The Comments of Consecutive Sports Radio Callers Explain the ‘Gamecock Fan’ Mentality:

The first caller was a military fellow who invited one of his Alabama friends to the game. He said he had never seen such bad behavior and poor winners in his life. He and his friend were spit on, cussed at, heckled, harassed and told to "go the f*** home!" The caller made it clear this wasn’t an isolated incident but a common occurrence before, during, and after the game.

The second caller was a die-hard Gamecock fan who, in explaining his elation, quoted the Bible, essentially saying that it was "time". He then proceeded to anoint his MVP of the game: Patrick DiMarco. "’This guy is a "football player’…’He won't show up in the statbook but this guy gives 110% every game!!!’…’If it wasn't for him, Marcus Lattimore would not have had a good game!!!’"

While these good sportsmen celebrated a legitimately enormous win by spitting on Alabama fans, it should be noted these same fans would be renouncing Spurrier, et.al. had the Gamecocks lost. It is even more disheartening to see Gamecock fans use the context of a historic game to cloak their recurring racist tendencies. Surely DiMarco and his earlier versions: Ryan Brewer, Taylor Rank, etc. are good men, but Mr. Racist Gamecock fan needs to accept reality. The victory was largely attributable to a giant 6’4” black dude with spider-man hands and a gifted freshman [and black] running back. We know you are still bitter about the whole integration thing, but crediting Patrick DiMarco for the NCAA upset of the year is an absurd, cowardly and ineffective way to voice your racism.

The Gamecock football team is learning how to win. Sadly the fans are not.

An Inceptional Season

Now that the Gamecock baseball team has shown the world than anything is possible, it is time to look to football. For every SEC football team, the dream season involves playing the first Saturday in December. The western route involves a road through the defending national champions, a hoggish offensive juggernaut, the Plainsmen, and the boys from the bayou. In the East, things are a little more unpredictable with new quarterbacks and new coaches. But here’s a look at how it could shake out.

Week 2 - The Gamecocks and Georgia square off to determine who is going to be the solid number two contender. Unfortunately, the new ESPN TV deal does not take into account the heat of the deep south as the game is played at noon. During the game, doctor number four sees more patients than a full season of House, M.D. Georgia’s running game pounds Carolina, but they can’t seem to get in the end zone. Garcia is not great, but efficient, and Carolina comes away the winner, 17-13. LSU heads to Nashville and hands the new head coach his first conference loss.
USC 1-0 UGA 0-1 Vandy 0-1

Week 3 – Florida and Tennessee get together with both sets of fans wearing “I hate Lane” t-shirts. The Gators look good, not great, but still win convincingly. The Dogs host the Hogs and learn that everything everybody said about this Arkansas team is true – dudes can score. The ten point defeat puts Richt squarely on the hot seat. Vandy goes to Oxford and gives their coach his first conference win.
UF 1-0 USC 1-0 Vandy 1-1 Tenn 0-1 UGA 0-2

Week 4 – Carolina heads to Auburn to get a dose of what sent Clemson home with an L. The fast break offense proves to be a bit too much for the Carolina defense and the Gamecock offense can’t get going on the road. Florida continues to look good, but not dominant, as they roll past Kentucky. Georgia goes to Starkville and picks up their first conference win.
UF 2-0 USC 1-1 Vandy 1-1 Tenn 0-1 UGA 1-2 UK 0-1

Week 5 – Florida and Alabama square off for the game to end all games. Alabama’s defense looks like they could shut down the Saints and the Tide running game is even better than last year. Brantley looks bad in his first real test as the Tide rolls. Tennessee lands in the bayou for a night game and continues to look disjointed. Kentucky wins in Oxford as the Rebels have cycled downward. USC gets by non-conference Idle.
UF 2-1 USC 1-1 Vandy 1-1 Tenn 0-2 UGA 1-2 UK 1-1

Week 6 – Florida comes back home looking to redeem themselves against LSU. The Hat goes for two fourth downs at midfield only to come up empty. There is talk of a new Hat. Little Dooley comes home to Athens in a game where CBS makes so much out of it TV viewers put the game on mute. The Dogs send Junior home with the loss. The Gamecocks host the defending national champs. The defense apparently used the bye week well as the Tide seems a bit frustrated on offense. The teams are tied at 10 going into the fourth quarter where the Gamecocks just run out of gas. Alabama 20-10. Auburn gets by Kentucky in a shoot out.
UF 3-1 USC 1-2 Vandy 1-1 Tenn 0-3 UGA 2-2 UK 1-2

Week 7 – Carolina goes to Kentucky to shake off the “what if’s” from the week before. USC’s offense finds its groove, but the defense looks flat. They do, however, have enough in them to shut down a late Wildcat drive. Carolina 28-24. Florida stomps MSU in the master/apprentice game. Georgia beats a Vandy team that can’t seem to score.
UF 4-1 USC 2-2 Vandy 1-2 Tenn 0-3 UGA 3-2 UK 1-3

Week 8 – Bama beats Tennessee so bad that children cry. Joker Phillips is learning that stopping people at Kentucky is just plain hard as the Bulldogs rack up 250 yards rushing. The Gamecocks go to Nashville and get the crap scared out of them 17-10.
UF 4-1 USC 3-2 Vandy 1-3 Tenn 0-4 UGA 4-2 UK 1-4

Week 9 – The Dogs and Gators get together for the World’s Largest Cake and Ice Cream Party. Georgia looks like someone shot them out of a cannon as the Dogs can get a piece of first place with the win. The running game continues to carry them and Florida fans start to wonder if their quarterback can win a big game. UGA with an upset and Richt keeps his job another year. The Vols roll into Columbia for a night game. Local sports radio limits its conversation to Vince Dooley and Lane Kiffin. The Vol defense comes to play as Tennessee shows signs of improvements, but the offense can’t buy a first down. Arkansas pounds Vandy and Kentucky stomps MSU.
UF 4-2 USC 4-2 Vandy 1-4 Tenn 0-5 UGA 5-2 UK 2-4

Week 10 – Columbia heats up for a 3:30 game against 10th ranked Arkansas. Petrino vs. Spurrier. Garcia vs. Mallett. It is a four hour war with three lead changes. Carolina just can’t seem to put a cap on the Razorback offense. A late touchdown drive puts the game at 34-24 Hogs. Florida stomps Vanderbilt in Nashville.
UF 5-2 USC 4-3 Vandy 1-5 Tenn 0-5 UGA 5-2 UK 2-4

Week 11 – All eyes are on Auburn as the Dogs roll into town with a chance to punch their ticket to Atlanta. The game is a contrast in styles as Georgia’s power game matches up against the fast break offense of Auburn. The game is knotted at 21 going into the fourth quarter when Georgia running back Caleb King fumbles at mid field. It’s all the Tigers need to outscore the Dogs 35-28. The ESPN night game features the Old Ball Coach headed back home for – wait – a shot at Atlanta?

A Gamecock victory would put all three teams at 5-3 with Carolina winning the three way tie; followed shortly by a Martian space ship landing on the field. Since the Dicaprio/USC hat sighting, the Gamecocks can’t seem to lose. The only question is whether Ellen Page will show up in Atlanta wearing a garnet boa.

Reviving Amateurism

The recent onslaught of agent infiltration in college football has started the usual rhetoric about college athletics being out of control. Realize, of course, that when people say college athletics, they just mean football and basketball. People tend to ignore all of the other sports that seldom have the types of issues these two sports have. After the Southern Cal debacle, the Carolina’s got their dose of agent-gate. Lately, it has been Florida and Alabama. The hot button question now is what to do about it.

First off, Saban is completely right on the subject. The only way to nip it in the bud is for the NFL to get involved. The simple solution is for the NFL to refuse to allow agents who get caught in these types of scandals to represent players. As Saban said yesterday, why should the NCAA cooperate with the NFL with scout days and evaluation periods if they won’t help the NCAA? As an aside, the NFL needs the NCAA a whole lot more than the NCAA needs the NFL. As a matter of fact, the sooner the NCAA realizes this fact, the better off it will be in a lot of areas. College football and college basketball will go along just fine without the NFL and the NBA.

Lost in all of this is how perfectly college baseball works. The baseball rule is simple – at the end of high school, a player may choose to sign with a professional team or go play college baseball. If he steps foot on a college campus, the MLB can not draft him until three years later. The system works perfectly. Players avoid being forced into service to the NCAA for three years like the NFL forces football players (see Maurice Clarett). Basketball players fare a little better only having to sit out one year.

So how do we solve college football? The problem is that there is no minor league football for players to move into after high school. The NFL has no reason to create one as college football serves the purpose nicely. The NBA is not much better. While solving the problem completely will be difficult, I do think some changes would help return a bit of the amateurism to big time college athletics.

1. Saban hit the nail on the head. Get the NFL involved to stop all the agent hanky panky. If they don’t want to help, shut them out of college football. No more scouts on campus and no more schools having on campus NFL evaluation days. The NFL can evaluate players at the combine.

2. Higher eligibility requirements to enter school. To be eligible to play NCAA athletics, a player must be eligible under the sliding scale. A GPA of 2.0 requires an SAT of 1010; a GPA of 2.5 or higher requires an SAT of 820; and all points in between. Raise the requirements to 2.0/1150 and 2.5/950. Now before everybody has a stroke and says that large numbers of players would not qualify, let me explain. If a player met the qualifications under the current scale, but not the heightened one, he could enroll in school on scholarship but not play his sport for one full year. It would be like a forced red shirt. The player could go to meetings, work out, attend practice, stand on the sidelines, avail himself of the tutors – everything but practice and participate in games.

For example, a player with a 2.5/1000 could come to school and play right away.
A player with a 2.0/1100 could come to school, but just sit out a year and work on his grades. Again, he qualifies under the current rule, but not the “play right away” rule. Lastly, a player with a 2.0/900 is ineligible to play just like he is now (ineligible under either requirement).

Additionally, this change would ease individual school’s concerns about letting in kids that qualify under the NCAA guidelines but fail the admissions process for the school. It would be a lot easier for coaches to ask for help with a player when they explain that the player will not touch the field until he proves himself academically for a whole year.

3. Raise the admissions requirements for current players. Under the current rule, players have to have 24 credits by the beginning of their second year with a restriction on how many can be earned in the summer. Raise this to 30 with no restrictions on summer school.

Under the current rule, a player must maintain a certain GPA through their college years. Usually a 1.7, 1.8, 1.9, and 2.0 entering the second semester of the freshman year, entering the second year, third year, and fourth year respectively. Change this to a 2.0 across the board.

4. Make ineligible players count against scholarship limits. Schools must keep players on scholarship for one full year after they have been declared ineligible as long as they are still admitted to the school. It is only fair as players have to sit out one full year if they want to transfer.

The bottom line is this – if players are just hanging on through their college careers until draft day, does this really constitute amateur athletics? The scenario of the football player dropping out of school at Christmas during his junior year is becoming all too common. Even more common is the scenario where this player goes un-drafted. The key is to make it tougher to hit the field. The tougher it is to hit the field, the tougher it is to be evaluated.

Under the rules above, the following scenario eventually unfolds:

Big time football player (let’s call him Johnny) is a genetic freak defensive end graduating high school. There is nothing he cannot accomplish on a football field. Unfortunately, he fails to meet the “play right away” eligibility standards to play his freshman year. Big Time U puts him on scholarship anyway and he sits out a year. Sadly, he comes up 3 credits short of the 30 he needs to play his sophomore year. Meanwhile, stories of Johnny benching 225 twenty five times and then taking a dime off of the top of a back board run rampant. At the end of his second year, Johnny is only toting a GPA of 1.7 – not quite good enough to play. He sits out a third football season and applies for the NFL draft. He heads to the combine where he wows everybody. Only one problem – he hasn’t worn a helmet in three years. The Saints draft him in the third round and he’s a total bust.

Somewhere far away, businessmen with a lot of money decide there is niche market for these kids that fall short of college eligibility. They start a league that plays football in the late spring after March Madness dies down. They sign players that don’t make the grades and sell them on the idea that this is a way to get evaluated. The league grows to a point where it becomes the minor league of the NFL. Every year, more and more players are drafted out of this league after their third year. The NFL gets tired of waiting three years to draft the really good players so they change their 3 year rule to a 2 year rule. College players then start jumping ship after their sophomore year. The NFL and the NCAA realize that the baseball rule will work for football as well. High school players can either sign with the developmental league or go to college and become un-draft-able for three years. College football becomes a little less tainted.

If you would like to read more on the subject, please consult your local library. Or just click this link. http://www.lehighsports.com/assets/info/NCAAEligRegs.pdf

Crime and punishment

Last month, the University of Southern California got hit pretty hard by the football police. Their punishment amounts to postseason bans and a lot of lost scholarships. Meanwhile, Pete Carroll roams free in the streets of Seattle. I have often wondered if these punishments really deter other programs from wrongdoing or, in most cases, looking the other way. So I have put together a few ideas for penalties that may actually dissuade future wrongdoers.

1. Just fine them – like speeding tickets. Secondary violation? Ten grand. Big time Southern Cal stuff? Five million.

2. Lose a home game. This could be pretty entertaining. All of the conference home games for an offending team are put into a lottery style hopper. The team that is pulled out gets an extra home game and the wrongdoer goes on the road. Imagine if Carolina had gotten into trouble last year and Florida was pulled out of the hat. At Georgia, at Tennessee, at Alabama, at Arkansas, at Florida…

3. A trip to Idaho. Offending teams have to go on the road to Boise State – in November.

4. Four pointers. The last place team in the conference from the year before gets four points for a field goal when they play the offending team.

5. Flexbone nightmare. Offending teams have to play all three service academies; and Georgia Tech; and Wofford; and anybody else that runs the flexbone.

6. Lose a home game, part 2 – Offending teams lose those layup season openers against lesser teams.

7. Head start. The last place team in the conference from the year before starts the game with a 7-0 lead when they play the offending team.

8. Jersey switch. Offending teams have to wear the jerseys of their rivals for an entire season.

9. SEC switch. Offending teams have to play all twelve teams in the Southeast Conference.

Penalties like these would be way more entertaining than the “you can only have five coaches recruiting at one time for a month” penalties that no one ever sees.

In all seriousness, schools should have liquidated damages clauses in their contracts with head coaches. If the football program gets in trouble, the coach that "had no idea what was happening" has to give back part of his salary. Maybe they will start paying more attention.

The Black Swan

Four hundred years ago, there was no such thing as a black swan. All swans were white and no one thought any different. Then some Dutchman made his way through Western Australia and found a black swan. This discovery gave the civilized world two things: a new bird and a new name for an event that was previously thought impossible.

The Black Swan Theory was developed by an author named Nassim Taleb. The theory involves the study of highly improbable events – like the Stock Market Crash. More specifically, Taleb describes these types of events as unpredictable with unquantifiable probabilities. Further, Taleb diminishes mankind’s attempts to rationalize these events after the fact. A Black Swan Event, according to Taleb, is something that can not be predicted and defies explanation. Taleb basically tells us to guard ourselves against the bad ones (no matter how unlikely) and enjoy the good ones.

Last week, Carolina fans witnessed one of the good ones. The Gamecocks took home the hardware from Omaha in thrilling fashion. The victory gave Carolina its first national title in a major sport. For Carolina fans, it was a Black Swan Event.

Now, before Carolina fans grumble that I would refer to a Gamecock national title as something akin to the Earth colliding into the Moon, let me explain. Certainly the success of the baseball program in recent years had the signs of a World Series champion in the making. But in looking at the events that make up this championship, one marvels at how unreal this past month truly was.

Consider:

The team played from behind during all three regional games.

After winning a one run Game 1 against Coastal, they were down two in the bottom of the eighth in Game 2 with two outs, only to hit a three run homer and take the lead.

After losing the first game to Oklahoma, they came back and beat the number one team in the country.

Down to their last strike in the bottom of the 12th, they tied and eventually won their second game against Oklahoma.

Needing to beat Clemson twice, they did just that – holding the hot hitting Tigers to four runs over the two games.

In Game 1 against Clemson, they pitched a freshman that had never started a game for them. He went nine innings.

They held UCLA to two runs in twenty innings.

They won Game 2 in the bottom of the 11th.

They were first College World Series team to win six games in a row.

Their tournament ERA was almost one full run lower than the next team.

Oh, and they won it in the last game ever played at Rosenblatt.

One has to shake their head. Gamecock fans got to experience a true miracle. Even if they are lucky enough to see another national championship, it will never happen in this storybook fashion again. Now if only we could find a garnet swan.

What it was was futbol

Like most people that I have never met, I have been watching a lot of the World Cup - the tournament that everybody that is not an American watches like it is 63 Super Bowls played over a four week time span. But then again, I will watch anything that involves countries playing each other. I even watched the World Cup of Rugby last year. Sports between nations are like mini-wars. You get to get all of that angst out on the field like when the 1980 U.S. Hockey team beat the Soviet Union. While I am not sure we have any problems with Algeria, it was still fun to watch the U.S. beat them in “overtime” on Wednesday.

Having said that, I am the first to admit that I have no idea what is happening in a soccer game. I just know scoring a goal happens about as often as somebody hitting a triple in major league baseball. Soccer is called “The Beautiful Game.” “Beautiful” must translate into the word “subtle” in every other language besides English. Somebody once described American football as an action movie with constant explosions and screaming. Soccer, on the other hand, was described as a suspense film where you are constantly holding your breath while you wait on the one scene where the bad guy finally gets it in the end. While I am a bigger fan of action movies, it is pretty entertaining when somebody actually scores a goal. Almost as exciting is a dramatic save by the goalie. So how do we get more of these moments so that we in the U.S. will tune in? Naturally, as the know-it-all American, I have a few ideas.

1. Give more points for larger margins of victory. In Group Play of the World Cup, teams get three points for a win and one for a tie. To encourage more scoring, make victories by a margin of one only worth two points. If a team wins by a margin of two goals, give them three points. A margin of three gives them four points, and so on. More points means more motivation to keep scoring.

2. Make fouling more costly. I know, I know, yellow cards, red cards; but honestly there are a lot of these little nickel-dime fouls that occur at midfield where the punishment is minimal. Every three fouls should result in a free kick from about thirty yards no matter where it occurred on the field. This would be similar to free throws in basketball after a team goes into the bonus.

3. Give me a break with the off sides calls. Off sides should not exist if the ball is in the box. That area should be a free for all. In other parts of the field, off sides should only be called if the guy is really off sides – like holding in football.

4. De-clutter the box on free kicks. Corner kicks and free kicks are actually pretty entertaining when the team runs some rehearsed play. Some of them are like little football/basketball plays with reverses, give and go’s, and other misdirection. The problem is there are usually so many people in the box that there is barely room for a ball. For free kicks and corner kicks both teams should have to put three players on the other side of the fifty (or half court line or whatever they call it). Once the ball is kicked, they can come sprinting in. Less people means more space and more chances for somebody doing one of those Pele bicycle kicks.

5. Just let them use their hands and knock the crap out of each other. Oh wait, that’s the NBA.

Not A Victory for You

Last week, the powers that be decided that the 2011 schedule needed to be a little tougher. Enter the Midshipmen. The sailors from Annapolis are coming to Columbia on September 17, 2011 and they are bringing football’s version of the Harlem Globetrotter offense with them. But that is not the worst of it – they were invited.

Carolina fans will recall playing Navy Lite twice already this decade - the Wofford Terriers. This is like asking the guy that just beat you by sixty pins in bowling to go double or nothing - and then giving him a million dollars to do it. Most fans will recall that the Gamecocks were a tipped pitch and a fourth and one from losing to Wofford in those two games. Now they have invited a team that runs the same offense with better athletes.

The athletic department said that it was hard to find someone that fit the schedule and that many schools wanted more than the $950,000.00 that Carolina is paying Navy. My question is: Were any of these schools bad at football? If so, pay them the money. The athletic department is further quoted as saying that “it’s going to be a good game.” Personally, I am more interested in winning.

“But we need to schedule somebody good.” This is what I hear from Carolina fans when it comes to scheduling. “Why don’t we try to get a home and home with Southern Cal or Oklahoma?” Why not schedule the Rams while we are at it? Look, I am all for big time match-ups with the great powers of college football, but as a Carolina fan, I would prefer they occur in a bowl game in early January. What really puzzles me is a schedule that features games with Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, etc. is not enough star power for these people. How many top ten teams do we have to play?

The bottom line is that college football seasons are judged by six criteria: national championship, conference championship, division championship, victories against rivals, number of wins, and bowl game. There is no NCAA tournament to get to, no College World Series or Sweet Sixteen. For most teams the evaluation comes down to how many wins and did the team go to bowl. Adding Navy to a schedule that features eight SEC teams and Clemson does nothing to meet that end.

As an example, look at Mississippi State last year. The Bulldogs went 3-5 in conference – same as Carolina. However, the Bulldogs stayed home for the holidays because of their 5-7 record overall. On the other hand, Carolina went on to play in a January bowl game after finishing 7-5. The difference was the non-conference schedule. Carolina went 4-0 with the Bulldogs finishing 2-2. Mississippi State caved to the “why can’t we play anybody good” pressure and scheduled Georgia Tech and Houston in their non-conference. Fans got what they asked for – somebody good and two losses. Carolina fans need only look to Orangeland and ask the Tigers how it felt to pay TCU one million dollars to beat them last year.

Look, if Carolina was in the Mountain West and going undefeated every year only to get shut out of the BCS, I would be the first to say bring on the Longhorns. But when you battle in the SEC for eight games and you have to look at Clemson at the end of the year every year, you need to take all the opportunities that you can to find opponents you can handle. Additionally, the Newberry’s and Presbyterian’s of the world come a lot cheaper. Oh well, I will be there regardless – sweating through a game where Carolina has nothing to gain and everything to lose. I wonder what Boise State would cost?