Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Behold, the world's worst Father's Day gift

The person who should be most worried about the news T.K. Wetherell is going to step aside as FSU's president is Jimbo Fisher. Throughout the embarassing spectacle that has been Wetherell's presidency, the one thing everyone in Tallahassee knew was that he would be the final word on football related issues. He's protected Bobby Bowden every step of the way, including the current needless and wasteful appeal of the exceptionally minor penalty FSU got for their academic fraud scandal. If Wetherell hadn't approved of the Fisher succession plan, it would have never happened. He has personal capital invested in that choice. A new president will not, meaning that should FSU's offense still be uninspiring in a couple of years there's definitely an incentive for the new guy to look around for his own man to fill Bowden's shoes. As for T.K., all of us in the media regret the loss of potential future gaffes from a guy who is undoubtedly the loosest cannon of anyone on the academic side of college sports.

Jodie Meeks deciding to remain in the draft took a little wind out of the sails of the Kentucky hype that's been building since John Calipari took the job. It's an interesting choice, since Meeks isn't particularly considered a strong prospect. I suspect he thinks that if he can't get the NBA's attention as a 24 point a game scorer, he sure won't as a fifteen point a game guy next year when he'd have to share the rock with someone besides Patrick Patterson. Of the twelve players who pulled their names out of the draft, seven were from the SEC. The conference will make a major move back up the food chain this coming season.

It turns out Brett Favre is considering a return to the NFL with Minnesota. Shocking, I know. The lamest part of his attempts to justify his plan to play for one of the Packers three division rivals is dragging Vince Lombardi into his argument. Lombardi retired to become GM of the Packers. He did that for a year but missed coaching, so he took the Redskins job in 1969 and died a year later. That's totally different from Favre staging a decade long "will I retire this year?" attention grab, finally going through with it and then complaining because the team didn't immediately drop everything and welcome him back after he changed his mind. The Redskins are nowhere near the kind of rival to the Packers that the Vikings are, either. Favre admitted previously his Jets comeback was motivated by a desire to stick it to Tim Thompson and the Packers, and this one obviously is too no matter what he claims about the ease of learning Minnesota's offense. I think it's hilarious that even with Favre in studio, King of Comedy Joe Buck's show got derailed by Artie Lange of Howard Stern's show. Naturally, Joe was offended by Lange. Buck reminds me of the Bruno Kirby character in Good Morning Vietnam.

Normally I avoid politics on the blog, but a pair of stories are worth a mention today. George Perles, the former Michigan State head coach, is running for governor of Michigan. He was in charge when Tony Mandarich and the rest of his teammates were engaging in better living through chemistry. I suppose Perles's slogan could be "Let's put Michigan's economy on steroids". As ridiculous as the idea of Governor Perles sounds, it pales in comparison to the idea of Bill Snyder as governor of Kansas. According to Snyder, that nearly happened. He was apparently up for the Lt. Governor spot with Kathleen Sibelius, and with her appointed to Obama's cabinet he'd now be governor. I had Snyder on my radio show in Jacksonville years ago. He is the most boring human being I have ever heard in my life on any subject. We should have aired a "do not operate heavy machinery while listening to this interview" warning. The idea of Snyder as a politician blows my mind - maybe the comeback this year really is a good thing.

There are some things which words can't do justice to. This is one of them. No matter how hard up you may be for a good Father's Day gift, do not dial that number.

1 comment:

Mr. Two Bits said...

I'm not suprised that he stepped down as president. He had to make some painful cuts in FSU's budget this year. I doubt he really knew anything about Jimbo Fisher and instead let the boosters talk into his ear.