Wednesday, 12 September 2007

Cheaters

The big football news this week is that everyone’s (well, everyone except Bill Simmons’) least favorite football coach, Bill Belichick, was caught having an assistant coach videotape defensive signals in Sunday’s Patriots victory over the New York Jets. Speculation about a penalty ranges from draft picks to a Belichick suspension, but to my mind Roger Goddell should be looking to how the NCAA, NASCAR, and soccer leagues around the world punish cheaters: hitting teams in the only thing the Patriots and their owner Bob Krafft really care about—standings and the win-loss record. Make the Pats forfeit their win over the Jets, or force them to—at best—be the #6 seed in the playoffs, in effect forfeiting a potential bye and playing all their games on the road (assuming they qualify), and the sartorially-challenged self-declared football genius will curb his misbehavior much more quickly than if threatened by mere fines or a meaningless sideline ban.

The big higher education news is SIU president Glenn Poshard’s apparent plagiarism in both his master’s and doctoral theses. If SIU‘s board of trustees had any guts, not only would they can the guy, they’d also revoke his degrees. Unfortunately, being an administration stooge seems to be an essential qualification for board membership at many universities, including at SIU and now at Dartmouth too.

2 comments:

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[Permalink] 1. Alfie Sumrall wrote @ Thu, 13 Sep 2007, 9:51 pm CDT:

So, I guess it boils down to would you rather lose a (most likely late-) first round pick or a 2nd and 3rd round pick? It’s hard to think of too many great players the last 10 years or so drafted ~27–32, but I doubt it would take much digging to find some really solid guys picked in the late 2nd and 3rd round, guys that you don’t have to pay 1st round money, but end up being your 8 year starters at right tackle.

 
[Permalink] 2. Rick Almeida wrote @ Sun, 16 Sep 2007, 7:51 am CDT:

King Kaufman has a great take on this “scandal in Wednesday’s Salon.

http://www.salon.com/sports/col/kaufman/2007/09/12/wednesday/index1.html#camera

 
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