* It doesn’t have that quote-for-the-ages sound, but the line that will forever be identified with Florida’s ousted football coach, Jim McElvain, will still speak volumes. “He offered no additional details.” That’s what the terse UF news release noted as the upshot of administrators confronting McElwain after the embattled head coach indicated that there had been death threats directed at his program.
That’s a lot more serious than 12 losses in two a half years and an ongoing anemic offense. And a lot more offensive if not true. Athletic Director Scott Stricklin underscored that scenario when he said, “This is more than just wins and losses.”
He also could have stated: “Sometimes you add by subtraction.”
* The times-we-live-in update: Bob McNair, owner of the NFL’s Houston Texans, is certainly entitled to speak out on the national anthem controversy. No less constitutionally entitled, to say the least, than his player-employees, most of whom are black. McNair’s a hardliner who wants the league to crack down on those sitting or kneeling during the “Star Spangled Banner.”
That said: How insensitively dumb was it to use the “inmates running the prison” analogy? An absolutely Trumpian remark.
* The aforementioned is starkly juxtaposed to comments by Gregg Popovich, the coach of the San Antonio Spurs of the NBA, no less a racially-skewed league than the NFL. “We still have no clue of what being born white means,” said Popovich.
* Last week I said: “Don’t know how much longer I can say this, but my two favorite alma maters, Penn State and USF, are undefeated in late October.” Well, I can no longer say that.
* On Sunday I was headed outside to do some pre-Halloween spruce-up when I decided to look in on the Bucs game. I don’t watch much NFL, but I do prefer that the Bucs win. I turned it on, it was 10-0 Carolina early in the third quarter and Jameis Winston just got sacked. The fat-ass Carolina sacker then did a requisite dance. Then the Fox network cameras requisitely re-ran it two more times. Then I turned it off. It reminded me of why I don’t watch much of it.