An Extraordinary Interview

 Posted by  Crime, Football, The Media  2 Responses »
Nov 162011
 

I have a growing belief that the best television journalism being done today is coming out of the sports world. ESPN frequently has more intelligent and thoughtful discussions about race, gender, and the actual impact of the so-called “culture wars” in a week than any of the big three cable news shows will have in an entire year. And I have long believed that Bob Costas, who has worked for NBC Sports virtually his entire career, is the best journalist on television today.

If you doubt that last part, watch this Today Show segment, which covers a phone interview that Costas did the previous evening with accused Penn State pedophile Jerry Sandusky. (The interview has some disturbing content, so be warned.) The headline is about how horrid a job Sandusky did at defending himself. But from my perspective, it was one of the best interviews that I’ve ever seen, especially considering the touchy content, the fact that Costas was given very little warning that he would be talking to Sandusky directly (he was interviewing Sandusky’s lawyer, when the lawyer suggested that they talk to Sandusky directly), and the shocking things that Sandusky was saying.
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A Truly Tragic Missed Call

 Posted by  Crime, Football  2 Responses »
Nov 082011
 

I’ve become quite interested in the controversy swirling around sexual abuse allegations at Penn State recently. To understand what’s happening, it’s important to first have a little background on who the important actors are.

Let’s start with Joe Paterno. Paterno, 84, has been head coach of Penn State University since 1966 and has more wins than any other major college coach in the history of college football. He is a legend and an icon, in college football generally and especially at Penn St. Two factors are important to remember about Paterno: 1) He has a reputation for being one of the best teachers and most ethical people involved in college football. Under Paterno, Penn State has been basically the only national championship caliber football program in the country to have never had major recruiting violations. 2) Paterno has a very long history of hiring former players as coaches, and bringing them up through the coaching ranks.

Second, is Jerry Sandusky, the man at the center of the controversy. Continue reading »

Divided We Stand

 Posted by  2012 Election, Sports, The Media, U.S. Politics  1 Response »
Sep 162011
 

Interspersed among the many 9/11 remembrances of the last week were quite a few calls to rekindle the sense of unity and togetherness that the country felt after those terror attacks. What struck me about those calls, however, is that they seemed backwards this time around.

In the past, it has always felt like the country was reasonably unified, but that our political leaders had a vested interest in playing up division to make a point. In that sense, divisiveness was driven by politicians and the media punditry, whereas the country as a whole was usually not particularly divided. But that’s changed. Now, it feels like the divisiveness is not top-down, but bottom-up. The country is becoming divided, some politicians are feeding into it (while others, most notably the Congressional leadership from both sides of the aisle and, to a lesser extent, President Obama) seem to be caught in the middle.
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Rule Breaking and Punishment

 Posted by  Sports  2 Responses »
Aug 192011
 

The NCAA seems completely incapable of policing the athletics programs of major universities. Since the end of last football season, Ohio State and Miami (both of whom have won national championships in the last decade) have both had major scandals involving numerous players receiving inappropriate gifts from alumni that apparently went on for years. In both cases, people within the universities knew what was going on, and in both cases did nothing to stop it. During this past football season, Auburn quarterback Cam Newton (Heisman Trophy winner, MVP of the National Championship game, and first pick in the NFL draft) was in trouble because his father (supposedly without Cam’s knowledge) tried to sell his talents to Mississippi State. Last off-season, former Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush was forced to return his Heisman because it was discovered that an alumni had helped his parents buy a house and a car at markedly below-market rates. These scandals keep getting worse.
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Reasonable Risk

 Posted by  Education, Football, Science, Sports  2 Responses »
Jul 192011
 

It’s really easy to feel like you aren’t doing enough to protect your children. But how much is too much?

I say this as someone who takes his young nephews to the park on a pretty regular basis. My general philosophy is that there is very little that can go wrong on a playground. My job is to watch them to make sure that they don’t do anything too reckless and to encourage them to stretch their boundaries. But if a kid wants to climb a jungle gym that the warning label says he’s too young for, or he wants to climb up a slide the wrong direction, my reaction is usually “go for it.” And then I sit back and nervously watch them, idly wondering where the nearest emergency room is.

Of course, compared to the nannies and young mothers that I see at the park (and I’m not stereotyping here; in my experience it is incredibly rare for a man to take children to a park on a weekday morning) I am a reckless caregiver. They tell their children not to climb jungle gyms if it is at all challenging, not to walk up a slide backwards, not to play with sticks, not to run too fast…. And I’ve had them tell me to not let my child do those things, because it is dangerous and they don’t want their kids getting any bad ideas. On the one hand, I feel sorry for those kids; on the other hand, a part of me wonders if I am doing something wrong.
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