Joe Paterno: 1926-2012

The vast majority of Joseph Vincent Paterno's life story was written in blue and white ink. 

Joe Paterno never went anywhere other than Penn State University, and he never needed to. Paterno was steadfast at Penn State because everything he did was timeless, yet outdated at the same time. Joe Pa drove a Ford Tempro to work every day; whether it was in 1950 when he just started out as an assistant coach, or in 2011 when he had won more games as a head coach that anybody else. He maintained his iconic look of Poindexter glasses and flood pants throughout his career; even when they went out of style decades before the fashion trends of his final recruiting class. Even when Paterno's famous Grand Experiment appeared to falter in 1979, Joe Pa's faith in his players and himself never budged. Generations of Penn State football players came in and out of the locker rooms at Beaver Stadium, but Joe Pa remained year after year, decade after decade.


On Sunday, at the age of 85, Joe Paterno passed away. Paterno left behind his wife Sue, his son Jay, and every one of his family members that all gathered by his hospital bed to watch him take his final breath. Still, Paterno left more than his own family behind. He left behind all of the kids who's lives that he influenced for the better; the University that was the first stepping stone, foundation, and Tash Ma Hall of Paterno's coaching career, and millions of people who blamed him in part for a scandal that rocked the sports world to it's core.

With the final chapter of Joe Paterno's life story written we turn to the maddening process of drafting the man's epilogue: his legacy.

What will the world most remember Joe Paterno? Will we all remember the 409 career wins, 24 bowl wins, two national championships, three conference titles, and his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame? Or will Joe Pa be remembered for what he failed to do? The alleged sexual assaults he reportedly knew about  and failed to stop. Is Joe Paterno the man defined by his 1986 Sportsman of the Year award or by his final interview with the Washington Post in which he unconvincingly plead the fifth?


There is no middle ground to comprehending Joe Paterno's legacy. No sensible answer that can be determined by placing sins and forgiveness on the Libra scale. The only two seemingly possible stances on Joe Paterno are light-years apart from one another. The scale will be forever weighing the mountainous highs of one the five greatest coaches in the history of college football against the cavernous lows of one of the three most destructive scandals in the history of sports.

How Joe Paterno's legacy will be written depends entirely on the person who chooses to remember him.

Some will choose to remember Jo Pa for the best of times rather than the worst of times. For the individuals who have played for, spent time with, and wrote about Joe Paterno, the memories will shift towards their positive interactions. Stories about how Paterno would take in players who were not doing well in school into his home in order for them to receive tutoring or a silly thing that went on in the locker room will be most players' default coach Paterno memory. A  more specific tale recalls Paterno's constant visits to Adam Taliaferro, a defensive back who played for Penn State and made a miraculous recovery from  paralysis.

Others who may not have known Joe Pa will only associate his name with the broken remains of Penn State's credibility. Paterno's lack of action put him past the point of forgiveness in the eyes of many. In this country, committing sexual misconducts of any kind will bring shame upon a person for the rest of their life. Although Paterno did not assault any of the boys himself, his alleged prior knowledge of the assault that allegedly did go on makes him guilty by association in the court of public opinion. And in a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately public mindset, Paterno's good deeds would surely go unnoticed in hindsight to the last ten weeks of Joe Pa's life.

Joe Paterno's life was one to remember one way or the other. His success as a coach has secured his place in the highest summits of football lore. By the same token, his biggest failure will be remembered by everyone and unforgiven by many. His legacy may be open ended, but the name Joe Paterno will live on long after a lot of us are gone.

Don't Alter the Past to Change the Future.

A recent in depth conversation between this young man and his father about college basketball covered some of the usual topics. Discussion started with which teams were going to make an impact come March; continued with which players were going to make an impact at the next level, and ended with my father's go to phrase whenever an Ivy League school does well: "Go smart kids."

In the middle of the spirited father-son conversation we both somehow entered the delorean and traveled all the way back to 2007-2008 to find out when and where Derrick Rose went to school. And as it turns out, Rose lead the Memphis Tigers to 38 wins and took his team all the way to the NCAA Championship game.

But don't tell the NCAA that because according to them, that isn't what happened in 2007-2008. According to them, Kansas won the national title by playing nobody.

How is that possible you ask? The answer can be found within the most ludicrous rule in sports.

The NCAA Committee of Infractions stripped the Memphis Tigers of their 38 wins and Final Four appearance because they found several major rule violations, including a fraudulent SAT score from Derrick Rose, and 2,000 dollars in travel expenses provided for Rose's brother. The NCAA couldn't touch Rose, who bolted for the NBA later that summer or Memphis' coach John Calipari who was the coach at Kentucky when the sanctions came down. So the NCAA decided instead to act as if Memphis' season never happened instead of conducting their usual punishment of voiding the school's scholarships and putting the program on probation.

Except it did happen, and the NCAA can never say otherwise.

The sheer stupidity that lies within whatever clause that enables the NCAA to take away wins makes the BCS  look like the poster child for how to properly determine results in college sports. The association cannot erase the countless memories that exist regarding the 2008 Memphis Tigers; and at least 38 of those memories include the team winning. The statistics that Rose and his fellow Tigers put up in their time at Memphis are still archived by the Tigers team website and ESPN.com. Memphis University already raked in the revenue from ticket sales, concessions sold, and media access that the very successful 2007-2008 season provided them. CBS and the other networks that covered the tournament already got their advertising money from the ratings of Memphis' six tournament games.

Besides, even if the NCAA could take all of that away, there still would exist a long list of permanent results that would not make any sense in the history books.

The NCAA may have taken away wins from Memphis, but the letter of the law did not say anything about voiding losses. So according to the NCAA's version of the 2008 NCAA tournament, the Memphis Tigers were a number 1 seed in the NCAA's hallowed playoffs with a record of 0-1. Which has never happened in the history of the tournament. Also, if Memphis' win against Texas-Arlington didn't happen, then a 16 seed advanced in the NCAA tournament for the first time in tournament history. But Texas-Arlington did not play Mississippi State in the second round, so clearly the Mavericks did not advance. By that same logic, Mississippi State, Michigan State, Texas, and UCLA all just magically vanished from the tournament bracket without losing to anybody.

Those scenarios make sense? Didn't think so.

The fact of the matter is that yes Memphis was in violation of the rules, but it was the NCAA's own fault for punishing the wrong people. The culprits the NCAA failed to catch were Derrick Rose and John Calipari, and the NCAA couldn't punish one and didn't punish the other. Rose fulfilled his NCAA obligation to play for one year in college before becoming draft eligible. The NCAA could not touch Rose once he became an NBA player in part because of their own rule.

As for John Calipari, the NCAA may have taken wins away from the coach, but this was the second time Calipari committed major violations against at a program he coached for. Calipari did the exact same thing at the University of Massachusetts and was not punished when the NCAA brought down the hammer on UMass because he had left for Memphis. In fact, Calipari coached another full season at Memphis before the punishments came down on the program. With no restrictions against coaches who are under investigation of violating NCAA rules, Calipari bolted and got off without punishment. The NCAA was left only to shake it's fist angrily as coach Cal built up another program at Kentucky.

The NCAA's ability to police their sport is about as effective as a squirt gun in a wildfire. So instead  of improving their own enforcement.the NCAA attempted to sweep their mistakes under the rug rather than fixing their own policing of the game. Sorry to break it to the higher ups in Indianapolis, but because you took away Memphis' wins on paper does not mean that they did not happen. Not only because there are other pieces of paper that say otherwise, but because millions of people saw otherwise with their own eyes.
And the NCAA can never take those memories and moments away.

Manny Ramirez: A Comeback that Should not Happen

A recent Sports Center feature piece depicted every step in Manyn Ramirez's career from his triumph as a world series MVP to the tribulations surrounding his most recent arrest.

You know, "Manny being Manny."

A recently reinstated Ramirez has been relentlessly promoting his 2012 comeback attempt. From taking practice swings in a Florida training facility, to working out in a pool with a plethora of senior citizens, Manny is set to prove to everyone that he get himself back into game shape after taking a year off. Ramirez has acknowledged his grocery list of past mistakes and seems determined to prove to everyone that his five game stint with the Rays last season was just a fluke.

What part of it exactly was the fluke? The .059 batting average and one run batted in last season? The suspension from MLB after his second violation of the substance abuse policy? One of the most notorious quitters in baseball history abandoning the sinking ship that was his career? Or the part where the washed up slugger got picked up by a contender? Out of all of the things on this list, the last one is the closest thing to a fluke.

What general manager in their right mind would give a guy who can't hit, run, field, throw, or help bring stability to a team a spot on their roster? Especially a player who has a track record like Ramirez? 

In Manny world every single GM in baseball would. In reality, no general manager in baseball would touch Manny Ramirez with a 50 foot poll. 

The combination of Manny's faults and the delusion that Ramirez still thinks he is a desirable player is what makes his comeback attempt so laughable; and also so painful at the same time. 

The name Manny Ramirez used to strike fear into the minds of opposing pitchers, joy into the hearts of Red Sox Nation, and laughs out of the media that questioned him. He hit more than 25 home runs in seven out of his eight years as a member of the Boston Red Sox; and also drove in more than 100 runs in six of his eight years in bean town. But everything good that Manny did, he seemed to do something as bad or worse. His several (in)famous antics that included urinating in the Green Monster, the famous cut off of Johnny Damon's throw from center field, and going to a bar with a close friend after claiming he was to ill to play. And whether or not the fans liked it, the Red Sox were a better team with Manny in the lineup than without him. 

Everything that Manny Ramirez did was justified with five simple words: that's just Manny being Manny. As long as he put up numbers and helped the team win games, Manny Ramirez could do no wrong. But then the numbers stopped coming and the antics didn't. Then the love for Manny from fans and media alike turned into spite, which in turn lead a famous hot dogger quitting on his team in the middle of his last season in Boston.

Today, Ramirez claims to have cleaned up his act and wants to make sure that he let's everyone know that he left the game the right way and that he didn't quit.

Except quit was exactly what Manny Ramirez did. 

The fans did not forget the shameful way that Ramirez left America's passtime, and Manny attempting a comeback is not going to undo everything that happened. The steroid conviction, the constant distraction he created, the continuous lack of effort during games, everybody remembers the infamy of Manny Ramirez.  And that kind of infamy is better left away from the limelight where we can hope it can never come back.

Bowling for Soup

With the ball officially dropped and the new year underway, the sport of college football produced some of it's most compelling bowl games in recent memory. The Outback Bowl saw a bunch of kids from East Lansing pull off a big time upset against the SEC, college football's Lex Luthor. The Grandaddy of them all, the Rose Bowl, saw the Oregon Ducks run the flying V up and down Rosemont avenue against a talented Wisconsin team. The Fiesta Bowl featured a starting quarterback as old as Aaron Rodgers out dueling the upcoming replacement for Peyton Manning in Indianapolis. The Sugar Bowl culminated the revival of the Michigan Wolverines and left a bitter taste in the mouths of the Virginia Tech Hokies. And the two remaining big time bowl games, the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl, are set to feature an inter-conference duel and two lithium powered offenses playing respectively.

But despite all the long hours of hard work put in by the entire programs of Michigan State, Oklahoma State, Michigan, and the eventual winners of West Virginia/Clemson and Arkansas/Kansas State, the BCS has already cast these programs into the matrix in which neither the red pill nor the blue pill would be able to help them escape. Because according to computers, coaches polls, and the associated press, LSU and Alabama are clearly the two best teams in the country no matter what anyone else says. And because of this predetermination at the end of the regular season, none of the other winners of bowl games would get a chance to beat LSU or Alabama on the field of play.

Instead of constructing a simple playoff format in which results on the field act as the strainer to sift through the contending teams, the BCS remains steadfast in sticking to the most asinine way to determine a champion in all of sports. College football has elected to go against the grain of traditional playoff format and replace it with ludicrous combinations of numbers that add up to disaster every year.

The summary of the BCS ranking systems is relatively simple. The system takes the total points of the Harris Interactive poll, the USA Today's coaches poll, and four different types of computer rankings and averages them together in order to get a mean that in turn determines where the teams rank in the BCS standings. The current BCS system would be perfect for determining the power rankings at the beginning of the season. That being said, there is a lot less math to do if teams were to be ranked according to wins and losses.

But the system itself is not the primary reason why so many fans, journalists, and analysts raise their torches and pitchforks towards the BCS. No the reason for the boisterous complaints surrounding the system lie within the concept of the Automatic Qualifiers and their right of passage against the spirit of competition.

Since six of the twelve conferences share historical links with each of the BCS bowls, the BCS has been generous enough to grant the champions of these six AQ conferences entrance to these bowl games regardless of their rankings at the end of the regular season. So it is a very common place for a team in the other six conferences, like the 12-1 Houston Cougars this past year, to finish higher in the BCS standings than an AQ school such as Clemson and not make a BCS bowl game because Clemson is from an AQ school and Houston is not.

And that's not even the worst case BCS scenario.

This season, the Alabama Crimson Tide finished second in the BCS standings and will be playing in the BCS title game. Sounds reasonable, until the details come to light. The Alabama Crimson Tide not only did not win their conference, they also did not even play in the SEC conference championship game. On top of that, the tide played LSU, the SEC team in the national title that actually won its conference, and lost. To make matters worse, Oklahoma State, a team from the Big 12 that won as many games as Alabama and won it's conference, got designated to go to the Fiesta Bowl. So thanks to the BCS, a team from an automatic qualifying conference can fail win it's conference, and not play in its conference championship game if they want to play for a national title.

The 12-1 Houston Cougars can't do that. They don't have a historic tie to a bowl game.

In theory, an AQ school could go 7-6 and play in the national championship game if the rest of their automatic qualifying brethren played down to their level; granted they would need to be ranked in the top two in the BCS rankings to do so, but mathematically speaking it is possible.

The 12-1 Boise State Broncos can't say that. They would get shut out so fast they would not even feel the breeze of the door slamming in their face.

But what can be done so that teams like Boise State, TCU, Houston, and the other mid major teams can get their shot at the BCS trophy? Everyone has thrown their two cents into the solutions fund, but there is not a whole lot to work with. Perhaps every team in the FBS could go independent and formulate their own league with their own playoff system (not going to happen). Maybe the BCS system would be exterminated in a court of law in a lawsuit by the mid majors (Mountain West Conference tried that in 2009, didn't work). Perhaps the BCS would do away with their system and implement a playoff system in light of their bowl game ratings dropping like a dead body tied to cement blocks (as long as we are dreaming, a Ferrari would be nice).

The best scenario for the sport of college football would be to condense the number of conferences from twelve to eight. By doing so, every conference winner would be rewarded with a tournament seed to compete in an eight team playoff. Teams are already changing conferences on a whim, so getting everyone together in eight conferences should be relatively easy. The regular season would be more compelling due to increased inter conference games and fewer regularly scheduled blowouts. The bowl games could be utilized as quarterfinal and semi final games with the Rose Bowl as the championship game. This way, the little guys could come out of their conference with a chance to win the national title. If they don't do it, then at least they could say they had a shot. Everybody wins in this scenario. More fans means more tickets sold, more eyes on TV, and more advertising money for the big wigs at the BCS. Hubris on behalf of the BCS would be the only thing to stop this realization from taking form.

Well, you can lead a horse to water, but you just can't make it drink. Even if it has been walking through the center of Pasadena after not drinking for fourteen years. Guess this horse will enjoy another 9-6 game it what should be it's marquee game of the sport instead of an eight team tournament of conference champions.