You Say Parity, I Say Mediocrity

With the semester wrapping up, I thought I'd write about something else which is soon wrapping up its season, the NFL. I heard Bernie Mullin speak about his love of basketball and how he believed that David Stern was the best commissioner EVER in any league. I squirmed in my seat a little at the thought of this, because if it were put to a vote in the U.S., I think Pete Rozelle would win in a landslide. He merged two football leagues into one, and had the vision to create one of the best sports "holidays" of the year, the Super Bowl. He had one big criticism during his career, playing games the weekend after the JFK assassination in 1963. If he were alive today, he would probably be asked about rumors of steroids and amphetamines in locker rooms in the 1970s and early 80s. That said, I'm not sure Rozelle would be happy with some of the aspects of today's NFL. He would like that television revenue sharing keeps small markets like Green Bay competitive with larger markets like New York. I don't know if he would like treatment of retired players who built the league or mediocre product on display on Sundays. Good teams used to routinely beat the bad teams and the cream would rise to the top early in the course of a season. The problem is that the cream doesn't necessarily rise now and a team can get hot in December and win the Super Bowl. Awful teams routinely beat good ones and quarterbacks are regularly asked not to lose a game rather than win it. The lowly Oakland Raiders have three wins against playoff teams (Philadelphia, Denver, and Cincinnati) and the then undefeated Saints were a botched field goal away from losing to a three win Washington team. The NFL has avoided the over expansion that baseball, basketball, and hockey have had in the last 20 years. Too many teams and a watered down talent pool. It has also surpassed baseball as our pastime in my 39 years on Earth. Unfortunately, the on field product and game have declined and I think Pete Rozelle would agree with me.

The Weight of (Unrealistic) Expectations

Monday, Notre Dame fired their head football coach, Charlie Weis after five seasons. His 35-27 record was not acceptable by Notre Dame standards. Notre Dame while prestigious, has become a job that only a select few desire anymore. This is because of the unrealistic expectations placed on coaches to deliver them back to the old days when national championships were common place. In reality, Notre Dame hasn't won a national title since 1988 and hasn't really been relevant since Lou Holtz left in 1996. In reality, Notre Dame has won four national titles since integration and seven before it. Their 1966 national title came under scrutiny because number three Alabama may have had the best team but were punished in the polls because Bear Bryant didn't have any African American players. I don't know where football fans lost track of time but Notre Dame is no longer a football power when it habitually loses to service academies and doesn't draw top flight recruits anymore. SEC football, Big 12 and Pac 10 to lesser extents are played at a different level and at a different speed. Notre Dame fans would do well to lose the sense of entitlement because they think they are an elite football program. If they need help, they may look to the southern end of Indiana and the Indiana University basketball team. The fans have no illusions that the school is a work in progress and pretty much has been since the firing of Bob Knight. Tom Crean inherited two players when he took over in 2007 and is gradually building the program back to its place in the college basketball world. They still sit third all time with five national titles (tied with the University of North Carolina) behind Kentucky and UCLA. Take a lesson gold domers, rebuilding takes time. REBUILDING-learn the word.