and his career plummets like a meteor. But I'm not as convinced that's his future as much as you are. We'll see.
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The petty sports fan in me hopes that's the case. My worst case scenario - and I think it's an entirely possible one - is that he overachieves at Ole Miss, gets a job at a blueblood school like Kentucky, goes on to win multiple national championships, and what happened at Texas ends up being part of a redemptive story, much like being fired for being drunk at football practice as the head coach, caused Sarkisian to get fired from his dream job. The best side of me hopes for redemptive arcs for all of us. But the redemptive side of me is not posting on the Texas basketball message boards. I think it's easy to back seat drive. I'm quite adept at it. A big part of the issue is that she acted ridiculous on the trip to Madison Square Garden to the point plenty of people took Beard aside to tell him her behavior was unacceptable and he'd have to do something about it. That's why he was living/sleeping in the guest bedroom. She knew how to press his buttons. She got him worked up. He knew what she was doing so he recorded the conversation. She escalated and called the police. He had no concerns about it and felt like he'd be able to talk to them about the situation to deescalate. She told the police he grabbed her around the throat which was an immediate trip to the local jail. Whether that actually occurred or whether that was partially engineered by the police I don't think it's clear, but when someone in an organization has a tool that they think can help solve situations they're going to use it, even if at times it ends up being an abuse of it. That's not unique to law enforcement. Once he was arrested the priority became not having it go to trial, NOT appeasing UT about keeping his job. He probably thought he could do both. But wherever there was a conflict between the two he chose the advice of his lawyer over requests from Texas. In the end, it doesn't matter. He was arrested for choking his girlfriend, whether it happened or not. How many other head basketball coaches are getting arrested for choking their girlfriends every year? You simply can't have that happen to you at UT. You just can't. You can be an assistant. You can be a player. But you can't be the head coach of one of the major revenue sports and expect to keep your job in that situation. The optics aren't going to allow for it. There were a million and one decisions that led to the police appearing at his door to follow up on his girlfriend's phone call. A different decision anywhere along the line that didn't create the situation where he was answering the door trying to explain the circumstances that led to the phone call would have kept him in his job. But that's not where we are and that's just how it is.
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I'm excited about what Miller can do. I don't think as highly of him as I did Beard, but he's a better offensive coach than Beard, he's a really good recruiter, he'll bring players from overseas, and he has some huckster in him to go out there and sell tickets, which is an underappreciated (and frankly I wish an unnecessary) part of the job. He also wanted the job badly, reaching out after Beard was fired and then this time around. I hope we catch lightning in a bottle, but even if we don't, he's someone who can deliver consistent second weekend tournament finishes over the rest of his career. I'd love to see him make his first Final Four at Texas. I doubt I ever completely get over the Beard debacle, but this helps me get over the Rodney Terry debacle, which IMO was always going to end one way. I'm also extraordinarily grateful we didn't have to endure 6 years of Terry the way we did Shaka Smart. I'm also grateful for all of Terry's contributions to Texas basketball, which have not been small. He got Peter Principled through no fault of his own. I hope he socked away some of those big paychecks over the last couple of years. He's a solid assistant that would be a bonus to just about any bench in college basketball. Let's see what Miller comes up with for his first roster, but it's his second year I'm looking forward to even more. Strange we've gone from the Big 12 which was the best basketball conference in the country, to the SEC, which is now way more of a gauntlet than the Big 12 was, and the Big 12 was a meat grinder. And we now see Beard and Barnes on a regular basis. Kind of weird.
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Negative Recruiting Your Own School: The aggy Screenshot Megathread
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
This thread is such a constant source of joy in my life. -
Attack the judiciary. Ignore instructions that go against what you want to do. Threaten impeachment. Highlight the judges that are the problem. Purge the upper echelon of the military. Install loyalists. Purge the domestic security forces. Promote and install loyalists. Threaten congressional members with the end of their political career if they don't fall in line. Coerce the media by various means to either not criticize, soft pedal the criticism, or otherwise shut it down. It's the beginning of a real dystopia. I mean, we all see it. I'm preaching to the choir on this message board. I guess I find myself looking around hoping somebody else stops it.
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Their cholce of words makes me cringe with envy.
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I don't know that I'm talking about bankruptcy as much as I'm talking about some kind of subjective sense of collapse. For example, if a bunch of schools choose to not compete any more that's not bankruptcy. I feel like most schools in the SEC and Big 10 are practically immune to financial insolvency as long as these television contracts hold up. Some of them may not be able to be competitive, but they'll be able to afford to field a team. Also, we're basically saying the same thing. Congress would only act after the situation becomes a lot more dire than it is. When I compared it to the tulip mania bubble, tulips were still grown after the bubble burst. Houses were still purchased after the mortgage debacle in 2008. There will always be collegiate sports played. I'm not talking about an extinction event. I'm talking about a collapse so catastrophic that Congress would be forced to act. That's the only thing that's going to get some kind of wage growth under control in the long run. Canaries in the coal mine are only effective when someone pays attention to them. Otherwise they're Cassandras in the coal mine, so to speak. "The party doesn't end until it ends badly." Things just haven't gotten bad enough in collegiate sports. I don't think it's just NIL. It's player compensation in all the forms it takes. It's coaches' and administration wages, and now the amount of staff the biggest schools can build. It's the continuing facilities race. It's the level of investment people are willing to make so that their alma mater can win at the highest levels, that's not entirely tethered to profit and loss statements. There are many people who think the solution is a players' union that then collectively bargains a ceiling on wages. I think that has hair all over it, but I've felt like every step we've taken to get to this point in collegiate sports has had hair all over it, going back to 1984 when OU and Georgia won their Supreme Court case to end the NCAA negotiating television rights for all of college football. So maybe that ends up being what they try. As it is we'll keep watching the court system dictate how college sports are run. And that will always be subject to change depending on the next court case. And since the NCAA is not willing to actually go to trial any more after repeatedly being kicked in the balls, it will be a series of settlements that determines how college sports are run. I just don't think court settlements are going to actually end rampant wage growth the way others do, because any stipulation that represses wage growth in some way is going to be subject to an antitrust violation.
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We need to do something about these private equity bastards
SL Xpress replied to Horn Under a Bad Sign's topic in Cloak Room
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I'm saying there are three options. Option 1: Fighting between the two groups until the end of time. Broken up by periods of peace, but only until one group or the other has someone come to power galvanized by the identification of the other group as an existential enemy. I do not believe the Palestinians have ever had anyone in leadership who truly wants to ensure the permanent existence of the Israeli state, but even if someone like that were to come into power, I do not believe they would last long. Maybe for the length of their lifetime, at most. I don't believe Hamas is going to willingly give up power in the Gaza strip. If Hamas isn't the titular power, the person who is in charge is going to have a difficult time running things if they're seen as toadies for Israel. October 7 will be celebrated as a great victory for the Palestinian people, regardless of the consequences suffered. I also don't believe the preponderance of Israeli leadership has ever seriously entertained the existence of a two party state. I do believe plenty of Israelis want it, but it's my opinion they are wishing for a pipe dream. For the most part Israeli leadership has seen the Palestinians as an existential threat to a Jewish homeland. Which means a lot of repression, insufferable living conditions, and under the worst conditions, rollbacks of the territory possessed. I suppose this could go on for a very long time. We're going on 80 years now. As long as they don't kill each other off, especially with a weapon of mass destruction, I suppose it could go on for another 800. Option 2: Arabs and Jews intermarry and have lots of babies together, blending the cultural identity together to the point of indistinction. Kind of like what happened to the Northern Kingdom in Biblical times after Assyria conquered them. I consider this option farcical. I put it out there mostly to show how intractable the problem is. As long as the possibility of widespread intermarriage/interbreeding remains nonexistent, the potential of violent solutions will always exist. Option 3: One group or the other is forced to leave or is decimated. Historically this is how these kinds of conflicts are resolved. It is only in modern times where we have this quixotic ideal that two groups that hate each other and consider the other group their historical enemy living on land that is rightfully their's can somehow live next to each other in peace. The only way that happens is when one group is forced into a marginal minority status, with its own set of issues. ____________________________________________________________ 1) Well, not all of them have to be removed. You wouldn't have to remove all the Israelis from Israel. If you remove 90% of them or so and the Palestinians were in power then the remaining Israelis would be relatively immaterial. No one killed all the indigenous people in the western hemisphere, Australia, or New Zealand. But they've been marginalized to where it doesn't matter. Shoot, plenty of indigenous people were removed from their lands before European colonization occurred. 2) I would argue India/Pakistan recovered from it. Not ideally, certainly, but that was a traumatic migration which separated peoples who had lived alongside one another for centuries. It's a horrible solution. There's never been a case of a people migrating from their land because they couldn't live there any more that wasn't tragic in one sense or another. Most of the time it leads to the disappearance of their culture and way of life. But just because it's horrible doesn't mean it's unthinkable. It's happened throughout human history. I'd argue that IS human history. Certainly the middle east is as replete with examples as anywhere on the face of the earth, mostly because that's where it all started. 3) Could be. We're on the darkest of timelines in this country, that's for sure. I don't think I fear the US going to war externally as much as I fear the decimation of the judiciary, control over the media, the military, and domestic security, and the loss of the ability to have peaceful transfers of power. But maybe you're right.
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I think the only two solutions for the area in the long term are either the Palestinians or the Israelis leave - "ethnic cleansing" in your parlance - or they interbreed with one another to the point there's no distinction culturally or ethnically. Otherwise there will always be people on both sides who use the historical grievances to gain power and then the cycle of conflict begins anew. The Palestinians want their homeland back - ALL of their homeland. The Israelis are not keen on giving it back to them. I don't see intermarriage ever being a realistic solution given the strong identifications on both sides. What is completely baffling to me are the people in this country who supported Trump because Biden and the Democrats were too pro Israel. That made no sense whatsoever. Now Netanyahu has carte blanche.
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Yes. College football was single platoon from 1953 until 1964. UT's first national championship was won under single platoon football in 1961.
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Legend. When GoBig12.com started they had a limit for handles of 8 characters, no spaces. I wanted something that reflected where I lived and grew up that also reflected my passion for high school sports. I never met him, although I talked to a lot of people who knew him. I did help campaign for the stadium to be named after him. At first they were going to name it for a past athletic administrator. But I wasn't the main person involved or anything. They don't talk about it in the article, but he suffered an ACL. Maybe on both knees. Still played for the Oilers with injured knees. ] I always tell the Bear Bryant story they quote in there. Bryant also relayed that on the Merv Griffin show during an interview. The key is Bryant wanted Hall to play linebacker and Hall wanted to play safety. Bryant wouldn't budge and neither would Hall. John David Crow said he never would have won that Heisman Trophy if Hall had continued at A&M. "He was a much better player than I was."
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The Leopards Eating Faces and Unlubed Dildo of Consequences Thread
SL Xpress replied to Horn Dog's topic in Cloak Room
I don't agree with that even a little bit. The key advantage for democracies are peaceful transfers of power. Because non democracies are just as liable to fuck things up. But if there's no system for peaceful transfers of power there's a decent likelihood the people who made the originial mistakes double down on their mistakes rather than take corrective action. This creates reactionary government policies, but that's better than simply going down with the ship. Look around the world. How many countries with totalitarian/authoritarian governments are people better off living in than countries with functioning democracies? Now, I'm not a big fan of direct democracies writ large, but I am a big fan of giving people an opportunity to vote for a change in power. -
The Leopards Eating Faces and Unlubed Dildo of Consequences Thread
SL Xpress replied to Horn Dog's topic in Cloak Room
Well, there has been a conservative backlash. It's been entirely ineffective and completely run over, with careers ruined. But that doesn't mean it hasn't happened. There are too many people willing to bend the knee, feeling like if they just offer obeisance they'll be spared from the leopards eating their face, too. -
Texas Basketball Recruiting Notes: It's Miller Time
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
I think so, too, but holy shit is it quoted all the time. Drives me crazy. -
Negative Recruiting Your Own School: The aggy Screenshot Megathread
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
How are you supposed to tell the kids to get off your lawn with that?
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