During a break from football practice back in the 7th grade my coach looked me up and down and said “Ross, if you were a catfish I’d throw you back.” I felt a slight tinge of shame from his call-out which elicited laughs from my teammates, but I didn’t cry and I didn’t go home and tell my mom. The coach was hardnosed and old-school – he called most of the players “sissies” and made fun of almost everybody – so I accepted it and moved on.
Football has changed in the few years since my junior high playing days. Several high-profile harassment cases have emerged from Division 1 college football within the last couple of weeks. These cases – in their manifested political correctness – bode poorly for college football going forward.
Sports, and football in particular, has always had a military-like setup. There is a pecking order; the coach is the drill instructor and the ultimate moral voice. In the military, grunts are forced to push themselves and obey orders that may seem arbitrary and pointless. Sports – like the military – operate on a presuppositional principle: to be a part of the team one must obey orders from superiors. Once the presupposed assumption of ultimate authority within the closed system is gone, the team dissipates under the weight of nihilism.
Political correctness and a negation of the presuppositional contract will cripple college football before it harms any other sport – although others will ultimately succumb to similar pressures – because of its hierarchical rigidity. Political correctness and a shift towards the dismantling of any patriarchal force in this culture will ultimately undo the basic premise of structure upon which sports is founded much as it has already done to the “Patriarchy” – of which the military is a part. In the past, if a player didn’t like a coach’s methods he could quit the team. Today, with PC fully instilled in every co-educational orifice, players (with the coaxing of parents and university administrators) desire to change the system from within by making the coach and the social structure bend to their whims. The military is already weakened from such a philosophy; college football will be next. In the volunteer military we have today, soldiers had a choice whether to enlist or not. Once they enlist, much like players on a sports team, they are locked in to the dictates of their superior authorities. The words “ultimate” and “authority” are inextricable within a closed system like a sports team or military regiment. “Authority” exists because it *is* ultimate; the ultimateness is relevant because it comes from a certain authority. Once ultimateness is extended to those formerly subject to the ultimate authority’s dictates, the players become the arbiter of ultimateness; authority ceases to exist; chaos reigns.
In the past, I argued that feminists seek to eradicate sports from the face of the Earth. My generalization was trite, as I don’t think there is a concerted effort and a defined goal of male sports eradication. Rather, the dialectical process – which is the biggest hammer in the feminists’ and political correctness junkies’ toolbox – will eventually swing down on sports in their patriarchal raze. Rigid hierarchical systems cannot withstand its force. Feminists and PC-ers will cheer sports demise even though they haven’t outwardly tried to usurp them.
The recent firings of several Division 1 college football coaches provide evidence of this fledgling trend. Mike Mangino from Kansas, Mike Leach from Texas Tech, and Jim Leavitt from the University of South Florida have all been fired for disciplining players too harshly. Over the weekend, Kansas State basketball coach Frank Martin pre-emptively apologized for “hitting” a player on the arm with the back sides of his fingers after the player screwed up the Press. What was once considered behaviors that a coach employs in the process of “coaching” – a self-contained system – has come to be influenced by outside forces – namely, political correctness and self-esteem boosting. Sports columnist Berry Tramel summed it up perfectly:
“Call it a clash of cultures. Coaches haven’t changed much over the decades; homes have. Discipline is less, respect for authority is less, accountability is less. Then Coach Drill Sergeant starts yelling, and the field’s on fire.”
Mike Mangino was recently forced to resign – huge settlement in tow – from the University of Kansas for a particular incident in which he poked a player in the chest during a practice. Mangino has a history of having a coarse temper and saying “inappropriate” things to his players. Although the Jayhawks had a poor showing this season, the team had been successful recently compared to their weak showings in the past; Mangino’s “method” has worked to achieve the football team’s end: winning.
Jim Leavitt has been fired from the University of South Florida amid allegations that he manhandled a player. Initial reports stated that Leavitt choked a special teams player during halftime and grabbed him by the shoulderpads. Leavitt maintains that he was merely trying to fire the player up by grabbing him by the shoulderpads. It should be noted that Leavitt is a particularly firy head coach; he routinely head-butts players with helmets on to get them fired up. While Leavitt was officially fired for cause citing his lack of cooperation with the investigation, the player in question and his father have denied that Leavitt committed any transgression.
Mike Leach was ousted because of his treatment of a player who reported having a minor concussion. Reports are conflicting. Some say that Leach felt that the player, Adam James, was faking the injury. As punishment, Leach allegedly “treated James like an animal” and ordered James to stand in an electrical closet or training room during the practice session. Others report that Leach wanted to keep James in a dark area in order to minimize the effects of the concussion. There is a financial backstory to Leach’s firing, but the ultimate catalyst was James’ complaint.
However, players and coaches have come forward to say that James has a history of being a “prima donna”, a “jerk”, “entitled”, and “lazy”. The consensus of emails and interviews between these individuals and the media indicates that Leach had every reason to suspect that James was faking the injury.
We have three former head coaches who have lost their jobs for treatment of players that would have been roundly accepted 5, 10, 15…years ago. Today, because universities are scared of the PC enthusiasts and their team of lawyers, and because players’ allegiance to their teams and coaches have been undermined by the “kumbaya effect” that teaches them that they are special, the presuppositional “contract” to which these players agreed has been nullified. It is worth noting that the c0mpetitive animal (and masculine) spirits that some coaches use to envigorate their teams will be the first characteristic to be muted. Excitement and that blood-thirsty competitive drive will be washed away in a docile bath infused with PC bubbles.
This same issue – dovetailing with my military-football analogy – was the subject of the movie A Few Good Men. Jack Nicholson’s character represented authority; Tom Cruise and his legal team represented Political Correctness and the dialectical argument that there are nuances within any power structure that call for restraint and inspection of the system. The trick is this: the gaps of these power structures can’t be completely patched. The goals of the leader are in conflict with the goals of those at the lower end of the hierarchy. Military grunts and second- and third-string football players suffer from the rigidity of the system within which they reside. Nicholson’s character – like Mangino, Mike Leach, Bobby Knight, Bear Bryant, Jim Leavitt and other hardnosed coaches in the past – was faced with the task of keeping his squad in line. Discipline, respect, and commitment to duty keeps the system running and maintains competitiveness. The leader is torn between his job of winning and his placation of “grunt’s” feelings. These patriarchal systems can’t survive if their path to winning involves competitiveness, toughness, and sacrifice. If the ability to instill those virtues is confiscated the whole operation is rendered impotent.
I’m not so much condoning these coaches behavior; there is a point where a coach’s aggressive coaching methods cross a certain line. But we’d have to assume that these three coaches haven’t all of a sudden adopted a new style of handling players in the same season; they are using methods that coaches before them have used for decades. The player himself has changed, and the consequences of it are that the patriarchy will crumble from the inside as power is transferred from the coach to the individuals on the team. This process is the same one that has starting chipping away at every patriarchial institution in our culture. The military, the family, and the Church have all started giving way to internal pressure that renders them ineffective.
Evidence. It’s just further evidence of our decline.
{ 50 comments… read them below or add one }
Yup. Every Patriarchial structure has been rotten for Feminism. Although I’m a Catholic, I don’t go to the Church because I have seen with my own eyes that the Church failed to get people in the Path of the Righteous. With PC-speeches of tolerance, acceptation and forgivance, they fail to remember people that they need to DESERVE those things in the first place. Hence, hypocrisy runs amok.
Without a controlled outlet or proper role-models for masculinity, young men become gangsta thugs or socially retarded chumps, simply because they don’t know better.
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“Mike Mangino from Kansas” – good job the dude isn’t a Mangina.
Have you noticed how much the SWPL/herb/academic crowd also hate sports? They are always looking down on sports fans while they sip Peruvian whine and nibble Belgian chocolate around the dinner party table.
Sport is competitive, rule-based, team-building, meritocratic, allows clear division between winners and losers, and forces failing participants to face their weaknesses and improve.
Of course it is the enemy of feminism. Socialism too.
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I think the coach’s style depends a lot on the sport. In more fluid sports like basketball or soccer, I think too much of the drill sergeant routine is counterproductive, because success depends on an improvisational flow combined with cooperation. In football, on the other hand, each player has to implement a specific part of a play, and creativity is largely up to the coaches. So for football, complete obedience to a tyrant-coach is a good thing. Not so much in soccer or basketball.
For my part, I liked baseball best, where the coach’s most important job consists of using his intuition and knowledge of each player’s strengths and weaknesses to influence the outcome of the game. I never played football, and seeing my uncles, who all did, go through painful joint surgery in middle age to fix lingering injuries, I’m kind of glad I didn’t.
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I played team sports other than football and I was in the military. None of my coaches every touched a player. They spoke harshly but they observed limits. None of the drill instructors or sergeants I had ever hit anybody or disciplined them unmilitarily. Frankly I find the behavior of a lot of college coaches wierd and creepy, but I will admit it’s an area I was never part of.
I don’t think football is a good game for boys anyway. The game does not resemble life anywhere else, not even the military. Combat is much more like basketball or soccer than football. Guys who are football stars in high school have peaked and spend the rest of their lives wondering why they aren’t big shots. The world I believe is run by guys who played basketball in high school.
There was a famous case in the 50′s- pre political correctness- of a Marine drill instructor who took his platoon on an impromptu night march, went through a flooded creek and some of them drowned. He got off on the court mairtial because Chesty Puller testified this kind of training was necessary. But it is not. Training must be hard, very hard, even harsh, but not dangerous to the trainees. “A Few Good Men” was entertaining but did not reflect the reality of the Marine Corps at all. No blanket party would occur, not even in boot camp, and even if it was it would certainly not be authorized by a full colonel.
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Discipline and order are good to have in many settings, but mobbing can be destructive. Those in the positions of power need to have a sense of responsibility and adhere to a code, otherwise the consequences can be dire. See: dedovshchina.
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“The world I believe is run by guys who played basketball in high school.”
This is interesting observation, though it might be a stand-in for tall, athletic guys. Gerald Ford and Jack Kemp were both football players who did well in politics. George Bush 41 was a baseball player at Yale. I’m guessing tall and athletic probably never goes out of style, rather than the specific sport.
According to some TTech alumni I know, the Mike Leach situation seems is more of a power struggle between the AD , assisted by some rich alumni, and Leach, who thought he ran the football program and went around the AD to get what he wanted. The incident with Adam James was questionable, but it clearly was a situation greater than that one incident. Leach will make a good chunk of change in the settlement and I think Tuberville will be a good coach for that program.
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what exactly does this mean? this seems like a bit of unsupported conjecture. political correctness can make for a convenient boogey man, but there’s the danger of ascribing it to situations where it is unwarranted.
we can look at a movie like Full Metal Jacket and laugh along with the verbal and physical abuse, but the proposition that this makes for better marines is pure speculation. maybe a vietnam-era soldier can take more humiliation and abuse than today’s soldier, but that doesn’t make him better. perhaps the military has decided that if it wants to attract the highest caliber of soldier, sailor, airman or marine, it needs to treat people less like turds and more like professionals. the level of technical expertise and sound judgement that today’s military needs, even among the lower enlisted, demands less cannon fodder and more able-minded personnel. also, kids today aren’t raised like they were in the past. if you try to train a kid today with methods developed a hundred years ago, you may not get the best results.
maybe you think that these are all lamentable developments and pure toughness counts for more than i do, but it can’t really be blamed on political correctness. it has more to do with rising living standards and more career prospects for the average american. to make PC the all-purpose boogeyman makes it less likely that we’ll be able to identify and respond to real cases of PC abuse, the Duke rape case comes to mind.
i don’t know anything about life in a college football program, but if the example of the military tells us anything then what you’re talking about could have much more to do with market forces than with political correctness. in other words, maybe schools are demanding better treatment from their coaches because they don’t want to lose recruits to other schools where the coaches are giant pricks. or maybe they don’t want the negative publicity from a coach who is a giant prick. all of that has more to do with increased media attention and a more competitive aptmoshpere than it does with political correctness.
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Yep. But on a serious note, the military itself once had a military-like setup. WW II had a Drill Instructors like Full Metal Jacket designed to equip men with the tools for wholesale killing during warfare.
Now, D.I.’s are therapists and the neutering, Oprahistic “Life Coach.”
Emasculating warrior spirit is witnessed by our recent and overwhelming military successes.
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Great post! I had no idea things were so fucked up in college football.
If the situation get too bad, won’t alumni start bucking and stop donating to the programs if their teams start loosing wholesale? Maybe that could operate as a brake on this trend.
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The answer is No.
There’s too many ifs and maybes in there…
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on what are you basing this?
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the fact you
sound like
today’s
D.I.
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and what do you know about today’s DI? or any DI or DS for that matter?
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“Mike Mangino was recently forced to resign from the University of Kansas for a particular incident in which he poked a player in the chest during a practice.”
Wow…it’s THAT bad?
When I was a kid we would regularly be smacked on the back of the head pretty hard or kicked in the arse, yes, with a real foot in a real boot, for underperforming. When the coach would show us how to ‘bump’ a player if he wanted to make an example of one of the kids he would run into him REALLY hard and knock him base over apex. This was ‘normal’.
If the coach could not inflice pain and humiliation he would not be able to coach kids. It’s as simple as that. As they kids get older the level of physical discipline grew less but no less the verbal tounge lashings handed out. As a kid I loved going into the ‘quarter huddle’ with the mens teams. I learned a great deal about being a man in those huddles.
When I was 15 I ran in a charity run and ran about 25kms in 35 degree heat over a period of about 3 hours on roadways to raise money. I then went to football training and I was ‘too slow’ for the likes of my uncle who was the coach. I got hammered all night and had to finish the night with another 20 laps of the oval which was 5 more miles. Next morning the bottoms of both my feet were all blisters, the reason for my ‘slowness’. My mum called the doc. He lanced all the blisters and bandaged up my feet. I was then told to go to school because I was obviously well enough to do so. LOL! Imagine a kid doing that now? Child Protection Services would ‘save’ the child.
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Fuck I’m GLAD the church is falling apart. Start thinking with your brains, not your emotions.
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Just by the way. To show the effect. Our Australian Football has been turned into a game for sissies and pansies hitting each other with handbags at 20 paces. I can’t even watch it any more it’s so disgusting and pathetic.
About 20 years ago one of the best full forwards Garry Ablett, was playing on (if memory serves me) Danny Frawly. Frawly was breaking the ‘rules’ and ‘spirit’ of the game by hanging onto Ablett and impeding his progress illegally. Ablett appealed to teh umpire to enforce the rules. He didn’t. It finished with Ablett telling Frawly that if he did it again he’s hit him. Frawly did it again and Ablett hit him. Broke his jaw if I recall correctly. This was called ‘completely fair’. Frawly did not have to hang on to Ablet illegally.
Forward to two years ago. The captain of the Sydney Swans, ‘Big Bad’ Barry Hall (an ex professional boxer) is being impeded unlawfully by some no name full back. Hall tells him to stop. He appeals to the umpire to penalise the infringement. Nothing is done.
So in a contest Hall ‘accidentally’ smacks this no name in the jaw and breaks his jaw. Hall is suspended for 8 weeks, stripped of his captaincy, has to undergo ‘anger management’ and eventually has to leave the club because of his ‘violent tendencies’. He’s a fucking boxer for christs sake! He is supposed to be violent! I have not watched another game of our football since. It’s for sissies now.
People might say ‘thats just how it goes’. No, the umpires are being told to not give kicks to the ‘real men’ who are infringed. The greatest full forward ever in our game is a guy called Tony Locket. In one game an opposition coach instructed players to intercept him and jump directly into his chest while not going for the ball. This is a serious infringment of the rules and also dangerous. Locket appealed to the umpire to enforce the rules and penalise the infringment. The umpires refused to do so.
The next guy who tried this Locket (running at FULL SPEED) simply put his elbow up into the offending players face breaking is nose and knocking a bunch of teeth out as well as knocking the player unconsious. No more ‘volunteers’ could be found to run into him like that.
In that year Locket was not awarded ONE free kick despite playing 26 x 80 minute games of football. He commented wryly that, apparently, in 30+ hours of high contact high speed sport no-one had infringed him according to the umpires. That is not an ‘accident’. It is not a ‘mistake’. Our sports are being feminised. I won’t watch most of them any more.
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jeez – Don’t take it out on me
just because they discharged you
for being preggers.
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If you want to see how we USED to play football in Australia try these. This is a post just for those men who want to see REAL MEN playing REAL football. Hard. Tough. No quarter asked or given. This is how we used to play. Damn it was good fun!
This is considered ‘a fair bump’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v8V1_xVSd8
This is considered ‘not ok’ as you can see by the guys who step in to apply a little ‘summary justice’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYvUtXadIvU&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NJq0qgl4hk&NR=1
This one is considered ‘not ok’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3yCiG8YcpU&feature=related
This one is a ‘bit marginal’. The guy on the receiving end really should have taken care of himself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr81dc4o5yI&feature=related
Occasionally the boys will get back into it like the ‘good old day’ like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AbugTv3FzY&feature=related
Here is a bit of a compilation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiGoqObb0YQ&feature=fvw
And here is another compilation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlgcLrpswhg&feature=related
And here is Gary Ablett highlights from the 1989 grand final where he was best on ground kicking 9 goals in a losing side. There were 100,000+ in the crowd. Enjoy gents. Our game was never better than this. This is said by many to be the greatest grand final of the modern era.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc6118yATwc&feature=related
A compilation of Abletts greatest efforts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ssoUEuQiLM
And if you want to see why us Aussies used to love our game just watch this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd-nnNr4NWw
The young feminised men simply can not do this any more. I have to be content with the nostalgia of the ‘good old days’.
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“Fuck I’m GLAD the church is falling apart. Start thinking with your brains, not your emotions.”
Even though I’m not religious, I am fully aware that the Church is nice to have around. The few problems it does cause are menial compared to the problems that would exist without its social influence.
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Hating The Church is another symptom of our current state as men.
Men have so many wrongs to fight against, it fractures whatever “movement” forms before it solidifies.
Any social Institution like Church, Government, Marriage or the Military is to be controlled – not destroyed.
Like it or not, religion puts restraint upon savage nature. Live without it and you get Detroit.
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j r:
our military has been undermined by political correctness in many different ways.
it begins from the top on down. the Ft. Hood massacre is one case in point. the ideals of diversity, multiculturalism, and political correctness prevented anyone from questioning Hassan’s role in the U.S. military.
Boot camp is no longer called “boot camp”; it’s called “recruit training”. Training is much less stringent than it once was. Physical requirements have been diluted to allow females to have roles in the army.
The less rigorous standards of recruit training were noted in this Heritage Foundation piece.
There are complaint procedures in place should you experience harrassment of any sort. I was under the impression that the military, especially boot camp, was a multi-month long ordeal in which harrassment was the tool by which soldiers were made.
This comes down to a difference in coaching/leading style. Should coaches adopt a theory X approach or a theory Y approach? The problem with PC undermining is that the coach is forced to take the theory Y approach even though more disciplinarianism may be in order. There is no longer an option to be a disciplinarian, even if that style works best. So the issue I’m observing is that disciplinarianism for college athletes – as for the rest of society – is being undermined, uprooted, and devalued.
There will be consequences to giving the reigns over to those within the system.
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chuck,
you haven’t really spoken to what i’ve said. i raised two questions. the first, is it correct to equate being “tougher”, which you seem to describe as more physical discipline and verbal humiliation, with being “better”? second, if our military really is less tough now, is that mostly due to PC reasons or because of other factors?
on the first point, you’re just re-stating your initial concern. being a veteran myself, i don’t put much stock in that heritage report. anyone who has ever served can tell you about some crusty old NCO who would go on and on with the “back in my day” stories. i’m guessing that when GIs were training to invade normandy, there was some dude standing around talking about how things were much tougher during the great war. and maybe he was right. fighting in a trench, charging machine guns and worrying about poisin gas don’t sound like much fun, but it doesn’t mean that WWI soldiers could outfight WWII ones.
also, “boot camp” is a colloquial expression for recruit training in the marine corps. it’s always been that. the army has basic training, which was changed to basic combat training a few years ago because so many non-combat arms soldiers were coming under fire. marine boot camp is thirteen weeks and army basic is eleven. they have never been “multi-month long ordeal”. in fact, you make it through basic training and get to your unit, you know what you are? you’re a cherry. army basic training exists to weed out those who can’t hack it and instill some very basic skills. the real process of making a competent soldier happens in advanced individual training and when you get to your unit.
as for the causes, again, you just sort of assume political correctness. the particular training doctrine that military services use to indoctrinate troops has likely constantly been changing since the army was first established in 1775. since political correctness is a relatively new phenomenon, something else has to account for all those other years. like it or not, times change. life gets easier. you know how your grandfather is always talking about walking to school barefoot, in the snow, uphill both ways? well, you can’t effectively recruit and train today’s soldier the way you would someone from your grandfather’s day. if you tried, you’d likely end up with the absolute bottom of the barrell; people with no other prospects in life. there are some people who join the military because they want some huge challenge; they want to be army rangers, marine recon, whatever. some people just want a decent job. you need to have an indoctrination process that deals adequately with both types.
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As an avid football fan of both college and the NFL, this shit sickens me.
We’ve gone through a similar thing here at the University of Hawaii, when our current head coach, Greg McMackin, made an offhand comment at a press conference last year, after Nortre Dame kicked our team’s ass at the Hawaii Bowl.
He remarked that the Nortre Dame football players, were doing a “faggoty dance” after the game…referring to some of the players exuberance at winning their bowl game.
McMackin was reviled and crucified in our local press (liberal democrat progressive douchebags…all of ‘em) for daring to express such a horrendous thoughtcrime.
Gay and lesbian activist groups wrote letters of outrage to the local papers. libtards and progressive democrat dumbasses were calling in to our local sports radio talkshows, expressing outrage and calling for McMackin to be fired.
But that’s not the worst of it.
McMackin, in fear of losing his position as the highest paid State of Hawaii employee, got up, and had an “apology press conference” in which he proceeded to bawl like a baby and tearfully blubber that he was so sorry for being insensitive and offending so many people.
Good God…he’s a FOOTBALL COACH!
Now, he should have known better than to say such a stupid thing at a press conference in this day and age of political correctness…
…but in my eyes, it was FAR worse for him to get up their and blubber like a baby and tearfully kowtow to the radical gay rights activists and liberal douchebag Dummycrats here in the Islands.
When I saw that press conference, I told all of my fellow alumni and fellow UH football fans, “That’s it, our season is done. No way a football coach can have the respect and lead a football team while blubbering and crying on TV in fear of a bunch of homosexual activists throwing a hissy-fit for using a politically incorrect word.”
Turns out I was right. UH went on to have it’s first losing season and non-Hawaii Bowl qualifying year in a long time.
I want him gone.
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Reading “With the Old Breed” by EB Sledge (an account of Pelieliu and Okinawa), he credits his survival in combat by the training he received from the “Old Breed” vets from WWI and Guadalcanal, who did not pull anything to keep recruits alive. Training was brutal, but nothing like the combat they experienced in brutality. This was echoed by the statements of the men from Easy Company in Ambrose’s “Band of Brothers.”
Men going into combat against a determined and ruthless enemy who want to kill them cannot have PC directed training — it will get them killed. Period. Combat is a meat grinder, only hard discipline and effective training can allow them to operate. Sledge comments that great majority of the casaulties were from replacements who had very little training.
Next, Mangino got fired for abusing players emotionally — many of his players thought Mangino’s ridiculing players dead brothers, jailed fathers, was nothing but petty punishment (echoing Sledge’s comments about ineffective, “chickenshit” officers). Sledge notes how the entire company grieved after hearing “Ack-Ack” Andy Haldane, the company commander, was killed at Pelilieu. That all loved and respected him. How they hated his eventual replacement “Shadow” for his chickenshit ways and stupidity. Such as enforcing BS regs in hard combat.
Leach got fired because as Lou Holtz said, he played doctor instead of Coach. Adam James was not physically cleared to play. Holtz noted that if a player is not physically cleared to play, he should be the trainer and doctor’s responsibility, as a coach he wants nothing to do with him. Because you can’t coach an injured player not cleared to play. Leach obviously had something against Adam James (likely jealousy over James’s famous and powerful father) and decided to punish him. Holtz (himself a famous ex-coach) said it was obvious, and made Leach look petty and stupid, and was a mistake he himself had made when he got emotional and ego-driven.
LEADERSHIP is hard. Here are two examples of stupidity. Mangino stepped over the line, in using personal family issues to try and motivate players. It did not work and lost him the respect of his team (many current players spoke out against him). It made Mangino into a petty, BS-type tyrant instead of a leader.
Leach decided to “punish” a hurt player which predictably blew up on him. And not the least of which, lost the respect of his players. It was stupid and self-defeating. Sad too since Leach is a QB-coaching genius, taking walk-ons into highly rated QBs.
These are the same traps (feeding ego instead of leading) that caught Bobby Knight and a few others.
What did ridiculing the dead brother and jailed father of Mangino’s players do to correct mistakes and motivate stronger, smarter play? Nothing. What did punishing Adam James after he is hurt and cannot play, make him into a better player? It didn’t, it only made him worse as far as motivation and ability.
Unfortunately, it is an easy trap for leaders to use chickenshit BS instead of real leadership to fire up and motivate guys. When the BS rolls around, people hate it.
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I was late for wrestling practice one time and gave some reason to the coach.
He said, “excuses are like assholes everyone has one and they all stink”
I cried and I cried like a two year old girl he he he
just kidding
but
”””””””’Mike Mangino was recently forced to resign – huge settlement in tow – from the University of Kansas for a particular incident in which he poked a player in the chest during a practice. Mangino has a history of having a coarse temper and saying “inappropriate” things to his players. Although the Jayhawks had a poor showing this season, the team had been successful recently compared to their weak showings in the past; Mangino’s “method” has worked to achieve the football team’s end: winning.””””””””””’
lol wtf well what happens when the guy gets hit so hard it is heard for a qaurter mile inside buildings and the medic comes running is that also some kind of assault or whatever lol
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Traditional Catholicism (Latin Mass, chicks in veils, no “altar girls”) is still nice and manly.
Australian Football is still OK to watch, globalman. BTW I saw one of Tony Lockett’s last games, a practice match against Collingwood. He was a bit past it. I remember one barracker yelling to him that he should get back in his wheelchair.
I get a bit tired of blokes who “talk biff”. Aussie Rules is a good game that doesn’t need all that. Leave that to Rugby. There is nothing manly about getting your skull caved in.
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whiskey:
First, Holtz works at ESPN with Adam James’ father. He might have a little bias in this case; his opinion must be placed under a little scrutiny.
Second, Leach got James off the field of play. He didn’t risk anything by letting him practice. Some say he did it to punish James, others say he did it to keep James safe. If he did it to punish James, as the coach, he should have that discretion. But this brings up the whole other issue of concussion which may also deal a blow to football in the future. It’s very hard to diagnose a concussion.
As for Mangino, the point is that coaches have been doing this forever. Mangino has been doing it since he began coaching; when his team was winning the issue was swept under the rug. His losing 7 straight games at KU was probably the catalyst. But underlying all of this, the thing that makes the foundation weak and provides an excuse to fire these guys, is the undermining of the hierarchy.
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I haven’t been able to read the comment stream, but as an active duty service member, I wanted to comment on military matters.
Authority and command are tricky concepts. Obviously, there’s a certain sense of “ultimate authority,” and as junior members in the organization, the majority of us more or less understand (and even accept!) an answer of “do it because I say so.” Problems arise when commanders/superiors should be saying “do it because I say so” but instead try to use logic/compassion/what have you to “motivate us” into doing things that are absolutely nonsensical.
Just for example: I’m stationed in an area where we live three to a room in the barracks. As far as I know, and as far as my superiors have told me, we are the only unit in this operational theater that lives three to a room – everyone else lives two to a room. In fact, our barracks is not only the entire barracks on my camp that is like this, but it’s the only barracks on the entire island of Okinawa that is like this (again, so I am told). So, when we ask why this is the case and complain about the unique constraints and morale detriments this situation causes, we are met with nonarguments and logical foibles like “it could be worse, you could be deployed” or “isn’t this better than boot camp” or “you’re all just being selfish.”
The problem is, we all joined to deploy, and we’re not allowed to deploy from out current command. Telling us it could be worse if we were doing something we signed up to do but are being prevented from doing for indiscernable reasons is not an effective leadership strategy. Nor does it make much sense – do we tell the victim of a rape that “it could be worse, you could have been murdered” and think that this will make them feel any better? I don’t mean to compare my situation to a rape, but I do mean to make an analogy about the type of phony compassion/reasoning being offered up. The more that commanders try to use logic/reason/compassion to explain these situations ,the more that we disrespect them. We would have marginally more respect for an answer of “do it because I say so,” simply because at least such an answer aknowledges that there is no logic/reason in the situation.
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I was taught that mission accomplishment comes first, followed by troop welfare. Unfortunately, these days those priorities seem to have been reversed.
You will get no argument from me on this.
The formal term has been “recruit training” as long as I can remember. “Boot camp” is an informal term that is used interchangeably with recruit training in the Marines.
The Marine Corps has had a few hazing scandals over the years that made them sensitive to any accusations of abuse. There are complaint procedures in place, of course. Some people take things a bit too far and it strays over the line from a rite of passage or a weeding out process into gratuitous sadism.
As is so often the case, I think public perception is shaped by television and movies. Many civilians without military experience seem to think that the entirety of ones military career is like boot camp. That is simply not true. An entry level training environment is not the same as routine duty in a unit. The combat arms units tend to be more strict with discipline and lead a more spartan life, and some specialized military courses or selection processes for elite units can be extremely rigorous but boot camp is still not like the average day-to-day routine of serving in the military.
Harassment or hazing has a long history in the Marines. To a limited extent I think it can have a positive effect but there is always the temptation to make it more extreme until eventually it just becomes outrageous by any standard.
There are different styles of leadership, and the authoritarian leadership style that you espouse is certainly what the military is best known for. I think that different units/individuals require different approaches, or even multiple approaches depending on the situation.
I can’t really comment about college athletics, but I have noticed that parents seem to have become extremely overprotective of their children in the last decade or two. I remember doing all kinds of crazy stunts when I was a boy, that leave me wondering how I ever survived childhood. During the summers, I ran around in the woods with absolutely no adult supervision. The only requirement was that I be home in time for dinner.
Today, I see kids armored from head to toe just to go riding on a bicycle, with their “helicopter parent” hovering nearby. The moral panic and paranoia over child molesters probably has a lot to do with it, but I think it goes beyond that. We live in a society that seems to be more and more risk averse and hypersensitive to criticism or ridicule, and that trickles into everything, including athletics and the military.
It is easy to fall into that old cliché, grumbling that “things were tougher back in my day”, like so many older generations seem to do. But in many instances, I believe that it is indeed true. The younger generations do seem to be softer, because they are encouraged to be that way from childhood.
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Those are hard subjects to avoid – like expecting a stroll through a cow pasture in bespoke shoes to result in a shoeshine.
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@globalman…
Agree with most of your observations re Aussie rules and, particularly Gary Ablett.
However any suggestion that the current game is soft is laughable. Neither you nor I(and I represented Aus as a javelin thrower!) would survive sixty seconds in the current game.
While the illegal stuff – the thuggery – has largely been removed from the sport the players themselves are far better athletes on average and are vastly stronger than even a decade ago. Today even the legitimate tackles and bumps are far more brutal than ever before due to the massively improved power and agility of the athletes themselves.
Chuck Ross wrote…
All exclusively male domains have been relentlessly attacked by feminism for decades. Under no circumstances will feminism tolerate any setting where men and boys can exchange knowledge and understanding and mentoring without the supervision of a woman. Fundamentally any gathering of more than one male constitutes a conspiracy against women and must not be permitted.
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Omega Man wrote of the Marine Incident where recruits died on night training.
What is not common knowledge is Marine recruit application numbers went up – dramatically – following this, as it was seen by the young men as a true, hard-ass, initiation ritual.
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””””””’The problem is, we all joined to deploy, and we’re not allowed to deploy from out current command. Telling us it could be worse if we were doing something we signed up to do but are being prevented from doing for indiscernable reasons is not an effective leadership strategy. Nor does it make much sense – do we tell the victim of a rape that “it could be worse, you could have been murdered” and think that this will make them feel any better? I don’t mean to compare my situation to a rape, but I do mean to make an analogy about the type of phony compassion/reasoning being offered up. The more that commanders try to use logic/reason/compassion to explain these situations ,the more that we disrespect them. We would have marginally more respect for an answer of “do it because I say so,” simply because at least such an answer aknowledges that there is no logic/reason in the situation.””””””””’
lol yea I almost didn’t get to go to bosnia because they were gonna keep me in the rear guard. lol I was like why do you think I joined the army it wasn’t college money I want to go to war. They where like we need someone good to stay in the rear. I am like wtf they acted like they were trying to do me a favor. Anyway some dude beat up his wife so I got to take his spot he he he
Oh yea I was the one who raised his hand to go first as a volunteer so yea probably also why they wanted me to stay back.
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Generally speaking, men who are interested in the military want a demanding challenge. This is yet another reason allowing women into combat arms units is a bad idea.
On the other hand, there have been other incidents which are not tough initiation rituals, they are simply pure abuse. The key is knowing the difference. Unfortunately, poor judgment on the part of some individuals in the military combined with a CYA mentality among the military leadership and a generally squeamish public leads to a crackdown on what otherwise might be useful, relevant warrior traditions.
At a military training course I attended, the whole squad was required to do many, many pushups if one man made a mistake (everyone made a few mistakes). It was not abusive, in my opinion, and hardly unique to this particular course. All the Marines simply did them without complaint and moved on. When I came back the following year to recertify, to my surprise, the pushup requirement was dropped, because the new officer in charge of the school deemed it to be “hazing”. I was a bit disappointed.
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Australian football has been attacked by feminists. There have been attempts to have more women on boards and so on. There have also been attacks on the attitudes of players to their groupies, or whatever you call them.
Despite this, feminists are facing an uphill battle. It is a hugely popular game played by men. No Australian game played by females attracts one-tenth the popular support or interest. People, men and women, love the game. It has always been popular with women.
Feminists can chip away but they can’t change the reality.
There are two ways to get publicity. One is to do something worthwhile. The other is to attack other people who are doing something worthwhile. Feminists often do the latter. They parasitise off real achievers by attacking them for various real or perceived sins such as “sexism”. It is the only way they can get attention. Carping negativity.
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This is pure conjecture, unless things have taken a dramatic turn since I attended Marine Corps boot camp in October of 2007. (Want to see what it’s like? Watch the documentary “Ears Open, Eyeballs Click.” Even that isn’t fully accurate, as it seems the DIs were aware of the camera the entire time and thus went a little DI-lite if you will, but it is still as accurate a portrayal as you could hope for without actually doing the shit yourself.) Unless the poster was perhaps referencing the Army or the Air Force, but who cares about them, right?
Additionally, the media focus on boot camp is irrelevant. The Marine Corps knows this. No, in boot camp, we don’t really prepare for combat. The critical feature of Marine Corps training that most people miss? Marine Combat Training, or Marine School of Infantry. After a forced 10 day leave period from boot camp, you report to either of these schools (the first if you are non infantry, the second if you are infantry) and pursue legitimate combat training. Here, “Full Metal Jacket” is more or less alive and well (sans outright physical abuse) – grueling combat marches, sleep deprivation, food deprivation, tough weather conditions, stress, etc etc. For non-infantry Marines, MCT is a 3-4 week process. For infantry Marines, SOI lasts 8 weeks (maybe more, I’d have to check my facts). Furthermore, every Marine has a follow on MOS school (military occupational school), so infantry Marines with specialties (anti-tank gunner for instance) have follow on “schools” where they do more of the same shit. (Non-infantry Marines go to their tech schools and so on.) After all that, you check in to your unit, where training is constant – field exercises, drills, etc. And before you deploy, there is mandatory pre-deployment training and so on.
Boot camp is NOT a critical phase for the refinement of combat skills; it is a sort of indoctrination into “military” life in general. And in that, it succeeds. You learn the basics – nomenclature, how to wear your uniform, how to carry yourself, how to address seniors, how to handle your rifle, how to march, and general knowledge about Marine Corps history and policies. (You also, of course, train physically, to include the Marine Corps martial arts program.) Those that can’t hack even this low-stress (relative to the rest of the Corps) environment are weeded out. This is also why the media doesn’t hear much about what goes on at MCT or MOS schools – boot camp weeded out all the whiny bitches who would have complained about “abusive” training that wasn’t really abusive, more or less.
It really depends on what you mean by “harassment” or “hazing.” Hazing, as the Marine Corps defines it:
There’s several nuances and keys to this definition. The most critical is without proper authority. If what is going on is officially sanctioned training, then the “gloves are off” and bitches/moans/complaints don’t count. This order is meant to prevent service members from being humiliated as part of unofficial initiation rites (detrimental to unit morale and overall enthusiasm for the service), abused by overzealous seniors for minor infractions, so on and so forth. The type of “hazing” being prevented is very clearly meant to be the type that has no place in any professional organization which is concerned with producing the very best members; the danger is when PC-minded individuals broadly interpret the definition to apply to situations that it shouldn’t in order to punish those that don’t deserve punishment.
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Perhaps things have taken a turn since 2007.
I have seen very little proof from America’s recent military that they are capable of mounting an Okinawa style victory. Especially as zenith to several years of brutal combat stretching back to Guadalcanal and even, overcoming demoralizing defeats in the Philippines.
All these victories, remember, prosecuted successfully during an equally arduous war in Europe.
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Perhaps you haven’t paid attention to the Marines (who, by the way, achieved the victories in Okinawa, Guadalcanal, and pretty much every land victory in the Pacific in WW2). The Marines led the initial invasion into Iraq in 2003; the Marines were the ones to retake Fallujah. They were also the ones who tried an effective strategy in Vietnam (actual counterinsurgency strategy as opposed to the Army’s “search and destroy” doctrine), which translated into an easier adjustment to the counterinsurgency situation over in Iraq than it did for, say, the Army.
The Army is of course five times larger than the Marine Corps, so you hear about them a lot more. Common mistake of outsiders is to regard the military as a big homogeneous whole, when that could not be further from the truth. We have very different attitudes and cultures when it comes to fighting. Just look at the way the Army recruits (HUGE BONUSES! FREE HOUSES!) and the way the Marine Corps recruits (“The few. The proud. The Marines.” Don’t expect bonuses or a fun time). Granted, the military as a whole still recruits from society, which is declining, and it’s hard to turn shit into gold – but the Marine Corps has an organizational ethos that appeals to the best of the best, and the recruiting tries to get that across.
People who join for bonuses and incentives aren’t joining to serve in the first place – they don’t have the right ethic from day one, and when an entire organization is recruited like that, well, you have problems.
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Refer also to this post.
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JDApostasy
Granted, the military as a whole still recruits from society, which is declining, and it’s hard to turn shit into gold – but the Marine Corps has an organizational ethos that appeals to the best of the best, and the recruiting tries to get that across.
People who join for bonuses and rewards have a name: mercenaries.
I’m not sure if you’re trying to help me prove my point, or inadvertently doing so; either way, you’re succeeding.
I don’t want a military force trying to kill enemies or trying to take Iwo Jima.
You speak glowingly of the Marines with pride; that is expected of you.
But don’t try to tell me Marine bureaucracy exists outside of the very same Government that orders courts martial for Marines killing insurgents in Fallujah Mosques.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6496898/
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This is not accurate. Athletics are a closed system, combat is not. If military leadership is killed or loses contact with its subordinate elements, troops are supposed to carry on with the mission based on the commanders intent (his desired end state) and their own judgment. It is understood that even the best laid plans sometimes go awry. In contrast to the military, the “commander” of a sports team has almost perfect knowledge of practically every aspect of the “battle” unfolding before him and exercises a great deal more control over his “troops”.
Sometimes I really detest this sports = war analogy. It seems that so many people (including some military commanders) look at warfare as a spectator sport or video game. While there are some superficial similarities, they are still very different things. Because of the nature of modern warfare and the advances in communications and news/entertainment media, troops are increasingly unable and/or unwilling to really exercise individual judgment or take any risks. Ironically, the unintended consequences of sophisticated communications technology are that they make it much easier for commanders to micromanage troops on the ground in real time (like a video game). We don’t need more centralized authority, we need less. Rigid, authoritarian hierarchies, paralysis in decision making and risk aversion are extremely detrimental in a fluid, dynamic battlefield.
I have seen some examples of sissified nonsense in the military, certainly, and I am a huge critic of that sort of thing. In days past, a lot more men came into the service with at least a passing familiarity with firearms, today, most of them have never touched a gun before arriving at the recruit depot. A lot of these kids today don’t know anything about fieldcraft or land navigation because they have never spent a day in the woods in their lives. Perhaps they are less trusting of authority. Can you really blame them? Mindless obedience is not necessarily a positive trait even for a soldier. In fact, that is precisely what you don’t want. I can’t really speak for pampered athletes.
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Yes. The military does not make policy, it implements policy. It is subordinate to the civilian government. As it should be.
The OP was not specific, although the Heritage Foundation report that he cited was critical of the other services and praised the Marine Corps approach to recruit training.
Yes, and I have seen this happen more than once. So, obviously the official definition is open to a lot of interpretation.
I saw quite a bit of hazing and abuse in my time and was subjected to some of it myself. I have mixed feelings on the subject. On the one hand, we are not training Cub Scouts. Even the non-combat arms Marines are a different breed than their Army counterparts, which reflects the Marine Corps philosophy that everyone should be capable (more or less) of serving as provisional infantry.
On the other hand, I have seen instances that were very clearly abuse. Authoritarian does not necessarily mean abusive, but I think people sometimes resort to abusive coercion because they don’t know what else to do.
Does authoritarian leadership make better soldiers or athletes? My answer is: maybe. I do think that sometimes guys need corrective action that is a bit more severe than a stern look and a tedious lecture, that is for sure.
A leader needs to find a style that is appropriate for his personality and the task at hand. Men do not resent leaders who are tough and demanding, as long as they are fair and competent. Leading primarily through fear, humiliation and force never works in the long run, it just creates resentment and ultimately, unit cohesion breaks down.
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“Fair and competent” is the key here. I’ve had an abusive coach who was neither. I was a freshman on a varsity team who got hazed severely for my younger age, and the coach just went along with it like he wanted to blow the older guys, most of whom were pretty mediocre athletes. He was also kind of an idiot who resented anyone who was smarter than him.
There are tons of people in positions of authority who are incompetent, and allowing them to abuse their authority does not help teams win anything. My best coaches were quiet, insightful men who used subtle and careful means to build a winning team. Just getting pulled from the field by those guys was shame enough — they hardly had to say a word.
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I scanned the comments and didn’t see this – so, to be picky, it’s Mark Mangino, not Mike. Otherwise, nice piece.
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“so, to be picky, it’s Mark Mangino, not Mike. Otherwise, nice piece.”
Good catch. That’s shameful on my part.
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Words Twice hit the nail on the head.
If you think I love the Marine Corps because I’ve been brain washed, please think again. If I only paid attention to the way the Marine Corps directly treated me and communicated to me, I’d hate it like half of the Marines that I know (who will be getting out after their first enlistment. Hell, I probably will be too). I can still recognize good ideas and good philosophies, however, even if they aren’t always executed in the right ways.
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I’m fully aware of these concepts, but thanks for telling me what JDaprostatcy meant anyway.
I’ll clarify this quickly because I’m on my way to a friend’s party. The link I provided after you abbreviated my quote will (again) keep the context I intended.
A modern Marine Corps that habitually abandons its own combat troops to the Federal Government PC lion’s den is politicized to the point of pollution.
No servant can cleanly serve a corrupt master.
The military follows the orders of weak leaders, and is thus, weakened itself. The Praetorian Guard can only be used so long to fetch grapes for Caligula, or pass out CARE packages to Iraqi Kidz, before it decays from lack of purpose.
Today’s Marines could not win another Okinawa.
This makes me angry, not glad.
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I think it’s more a matter of the Marines not being allowed to win another Okinawa rather than a matter of saying we “could not.” As you say, Marines are often abandoned to the “Federal Government’s PC lion’s den.” The potential, ability, skill and lethality are all there. (If anything, Marines today are better trained than Marines previously.) The freedom to use these things, however, is not.
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Perhaps we are talking past each other here. I understand all too well what you are talking about, because I have been on the receiving end of the same kind of PC bullshit.
In many ways, the military is a reflection of the larger society from where it draws its personnel, but not exactly. The Marines are a subculture that does not precisely mirror mainstream America. In fact, that is one of the purposes of boot camp: to beat that decadence out of recruits.
Unfortunately, the higher echelons of military leadership all too often end up being politicians in uniform. Combine this with weak civilian leadership, an ignorant, confused, fearful, squeamish public, and a very savvy enemy that expertly wages psychological warfare, of course you get this kind of idiocy.
It has little to do with the Marines. Today’s America could not win another Okinawa.
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I concur – this is what I was trying to say above, only much more concise.
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