Dolphins' Saban leaves for Alabama

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"Nick Saban is leaving the Dolphins.

Saban has accepted an offer to coach the University of Alabama, spurning a last-minute attempt by Miami owner Wayne Huizenga to convince the coach to stay.

Saban, the seventh coach in Miami's 41-year history, leaves after two seasons in which the Dolphins were 15-17 and failed to make the playoffs both seasons."

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16374734.html

[piedmont]

1. Is this unprecedented?

Has any NFL head coach ever left for a college team while being sought to stay by the NFL team? I can't think of an instance of this.

[Syrinx]

2. Last time that I remember was...

Ray Perkins leaving the New York Giants to come to Alabama.

Here's a message board post that supposedly tells how the Shula firing and Saban hiring all went down. I can't vouch for the veracity of the post, but it has the ring of truth.

http://mb3.scout.com/fhsmsfrm13.showMessage?topicID=1413.topic

Roll Tide!

[misanthrope]

3. And we all know how well...

...the Perkins deal ended up for the Tide.

Of course, Perkins and Saban are both thin-skinned, egotistical, backstabbing control freaks so maybe there's other similarities as well.

[Syrinx]

4. and last time we spoke you were so gentlemanly...

Hi misanthrope. :hi:

[misanthrope]

5. Maybe if you would read the national media...

...you would realize what this whole charade has done for the image of the state of Alabama.

What's next? Folks at the Capstone going to dig Wallace back up and prop him back in the schoolhouse door?

[piedmont]

6. Since when has the national media done ANYTHING but bash Alabama?

Geez, we fired one coach and hired another. Wayne Huizenga wasn't mad about it. Everyone else can get over it.

"What's next? Folks at the Capstone going to dig Wallace back up and prop him back in the schoolhouse door? "

You know, that's really cheap. You are the only person I have seen so far to "dig up" Wallace while discussing the Saban hire. Are you just flipping through your memory for a disreputable Alabaman to drag up?

[misanthrope]

7. Then you haven't been listening very well...

...Tonight there is some kid in the Black Belt who will go to sleep in a tar paper shack where the wet winter air slips in through the cracks in the walls and floor. His grandparents are using the soiled quilts for warmth since they got sick and can't afford their medication anymore. In the morning, this youngster will put on threadbare clothes and walk down a dirt road to a dilapidated schoolhouse while his parents wonder where the next meal is coming from or when decent jobs are coming to their county.

If you don't believe the picture I'm painting, then you haven't spent any time in rural Alabama. And you don't even have to leave the state's largest cities in a lot cases to find similar scenarios.

Why don't you go tell those children how great and wonderful it is that Alabamians don't blink twice about spending a king's ransom on a football coach so some folks can boost their fragile self-esteem through the intermittent exploits of some young men on a grass field?

The fact that ANY football coach is paid even a million dollars a year is distasteful. The fact that the "flagship" university in a state as problem-ridden as Alabama would have no problem setting this kind of example is beyond disgusting.

Even sadder is the way so many citizens are crowing about it. "It don't matter how ig'nant and po' we is lawng as we kin whup yo' butt on Sat'dy! Yee-haw!"

And I know others who played and worked in collegiate athletics in this state who will admit the same. Of course, most of them have gone on to have real lives beyond the gridiron in the years since their youth.

And people wonder from where the stereotypes come?

Rationalizing and discounting national critique as inevitable sounds like the work of an extremely provincial, xenophobic and CONSERVATIVE mind. Are you sure that's the approach you want to take? If someone from New York says Fob James was a jackass, does that make it irrelevant?

Oh, and the image of Wallace in the schoolhouse door? I didn't come up with that one, that came straight from the mind of a man who has been writing and spearheading legislation for the last year-and-a-half trying to spawn a rural development center in Alabama so that the Heart of Dixie can at least make some effort to raise its less fortunate citizenry from cyclical poverty. He said David Bronner's efforts through his media network over the last decade to market this state to the nation and world as finally being ready for progress were all undone yesterday in Tuscaloosa. He compared the damage to that from George C. in the schoolhouse doorway in the same town.

But I guess he's "cheap" too because he cares about more than college football.

[piedmont]

8. Another puritan. Yippee.

...Tonight there is some kid in the Black Belt who will go to sleep in a tar paper shack where the wet winter air slips in through the cracks in the walls and floor. His grandparents are using the soiled quilts for warmth since they got sick and can't afford their medication anymore. In the morning, this youngster will put on threadbare clothes and walk down a dirt road to a dilapidated schoolhouse while his parents wonder where the next meal is coming from or when decent jobs are coming to their county.

If you don't believe the picture I'm painting, then you haven't spent any time in rural Alabama. And you don't even have to leave the state's largest cities in a lot cases to find similar scenarios.

I'm from Alabama. If you think poverty is unique to Alabama, you haven't traveled enough. Spare me the moralizing lecture.

Why don't you go tell those children how great and wonderful it is that Alabamians don't blink twice about spending a king's ransom on a football coach so some folks can boost their fragile self-esteem through the intermittent exploits of some young men on a grass field?

I get it-- we're all supposed to forgo luxuries since some people live in poverty. By that reasoning, no superfluous spending on:
football
movies
a day at the golf course
vacations
cable t.v.
etc. etc. etc....

You're displaying a very puritanical, self-righteous attitude. Are you sure that's the approach you want to take to combat poverty?

A football coach is an investment. A good one will bring the winning seasons, BCS bowls, advertising money, etc. that are worth much more than the cost of his salary. Nick Saban already did it at LSU. At UA, the football program brings in enough revenue to fund all the other sports they compete in (women's and men's) plus millions left over to contribute to the academic budget. Tax money does not fund his salary or any other part of the athletic department. It is self-supporting, and then some. So how are we taking food out that kid's mouth? See the false dichotomy you set up there?

Rationalizing and discounting national critique as inevitable sounds like the work of an extremely provincial, xenophobic and CONSERVATIVE mind. Are you sure that's the approach you want to take? If someone from New York says Fob James was a jackass, does that make it irrelevant?

I live outside Alabama (while visiting frequently), and I've seen enough of the cheap shots that the media takes at the state and the University's athletic program to take many of them with a grain of salt. Are there serious socio-economic and environmental problems in Alabama? Of course. Is there racism? Absolutely. Many of Alabama's problems are more acute and in-grained than other states, but that doesn't mean they are the exclusive domain of Alabama or the south in general. I care very much about the world's perception of Alabama, but to expect Alabama leaders' decisions to be guided by focus groups and opinion polls and national pundits with various axes to grind is ludicrous.

Even sadder is the way so many citizens are crowing about it. "It don't matter how ig'nant and po' we is lawng as we kin whup yo' butt on Sat'dy! Yee-haw!"
Another insulting, cheap shot, laid on with a broad brush.


Oh, and the image of Wallace in the schoolhouse door? I didn't come up with that one, that came straight from the mind of a man who has been writing and spearheading legislation for the last year-and-a-half trying to spawn a rural development center in Alabama so that the Heart of Dixie can at least make some effort to raise its less fortunate citizenry from cyclical poverty. He said David Bronner's efforts through his media network over the last decade to market this state to the nation and world as finally being ready for progress were all undone yesterday in Tuscaloosa. He compared the damage to that from George C. in the schoolhouse doorway in the same town.

As long as we're on Bronner, he created and executed the concept of the Robert Trent Jones golf trail, bud. Hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money were used to build golf courses for the elite to chase a little white ball over a grassy field, all while your allegorical child suffered. Pick another source for anti-UA hyperbole.

But I guess he's "cheap" too because he cares about more than college football.
Yeah, golf for the fat-cats.

[Syrinx]

9. the football program at UA MAKES money

The football program makes tons of money. And a lot of that money is poured into academic and research programs that otherwise might not be possible. And there's going to be a lot more money flowing into the University once Saban starts winning big. It's even possible that a scientist at the University Of Alabama will find a cure for AIDS or cancer because her research was funded by all that dirty football money.

[Syrinx]

10. I think it is great for the image of Alabama

All those announcers on ESPN were bad mouthing us, saying we were fools thinking that we could land a coach of Saban's caliber, or even of the Rodriguez level. Who looks foolish now? (BTW, Saban took a pay cut in the deal.) I really don't know what Wallace has to do with anything, and, yes, I have read this entire thread.

[Debau2005]

11. I am an AU grad

born and raised in Bama. I applaud UA's new coach. Good luck, and we'll see you in Auburn this year. I found it interesting that the media kept screaming about how much the Bama deal was, but failed to mention how many years this covered. Slow sports news day I guess...

As for ESPN they have always bad mouthed AU and UA, I ignore them, and turn the channel. I didn't get to watch the Bama bowl game this year, but for the Auburn game, the commentators were visibly disappointed the AU didn't lose that game.

Until I moved to Atlanta, I lived in Bama. You grow weary of the bashing, but I got used to it and ignored it. I lived 30 minutes from the white, sugar sands of Gulf Shores. Bama may have problems, but what state doesn't? We also have the Gulf of Mexico to the south and the mountians to the north. With some nice wooded areas in between. As a frequent traveler I still appreciate the clean and well maintained rest areas on the interstates. Open 24 hours, and fully staffed for safety.

Let them talk and bad mouth! Maybe then they won't clog the Bama highways in the summer headed to the beaches. If they hate us so much why can't you get a room in Gulf Shores between April and October? Snowbirds from the North, then families for the summer.

[misanthrope]

12. This thread is a prime example...

...of why Alabama still remains, and likely always will reside, in the Dark Ages.

The ostrich in mythical defense mode--head in sand--should replace the yellowhammer as the state bird and the thin-skinned onion should become the state fruit.

[RubyDuby in GA]

13. Locking

You kids should play nice with one another.
Come next fall this won't matter as you are still going to get creamed by UGA. Go you hairy dawgs!

In all seriousness, a bit more civility towards one another would be appreciated.