“I don’t think I’ll get married again. I’ll just find a woman I don’t like and give her a house. “

And

“I grew up in a very large family in a very small house. I never slept alone until after I was married. “

And

“Life is like a dogsled race. If you ain’t the lead dog, the scenery never changes.”

And

“It’s difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato. “

And

“Sex hasn’t been the same since women started enjoying it. “

And

“The game of life is a lot like football. You have to tackle your problems, block your fears, and score your points when you get the opportunity. “

And

“The public, more often than not, will forgive mistakes, but it will not forgive trying to wriggle and weasel out of one.”

And

“You call to a dog and a dog will break its neck to get to you. Dogs just want to please. Call to a cat and its attitude is, ‘What’s in it for me?’ “

And

“The only way that I could figure they could improve upon Coca-Cola, one of life’s most delightful elixirs, which studies prove will heal the sick and occasionally raise the dead, is to put rum or bourbon in it.”

And

“Being a newspaper columnist is like being married to a nymphomaniac. It’s great for the first two weeks.”

And

“Baptists never make love standing up. They’re afraid someone might see them and think they’re dancing.”

And

“I have three ex-wives. I can’t remember any of their names, so I just call ‘em Plaintiff.”

And

“I know lots of people who are educated far beyond their intelligence.”

And

“In the south there’s a difference between ‘Naked’ and ‘Nekkid.’ ‘Naked’ means you don’t have any clothes on. ‘Nekkid’ means you don’t have any clothes on … and you’re up to somethin’.”

And

“Kinky sex involves the use of duck feathers. Perverted sex involves the whole duck.”

And

“Real estate agents are God’s plague on mankind when locusts are out of season.”

And

“Women who drink white wine either want to get married, sell you a piece of real estate, or redecorate your house. Either way, it’s expensive.”

And

“Lewis’ advice to Atlantans in case of nuclear war: “If you live on the South side of Atlanta, get on I-75 and go south. If you live of the North side of Atlanta get on I-75 and go north. If you are a Yankee get on 285.” (Note to all you Yankees — I-285 is a continuous loop around the city)”

And

“I get letters from people who say, ‘What have you got against women?’ What could I possibly have against women? I’ve married three of them.”

Wikipedia:  Lewis Grizzard

“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.”

And

“A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving.”

And

“Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.”

And

“Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice.”

And

“From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man – the function of his reasoning mind.”

And

“Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.”

And

“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

And

“Man’s unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself.”

And

“Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men’s stupidity, but your talent to their reason.”

And

“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.”

And

“People create their own questions because they are afraid to look straight. All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don’t sit looking at it – walk.”

And

“The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.”

And

“The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.”

And

“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”

And

“The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.”

And

“There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.”

And

“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.”

And

“To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that’s real power.”

And

“To say “I love you” one must first be able to say the “I.”"

And

“Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think.”

And

“When man learns to understand and control his own behavior as well as he is learning to understand and control the behavior of crop plants and domestic animals, he may be justified in believing that he has become civilized.”

And

“You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards. Threats will not make us function; fear is not our incentive. It is not death we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live.” John Galt in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Wikipedia:  Ayn Rand

One of our favorite things for Coaches Hot Seat members to do when traveling is to pick up the REAL newspapers that we read all of the time online because for those of us older than 35 or so it was the newspaper that brought the news and more importantly the sports news and stats into our homes when we were growing up and that great feel of a newspaper in our hands as we scan from one story to another while lingering over the ads will probably always be our favorite way to consume news stories and columns.

Although we would not trade the Internet for almost anything and that is because we can at the touch of a mouse read newspapers, columns, blogs and stories from around the globe like the column in the Chicago Tribune this morning by Teddy Greenstein:

Big Ten thinking football playoff, Teddy Greenstein, Chicago Tribune

“Last we left college football’s decision-makers, they were metaphorically high-fiving each other in Hollywood, Fla., for doing something that will make them popular with the vast majority of fans.

Yes, a four-team playoff will replace the BCS system in 2014.

“Inevitable,” is how one Big Ten athletic director put it Sunday.

Now for the hard part — determining where to play the games, how to choose the teams and how to keep the Rose Bowl happy.

Big Ten athletic directors and Commissioner Jim Delany will meet Tuesday and Wednesday in Chicago to kick around those issues.”

Wow!

Even after the “playoff” stories coming out of the meeting of the college conferences commissioners in Hollywood, Florida a few weeks back the above headline and story by Teddy Greenstein in Chicago Tribune is still almost beyond comprehension for those fans of the great game of college football that have been pushing for some kind of a postseason playoff for years now and here we are on the front door step of bringing a legitimate postseason playoff format to Major College Football and the buzz around Coaches Hot Seat Central of that great reality is still just beginning to sink in.

Teddy Greenstein’s column goes on to address the Bogus idea of a Plus-One format that would play two teams in a game AFTER the bowls were played and the home sites for the semifinal games issue…

“Two ideas that will be discussed but seem destined for the chopping block:

A true Plus-One, which calls for the top two teams to square off after the bowls. That quasi-playoff would satisfy the public for the time it takes to flip a coin.

Home sites for the semifinal games. Great in theory, and a potential edge for Big Ten teams. But there’s the threat of playing in smallish stadiums without luxury suites and adequate press boxes. And coaches want players who have reached the final four to get a true bowl experience, rather than getting stuck practicing on campus.”

…which is music to our ears on the Bogus Plus-One since the entire reason to pick FOUR teams to play in TWO games in a Postseason Playoff Final Four is for those teams to play for and EARN the right to play for the National Championship in the National Title Game which is THE THING that will bring some incredible excitement to the Major College Football Postseason because for the first time EVER there will be postseason games that will actually matter beyond the old Bogus BCS title game which was little more than a beauty contest that often turned on its head the idea that the “regular season matters” which was buried in 2011 when LSU beat Alabama and the game ended up meaning Absolutely Damn Nothing because if the “regular season matters” then the LSU – Alabama game would have already been played and thus there would have been no reason for a rematch in the title game in New Orleans.

THE REASON to have a Four Team Playoff in the Postseason is because the TWO Semifinal Games would then be THE GAMES that would determine which teams would play or the National Title and that Final Four of College Football Teams would quickly turn into one of the Biggest Sporting Events in America with hopefully those games being played back-to-back on a SATURDAY a week (or two?) before the National Championship Game with everything on the line in those games just as it should be in the United States of America.

One of the GREAT things about Teddy Greenstein’s column is that since Greenstein is about as connected as one can be to the powers-that-be in Big Ten Country the Bogus idea that surfaced last week in the Wall Street Journal which was proposed by Rachel Bachman….

Ditching a Playoff to Save the Rose Bowl, Rachel Bachman, Wall Street Journal

…which we quickly labeled the….

The Big Ten and Pac-12 WE SURRENDER PLAN

….is that such a plan is now buried forever because the leadership of the Big Ten and Pac-12 Conferences rightly see that a Final Four for Major College Football would not only generate lots of additional revenues for OUR colleges and universities and it would go a long ways in settling a TRUE National Champion on the Field of Play it would most importantly turn a boring and almost meaningless current college football postseason into a HUGE American Sporting Event with the Final Four and National Championship Game of Major College Football being the centerpiece that the other bowl games both major and minor would be built around to create a compelling postseason that will fundamentally change the game of Major College Football for the better.

As for the other issue that Teddy Greenstein wrote about…

“Home sites for semifinal games”

…if the powers-that-be in Major College Football would adapt the “Coaches Hot Seat Postseason Playoff Plan” that we detailed back in March of this year which would need to be changed from 8 to 4 teams in the Postseason Playoff which would on the issue of playing the Semifinal Games at the home stadium of the higher ranked team ALL four teams in the Final Four would play in TWO more games with the two winners of the Semifinal Games played at the campus stadium of the higher seeded team advancing to the National Championship Game and the losers of the TWO Final Four games playing in BIG bowl games.

Using the 2011 College Football Season as an example if the “Coaches Hot Seat Playoff Plan” had been in effect the Top FOUR ranked teams at the end of the season or the Top FOUR teams chosen by a committee (retired head coaches in the Legends Poll would be our preference to pick the Top FOUR teams at the end of the season) would advance to the….

Final Four

…where they would play games at the home field campus stadium of the higher seeded team which in 2011 would have set-up a Final Four of:

Oregon at Alabama
Oklahoma State at LSU

The TWO winners of the above two games would then have advanced to the…

National Championship Game

…and the losers of the above two games would play in a BIG bowl game that was close to their home city such as…

The Rose Bowl or Fiesta Bowl for Oregon

AND

The Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl or Sugar Bowl for Oklahoma State

Will the powers-that-be in Major College Football decide to play the TWO Semifinal Games of the Final Four at the home stadiums of the higher seeded teams and have the losers of those two games advance to play in a BIG bowl game while the winners head to the National Championship Game?

Probably not because there is money to be made by playing those Final Four games in places like the Jerry Dome in Dallas, in Phoenix, Tampa, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, etc., and since 99.99999999999999999 plus percent of the people watching these Final Four Semifinal College Football Games will be watching them on TV it will not matter much to most fans since a….

Final Four in Major College Football will be a HUGE American Sporting Event and Spectacle

….no matter where it is played!

One thing that we are very confident about and that is the BIG gain that the NFL has achieved popularity wise in America over College Football during the BCS era over the past 14 years which saw the popularity of ALL football in America surge will begin to narrow dramatically in the coming years once this new 4-Team Postseason Playoff Final Four plan is put into place because just as the NFL has grown by leaps and bounds with both the NFL regular season and postseason games being more popular than ever the same will be TRUE for Major College Football as well because a 4-Team Postseason Playoff will just make the entire game of College Football much bigger and more popular than it is now and that can only be a net positive for Major College Football and for America’s colleges and universities that will receive even more attention from the American Public as the game of College Football grows even larger and better in the coming years.

(and there goes the Bogus argument made by people that claim college football would go the way of college basketball if Major College Football instituted a postseason playoff because the TRUTH is that the popularity of basketball in America on both the pro and college level has leveled off in recent years and ALL football has surged and the NFL has especially surged in popularity and the NFL has a very popular regular season AND postseason playoff which should end the Idiocy of people saying a playoff in college football would hurt the college football regular season when the TRUTH is it would only make it MORE POPULAR among the American public!)

Believe it….

Major College Football in America is moving to a 4-Team Playoff Final Four format after the contract for the current Bogus and Un-American BCS ends and that reality means that we are approaching a day that when the announcement for this new 4-Team Playoff Final Four is announced it will be a…

GREAT DAY IN AMERICA!

“Anytime four New Yorkers get into a cab together without arguing, a bank robbery has just taken place.”

And

“Happiness is your dentist telling you it won’t hurt and then having him catch his hand in the drill.”

And

“I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself.”

And

“I know you’ve been married to the same woman for 69 years. That is marvelous. It must be very inexpensive.”

And

“I was so naive as a kid I used to sneak behind the barn and do nothing.”

And

“My success just evolved from working hard at the business at hand each day.”

And

“Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.”

And

“Talent alone won’t make you a success. Neither will being in the right place at the right time, unless you are ready. The most important question is: “Are your ready?”"

And

“The only thing money gives you is the freedom of not worrying about money”

Wikipedia:  Johnny Carson

Tiger Woods’ golf swing is fine….what Tiger Woods needs is either a…

An Old Fashioned Ass Chewing

Or actually a….

An Old Fashioned Ass Whipping

Tiger Woods seems to be trying hard enough to get his new golf swing in shape, but the answers to Woods’ problems will not be found on a golf driving range but rather in someone doing the kind of things that were done to us when we were struggling in sports or life that usually would go something like this….

“Now listen up and listen up good. I don’t know what kind of BS is swirling in that mind of yours, but your precious ass just isn’t that Damn important anymore and if you don’t get off that precious ass of yours and quit feeling sorry for yourself you can kiss that Jack Nicklaus Total Majors record goodbye!”

Memo to Tiger Woods: Get over yourself. The TRUTH is that you are just not that good of a GOLFER anymore with an emphasis on GOLFER because a GOLFER plays the GAME OF GOLF while precious Candy Ass play the game of SWING. Bring that game of SWING of yours to the Olympic Club in San Francisco for the US Open in June and you may not finish your first two rounds and if you do they will probably have an “8” number on them as in OVER 80!

As for Matt Kuchar winning the Players Championship AMERICAN Golf is on a nice upswing lately with youngsters Johnson Wagner, Brandt Snedeker, Kyle Stanley, Bill Haas, Hunter Mahan, Bubba Watson, Jason Dufner, Rickie Fowler and now Kuchar winning in 2012 and if we can keep this going the old guard of Michelson and Woods might just wake-up one day soon and realize that their era is over although it was quite a run for that now “older” crowd!

FSU to the Big 12 Conference? Please are the people in Tallahassee that Damn STUPID?

We have gotten a nice laugh out of reports over the weekend that Florida State has been considering a move to the Big 12 Conference…

After busy weekend, FSU officials head to ACC meetings amid Big 12 concerns, Coley Harvey, Orlando Sentinel

….but forget for a moment the “money issue” involving the new ACC TV contract and what the Pac-12 recently signed and what TV contracts the SEC and other conferences will be signing in the near future…

ACC’s New $3.6 Billion Television Deal Still Pales in Comparison to Pac-12’s Deal, Patrick Rishe, Forbes.com

Misperceptions about TV deal add more drama to FSU’s ACC relationship, Jim Lamar, Tallahassee Democrat

…which when you boil it down comes out to about….

$17 million for each ACC school

$18 to $23 million for each Pac-12, SEC, Big 12, Big Ten schools

….which is a few million dollars a year less for ACC schools which is not chump change (Yes, we could have gotten a slightly better TV deal for the ACC but then who couldn’t have?) but is not the kind of thing that schools should be switching conferences for and in case the FSU Board of Trustees and FSU head coach Jimbo Fisher forgot the summer of 2010 when it was the boys down in Austin that got all of this conference shifting cranked up it was in June 2010 that the below planted and smokescreen story as in they wanted to smoke Nebraska out of the Big 12 Conference suddenly appeared….

Pac-10 set to invite six from Big 12, Chip Brown, OrangeBloods.com

…and SURPRISE, SURPRISE…we have the boys down in Austin leaking more stories here in 2012 for what the reason who the Hell knows?

Realignment Round 3?, Chip Brown, OrangeBloods.com

Listen up leadership at Florida State since you boys and girls in Tallahassee seem to have a very short Damn memory:

We would not trust the current leadership of the University of Texas to…

WATCH OUR DOGS!’

….and if you are going to leave the safety, security, stability and American Common Sense of the ACC to join the Big 12 which is run by the Boys in Austin which new Big 12 commish Bob Bowlsby will try to control but will not really change until the University of Texas gets some people in positions of power that care about something beyond their own precious asses and their own MASSIVE EGOS then you have LOST YOUR FREAKING MINDS!

Florida State (or Clemson) to the Big 12 Conference?

If that happens then we will have confirmed that there are some Very Damn Stupid and Very Damn Naïve people in Tallahassee, Florida and on the FSU Board of Trustees but then PT Barnum didn’t become rich for no Damn reason right?

Yes, there is a sucker born every minute and if FSU is thinking about heading to Big 12 country then Tallahassee is a place where Barnum could have a made a fortune because the place has to be full of SUCKERS!

Of course, in the background of this possible FSU move to the Big 12 is what else…..

MONEY

…or as the character Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) in the movie Wall Street told Bud Fox (Charley Sheen):

“It’s all about the bucks, kid. The rest is conversation.”

…we here at Coaches Hot Seat have been very interested and perplexed to hear that the Florida State athletics department is running a $2 million dollar plus deficit:

FSU athletics at a crossroad, Gene Williams, WarChant.com

What the Hell?

Florida State athletics is running a deficit?

With the tradition of Florida State athletics and the stunning history of its football program under Bobby Bowden that is an OUTRAGE and we cannot help but wonder what the Hell is going on in Tallahassee when we read comments like this one from FSU AD Randy Spetman:

“Randy Spetman told Warchant.com last week that the plan is to “to cut our budget back next year pretty drastically.” If FSU is able to cut over $2 million in expenses from its budget and is still able operate at a high level that doesn’t speak well for how expenses have been handled to date. And that doesn’t even take into account that the department has already cut out nearly $500,000 from last year’s operating budget.”

Is FSU AD Randy Spetman really saying that he and his staff do not have the ability to pick up the phone and raise $2 million dollars from the FSU alumni and boosters which includes dozens if not a couple of hundred people that $2 million dollars would be chump change?

Hell, according to the above WarChant.com story Florida State and other ACC schools will see an increase from around $13 million to over $17 million dollars each year from the new ACC TV contract and forgetting that $4 million dollar increase to the FSU athletic department budget each year we still cannot help but wonder why in the Hell that FSU could not raise $5 million MORE dollars a year just by getting their lazy asses on the phones and putting the hammer down on the FSU alumni and boosters that seem to want a strong football program and have an athletics department compete at a high level but they for some reason cannot find their wallets and purses.

What is it? Are the FSU alumni and booster a bunch of Sorry Ass cheapskates?

If we were running Florida State University we would call FSU AD Randy Spetman into our office and say something like….

“Now Randy, you are doing a nice job but unless you increase the amount of revenues coming into the FSU athletic department then we are going to have to find a new athletic director. What I need to see happen is what I have to do in this office everyday which is get on the phone and call people and ask them for money and it is that money that I and many other raise here at FSU that allows this institution get up and go each day and when the day comes when I quit raising money is the day Florida State University starts going backwards. With that mind beyond running the FSU athletic department I am going to write a number down on this piece of paper in the amount of “X” and that is what I want to see you and your athletics department raise each year above and beyond what the school takes in revenue wise from our sports teams. I am willing to let you hire one professional fundraiser and a couple of assistants to make this new fundraising requirement happen, but it is going to happen either under your watch or under a new athletic director. If you want to know how to get started it is actually very easy…..You pick up the phone and start calling people and asking them for money and if you can’t do that and I mean YOU personally in addition to your staff then you will need to submit your resignation this afternoon because I will need to find a new athletic director for FSU and quick.”

Pick-up the phone FSU AD Randy Spetman….TODAY…and start raising money for FSU athletics and if you cannot wipe out the current and puny $2 million dollar FSU athletic department deficit (puny in relation to the name of FSU athletics) by the end of the current work week, Friday May 18, 2012, then FSU needs to find a new athletic director….and pronto.

Getting back to the subject at hand….FSU possibly heading to the Big 12…we cannot help but…..

“A man should look for what he is, and not for what he thinks should be.”

And

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”

And

“All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.”

And

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex… It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”

And

“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.”

And

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

And

“I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.”

And

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

And

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”

And

“Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.”

And

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”

And

“People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.”

And

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

And

“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.”

And

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”

Wikipedia Page:  Albert Einstein

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

“All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother.”  Abraham Lincoln

AND

“My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.”  George Washington

AND

“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”  Washington Irving

AND

“The mother is the one supreme asset of national life; she is more important by far than the successful statesman, or business man, or artist, or scientist.”  Theodore Roosevelt

Wikipedia Page:  Mother’s Day

“The harder you work, the luckier you get.”

And

“Each shot is important.”

And

“Golf is a puzzle without an answer. I’ve played the game for 40 years and I still haven’t the slightest idea how to play.”

And

“If there’s a golf course in heaven, I hope it’s like Augusta National. I just don’t want an early tee time.”

And

“A good golfer has the determination to win and the patience to wait for the breaks.”

And

“We create success or failure on the course primarily by our thoughts.”

And

“You must work very hard to become a natural golfer.”

And

Gary Player’s Ten Commandments

1. Change is the price of survival.
2. Everything in business is negotiable, except quality.
3. A promise made is a debt incurred.
4. For all we take in life we must pay.
5. Persistence and common sense are more important than intelligence.
6. The fox fears not the man who boasts by night but the man who rises early in the morning.
7. Accept the advice of the man who loves you, though you like it not at present.
8. Trust instinct to the end, though you cannot render any reason.
9. The heights of great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but that while their companions slept were toiling upward in the night.
10. There is no substitute for personal contact.

Wikipedia:  Gary Player

“You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry, don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.”

And

“There is no tragedy in missing a putt, no matter how short. All have erred in this respect.”

And

“Make the hard ones look easy and the easy ones look hard.”

And

“You don’t have the game you played last year or last week. You only have today’s game. It may be far from your best, but that’s all you’ve got. Harden your heart and make the best of it.”

And

“No one remembers who came in second.”

Wikipedia:   Walter Hagen

Before we get the Absolute Nonsense of Buzz Bissinger a few Coaches Hot Seat members are down in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida for the Players Championship and they got to see Tiger Woods in the practice rounds and on the range for the first time since The Masters and the consensus among the very good golfers in this CHS group is that Woods’ swing looks great especially when he sets-up to the ball correctly and has rhythm in his swing.

With that in mind we got a good laugh this week when Brandel Chamblee of The Golf Channel said Tiger Woods needs to fire his current swing coach, Sean Foley, and go back to his swing coach from a decade ago, Butch Harmon.

Brandel Chamblee to Tiger Woods: Fire Sean, call Butch – Yahoo Sports

Hey, Butch Harmon is a great teacher of the golf swing but at this moment in Tiger Woods golf career which means Tiger is getting Pretty Damn Old (36 years old in fact!) what Tiger needs is a golf swing that will not do even more damage to his already worn-out body and especially his legs and knees and Foley’s approach to the golf swing is about as good as an older golfer that plays a lot of golf can find unless of course you are going to go whole hog and start swinging like Moe Norman!

No, it’s not time to go to Moe Norman’s swing just yet Tiger!

Tiger Woods’ golf swing looks very good to the CHS members and it is time for Woods to start playing the game of golf instead of playing golf swing during PGA Tour tournaments!

The Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass is one of our favorite golf courses and collectively we have played the Stadium Course probably over a hundred times and it never disappoints except in the hot summer months of humid north Florida which can make just finishing the round and stumbling back into the air conditioned clubhouse quite a challenge.

One thing we have noticed over the years about the Stadium Course which is different than many other golf courses in America is that if f you hit the ball past the pin on many of the holes you will not only take out of play most of the Stadium Course’s designer Pet Dye’s diabolical bunkers and water hazards, but you will also end up with some great looks at birdies and even eagles.

Let’s hope for a great week of golf and some good weather on the First Coast in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida so we can crown a champion on a golf course where the championship is always earned.

The Absolute Nonsense of Buzz Bissinger

Most of us here at Coaches Hot Seat have read Buzz Bissinger’s recent piece in the Wall Street Journal…

Why College Football Should Be Banned, Buzz Bissinger, Wall Street Journal

….a couple of times in an effort to figure out just what in the Hell Bissinger is trying to say relative to banning the game of College Football but for the life of us we still don’t have a clue why Bissinger or anyone else thinks that “banning” the game of College Football would do anyone any Damn good.

Oh, yes there are the Candy Ass Academics in America today that long for an environment on America’s college campuses similar to what they have at Oxford or Cambridge in England, but to those Candy Ass Academics we can only say….

That is England.

This is AMERICA.

BIG Difference.

HELL of a BIG Difference Buzz!

Very early on in Buzz Bissinger’s piece Buzz goes terribly wrong and proves that he doesn’t have a Clue to what America’s college campuses in our country really exist for and what they should be doing to prepare the young…and sometimes older…people of America to compete in what is now a global and very Damn competitive economy:

From Buzz Bissinger’s column:

“In more than 20 years I’ve spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics.

That’s because college football has no academic purpose. Which is why it needs to be banned. A radical solution, yes. But necessary in today’s times.

Football only provides the thickest layer of distraction in an atmosphere in which colleges and universities these days are all about distraction, nursing an obsession with the social well-being of students as opposed to the obsession that they are there for the vital and single purpose of learning as much as they can to compete in the brutal realities of the global economy.”

Oh, Buzz….America’s colleges and universities are not about young and even older Americans being there…

“for the vital and single purpose of learning as much as they can to compete in the brutal realities of the global economy.”

…but rather OUR colleges and universities should exist to teach their students how to….

THINK.

Yes, there are the nominal majors and minors that people focus on when they are on a college campus pursuing a college degree and there are hundreds of more specialized graduate and professional degrees that can be markers along the way to a successful working career and life…BUT….most of what is taught at America’s colleges and universities is long forgotten by the time one is working in this competitive world that we all live in and that is why it is paramount, critical and very Damn important that OUR institutions of higher learning impart the most important skill of all…..

HOW TO THINK

…and professors that are teaching on the frontlines should never forget as they are teaching their individual subjects what Socrates said about learning…

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”

Amen to that Socrates.

Getting back to the game of College Football and its role on the American college campus we are reminded of what one of our college professors told us many moons ago when he commented on us playing on the school’s sports teams on scholarship:

“You fellows are very Damn lucky because you are getting an experience by playing sports at this school that most students will not enjoy and you should relish your time with your teammates.”

Few would probably argue the point that the student-athletes both on and not on scholarship get a lot out of playing sports while in college where they are challenged to juggle both their work in the classroom and the work on the playing field, but where does that leave the rest of the student body, professors and administrative staff of the university and what exactly do they get from a college football team being on their campus?

Here is where we would have to ask Buzz Bissinger a very simple question:

Buzz, have you ever been on a major college campus in the Fall of the year when the team is getting ready for and playing a game on one of those priceless college football Saturdays that must be experienced to be fully understood?

Hold it a second…Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights went to…

The University of Pennsylvania after attending Phillips Academy which together are a bastion of the Very Damn things that are destroying the American Republic:

Elitist Bastards that have spent most of their lives in either Boston, New York, Washington DC or Philadelphia in Bissinger’s case with lots of other overeducated Ivy League Elitists that collectively wouldn’t know an honest day’s work if it hit them in ass and almost certainly wouldn’t last five seconds on a football field playing the great game of American football.

Yes, college football and intercollegiate athletics has lots of problems that need fixing….

The danger of concussions

The overspending of athletic departments that are losing money and many that are spending way too much money even though they are making a profit

The pervasive influence of boosters on college athletic programs

Some student-athletes that are not really student-athletes

The Bogus and Un-American BCS…which thankfully is almost gone from the American scene

….but the positives of College Football and the huge impact it has on bringing together a college campus to one place each Fall Saturday, to providing a window onto America’s college campus for the 95 plus percent of the American People that are not going to school and most importantly bringing an “edge” and “different way of living life” to OUR colleges and universities that is very different than the academic side of the campus which is often focused on research, teaching and the softer sides of life far outweigh the negatives of the game.

There is something else that College Football adds to the American Republic and that is something that in our opinion scares the Hell out of the Buzz Bissinger’s of the world that have lived a sheltered life far from the frontlines of battle for those that served in the US military and for those very few Americans that played football on the college and professional level and that “something else” is that the game of College Football and all of its inherent violence, struggle, one-on-one battle with the man across from you and just downright determining on each and every play which is the better Man and Team flows directly to the thing that allowed the American Republic to be created in the first place and created brave Americans that were willing to fight in and win the major World Wars of the 20 th century which made AMERICA the dominate force on the Earth during the lifetimes of the people reading this blog.

No, it was not Socrates academy that made Greece a great nation no more than it was the schools of Rome that made Rome into the Roman Empire, but rather what made EVERY Great Nation GREAT was the willingness of its People to stand-up and fight for the Principles of that Nation and just as sure the Sun comes up in the East the game of College and Pro Football in America can trace its lineage straight back to the brave men and women that first stood up 200 plus year ago to declare that…

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Candy Asses do not write or sign their names to things like the Declaration of Independence because everyone in that room in Philadelphia in 1776 knew that such a document would lead to war with England and most certainly Candy Asses in small countries do not start wars with an Empire, but that is what those Americans that founded our country did and 200 plus years later the decedents of the Founders of the American Republic both still fight wars around the world and they play games such as Football which help to define the essential elements of what it is to be an AMERICAN.

Tough.

Determined.

Resolute.

Tenacious.

A Champion.

As the GREAT Vince Lombardi once said about football…

“A school without football is in danger of deteriorating into a medieval study hall.”

….of which we could not agree more and that is why it is Very Damn Important that College Football remain on America’s college campuses and play its key role in the life of OUR nation and in the life of our colleges and universities.

We do not want the game of College Football to dominate America’s college campuses and to take over the life of the school, but College Football at America’s larger institutions of higher learning is an important cog in not only helping to drive the overall goals and aspirations of the school forward, but College Football also serves a much deeper purpose which is to speak to that warrior force that is inside of almost all Americans to some extent and which must be spoken to and addressed or the risk is run that it will be channeled into other things that would be negative for the American Republic as a whole.

College Football needs some fixes, the game needs to be cleaned-up a bit and it needs to be in its proper place on the college campus which is to be a positive but not dominate force on the life of America’s colleges and universities, but ban the game of College Football you say?

NEVER.

Please, that would be both Stupid and Foolish and thus it will never happen and Thank God for that.

Now below are a few videos for those Candy Asses in the American Republic that are now rubbing their hands together worrying about the supposed “negative” influence on College Football on America and OUR colleges and universities.

Please, first get a CLUE and then…

Watch and learn….watch and learn…