If Petrino Had Been Named Auburn Coach …

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Petrino

 

First published in The War Eagle Reader.  find it here.

This is not one of those wild parallel reality articles; I’m not that talented. It’s my take as a faculty member on the just-concluded search for a head coach.

For those nine days, I lived in fear that somehow, Auburn would name Bobby Petrino as head football coach.

Yes, I know that most Auburn fans are glad the process is over and want to move on. I’m glad too. And it might be that for us academics, the desire to beat a dead horse comes with the cap and gown. But I think some reflection is in order.

In my opinion, hiring Petrino would have sent the wrong message to our student-athletes and to all of our students.  The message would have been this: Doing the wrong thing is OK, as long as you win.  Consequences are for losers.

Had the hire been made, I was ready to resign my position on the University Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics,  and I had expressed that willingness to friends who would hold me to it. It might not seem like a big deal; I am finishing a three-year term.

But I could not have continued as a faculty member on the committee if that were the philosophy of the athletics department. Thank God it’s not.

For me, the issue was not so much Petrino’s oft-ridiculed affair with an Arkansas athletics staff member.  He must bear the weight of that privately, and it looks like he will, for a long time.

It was that he created an ethical nightmare for his school, and might have violated the law, by hiring that staff member to a better-paid position on the staff of a state university.  As I posted in an early tweet, any athletics director would be crazy to hire Petrino, knowing that he had done that.

And let’s not forget that within the Jetgate scandal, Petrino made his own missteps by not informing his athletics director that he was seeking the Auburn job.  Obviously, that would have threatened the process’s secrecy, but once again, Petrino subverted ethical principle to his own interest.

At the NFL level, that’s another debate. I won’t talk about what happened in Atlanta.  But on a college campus (and as I frequently state, this is college football) this is serious stuff.

Despite appearances, a college campus is not an FBS football factory.  It is a setting where thousands of mostly young men and women, some of them athletes, learn at a variety of levels — academic, social, and yes, ethical.

We enforce an academic honor code, and when a student crosses that line, he or she should be prosecuted.  And not just to be punished for trying to succeed by breaking the rules. The idea is for students to recognize that there are consequences for academic dishonesty. We don’t publicly announce individual student verdicts, but they know the process is there. If there were no consequences, cheating would be even more of a problem than it is now.

But it’s hard to expect students to accept that, when they know that a football coach catches a break because of his winning percentage.

In so many ways, critics complain that college football is out of control.  At Auburn, $11 million in buyouts to a fired coach and his staff supports the argument.  An eagerness to hire a disgraced coach because of his winning percentage would have added to that perception.

For all of the heat Jay Jacobs has been catching, his record in promoting the academic welfare of student-athletes has not been mentioned. Under his leadership, our students have shined. Football player Ashton Richardson was a finalist for a Rhodes Scholarship. Soccer player Katy Frierson and diver Dan Mazziaferro were finalists for the prestigious Walter Byers Postgraduate Scholarship.

But his search committee did not hire Bobby Petrino. And for that I am grateful.

The Stories We Don’t Care About

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After reading about Brian Downing and Garrison Stamp in the most recent issue of ESPN the Magazine — the Bama teabagger and his unconscious LSU victim — I must admit: I considered the article, and the two individuals, a waste of my time.

As I tweeted about it, one of my friends compared the article to the disproportionate amount of air time given to Harvey Updyke in the ESPN 30 for 30, “Roll Tide War Eagle.”  The comparison resonated with me. Who cares about this man?

Before I proceed, a few disclaimers: I am an alumnus of Auburn University, so you might dismiss my comments as Tide trash talking.  And I am a faculty member at Auburn with the scarlet letters “Ph.D.,” so you might dismiss my comments as elitist trash talking.  That is why we disclose — so that you can incorporate it into your appraisal of my thoughts.

Having admitted to both, I will make my point: While good sports journalism can bring us the compelling stories of competition and struggle, victory and defeat, neither of these stories are worth the resources of quality sports journalism.

First, the magazine article on the teabagging incident. The mundaneness of the situation is amusing. An district manager for a sporting goods store chain (it almost reads like a character written for a Lifetime movie) goes off for a football weekend with friends, gets drunk and drags his testicles across the face of a passed-out fan of the opposing team, who has been abandoned by his friends.

End of story. That’s it.

Put that alongside the stories of Michael Jordan battling the flu in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA finals, or a Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal Grand Slam final, or Eric LeGrand’s heroic efforts to overcome paralysis following his football injury?

You can’t.

Try though you might — even turn the magazine or your tablet sideways so you can read between the lines — there is nothing there.  Just a pathetic incident involving two people as forgettable as I am.

But that didn’t stop ESPN from sending Mark Winegarder to interview multiple sources, and Greg Miller to take dramatic, Annie Liebovitz-esque photos, to produce 7,000 words and poignant portraits.

If one of my journalism students expended that much effort on that topic, I would recommend time management classes.  Spend your precious hours on something worth it.  But of course, after taking the time to read it — precious minutes in my day lost — I felt the same way.

To say that Downing and Stamp represent anything worth reflecting on in sports is to say that a guy who got irate about the presidential election and threw a beer bottle at his dog is making a grand statement about democracy.

He is not, and Downing and Stamp are not. The LSU-Alabama game is relegated to a side note to dumb-ass behavior that could just as easily have taken place anywhere else, after any event, sports or not.

The existential gaze of these characters in cliche poses with 1990s music video lighting and angles might be intended to somehow expose the deep conflict of their soul. Instead, it highlights the gap between what they did and what makes a great sports story.

ESPN 30 for 30 applied the same treatment to Harvey Updyke in relating his contribution to the Auburn-Alabama rivalry.  Again, at the end of the program, we are left frustrated: Why am I forced to care about this guy? Why is ESPN wasting precious seconds of a documentary on an uninteresting individual who did something stupid?

As Updyke has become the journalistic equivalent of the “gift” that keeps on giving (his confession to an Auburn school newspaper reporter being the latest), I feel my attention being assaulted by the neverending story.

And it’s most disappointing that ESPN the Magazine would waste their time on Downing and Stamp.  For years, I have admired the long-form features presented in the magazine (much more than the shorter department-type stuff, but that’s another issue).  You put the name “Wright Thompson” in a byline, and I am there. But articles like this mock the magazine’s higher aspirations.

The best of such journalism, sports or not, is to find the true human drama behind the real moments in sports. In some cases, the greatness is defined by the individuals involved, not by the profile of the story. The Wright Thompsons and Gary Smiths (Sports Illustrated) of the world are the rising tide that lifts all boats — subject, reader and sport — to the heights of humanity.

But when you have a high-profile story where the individuals (apologies) lack greatness, where is the substance behind the style? Is this all sizzle and no steak?

For years, newspapers promoted “telephone book stories,” where you could open the white pages, put your finger on a name and find a story worth writing about for every individual.  Interesting reading in a local newspaper, definitely.

But this turns the idea on its head. It takes a regrettably ridiculous situation and tries to make it into a story worth telling and whose characters’ actions are worth exploring. It fails, but the failure is in the concept, not the execution, which is doomed by the concept.

Sometimes, when a student makes a lowbrow comment in class, I tell him or her, “You know, you don’t have to express every thought that pops into your brain.” I would offer the same advice to any sports journalist. We don’t have to cover every story that is out there, even in this content-starved Internet world.

Forget 15 minutes of fame. These stories are not worth 15 minutes of interest.

To Philip Lutzenkirchen

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First published in The War Eagle Reader. You can link to it here.

My first memory of Philip Lutzenkirchen was when he had scheduled an appointment with our Communication and Journalism department chair during his official recruiting visit in 2008.

The chair at the time, Dr. Mary Helen Brown, referred me to his highlight video on YouTube.  Plenty of high-high-highlights.  My favorite was of him blocking a punt and running it in for a touchdown.  He didn’t exactly run it in.  He stood head and shoulders over everyone on the field, so he basically jogged in, swatted the ball away from the punter’s foot, picked it up and carried it into the end zone.  Opposing players jumped around him like Jack Russells leaping at a man holding up a Frisbee.  Lutzie made it to the end zone no problem.

Now, with his tweet Saturday that he will miss the rest of the season, it’s fitting to remember what he brought to Auburn.  I always called him “the mayor of Auburn University,” with his popularity and influence on campus.  It is sad to see it come to an end.

Of course, Lutzenkirchen signed with Auburn, even in the midst of the Tuberville turmoil.  In one of his tweets, he said he never regretted his decision to come to Auburn.  Nor did his fans.

Philip actually enrolled as a major in the department (good job, MHB), so we remained in cordial contact throughout.  At one time, I think he was a radio-TV-film major, though he ended up majoring in communication.  RTVF seemed a natural major, particularly after his ESPN fame for a highlight where he tipped an end-zone pass to a teammate as he leaped out of bounds.

The clip earned some studio time on ESPN – an appearance that, he admitted, he was not pleased with.  He was too rough on himself.  It wasn’t worse than 90 percent of the interviews you see on ESPN (and better than almost all of Skip Bayless’s and Stephen A. Smith’s rants).

The summer after his freshman year (which included touchdown receptions against LSU and Mississippi State), I requested that he serve as press conference guest for our 2010 Summer Journalism Workshop for high school students, noting that he was after all a major and that would help us recruit.

He and Morgan Toles, a women’s basketball player who was also a major (and who sadly also had to stop playing for injury reasons) did a great job.  Lutzie had a good sense of humor, even when one young lady’s press conference question was, “Are you dating anyone? Kidding!”  From an instructional perspective, that gave me a great opportunity to warn the students about asking creepy questions.

Trivia buffs: At that conference, we learned the meaning of his name: “light” (lutz) “of” (en) “the church” (kirchen).  I’ll leave further comment on that to the ode-sters.

The press conference, obviously, was the impetus of Philip’s contributions to Auburn’s dream season.  Big TD passes against South Carolina, Georgia (twice) and, of course, Alabama – the catch that gave birth to his TD dance deemed “the Lutzie.”  A somersault-capped catch in the national championship game.

Even in 2011, as Auburn struggled on many fronts to an 8-5 season, Lutzenkirchen had his moments – the best being a one-handed grab against Ole Miss that made the Top 10 for several of ESPN’s endless array of Top 10 segments.  Unfortunately, the catch also led to the first of many injuries that Philip would endure – a torn labrum that required shoulder surgery.

But as he remained at Auburn, his favor among the students increased – enhanced by a decision to return for his senior year.  Whether in person or on his popular Twitter account (a weird stretch of letters – oh wait, it’s his last name), Lutzie became something of a campus icon.

So as this year descended into something of a disaster, fans felt a particular heart tug for the tight end who had given a lot to his school.  When the second half against Arkansas opened with an illegal procedure by #43, it seemed a fitting indication of how bad things had gotten.

Then, as fans processed another disappointing loss, this time to Vanderbilt, word that a hip injury would end Lutzenkirchen’s career at Auburn deepened the sadness.

Lutzenkirchen’s tweet – “Sad to say it is over at Auburn. Thanks for the opportunity to play in O&B on Saturdays. It was the best decision of my life to be a Tiger.” – was an appropriately classy handoff by the popular player and sparked hundreds of replies.

Philip is a frequent presence in Tichenor Hall, as one of our majors.  He is friendly to all of the professors he encounters.  It’s one of the qualities that makes college football so special.  These are not just players who score touchdowns to make fans’ lives better.  They are our students and classmates, and we appreciate them in that regard.

He had decided to time his academic progress so that he graduated after his final season – no cursory graduate studies.  I usually represent the department at fall graduation (it’s the coolest weather, so the most comfortable for those bulky caps and gowns), and I look forward to the moment when Ric Smith announces his name as a student one last time.

I will remember another moment as well.  Soon after the semester began, as I walked from my car parked at Comer toward the Science Center, I heard a voice call: “How’s it going?”  I turned.  Philip was waving to me as he called over his shoulders.  Like I told my students, that doesn’t say as much about me as it does about Philip Lutzenkirchen.