Despicable K

In 2003, Dave Bliss, the head coach of the men's basketball team at Baylor University, engaged in some heinous acts, implementing a plan to cover up the murder of one of his players, Patrick Dennehy, by concocting a story that Dennehy was a drug dealer and that those dealings led to Dennehy's death. As this plan was developing, one of Bliss's assistant coaches, Abar Rouse, recorded a conversation with Bliss that would later expose Bliss's plan, lead to Bliss's ouster as coach and major sanctioning by the NCAA that may keep him from ever coaching again in college basketball, NCAA sanctions against the Baylor men's basketball program that included only playing a conference schedule one season, and a criminal investigation (though no formal criminal charges were initiated) against Bliss. For more on this story and Rouse's plight since the incident, check out this column by ESPN.com's Dana O'Neil.

One of the most striking elements contained in O'Neil's column (and plenty of other reports that have covered this story) is a quotation from Duke University men's head basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski. As Krzyzewski was quoted, "If one of my assistants would tape every one of my conversations with me not knowing it, there's no way he would be on my staff."

Now, I'm happy to reconsider my view of this statement should Krzyzewski demonstrate contrition for it or that it occurred within another context that would mitigate my concerns. As it looks, though, this statement is not only inaccurate, it's downright despicable. First of all, as I understand it, Rouse recorded one conversation with Bliss. He was not making a habit of repeatedly recording conversations, nor did he record "every one of" his conversations with Bliss. These points make Krzyzewski's comment inaccurate.

Secondly, and even more significantly, that Krzyzewski cannot tell the difference between what Rouse did and the kind of thing to which Krzyzewski seems to be alluding would appear to show that Krzyzewski has a very poor sense of judgment. I think I understand why Krzyzewski would be opposed to an assistant always or repeatedly recording him without his awareness. I would agree that that would violate trust that the head coach must be able to have in his assistants. Additionally, it would seem to reflect a suspicious degree of self-interest on the part of the assistant, who, assumedly, would be using this for some gain at the expense of the head coach. So, Krzyzewski's lack of tolerance for that does not bother me.

However, the case with Rouse and Bliss seems to be so clearly removed from that situation that lack of recognition of that difference suggests a similar degree of suspicious self-interest on the part of Krzyzewski. Namely, Bliss was doing things that were morally reprehensible, and without Rouse taping the conversation in order to have evidence to show Bliss's behavior, perhaps Bliss never gets caught and the story never comes to light. Indeed, given that Bliss was quite willing to concoct this story about one of his players (who had instilled his own trust in Bliss), it's not hard at all to see Bliss firing and publicly depicting Rouse as a problem (perhaps even concocting another story, this one about Rouse) had Rouse reported what happened to the NCAA without this kind of evidence. This seems so clearly to have been an appropriate thing to do in this specific instance that it's mind-boggling for Krzyzewski, at least based on the quotation above, not to distinguish between this and the situation I described in the above paragraph. In fact, it's not only mind-boggling; it's disgusting. In this context, Krzyzewski's comments make him sound so invested in imposing his own power on individuals whom he appears to consider subordinate and inferior that I have to wonder if he deserves to maintain that power--i.e., if he can be trusted to be using it in a fair and considerate manner. Correspondingly, I have to wonder seriously about whether or not Krzyzewski is fit to be in a position that makes him a guiding influence in the lives of his players and other individuals at his university. If Krzyzewski's judgment is a model to look up, what kind of world are we creating? Certainly, it would appear, not one that emphasizes practicing the kinds of good moral judgment about which we so often hear. Quite to the contrary, Krzyzewski wants to punish turning in someone who has done something that lacks regard for human life and decency. I also don't think he should be the the head coach of the USA Olympic men's basketball team. That's not in line with the kinds of ethic I want to represent my country.

I bring this up now because, after winning their respective games tonight, the men's basketball programs from Duke University and Baylor University will play each other in the NCAA basketball tournament on Sunday. Surely, much will be made of the amazing turnaround that the Baylor team has made under head coach Scott Drew, given where they were with their NCAA sanctions just a few years ago. However, I think this is the perfect juncture for a major line of discourse surrounding the game to focus on Krzyzewski's comments about Rouse from 2003 and what his lack of recognition of the good reasons for Rouse's actions potentially show about Krzyzewski.

Unfortunately, particularly given the deference that Krzyzewski (and many other sports figures) get from the media who cover them, I seriously doubt that Krzyzewski will be asked to confront this. At best, the issue might get a mention here or there in certain forums on ESPN coverage or in some columnists' work (hey, Gregg Doyel ... buddy ... this would be a great column for you ...). But CBS's coverage will likely steer away from it, most of the talking heads fronting ESPN coverage will likely steer away from it and/or deflect it if confronted with it, and Krzyzewski will be able to go on without really having to account for his despicable comments. From my very limited position, however, I will talk about this repeatedly and consistently all weekend. Perhaps that can count for something.

United States

There is currently a move afoot at my university to start a faculty union. It's become a significant topic of discussion this year among faculty and administrators, of course, as well as among students. The other day, before class, a few of my students were talking about it and asking me a question or two about it, when one of them said something to the effect of "I think unions were important at one time, but they've outlived their usefulness." (That may not be verbatim, but it's pretty close.) That's not an uncommon sentiment to hear. I've certainly heard plenty of people say almost that exact same kind of thing before. And I think I understand the thinking behind it (though, that's not to say I agree with that thinking). People taking this view recognize that unions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries combatted horrible working conditions to make work a less oppressive place for workers. Yet, this view thinks that today most American workers are coddled and paid well enough that labor strikes are egregious and self-centered exercises led by labor unions, which they often see as bogged down in bureaucracy and institutional politics. Indeed, as a post I placed here in October noted, the very presentation of news stories involving labor negotiations often devalue unions and the interests of labor by their very wording.

The thing that I wonder after hearing the comment that labor unions were useful but have outlived that usefulness is why we only tend to hear it on the side of labor. When's the last time you heard "Corporations were once useful, but they're not really useful anymore" or "Businesses once served a useful purpose, but they have outlived that purpose"? And, ultimately, when as a society we are quick to question the existence of labor organizations and slow to question the existence of management organizations, what does that suggest about liberty and democracy?

Richard Marx and the Symphony

I saw Richard Marx perform with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra last night (January 23) at the Stranahan Theater in Toledo. It was pretty rewarding. For fuller thoughts, check out my review on Tunesmate.

2010 MLB Hall of Fame

The results are in for this year's 2010 Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, and Andre Dawson will be the lone inductee from this ballot, much to the surprise of many who believed that at least Roberto Alomar would and should be there.

As I did last year, I'm posting whom I would vote for if I had a vote for the Hall of Fame. As I mentioned last year, I tend to be pretty inclusive in my voting. Here goes, by category:

Unequivocally, I'd vote for them (6 players): Roberto Alomar, Andre Dawson, Barry Larkin, Fred McGriff, Mark McGwire, and Tim Raines. I offered explanation on Dawson, McGwire, and Raines last year. Alomar is, in all likelihood, one of the best second basemen ever and, thus, belongs here as the biggest no-brainer of this year's ballot. Larkin's performance impressed me throughout the 1990s and, while perhaps in some areas his final career statistics are not as gaudy as some other players', Larkin seemed to me to be among the best players in the game throughout much of his career. I think the same can be said for Fred McGriff, who maintained a high level of consistency from the late 1980s through early 2000s.

Not quite completely unequivocal, but pretty close (2 players): Bert Blyleven and Jack Morris. In both cases, I don't automatically think of them as in the way I do the 6 players above. I do at least think about it once again before putting them on the list. However, it doesn't take me much consideration to put them down. For more explanation, see last year's post.

Vying for slots 9-10 (8 players): Harold Baines, Andres Galarraga, Edgar Martinez, Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Lee Smith, and Alan Trammell. First of all, let me say that anyone who wonders how someone can leave a player off a ballot one year and then vote for the player the next needs a refresher course in how fundamental mathematics works. For instance, check out the third factor guiding his ballot offered by Stan McNeal of The Sporting News in this column from January 4: "If I didn't vote for a player the first time he was eligible, I would not vote for him at all. Talking with Eric Davis reinforced this thinking. He told me that Pete Rose told him, "You're either a Hall of Famer or you're not." As Davis pointed out, "There's nothing you can do after you stop playing to move the elevator up." The problem with this kind of logic (well, besides taking tips on logical explanation from the likes of Pete Rose and Eric Davis ...) is that when the ballot limits someone to only 10 players, you could have situations in which someone you feel is worthy gets left off your ballot. Mathematically, it's impossible to vote for 11 or 12 players when you're only allowed to vote for up to 10. Of course, McNeal's saving grace is that few sportswriters have as inclusive of standards as I do, so when they only vote for 4, 5, 6, 7, or so players, they have not maximized their ballot slots and, thus, might be subject to this critique (though, I think there's a misguided error of perceived omniscience embedded in McNeal's supposition, as if humans should make decisions and stick to them without being willing to be self-reflexive and reconsider how they went about making those decisions and judgments, when, indeed, none of us can really claim to know everything and, thus, be able to make decisions and judgments without possibility for further reconsideration down the road).

With that in mind, because of the ways the ballot goes, I had 3 slots at the bottom of my ballot last year after the sure or nearly-sure things, but this year I only have 2? The reasons? Last year, Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice made the Hall of Fame, which means two slots are open from my ballot from last year; however, with the additions of Roberto Alomar, Barry Larkin, and Fred McGriff, three slots are now taken that weren't last year, leaving me with a net loss of one spot on my ballot. Thus, one person I would have voted for last year would not be able to make it this year. And, indeed, it's one of my bottom three from last year who wouldn't make it this year. Last year, the final three slots went to Harold Baines, Dale Murphy, and Lee Smith, in roughly that order, though, as I said last year, who makes my final slots can vary from day to day. This year, as I'm writing this post, I know slots 9 and 10 on my ballot would come from this group of three players, but which two of the three get in is changing literally as I write each sentence. I think, in the final analysis, I'd go with Harold Baines at slot 9 and Lee Smith at slot 10 (though, by the end of this blog, maybe Smith would be replaced by Murphy ...). If I could vote for an unlimited number of players, then I'd vote for 16, with the other 5 players listed here added to those I've already discussed. Galarraga would be the last one in and would be the only one among this group who might not make it. Still, when I look at his numbers, he's comparable in a number of ways to Murphy and seems to belong in a tighly-packed bunch that also includes Martinez, Mattingly, and Parker. I'd put Trammell in, but with the thought that he doesn't belong there without Lou Whitaker, who I think got screwed years ago on his first time on the ballot (and, hopefully, I'll write more on that in a blog entry in the next week or so, if time permits ...)

Would not make my ballot (10 players): Kevin Appier, Ellis Burks, Pat Hentgen, Mike Jackson, Eric Karros, Ray Lankford, Shane Reynolds, David Segui, Robin Ventura, Todd Zeile. I actually looked at the career statistics for each of these players and was able to count all but one out of my ballot rather easily. The only one even close is Ellis Burks. I wouldn't have thought that initially (I would have figured Ventura as the closest to consideration among this group), but a look at his numbers shows that Burks actually might even belong in that group with Murphy, Galarraga, and company. In fact, even as I write this, I'm thinking he might go there. Still, though, I think, like Jay Bell last year, Ellis Burks this year is my cutoff point, but he's really close.

I'm In Gregg Doyel's Hate Mail Again

So, while I critiqued Gregg Doyel in my last post, I have generally come to enjoy some aspects of his work. Sometimes he's willing to say things that otherwise don't get said. I assume this is, at least in part, to get conversation going. It's typically easier to get that going by saying something extreme or something unorthodox. Unfortunately, in the case of his column on the WNBA the other day, it was something that, while creating conversation, can actually be too orthodox as to be dismissive. Other times, though, it can be much more compelling.

As part of this, I've learned to appreciate his weekly Hate Mail responses to readers for what they often are--friendly banter. I suppose I've come to this appreciation in part simply because Gregg has included me and responded to my comments several times in Hate Mail over the last two years. It started off rather rocky, but for my part I have come to appreciate it. And I'm sure that's at least in part because it feeds my ego to get the public attention.

With that in mind, I was in Hate Mail again this past week, coincidentally enough with a comment that involves gender. One might argue that my comment to Gregg undermines my critique of him, but I'd say it doesn't. The argument that male/female and masculinity/femininity are constructions doesn't mean people can't struggle with identifying with them. Indeed, because these constructs are so deeply embedded in our society, many people do struggle with identifying with them, at least in part because society asks us so heavily to do so. Indeed, the need to identify with what society sees as feminine has been a significant obstacle for many female athletes throughout the history of American sports. And the need to identify with what society sees as masculine has led many men to pursue violent and aggressive interests out of a sense of feeling the need to show or prove their masculinity. Some readings of Hemingway suggest that various aspects of his life--including the heavy interests in bullfighting and baseball--reflected that same kind of struggle.

Women in the NBA: Sometimes I'm Embarrassed to Be Identified as a Man

You may have heard or read that a couple of weeks ago, in response to a question about it from Sports Illustrated reporter Ian Thomsen, David Stern asserted that he believes a woman playing in the NBA is "well within the range of possibility." Predictably, many a person has sounded off on this subject to dismiss the idea, using all sorts of arguments based in biological determinism, jeremiads about political correctness, and various other avenues for suggesting that there is no way a woman will ever play in the NBA. Just see Thomsen's mailbag from a week ago for some of these kinds of comments and argument, many of which are dismissive of the idea, and one of which characterizes Thomsen's article on Stern's comments as such "nonsense" that the author has stated that he or she will no longer read Thomsen's work. Today, Gregg Doyel added to this long list of dismissive arguments, with this column, in which he states flatly that he's not being "sexist"; he's just being "right."

I was planning on writing about this subject anyway as my semester came to a close and I qould finally have some time to get back to this blog. Then, given that I have a history of correspondence with Gregg, I wrote to him today in response to his column on the subject. In lieu of writing something additional when I think I summed it up in my message, here's the text of my message to Gregg:

Gregg,

Theories of biology upon which arguments against women's possibilities lie are inadequate to begin with. As many a transgendered person can tell you, the binary split of people into man-woman is not a complete picture of reality. It is a system of classification that was developed by people and that, in Western society, as well as other societies, has been used as the basis to relegate men and women to different positions with different opportunities time and again. Indeed, the whole biological theory itself is a theory built in Western science, created by men who already believed that the difference between men and women existed. They did not study things and then come to that belief; they already believed it ... just like many white Europeans developing scientific theories throughout the ages already believed that biological racial differences existed and, thus, their theories and discoveries reflected that starting-point belief that they already assumed as taken for granted from the beginning, thus perpetuating racism in the process. The man-women split does the same kind of thing and then has been used throughout the ages to perpetuate denial of opportunities, rights, and privileges based on this distinction. Over time, those differences have made it so that men and women, from the time they are conceived, are already positioned to do, think, and feel different things by society. Only recently has this been in any way challenged to any kind of an effective extent, and even with that, there is plenty still to rethink and reexamine. In the end, perhaps there are some general biological differences that might be noted between the group of people considered "men" and the group of people considered "women," but to out and out say one knows these differences without having really accounted for the years of social distinctions that contributed to these distinctions is to perpetuate the system that discriminates against women by closing off a possibility before it is even allowed to develop. In a word, it perpetuates sexism, and, thus, the kinds of biological deterministic arguments that you have put forth that close off this possibility of being examined are sexist.

You’re not alone, as your message board (to which I posted this same response almost verbatim) reflects, many would buy the biological argument—including people of various genders. And that is not to say that one can’t believe that biology makes a difference in men's and women's aptitudes. Perhaps it could ultimately be found to have some legitimacy … but perhaps not as well. And that’s the problem. The argument as you and so many others articulate it already assumes its full legitimacy and, thus, closes off the door to even entertaining another possibility, though that possibility may turn out to be legitimate. In the process, the vocalization of this argument not as “I believe” but as “I know,” as you have done in your column, rests on assuming what is a belief to be a truth, and in the process it becomes a significant part of the system of the oppression of women. 100 or even 50 or even 30 years ago, many people were sure of things women could not do that they are now doing despite people making specious knowledge claims like yours. Similarly, 100 or 50 or 30 years ago, many people made similar kinds of knowledge claims about being black, or “colored,” and used them to deny opportunities, rights, privileges or even simply the possibility of imagining a different future. Yet, today, we can refute those claims quite readily.

So, in the end, yes, your argument is sexist, and I hope I’ve explained effectively to at least some degree why.

While I have singled out Gregg here to the extent that my message (and, thus, this post) is in response to his column, I do not wish to single out Gregg Doyel in the overall argument here. As I suggested in my message to him, he's nowhere near alone in believing. Additionally, Gregg Doyel didn't start this kind of argument. To a large extent, he and so many others are vocalizing what they've been taught and/or learned to think. Yet, that's exactly how sexism works. People don't believe they're being sexist; they just believe that what they believe is truth, because that's what they have learned to think. When, however, the origins and bases for these ways of thinking go unexamined, and the possibilities for other ways of thinking are summarily dismissed as "nonsense," as "stupid" (as the title of Gregg's column explicitly indicates), or other such derogation, then we have oppression. And to that extent, Gregg Doyel, the folks responding to Ian Thomsen's column, and the many various people who continue this dismissal should be held responsible for their part in perpetuating that system of oppression, and at the very least (though there is more to it than this) their arguments should be met with strong, persistent, and continuing critique.

Perhaps ... Finally ... Some Progress?

The winning streak ended today ...

The winning streak of non-white head coaching hires at FBS (Division I-A) college football programs ended today at 2. Before Bobby Bowden officially retired from Florida State University today, head coaching positions opening up this year had been 2 for 2 in hiring non-white (in each case African American) head coaches. Western Kentucky hired Willie Taggart, while Memphis hired Larry Porter. Of course, the argument could be made that the streak is still intact, since technically Jimbo Fisher had already been selected when he was made coach-in-waiting behind Bowden awhile back.

The point here is that the early returns are favorable for perhaps seeing a long-overdue increase in opportunities for non-white head coaches in FBS college football. Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come this year and in the future. I will certainly be watching.