My interview with Drew Brees for San Diego Magazine.  Drew talks about his upcoming golf tournament, his charity, and some football too. 

I am as enraged as everyone else over the Penn State tragedy.  There is no reason to recount the details here as they are being covered on every major media outlet.

There is a lesson in this for us all.  Approximately 1 in 58 children in the United States is abused.  It is adult bystanders that allow men like Jerry Sandusky to continue to abuse children. Did Joe Paterno, Mike McQueary, and all the other individuals involved in these horrific incidents neglect their responsibility as adults?  Yes.

Children were being abused and no one was doing anything about it.  Perhaps they didn’t want to jeopardize their jobs, or they didn’t want to create a controversy, or it was easier for them to stay silent, or someone told them to stay silent.

We have already seen the silence of adults, school officials, and children end the lives of our youth in the recent bullying incidents in Ohio and NY.  Children have killed themselves because ADULTS weren’t doing what they were SUPPOSED to do in a CRITICAL situation.  We, as a society, are letting our children down.

I think we can all look at an incident in our lives, whether it big or small, when we should have said something and we didn’t.  This is our opportunity to decide to never let that happen again.  Don’t let another day go by without helping someone you KNOW is in need.

No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.  If something seems strange to you, it probably is.  Act in love, with your best intention.

On a different note:  I (possibly more than anyone) can understand how big of a role football plays in some people’s lives.  However, it made me incredibly sad to hear that the first question asked by the media at the press conference announcing Joe Paterno’s firing was, “Who’s going to coach the team on Saturday?”

It is extremely upsetting that some of the football media and the fans of Penn State are not able to understand the intensity of this situation.  To turn these events into a story about Joe Paterno and his legacy as a head coach is not only inappropriate but also insulting to the victims and their families.

My heart goes out to the boys and men that were abused.  I pray that they receive the support they need.  I commend them for their courage in speaking up and I know that they have inspired others to do the same.

Hatemongering. It’s a tactic often used in politics to dissuade voters from a candidate.  You publicly bash someone by spewing negative commentary about them (either true or false) so that the population then begins to believe and repeat the negativity you so desperately wish to spread.  Football media has apparently taken to this tactic.

Fox sports was caught earlier this season manipulating headlines for a  hate piece they were doing on Jay Cutler.  For those that don’t know about the story here is a brief summary: Fox basically decided to push their opinion that Jay Cutler is disliked by the media and public onto innocent television viewers.  When attempting to back this up they realized they had no real evidence that this was true so they created and cited fictitious newspaper headlines to further push their point. Have they been punished for this? Not that I know of.  Fox apologized and that’s it.  Is an apology enough after concocting newspaper headlines in order to rake someone’s name through the mud to millions of viewers?

When I see things like this happen to specific players or coaches I wonder – Why Jay Cutler? Was Fox thinking, oh there’s been controversy around him in the past, he isn’t smiling every time the camera is on him, and we don’t think he’s good looking enough to be on the cover of GQ, so he’s an easy person to paint as evil?  I think it’s interesting to consider what makes a person controversial.  It’s also interesting to note what makes someone publicly appealing.  Looks and charm seem to play a big role in the latter; willingness to please the media and winning percentage seem to play a part in the former.  There have been multiple players in the NFL accused of sexual assault, rape, and other crimes.  Yet, we continue to see them on the covers of magazines, making public appearances, and being fawned over by FOX and other media outlets.  I guess what FOX is telling us is that in their minds you are less appealing if you are accused of faking an injury in a playoff game than if you are accused of raping someone.   I don’t believe that it’s the media or anyone else’s job to judge someone on their past actions, regardless of what they are. However, I find it intriguing that actions of some are overlooked, while the actions of others are magnified and embellished.

People in the media are just waiting for players or coaches to say anything that could be considered controversial in the slightest, hoping that someone will say something that can be later used to kick them when they’re down.  How big did the media make Vince Young’s “Dream Team” statement?  So big that most people don’t even know that he was the one that said it.  Most people think the entire Eagles team was chanting DREAM TEAM  on the first day of Training Camp.  You know why the media hyped it up?  They hyped-up that off the cuff comment to make sure that everyone was aware of it just in case the Eagles didn’t play well this season. If the Eagles didn’t play well then the media would be able to slam it back into their faces.  It’s a way for them to create a story out of nothing and I find it very annoying.

This is how little the sports media actually knows about how football teams work.  Last year, early in the season certain people in the media put Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy on the “hot seat.” Green Bay won the Super Bowl.  Should they still fire McCarthy?

This was posted on a hater site sometime before the Packers won the Super Bowl.

Certain analysts and commentators push their personal agendas on innocent sports fans that genuinely want to learn about the game. They are hatemongers! They arbitrarily say, “oh this guy should be fired” and “oh they need to bench this guy,” giving no football facts to back up their opinions because they have no clue what’s really going on.  Stop pushing your personal agendas.  No one likes a hater and it seems that the media has decidedly taken the hater mentality.  I was at an audition the other day with a woman who used to be a stand-up comedian, but left the business because she said she was “sick of all the hateful comics in the stand up world.”  She said, “ It became about tearing people down and insulting people rather than being funny and making people laugh.”  Makes sense to me.  That’s what football is becoming.  A big fucking roast of everyone involved. Unless you do something admirable and in that case for one small moment the media will applaud you, talk about how they always believed in you and then get back to picking you apart ( i.e. Tony Romo,  Reggie Bush, Nnamdi Asomugha,  Jay Cutler, Any Head Coach, I could go on and on).

Side note:  Another inconsistency in media morals: ESPN removed the “Are You Ready For Some Football” song from Monday Night Football because Hank Williams, Jr. aka Bocephus made a controversial statement about the President.  I’m sorry, ESPN, did you not know who you were hiring when you hired Hank Jr. to sing the song?  He is as un-P.C. as it gets.  He is an ol’ southern boy who probably doesn’t go a day without offending someone.  Who cares what he says? I like the guy’s music, I named my dog after him, and I don’t agree with half the stuff he says. “Are You Ready For Some Football” is a Monday Night Football tradition, don’t take it away.

Photos courtesy of: blacknbougie. com, thefastertimes.com, atomspiegel.wordpress.com, profootballtalk.com, totalpackers.com

(courtesy cbssports.com)

Jim Rome burned on the Giants fake injuries for a while on his radio show Wednesday. Rome implied that it’s pathetic for a coach to ask his players to feign an injury.  He said that only a “0-7 high school football coach” would do something like that.  Mike Florio of profootballtalk.com came up with a plan to punish teams suspected of faking an injury.  His suggestion:

 “The league should expand the rule book to strip a time out from any team with a defensive player who is injured while the opposing offense is using a no-huddle attack.  No questions asked, no fingers pointed.  If a guy is injured on defense while defending against a no-huddle offense, his team loses a time out.”

Mr. Florio, there’s no way the NFL could do that. In a game that is so violent are you really going to punish a guy when he tells you he’s hurt?  Are you really going to accuse a man who has been throwing his body full speed into other men that he’s “faking that cramp?’  Sure, there’s a chance he could be faking, but is it really a big deal?  If a quarterback gets huffy over the fact that the defense is trying to slow down their no huddle trickery then so be it.  That’s part of the game.

To imply that a coach has urged a player to fake an injury is a bit presumptuous.  A player has free will on the field.  A coach can only do so much. Do you blame a coach for a helmet-to-helmet hit?  A coach can encourage a player to do something but he can’t make him do anything.  That goes for the good and the bad.

The NFL sent out a memo Wednesday morning threatening repercussions to players/teams faking injuries.  NFL, please.  You don’t have to respond to everything that the media decides to turn into a controversy. I’m curious if a memo was sent out in 2003 when Patriot’s Willie McGinest had his famous flop against Peyton Manning’s no huddle effort?

Wilie McGinest (projo.com)

Exploiting loopholes to gain an advantage is not a new strategy in professional football. Whether that’s:

-reading a play as it’s being called

-conferring with coaches or players who used to be with the opposing team for inside tips

-rattling the opposing team on the line

-drawing an offsides penalty to get the first down

-taking a knee or spiking the ball to avoid calling a play

-quick offensive substitutions in the no huddle offense that don’t allow a defense to also substitute

There are several “tactics” used in this game that could walk the line of cheating.  Are we going to pick every one of them apart?  There is actual cheating (i.e. stealing another team’s playbook, videotaping another team’s practice); and then there is the strategy of the game.  If you want to say that a defensive player going down during a no huddle offensive drive is cheating then you need to look closely at all the other “tactics” teams use to regain control of the game.

Obviously if players started dropping like flies on every play something would need to be done.  I don’t think that will ever happen; I don’t think anyone wants to drastically slow down the game.

Henry David Thoreau

This is what I imagined Jason Garrett saying to Tony Romo this week…It’s what I would like to say to Broncos and Colts fans this week.  I think we all need a reminder to stay in the present moment at times. I keep a copy of Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now” beside my bed and pick it up whenever I need a reality check.  (Great book if you haven’t read it.)

Why the present moment?  Because that’s all we have, it’s all that actually exists until we get to the next moment.  So, if you’re not in it then you’re not anywhere.  Well, actually that’s not true you’re probably trapped in the craziness of your mind.

How does this relate to Dallas, Denver, and Indy you ask?

Tony Romo made a key mistake in the Cowboys’ week one game that he has taken a lot of heat for in the media.  Let’s be honest, he’s made key mistakes over the course of his career that have set him up to be labeled as (your label-not mine) a “choker.”  Romo is a talented football player, there’s a reason why he is the Dallas Cowboys’ starting QB.  I don’t think Tony Romo chokes, I don’t think he’s a bad player – - I think he needs to be present in every moment he’s on that field and he needs to be aware of what his best options are in any given situation. It is true that he made a bad decision.  That is why players have coaches, that is what coaches are there for – - to teach players to have clarity in their options while playing the game, then make the best possible choice.  I have no doubt that Jason Garrett is doing that.

Denver fans, Kyle Orton is your quarterback, you need to embrace him. You’re actually making it harder for your team to have success by chanting “Tebow” and threatening to put up billboards in the city.  You’re creating a divide amongst the team and the fan base.  If Tim Tebow is going to be your starting quarterback it will happen naturally.  Don’t force it; nothing good will ever come from a forced situation.  A true fan would not boo their beloved team…I heard a lot of boos last week.  How is that supporting your team?

Indy fans, we’re all sad Peyton is out.  It’s terrible, but unfortunately, injuries are a part of this sport.  Panicking now is not going to benefit anyone.  The reality is a truly talented quarterback on any team would be severely missed if injured. That’s the way the game is built.  I guess you could say that the Colts should have been better prepared with a backup that already knew their offense, but a great backup quarterback is tough to keep on your roster.  If the guy is good enough to be a starting quarterback, a team in need of a QB will snatch him up.  Look, I’m not underestimating how upsetting this is to Colts fans across the world.  All I’m saying is, it’s gonna be ok.  If I know Peyton Manning, he will be very involved with helping this team become as successful as they possibly can.  What’s the worst that could happen…you guys have a bad season?   I know, I know, that would suck.  But in the end, it’s only Football.

Stephanie talks football with San Diego XX 1090′s Scott and BR.

Click here to listen to the clip.

Here’s a side of the Miami scandal that you haven’t heard yet.  An AnonymousSource very close to the situation shares his experiences. In Nevin Shapiro he describes a man that was not only rubbing elbows with the heads of the University of Miami, but also elite public figures from a variety of professions.  My Source’s comments lead one to believe that school officials were not only aware of the wrong doings but were enabling them.

I’d be careful with your criticism of THE U, Athletic Directors across the nation. Your school could be exposed next. I wonder how many more panel discussions and summits the NCAA will have before they actually do something to change their system?  Can I get the over/under on that?

 *For the record, I still stand by my belief that restructuring the education offered to student athletes will alleviate these issues as well as provide appropriate compensation for the athletes’ hard work and commitments, and for the revenue they generate.

Now to the interview…

Stephanie:  Tell me about your experience of Nevin Shapiro.

Source:  Amongst us, what we were doing then [in Miami], that was like the norm, that’s how it was supposed to be. But as far as how we got into that situation is a whole other story.

Stephanie:  What do you mean, “how you got into it?”

Source: Just the way it was introduced to us.  Nobody ever went looking for Nevin Shapiro.  You know what I mean?  Nobody ever went looking to do the things that we were getting ourselves into. It was more or less a guy that was everywhere. And I think a lot of that has to lie on the University’s hands at some point.

Stephanie:  Nevin Shapiro was everywhere?

Source: Yes, he was on the sidelines of every game; he was at every banquet.

Stephanie:  What was your relationship with Nevin Shapiro?

Source:  We would always see Nevin Shapiro out at clubs and there would always be University of Miami guys with him. And there would also be professional athletes with him at times and they weren’t just UM guys.  He would get our information [UM guys] and we would get his.  The next time we hung out he called us and asked if we wanted to come on his boat and ride jet skis.  You’re 18 or 19 years old, in Miami beach, someone asks if you wanna come ride jet skis, who’s gonna say no?  I’m 18 years old, we go on his yacht and I remember the first thing we see on the back of his yacht in the living room area is a picture of him and Joe Montana. And I remember us all thinking, as young men like “oh shit.”

Stephanie: How did seeing that picture of him and Joe Montana make you feel?

Source:  It felt safe. It felt like ok here’s one of the greatest players to have ever played football sitting with this man, ok he must know a lot of people. This must be the way it is. This must be the reality of collegiate athletics; this is how it is.

Stephanie: What was it like on the boat?

Source:  There was always alcohol, never drugs. There was always women.

Stephanie:  Prostitutes?

Source: No one ever knew that those girls were prostitutes. That’s what Nevin is saying now, but I  never thought that those girls were prostitutes. To me they were just like girls that you would see at the club… I never took a penny from Nevin Shapiro.  I never knew of a guy taking a penny from Nevin Shapiro.

Stephanie:  So you’re saying that you did not know of anyone accepting money from Nevin Shapiro?

Source: I didn’t. But, Nevin was very private. Nevin was the kind of guy that if he saw a guy he would say, “hey let me talk to you in the back.”

Stephanie:  Did you see him as a guy that wanted to be around athletes and around sports in order to put himself into that environment?

Source: Yes, and during this time no one really knew what Nevin Shapiro really did. At the time we just saw this guy that wanted to be cool and wanted to be one of the guys. But then there’s a loophole with that.  Because then we saw him co-founding Axcess Sports and I remember thinking there was an ulterior motive there.

Stephanie:  At the time did you feel that by being on the boat with him, and partying with him that you were doing something that was against the rules?

Source:  Not really.  Had any one of us read an NCAA rulebook? No.

Stephanie:  The whole time that you were hanging out with this guy, did you really feel that the University knew and that they must be OK with it?

Source: I’m 100% positive; I mean they had to know.  Maybe not right out in plain sight on campus but around the athletic facilities…he was always on the sidelines at the games. Nevin Shapiro was so flashy and so boisterous; it would be very hard for me to believe that people didn’t know what was going on. I mean we thought the University must think it’s cool.  The University must be OK with it. Why’s this guy on the sidelines?  Why is this guy at all the banquets? Why is this guy at all the charity functions? The University must be OK with it, everybody must know. We just gotta shut up. We just gotta keep our mouths closed. And now someone starts talking about it and everyone wants to point fingers at the athletes. I think the bigger picture here is with the University.  Why was this man permitted to be so close to the athletes?  It’s one thing to allow him to be a booster but why was he allowed to be so close, outside the tunnel at games, at all the banquets.

Stephanie:  When you look back on this situation what do you see?

Source:  I see a man that was preying on the youth.  I see a man that had ulterior motives that was essentially trying to create an empire. He knew at the time that the University of Miami was producing some of the top talent in the country.  So if he could get close to these players, if he could get very, very close to these players and he could essentially be their funnel of fun, of money, of having a good time. Because he’s thinking, these guys are projected to go top 10 in the NFL draft, so I already know that they’re going to be millionaires very shortly.  So let me just give them what they need, not necessarily what they want because I never heard of anybody wanting or asking for something.  It was more of a thing of “if he’s gonna do it then he’s gonna do it, I’m not gonna say no.”  Those two, three years were like a movie, like a real movie.  It almost seemed like it was fake, like how could this be happening. How could a University, such a highly touted University let this man get so close and then pretty much let him do whatever the hell he wanted.  It was like a real life version of “He Got Game.”

Stephanie: In your opinion do you think it’s possible to regulate a situation like this? Do you think it’s possible to keep guys like Nevin Shapiro away from athletes?

Source:  I don’t think the Universities will ever really be able to really monitor it because you can’t follow guys everywhere they go. Unless you had people chaperon them all over the place. Over the years there have obviously been good boosters. But it’s the University’s fault if they aren’t monitoring it closely. This guy had his own personal agenda. He was making money through an illegitimate business that nobody knew about.  I don’t know how the interview process goes but how come the University didn’t know that he was running an illegitimate business? How come the University didn’t know Nevin Shapiro’s past?

Stephanie:  What would you say to someone saying, “These athletes should have known what they were involved in was wrong and they shouldn’t have been there”?

Source: Yeah but how do they know?  You’ve got pro athletes that make these mistakes all the time.  And in the pros they implement the Rookie Symposium, a week long symposium teaching young men how to become grown men, how to become professionals and what to look out for. So why aren’t they implementing this at the college level, implementing things like symposiums. If you’re telling me that people coming into the league at 22 about to make a ton of money can’t make good decisions, how do you expect a kid coming in at 18 as a freshman to make the right decisions with no real information on what he should do?

“I don’t believe college athletes should be paid… I was watching a story this weekend that we had all these big shot coaches and commentators talking about the NCAA and their problems and it still comes down to this to me: 50% of these college athletes don’t even qualify academically for these colleges. They shouldn’t even be on these campuses. So they get these incredible educations for free and they bitch about it. It’s like you gotta be kidding me. You don’t even qualify for the school academically.  I mean if somebody gave me a free education and I didn’t even qualify for it? Can’t you be happy with that? … It’s amazing to me how these athletes are whining about what they don’t get. Maybe if you and your friends respected education more… I mean some of these athletes it’s unbelievable like they don’t even look at the educational opportunity they’re getting. Are you kidding me?”

Cowherd’s statements are an example of how out of touch people are with the reality of big time college programs and the athletes they recruit.  College football players are recruited based on their athletic abilities with little to no concern for their academic abilities. The athletes are encouraged by the Universities to focus on football and are given academic guidance in order to remain eligible for games. If you want examples of this read my previous articles UNFAIR TREATMENT PART ONE and UNFAIR TREATMENT PART TWO.  There is NO standard set by NCAA to make sure that effort is put forth by the Universities to ensure that their athletes graduate with a degree of their choice. Athletes often times are not able to major in certain fields because the athletic department’s academic advisors tell them that those classes don’t fit with the football team’s practice schedule. The NCAA should be ashamed to claim that they are offering these athletes a first class, free education.

Cowherd says that 50% of college athletes don’t even qualify academically for the schools…so why are they there?… because they’re good athletes? Why would you offer someone a college education if they aren’t prepared to accept it?  Does that seem like appropriate compensation?  That would be like giving a homeless guy a really expensive couch and then saying, “Oh you should be so happy, look what I gave you, it’s worth so much money!” What the hell is he supposed to do with a really expensive couch?  He doesn’t have a house.

I don’t believe that athletes should be paid.  I believe that the Universities should uphold their promise and give athletes an actual education in a field of their interest.

Some possible ways to do this, NCAA:

• Increase the number of advisors for your athletes so that they can receive one-on-one assistance to ensure their academic success.
• Make classes available to ALL students.  If there is only one engineering class and it conflicts with football practice, then schedule another one that doesn’t interfere so that the athletes interested in engineering are still able to take the class.
• Put some of the revenue made by the Universities into communities with unsuccessful public school systems so that the young men recruited by these Universities aren’t so far behind when they arrive there.

Why should you accommodate your athletes in this way, NCAA?

• Because they devote all their time and energy both mentally and physically to your athletic programs and are given no control over their academic careers.
• Because their lives and schedules are determined by the athletic department. Athletes that demand to study certain majors usually get playing time taken away from them or get moved down on the depth chart.
• Because athletes are not allowed to have part time jobs, they’re not allowed to study abroad; they’re not allowed to take an internship in the off-season to gain work experience.  And, in a lot of cases they end up in a situation like this Ex-Alabama Star, Now Bank Teller.

If you, or someone you know experienced this side of college athletics, please contact me through the website.  We need to bring this to NCAA’s attention.

(Anti NCAA logo courtesy of nationofblue.com)