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Derek Dooley Ramblings

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Tennessee fans, you don’t deserve a winning team.  You simply don’t.  The bile and venom spewed at Coach Dooley over the last three years is shameful and disgusting.  The vast majority of you are classless, short-sighted jerks who disgrace the legacy of the program with your behavior.  If UT fires Coach Dooley Monday, which likely they will, you will get what you’ve asked for, and more than likely, you’ve condemned the program to at least another five years or more of mediocrity.  Virtually no reputable coach with any sense would want to come to the university given your win-now-or-else absurdity.

First, a little history lesson for you.  After the National Championship season in 98, the program slowly began to erode.  The first major warning sign of this erosion for me was the Peach Bowl after the 2003 season.  At the end of a disappointing 14-27 performance against a mediocre Clemson team, many players were seen on the sidelines joking, laughing, and talking on cell phones.  For me, this raised alarm bells about the team’s character and commitment.  Coach Fulmer seemed oblivious to his players’ lack of passion for competition.  I wasn’t in the locker room and don’t know if he addressed it, but if memory serves, no one was released from the team.

Then, in 2005, the erosion of talent and dedication bottomed out.  The team went 5-7 overall and 3-5 in SEC play, missing its first bowl game under Coach Fulmer.  The team was slow at the skill positions and weak along the lines, and the players simply couldn’t execute.  Of course, you refused to acknowledge that anything was wrong with the talent.  Instead, you blamed Randy Sanders and ran him from the program in one of the most tasteless and ridiculous smear campaigns I’ve ever witnessed.  Coach Sanders bled orange and loved the university.  Today, because of you, he refers to it as “that place.”

In 2006, the team went 9-4 overall and 5-3 in the SEC, which on the surface was respectable.  However, the team was 2-4 against ranked opponents.  In 2007, Coach Fulmer seemed to have it back, going 10-4 and 6-2, winning the SEC East and taking LSU to the final gun in the SEC Championship.  However, the losses included Cal 31-45, Florida  20-59, Alabama 17-41. More alarmingly, the wins included beating South Carolina by 3, Vandy by 1, and Kentucky by 2.  Very easily, that team could have been 3-5 in SEC play.  In 2008, the team did go 5-7 and 3-5, and Coach Fulmer lost his job.

Enter Lane Kiffin.  Remember him?  He came in full of bravado and promises.  He landed some incredible talent and had the team looking competitive against ranked opponents for the first time in several seasons.  There was optimism and momentum surrounding the university.  Do you remember how that ended?  January 12, 2010, Kiffin called a press conference late in the evening to announce he was leaving the school to take the USC job.  In the middle of recruiting.  After one season.  Can your short-sighted-ness fathom what that did to a program already on the decline?  Much of his first recruiting class left the university.  Most of his second recruiting class followed him to USC or bolted to other SEC schools.

So in the midst of turmoil, UT began looking for a new coach.  Will Muschamp turned the job down, flat out.  So did Jon Gruden and Bill Cowher.  Do you remember that?  I wonder if the treatment of Coaches Sanders and Fulmer had anything to with their decisions.  Maybe it’s just me, but if I were a coach looking at potential jobs, the last place I would want to land is a school with a loud, obnoxious, ignorant fan base with a history of running off coaches.  But I digress.

During this turmoil, Tennessee hired virtually unknown Derek Dooley, and some of you started asking for his head the next day.  Coach Dooley immediately went to work and salvaged what he could from the recruiting class, including keeping Tyler Bray.  He also started rebuilding Tennessee’s image.  For most of Coach Fulmer’s tenure, the team was notorious for the sheer volume of arrests.  It seemed like every weekend, often after games, 2-3 players would get busted for disorderly conduct or worse.  Then, it turned out some of Kiffin’s recruits were felons-in-training, so the program was not only sub-par on the field, but rife with off field issues.

Coach Dooley vowed to clean this up and implemented measures to hold players accountable.  He began to build the character of these young men as much as their football skills.  He also recruited some fine talent.  Given the mess he walked into, he did a commendable job righting the ship.  He brought pride and passion back to the program.  The young men on his teams play for the Tennessee Volunteers, and they compete hard in every game.  Yes, they are not quite up to SEC standards yet, but it’s not from lack of effort or lack of hard work.

I can’t defend Coach Dooley’s win-loss record.  It’s awful.  I can’t defend some of his coaching blunders.  They are glaring.  What I can do is remember a young Bill Cowher making his fair share of blunders with the Steelers.  I can also look up the records of some of the greatest coaches in history and see early poor records.  I’m not saying Dooley will ever be the next Bear Bryant.  What I am saying is that Tennessee fans will never have a Bear Bryant as long as you continue with your hot-headed, crude behavior because you’ll never attract the right coach and then you’ll never give him time to build.  Win now or else.

To Coach Dooley, I’d like to say thank you.  Thank you for doing things the right way.  Thank you for soldiering through an absurd situation.  Thank you for being classy and dignified in the face of adversity.  I’d also like to apologize for the behavior of the ignorant buffoons who will probably run you out of town.  Please know, some of us saw the positive and appreciate the job you’ve done.  Some of us understand that college athletics is supposed to be about more than money and wins.  Some of us would love to give you one more year before judging you.  Good luck, Coach Dooley, whatever the future holds for you.

General Posts

Wednesday Afternoon Ramblings

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I’ve stayed out of politics, mostly because I believe it’s become a shell game of mass distraction, but the comments about the 47% from you, Mitt Romney, struck a raw nerve with me.  You want to say that I and people like me expect the government to take care of us.  You say we see ourselves as victims.  You imply we do not take responsibility for our own lives.  Well, let me set you straight.

First and foremost, I wasn’t born the son of a governor with insider connections.  My father is a working man who, until he became disabled, held two and three jobs for most of my life.  He taught me the value of a dollar, the pride of honest labor, and respect for others.  He pushed me to get an education and make something of myself.  He taught me the importance of persistence and the necessity of pursuing dreams for finding inner contentment.  From the actions of your life and the rhetoric of your campaign, I can see your father didn’t teach you these same values, and for that, I’m deeply saddened for you.

You see, your warped perception that wealth is the measure of a person’s worth is simply wrong.  Yes, you’ve made a pile of money buying and dismantling companies, then shipping those jobs overseas.  I’m certain you are quite proud of yourself for all the money you’ve “earned” by doing so.  What you fail to see, what you and your crony capitalist pals fail to grasp, is that you are not following the rules of the free market.  These rules are not enforced by any government; they are not arbitrary; they are not negotiable.  Eventually, markets correct.  When you manipulate a market, as in moving a manufacturing company to a country that subsidizes labor, thereby undercutting the wages of your own consumers, eventually your own market will implode.  The invisible hand may move slowly, but it does move.  One day, you will wake up to find that you can no longer manipulate the market to your benefit.

When that day comes, and I acknowledge that it may or may not occur in your lifetime, you or your children will find that the working class people you so cynically mock as lazy and shiftless have something you and your family can never buy.  We have a deeply-rooted sense of loyalty to our families, our friends, our communities.  We know how to dig in our heels and fight harder because most of us have had to hold multiple jobs throughout our lives.  We don’t need others to cook our meals, drive our cars, keep our schedules, or manage our money.  We’ve had to juggle all of those aspects of our lives on our own because most of us can’t afford to pay someone else to do it for us.  Most of the working people I’ve known, the vast majority, have a deep sense of pride in the jobs they do, no matter how low that job may seem to you.

I may not have as much money as you do, and in every facet of my life I may not measure up to your definition of greatness, but at the end of my life, I’ll be able to look back and say that I gave something to my community, my state, and my country.  Teaching English may not be a glamorous job or lucrative or fun, but I know I’ve enriched other people’s lives.  You, sir, cannot say the same.  Your career, both in the private and public sectors, has been about destroying other people, either by dismantling their business or selling their job overseas.  All of your wealth, all of your power, all of your entitlements are selfish, empty vessels.  I pity your perverted sense of right and wrong.

Before you speak of working class people again, perhaps you should live for a time in our shoes.  One week should suffice.  One week of worry about buying groceries or paying the electric bill would teach you a valuable lesson you’ve never experienced.  One week of ironing your own clothes, buying your own groceries, running your own errands, and toiling for a boss who undervalues your contribution to their organization would do wonders for your outlook on life and family and labor.  Your distorted concepts of working people, men and women who get out of bed each and every morning and work themselves into an early grave for substandard wages just to fulfill obligations to their children and families, is disturbingly arrogant and self-centered.  Your ignorance of humanity is alarming.  For an educated man, you are shockingly stupid.

You are correct about one thing.  I will not be voting for you, but not for the reasons you believe.  It’s not that I want the government to take care of me.  It’s that I cannot and will not offer support to a human being who looks upon the working class with such disdain and contempt.  Hopefully, enough of my fellow working class people will see that as well, and you will lose the election, becoming all you deserve to be, an insignificant footnote to history.

General Posts

Thursday Afternoon Ramblings

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I wanted to write this on September 11, but work had me too busy.  Do you remember how we felt after 9/11?  I’m not talking about immediately after.  I mean once the initial shock wore off, and we as a collective picked ourselves up.  Yes, we were angry.  Yes, we were shaken.  Yes, we were saddened.  But we were something else, as well.  We were galvanized.  After the divisiveness of the 2000 election, it was refreshing to pull together as a people, turn our collective attention to the Taliban, and show them our greatest strengths as a people.  Before the attacks, I stood as firmly against President Bush as anyone.  From 9/11 until the decision to invade Iraq, I pledged my full support to my president, and it felt good.

For a little while after 9/11, we weren’t conservatives or liberals.  We weren’t Bible thumpers or baby killers.  We weren’t homophobes or fags.  We didn’t condemn each other for where we ate lunch, or hassle each other about nonsense.  We were all Americans.  We all rallied around the flag.  I remember a black friend of mine saying that for the first time in his life, he felt patriotic.  It didn’t last long, not even a full year, but for a little while, politics took a backseat to our nation.  During one of our darkest hours, we held ourselves high and told the rest of the world that when we are threatened, we will pull together.

I know there were examples of idiots who beat up Middle Easterners or attacked mosques, and I don’t mean to ignore those facts, but by far, those were the exceptions, not the rule.  For the most part, we stood shoulder to shoulder ready to defend our country, rebuild what was destroyed, and honor those who were lost.  For weeks after the attack, President Bush had a 90% approval rating.  90%.  That’s unbelievable.  It felt good to know we could be one people again.

But like I said, it didn’t last.  Personally, I stopped supporting the president when the decision was made to move the focus from those who attacked us to Iraq.  From there, it continued to unravel.  Today, we are as fragmented and divided as ever.  When Osama Bin Laden was killed, instead of celebrating our victory as a nation, each side of the political spectrum taunted the other.  That sickened me.  Today, instead of mourning the death of a good man in Libya, both sides are politicizing the tragedy.  Republicans are also shocked and outraged that President Obama is meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood president from Egypt.  Never you mind that Egypt has been our ally since WWII.  Never you mind that every single president since George Washington has met with at least one controversial head of state.  Never you mind that the goal of the Iraq War was to spread democracy to the Middle East and that the president of Egypt was democratically elected.  Because President Obama is meeting with him, it’s further proof that he must be in cahoots with his Muslim brothers.

It’s sickening, and since we have tarnished the memory of all those who died on 9/11, and since we’ve failed to learn any lessons from that tragedy, we deserve whatever happens to us.  Today, I’m more ashamed to call myself an American than at any other time in my life.  I love my country, but my fellow Americans make me want to puke.