I don’t know Mama Pelini’s son Bo…. On TV on the sidelines he looks like a wound-way-too-tight sourball. Likely not my kinda guy at all. Last week he got Bravehearted, pilloried and run over by the steamroller known as BoardMonkeyNation… at least by their Cornhusker chapter.
Bo Pelini’s sin? Saying – in a private conversation – what every “highly paid to win every game” coach on Earth has said or thought more than a lot. If coaches can now be eviscerated for their private conversations, the “hot seat” just expanded into way more chairs than Ethan Allen and La-Z-Boy have in stock. ……
I’ve done well over 100 radio shows as both “our special guest today” and as a co-host. Ever how good or not so good the on-air show might be….. the off-air outtakes are always much more better. Radio is a single-sensory experience. All “you people out there in Radioland” get is what goes out on-air. You don’t see what the people at those live mics look like or what they are doing before-after-during the show. Good thing.
Two years ago, after a come-from-behind win at home over Ohio State; Nebraska Head Coach Mark “Bo” Pelini uttered an F-bomb loaded tirade about Husker fans who “left early”. Pelini thought the mics were off and he was venting to “the Voice of” Husker football…. and whatever crew of 2-3 were involved in producing the post-game radio interview he had, he thought, just completed. Now, two years, later – after Nebraska loses in an embarrassing fashion at home to UCLA, Pelini’s tirade is made public.
After last Saturday’s Good Sports, I asked our production engineer Anthony about how such could occur. “Someone with a bad credit rating” was Anthony’s reply. His meaning was someone thinking he possessed something – the Pelini Tirade Tape – that might have blackmail and/or black market value someday. The recording was released on Deadspin. What Deadspin paid for it, if anything, is not known. Pelini obviously did not pay to have it destroyed.
Any Big Time coach in any high pressure sport – in the first 30-minutes after a game – win or lose – is a tightly-wound spring. Doing the ubiquitous post-game interview is part of the job that every coach must simply learn to deal with. Pelini thought he had “dealt with it” satisfactorily. He had every reason to assume that his “vent” was off-air and private.
What’s next? Micing every coach’s bedroom and bathroom?
Had he exploded on-air – as HAS happened with more than one coach and player – then all bets are off and Katie bar the door. Think Jim Mora, Dennis Green, Herm Edwards, Alan Iverson (“Practice” !!!) and, of course, UNC’s very own Ol’ Roy as in “Roy said WHAT?”
Every sports anchor from Bristol CT to itty bitty-market Podunk loves it when “Coach XYZ goes postal” on-air. It gets replayed more often that Deep Throat at every bachelor party back in the 70s. If Coach XYZ does “lose it” on-air he is 100% liable for the resulting firestorm whether that means simple embarrassment or forever wounding the relationship between him and whoever he was mad at…. more often than not “the fans”. The refs or some bureaucrat AD / Commissioner being tied for second.
Coaches complaining about “the fans” is about as stoopid as road rage or yelling at God or Mother Nature about the weather. Ya don’t like 80,000 nitwit critics? Join a Jesuit Order or apply to be Dave Cutcliffe’s successor at Duke. Dave only has 18,000 nitwit critics.
That Bo Pelini is now forever held liable for his blasphemous sacrilege against HuskerNation is “unfair”. Welcome to The Unfair World of Sports & Politics In the Internet Age.
“Good normal Husker fans” (meaning most of’em) are saying it’s unfortunate and “not fair” that his private comments became public….. but they cannot un-hear them. Their fan-love for their coach just got mortally wounded. Even if Bo Pelini goes on to pass Tom Osbourne and Bob Devaney as Nebraska Football Gods – (He won’t) – his private tirade is forever carved into any discussion of his career…. in Lincoln and beyond.
The raving lunatics in HuskerNation are, of course, in full likkered-up lynch mob mode. GET A ROPE is their demand. GET A ROPE is pretty much every likkered-up lunatic’s state-of-mind about all matters. Lunatics and “likkered-up lynch mob” is both alliterative and the norm for these abby normals.
As this story went viral last week, every coach on every level said a silent “there but for the grace of God and an honest production engineer go I”. A lot of politicians and assorted public officials said the same.
Only rappers, wide receivers and slutty actresses score career points by being seen / heard as uncontrollable F-bombing idiots….. and the occasional Democrat. AgentPierce made me say that.
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Tar Heels ran out of gas in the 2nd Half at Historic Grant Field…. again. Not a very hospitable ballyard for Old Wellers in recent decades. Good news is that their uniforms did not suck as bad as in the first two games. Hopefully that “combat” crap is forever gone…. but I doubt it.
The Fedorians still have a mathematical chance for 10-2 but my HUDDLE UP column this week on Chapelboro.com – The Reason For The Rings – (LINK) cautions not to get too carried away about that unlikelihood.
It was Cupcake Week around Big Time College Football… the last “warm-up” massacres before entering conference wars. Savannah State has had its annual national exposure and now fades back to, I suppose, Savannah.
Savannah State The National Patsy’s mascot should be Paxutawney Phil The National Groundhog.
Duke lost 58-55 to Pittsburgh. Did Tony Dorsett or Dan Marino hit a three-pointer at the buzzer?
Maryland whupped West Virginia 38-0. No sofas burned in Morgantown… but maybe a few effigies of their coach.
I have this one pair of Under Armour “athletic shoes” I really like’em; but, they were getting too tight. I was sad. Pitch’em? Then I realized I had, for some reason, put in extra thick innersoles. I replaced the thick ones with thinner ones. Now the shoes fit just fine. All of Life’s problems should be so easily solved…. huh?
This week The Purple People From Pitt County come to Kenan. “Skanky lil’ gals in cowgirl boots” = Woooo Hoo!
The Pack plays The Savannah State of Michigan or Minnesota or Central Manitoba or who-knows-where. Will there be more card stunts? Will there be ice cream at the half in stately Vaughn Towers? …… hey, did ya read The ACC Office’s Official Statement on the blown “he stepped out” call? It was “Yadda yadda, blah blah…. snort.” AND something about “At least we didn’t throw out Corch and Gugs.”
“Being Eli Manning” ain’t a bad way to go….. but maybe not This Week.
Pittsburgh, Baltimore AND Kansas City baseballers will all finish above .500 this season. What were those odds? Go small markets Go !!!
New TV seasons begin this week for Castle, Nashville, and both NCIS’. Please don’t go Ziva…. sigh, sob.
