The High Court

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Character Study

January 8, 2007

 

The following is an open letter from The Chief Justice to ESPN.com’s Pat Forde…

 

Dear Pat,

 

I recently read your column on Nick Saban, and I just have to ask…is that all you or did your editors demand such a column?  Forget the fact that it addresses the ridiculously obvious…that Saban lied about his intentions regarding the Alabama job…how can you address a man’s character (and as you pointed out, also “tarring a lot of good men”) simply based on comments he makes in public?

 

Does telling a lie, or even multiple lies (as I suspect all of us have done at one time or another), make a person a ‘liar’?  I have to admit that I am cultivating the myth of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny for my two-year old…does this make me pathological?  Am I considered devoid of all character for blatantly misleading my child to believe in these characters (oh, the irony) who are rooted in nothing more than empty fantasy?  Now you’re a smart guy, so you will likely point out that my argument is borderline absurd and full of fallacy, because anyone knows that the intent behind my ‘lie’ is something quite different from Saban’s.  But then I find myself wondering…isn’t Saban’s lie and its intent something quite different from the old ‘flaxseed’ tale?  Or ‘lying’ about your income?  Leaving the toilet seat up?  Or sleeping with your girlfriend’s sister?  You see my point…

 

I understand that on some level you are happily popping the sanctimonious balloon of self-important coaches, pompous school administrators, and renegade boosters, but isn’t it an act of questionable character to demean the character of a man you do not know based on his itinerant coaching career and the public statements that have come with each move?  I know enough about Nick Saban to know that he probably hasn’t taken you into his confidence, and I know you well enough to know (and I only know you through common acquaintance and your outstanding writing) that you know better than to crucify a guy based on public perception.

 

I know that you know better because of how you handled the Gary Barnett situation.  One of my favorite pieces of work was your December 2005 column on Barnett, your former high school football coach following his dismissal at Colorado.  In a situation where Barnett had been made the public face of scandal at Colorado and portrayed as a villainous figure in the media, you dropped the superficial pretenses of journalistic objectivity and discussed the man that you knew, the man that you learned from, the man that you respected.  You allowed that Barnett had made mistakes and that he had made insensitive comments regarding former CU kicker Katie Hnida, but you stood up for the man, using your platform to point out the many outstanding qualities…the tremendous character, if you will…that made it impossible for you to believe that Barnett had become a renegade coach.

 

I believe that very few people in your position would have acted so compassionately, willing to speak honestly and openly about a personal relationship with one of the many coaches that you have covered, and perhaps most importantly, you took a position that so few of your fellow sportswriters (and the general public) were willing to share.  Your column resonated with me, mainly because I have friends that go way back with Gary Barnett, all the way back to his days as a student at Missouri.  Their lasting impressions of Barnett are the same as yours: a man of principle, integrity, and loyalty.  Nothing about the man suggested that he was the sort of person to knowingly allow the sort of behavior that went on at Colorado.  I found myself so impressed with your column that I emailed you to let you know what a tremendous piece of work I found it to be.

 

Knowing what you are capable of makes the Saban column all the more disappointing.  I can’t imagine you would be as comfortable tagging Saban as a liar, or suggesting that he was light in the character department if you actually knew the man better.  You could be right; of course…Saban could be a man with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.  That is entirely possible, if somewhat unlikely.  More likely, however, is that Saban is a complex human being, one capable of all sorts of things, good and bad, just like the rest of us.  Should he be condemned for lying to the media and the football public at large about his interest in a job that was offered to him?  Well, maybe, I guess…but I don’t think that Saban has committed any sort of real moral crime by telling reporters that he wasn’t going to be the head coach at Alabama as his Dolphins were trying to complete their season.  His situation was not the same as Tuberville’s or Bob Petrino (and how fitting that as I compose this you are reporting that Petrino is the man who will attempt to teach Michael Vick…or Ron Mexico as we like to call him back home…the art of the forward pass), and while I agree with you that coaches could come up with answers that are at least a little more honest, here’s my problem with your sample answer:  Anything short of a committal, like ‘No comment’ or something along the lines of your sample answer is going to cause a reporter to ask next, “So coach, can we take your no comment to mean that you are considering the job?”  It is a no-win (and no-honesty) situation…and you and I both know it.

 

And while I have you here…why have sports journalists (columnists in particular) decided to lecture us all in morality or proper behavior?  Perhaps, like Moses, you could descend from higher and holier ground (like Bristol, I suppose) with a Sports Ten Commandments…a lot of Thou Shalt Nots and the like…and straighten all of us out.  Thou Shalt Not Lie About Taking Another Job could start us out for openers.  Thou Shalt Not Throw Chairs Or Choke Neil Reed could be another.  Your column a few weeks back on what could have been for Bob Knight was very well done, but it is just another example of everybody wanting things to come in a nice and tidy package.  Bob Knight wouldn’t be Bob Knight if it wasn’t for the darker side of his personality.  He’d be Mike Kryzyzewski.  And the last thing we need is another Coach K (my God, the commercials).  Coach Knight has done it his way, like it or not, and there isn’t a damn thing wrong with that.  He is a character, with character, and it isn’t all always good.  But it isn’t always all bad, either.  He’s human…like Saban…and like you and me.  The reality, though, is this...without the Bob Knights of the world, the sporting landscape would be a very bland one to watch or cover.

 

My hope is that you will keep doing the clever work (your Forde Yard Dash and Forde Minutes are always terrific) and the great human interest stories.  Leave the lowest common denominator garbage, the hatchet job pieces, to the anonymous message board posters and talk radio.  Tell your editors to shove it when they want that job done.  Five hundred columnists wrote that Saban was a horse’s ass for the way he handled the Alabama situation…there’s no reason for you to waste your considerable talents on the job.

 

It is my humble opinion that we have often lost our way in how we see the sports world (frankly, it would be true of the world at large, as well).  Everything is viewed through a prism of negativity, and no mistake, not one, is ever allowed to pass without someone somewhere unloading scathing criticism.  When it comes to the field of play, especially on the professional level, I suppose that merely comes with the territory.  But off the field (even when it comes to men who make ridiculous sums of money they don’t deserve), nobody, not coaches and not players, deserves to have each thing they say or do scrutinized and ultimately torn apart.

 

Nick Saban should be held accountable if he doesn’t do a good job with the football program at Tuscaloosa.  He shouldn’t be categorized as a liar because he does a poor job of dealing with the press.  He shouldn’t have his character questioned because he decided to take another job, and he shouldn’t have to see his reputation go in the toilet because there is a negative public perception of him, a reputation built by people who don’t really know Saban at all.  Pat Forde taught us that once upon a time when he defended his old high school coach in the face of a very negative perception.

 

I once wrote a column for my own website scolding you for attacking Tubby Smith’s character.  I suggested that Coach Smith’s character was well out of your league (I even paraphrased ‘The American President’).  And that was a mistake.  I don’t know you well enough to say what sort of character you have, and being short of evidence on the matter, I had no business evaluating your character in a public forum.  That, I think, would be a lesson well learned by all of us.

 

Sincerely,

Travis Turner

Chief Justice

The High Court of Sports

 

 

P.S.  If you ever get tired of the gig with ESPN, I’m pretty sure we could spar five days a week on the radio and kick Joe B. and Denny’s butts right off the dial…

 

 

You can contact The Chief at chiefjustice@thehighcourtofsports.com or post your own comments at The Chief’s Daily Verdict.