Football: It's way more interesting than Baseball

           As I watched the rangers lose tonight, I couldn't help but remember why I'm watching this game in the first place. And then I remember why: because football is better. It's just that simple. The game, the rituals, the drama- it's all just so much more interesting.

           O the glory days of fall- the smell of sausages roasting on the grill, the crackle of leaves under foot as you make your way from the backyard inside to watch the pre-game. I really don’t know why they call baseball “America’s past-time”, because from my viewpoint, football is king.  When I have kids, and if I have a son, I’m envisioning small helmets running through my house, minus the muddy footprints.

            So you’ve heard about the Coach Leach and ESPN drama right? Here we have this dilemma with a football player, his coach, and an ESPN announcer who, oh yeah, is the football players dad.  The story goes that Coach Leach locked up this player in a dark room during practice because he claimed he had a concussion. The dad of the player (aka ESPN announcer) then makes a comment during his son’s football game (which he is one of the announcers for). From there, ESPN has a formal investigation of the allegations, which ultimately ended in the release of Coach Leach.

            Now I’m all for parents rights to support their children, whether that means yelling at the referee in the stands, or in this case announcing their game on national television.  Where I start to have a problem is when parents take advantage of a situation (like being an ESPN announcer) and using that platform for their own personal drama (issue that happened between the coach and the player).

            Some of the questions that come to mind are, do parents of players have enough self control to be unbiased during a game do they announce? Where does ESPN draw the line on investigating a story when it comes to one of their own?  During the investigation, both sides claimed that the other side was at fault. So was ESPN unbiased during their investigation? What about the school? After the fallout of Coach Leach, it would be hard to argue that potential recruits would think twice before going to team where you’re locked up like prisoner for health issues.

            Here, the reputation of Leach was impacted negatively, and the credibility of ESPN’s investigation team was comprised. In the end, ESPN should put more thought in the scheduling of announcers when it comes to relations, for the protection of all parties against unintentional bias, and the school should probably put all of its coaches through anger management training.

            So lessons learned: a wrong action can impact not just yourself, but every circle that you are apart of. And football is much more interesting than baseball.