Boston College

Quick Hits: Michigan Lands a Michigan Man

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How much does the University of Michigan value a Michigan man to lead a football program that has fallen to the depths of being a bottom feeder in the Big Ten?

Reportedly Jim Harbaugh will receive a six-year, $48 million dollar contract from his alma mater, which would make him the highest paid coach in college football. According to USA Today, Alabama’s Nick Saban is the nation’s highest paid college football coach at $7,160,187. In the NFL, Forbes has New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton atop the money list with an average salary of approximately $8 million dollars per year.

Harbaugh’s deal appears to equal the best paid coach in the NFL, and will surmount any current deal in college football until Alabama quickly gives Nick Saban another raise. If Harbaugh was such a Michigan man, did the school need to provide him with the highest salary in all of college football to prevent him from pursuing another NFL opportunity?

The argument will be made that for Harbaugh to forego his dream of winning a Super Bowl – and achieving football Valhalla – Michigan not only needed but had to go to any heights to hire a coach that could potentially resurrect a Big Ten program that now has more in common with Rutgers than with in-state rival, Michigan State. Eight million dollars will make any decision easier, but has anyone considered that Harbaugh is a Michigan man and shouldn’t need dirty, filthy lucre to return to idyllic Ann Arbor.

Ann Arbor is clearly not an idyllic destination for any football coach. Michigan never embraced Rich Rodriguez as a Michigan man, and just fired a Michigan man, Brady Hoke. This is an athletic department struggling to find an identity, and has struggled to solve the two issues that undermine all athletic departments: the search for an effective athletic director and a winning football coach.

Harbaugh’s yearly salary is pocket change to the Michigan Athletic Department. Harbaugh will become one of – if not the – most powerful figure on the Michigan campus. He is a Michigan man, which is such a crock of self-pretentious bullshit perpetrated by Michigan alums and fans, that it makes me want to watch Michigan State and Ohio State kick the crap out of the Wolverines for decades to come.

It doesn’t matter that Jim Harbaugh is a Michigan man. It’s far more important that Harbaugh is a good football coach, which he has demonstrated at the University of San Diego, Stanford and with the San Francisco 49ers. In essence, $8 million dollars bought Michigan a Michigan man. Money talks and any Michigan man will listen to the sweet siren call of money.

Disclaimer: I strongly dislike Michigan alums and fans with their self-aggrandizing visions of their university and its athletic teams. To tweak these people, I’d like to utter four letters to these Bo Schembechler boobs: NJIT

Quick Hits

Dunkin’ Donuts is the official coffee of Liverpool FC in the Premier League. It’s nice to know that John Henry’s ownership group has allowed Masshole Nation to invade the shores of Great Britain.

It now appears to be socially acceptable to appear in a sex tape but not a porn movie.

I saw Santa Claus kissing Mommy under the Christmas tree. After wrapping all of the gifts and presents, placing them under the tree, and making sure Santa and his reindeer have fresh cookies and milk, no one is kissing anyone.

How many people cook a goose for Christmas? I’ve cooked a goose and it’s not easy to get it right.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie rooting for the New York Rangers. 

The New Jersey Devils have three head coaches (Lou Lamoriello, Scott Stevens and Adam Oates). The New York Rangers are the hottest team in the NHL and own an eight-game winning streak heading into tonight’s tilt versus the Dallas Stars. The Rangers only have one head coach.

In the New Era Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium, Boston College loses to Penn St. because the Eagles have had a peculiar inability to successfully complete extra-point attempts. In OT, the Eagles missed a PAT wide right. High school teams can do this shit right. I thought wide right only applied to Bobby Bowden’s Florida State and former Buffalo Bills kicker, Scott Norwood.

In a silent protest, NYC cops continue to turn their back to NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio. I guess silent protests are alright unless you’re a St. Louis Ram holding his hands above his head to protest the grand jury’s decision regarding Michael Brown.

Have taken a shine to Southern Tier’s 2XMas beer.

I am a devout believer in the Great Pumpkin, but I fear pumpkin beer. It’s like drinking your grandmother’s spice rack.

Sage or thyme on a roasted turkey? Or perhaps both?

I tried to watch a PBS documentary on Richard Pryor and it had a narcoleptic quality to it. How can anything about Richard Pryor put a person to sleep with the exception of Brewster’s Millions?

Johnny & Chevy

Watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation the other night, and I disliked this in 1989 and still hate it in 2014. Christmas Vacation is a poor Randy Quaid second cousin to Vacation and European Vacation. In 1989, I never thought that the actor who portrayed Rusty would become one of 2014’s highest paid sitcom stars, which is The Big Bang Theory‘s Johnny Galecki.

Yesterday at Larz Anderson’s Outdoor Skating Rink in Brookline, Massachusetts, the skaters were moving in a counter-clockwise fashion to Led Zeppelin. Back in the day, I used to rock out to organ music at Mennen Arena’s public skate.

Pulled pork does not belong on pizza.

If I referred to a Trader’s Joe employee as Magnum P.I., would anyone get the reference?

Coaching Youth Baseball

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My summer engagement as a youth baseball coach ended last night. We won a few games, the boys sported shirts that resembled tents used by Barnum and I realized that I enjoy winning a lot more than losing. I also came to the rapid conclusion that the ten-year-old and younger boys had the same attitude towards winning and losing. They liked to win. And they really didn’t like to lose.

When did our society get stuck on it’s all about having fun? When is losing fun?

I did lose my virginity, and that was definitely fun.

If I lost my wife to the next-door neighbor with the orange Hummer. That would not be fun.

The cat is lost. Depends on whether you like cats on how depressing that might be.

I lost my car keys. Always a frustrating and maddening experience that makes a person question one’s mental make-up and the possible advance of dementia.

Losing blows. Unless you are an NBA squad that is tanking the regular season in search of the next LeBron James. We instruct our kids to succeed in school, we applaud Tiger Moms, we look for the best possible summer camp, and then we mouth fake platitudes about having fun and it’s not about always winning. The kids aren’t buying it. They see their parents compete at work, try to bake the perfect cupcakes to complement their perfectly barbecued steak tips, have a landscape crew come in and create topiary artwork on their lawns, and then their parents mouth some pablum about having fun when success is not achieved. Kids understand when their parents are being disingenuous.

 

Topiary Artwork

 

I will freely admit to wanting my team to win. The kids were a lot easier to deal with when our team was winning than when they were watching their opponents run around the bases like migrating gazelle. When losing, bickering occurred on the field. Tears flowed at the prospect of a loss. And after one loss, there was this declarative sentence used by one of the older boys, “We suck.”

I tried to remind my young charges that the best major league baseball team will lose over sixty games this year, but they’re not listening to what I’m trying to sell. These kids didn’t want to hear that losing builds character. Character is something they watch on the Disney Channel and not linked to personal pride or conduct. These kids wanted to trash-talk in the handshake line, which is in some ways funny at that age, but also a jolt to the senses. The trash-talking was squashed, but Seattle Seahawks defensive back Richard Sherman is arguably the most celebrated defensive player in the NFL – and one of its greatest trash-talkers. Kids learn from what society celebrates.

 

 Hardball fans talking trash.

 

Will I coach again? Probably. I’ve got the bug, which doesn’t surprise me all that much. After our final game, I was in a fugue lamenting the end of summer ball and the encroaching end of summer. It felt like the season had only just started and its conclusion was far too soon.

The kids were fun and difficult, they were accepting and challenging, and they were sometimes good sports and sometimes excellent trash-talkers. Sign me up for a coaching trip to Williamsport in 2018.

Now a dose of “Suck It Up!” motivation from former Boston College and NFL linebacker Tom McManus.